they could and should have done, but because
experiment proved how easily entrenchments could be made in the desert
sand there; for water used to be found at two palms depth, while the
Turks found none at two yards; and so by means of a quantity of sandbags
they raised their works so high that they commanded the walls of the
fort, sweeping them as if from a cavalier, so that no one was able to
make a stand or maintain the defence.

It was a common opinion that our men should not have shut themselves up
in the Goletta, but should have waited in the open at the landing-place;
but those who say so talk at random and with little knowledge of such
matters; for if in the Goletta and in the fort there were barely seven
thousand soldiers, how could such a small number, however resolute, sally
out and hold their own against numbers like those of the enemy? And how
is it possible to help losing a stronghold that is not relieved, above
all when surrounded by a host of determined enemies in their own country?
But many thought, and I thought so too, that it was special favour and
mercy which Heaven showed to Spain in permitting the destruction of that
source and hiding place of mischief, that devourer, sponge, and moth of
countless money, fruitlessly wasted there to no other purpose save
preserving the memory of its capture by the invincible Charles V; as if
to make that eternal, as it is and will be, these stones were needed to
support it. The fort also fell; but the Turks had to win it inch by inch,
for the soldiers who defended it fought so gallantly and stoutly that the
number of the enemy killed in twenty-two general assaults exceeded
twenty-five thousand. Of three hundred that remained alive not one was
taken unwounded, a clear and manifest proof of their gallantry and
resolution, and how sturdily they had defended themselves and held their
post. A small fort or tower which was in the middle of the lagoon under
the command of Don Juan Zanoguera, a Valencian gentleman and a famous
soldier, capitulated upon terms. They took prisoner Don Pedro
Puertocarrero, commandant of the Goletta, who had done all in his power
to defend his fortress, and took the loss of it so much to heart that he
died of grief on the way to Constantinople, where they were carrying him
a prisoner. They also took the commandant of the fort, Gabrio Cerbellon
by name, a Milanese gentleman, a great engineer and a very brave soldier.
In these two fortresses perish