it should blow up, yet it could do no hurt to the town,
being so separated from it. On every bulwark there is space enough to
draw up and muster a thousand men; beyond the grafts are divers
half-moons, very regularly made. The grafts are broad and deep, filled
with the Elbe on the one side, and with another smaller river on the
other side.

The works are stronger, larger, and more regular than those at Luebeck.
Above the works is a piece of ground of above five hundred yards of low
ground, gained by industry from the Elbe; here they have mills to keep
out or let in more or less water, as they find useful for the town and
works. The lines of one side of the works are higher than on the other
side, and the works better and stronger made. Here are also mounds of
earth raised very high to command without; there wanted no pains nor
expense to put together so great a mass of earth as is in these
fortifications. Upon every bulwark is mounted one demi-cannon, besides
other great guns; in other places are smaller pieces. Round about the
works are great store of ordnance, well fitted, mounted, and kept; and
the platforms are strong and well planked.

Having made a large tour through the greatest part of the city,
Whitelocke found it to be pleasantly situated in a plain low country,
fertile and delightful, also healthful and advantageous for trade; and
notwithstanding the great quantity of waters on every side of it, yet the
inhabitants do not complain of agues or other sicknesses to be more rife
among them than in other parts.

Upon one side is a small river, the which comes a great way down the
country to this town, where it loseth itself in the Elbe, having first
supplied the city with wood and other provisions brought down hither by
boats, for which this river, though narrow, is deep enough and navigable.
On the other side of the town is the stately river of Elbe, one of the
chief of these parts of Germany, which also by boats brings down out of
the country great store of all sorts of provisions and merchantable
commodities; and which is much more advantage to them, affords a passage
for merchants hither, and from hence to vent their merchandises to all
parts of the world. It is the best neighbour they have, and the branches
and arms of it run through most of their streets by their doors, to the
great advantage of their commerce; and although sometimes, upon an
extraordinary rising of the Elbe to a great flood, these branch