e. To knock down a
wall two metres thick from a distance of 600 metres would require at
least 300 blows. How far her own iron sides would have withstood at that
distance the fire of heavy guns I will not attempt to say, as I never saw
her. The best material to resist shot is lead. It contracts over the ball
and crushes it.'

'Kinburn, however,' said Tocqueville, 'surrendered to our floating
batteries.'

'Kinburn surrendered,' said Chrzanowski, 'because you landed 10,000 men,
and occupied the isthmus which connects Kinburn with the main land. The
garrison saw that they were invested, and had no hope of relief. They
were not Quixotic enough, or heroic enough, to prolong a hopeless
resistance. Scarcely any garrison does so.'

We talked of Malta; and I said that Malta was the only great
fortification which I had seen totally unprovided with earth-works.

'The stone,' said Chrzanowski, 'is soft and will not splinter.'

'I was struck,' I said, 'with the lightness of the armament; the largest
guns that I saw, except some recently placed in Fort St. Elmo, were
twenty-four pounders.'

'For land defence,' he answered, 'twenty-four pounders are serviceable
guns. They are manageable and act with great effect within the short
distance within which they are generally used. It is against ships that
large guns are wanted. A very large ball or shell is wasted on the
trenches, but may sink a ship. The great strength of the land defences of
Malta arises from the nature of the ground on which Valetta and Floriana
are built, indeed of which the whole island consists. It is a rock
generally bare or covered with only a few inches of earth. Approaches
could not be dug in it. It would be necessary to bring earth or sand in
ships, and to make the trenches with sand-bags or gabions.'

I asked him if he had read Louis Napoleon's orders to Canrobert,
published in Bazancourt's book?

'I have,' he answered. 'They show a depth of ignorance and a depth of
conceit, compared to which even Thiers is modest and skilful. Canrobert
is not a great general, but he is not a man to whom a civilian, who
never saw a shot fired, ought to give lectures on what he calls "the
great principles" or "the absolute principles of war." He seems to have
taken the correspondence between Napoleon and Joseph for his model,
forgetting that Canrobert is to him what Napoleon was to Joseph. Then he
applies his principles as absurdly as he enunciates them. Thus he orders
C