"Impregnable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a point some 800 feet above the sea, where a ravine broke the line of cliffs, was the camp of the marines, in a position almost impregnable against any enemy's force, following the seashore. On the land-slopes of the hills, down towards Balaklava, lay the Highland Brigade, guarding the approach from the plains from the Marine Heights to the mouth of Balaklava Valley, at the mouth of which were the camps of the cavalry, ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... to see a mighty king and his great minister of state consulting and planning against one poor girl; and, as angry as I felt toward Mary, I could not help pitying her, and admired, beyond the power of pen to write, the valiant and so far impregnable defense she had put up against an array of strength that would have made a king tremble ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... ostrich feathers, bending its majestic form here and there over the verdant and luxuriant undergrowth, the mahogany tree, the stout lignumvit, the banana, the fragrant and beautiful orange and lemon, and the long, impregnable hedge of the dagger aloe, all go to show us that we are in the sunny ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... established herself to be near the seat of war, messages of encouragement daily reached the King and his commanders, inciting them to victory, for which the Queen and her ladies daily offered prayers. Impregnable Baza fell on the fourth of December, and, with its fall, the Moorish power in Spain was forever broken. Smaller cities and numerous strongholds in the surrounding country hastened to offer their submission and, after the humiliating surrender of El Zagal in the Spanish ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... nightfall. The next movement was a turning one, taking the position of Theriso on the flank, by Lakus, a strong position, but at which no defenses had been prepared. The insurgents moved their depot and hospital across the valley to Zurba, a village high on the mountain-side and impregnable to direct attack, but which Mustapha proceeded to bombard with mountain guns for two days. I could hear every gun-fire, Zurba being only nine miles in a direct line from my house, and I counted fifteen shots a minute during a part ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... work on the site of Jericho, once the royal capital of Canaan, and historic chiefly from the fact that Joshua led the Israelites up to its walls, reported to be impregnable, but which "fell down at the blast of the trumpet." Great piles have been unearthed here which it is thought formed a part of the original masonry. One excavator believes he has unearthed the ruins of the house ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... occasion of telling him how many I had made myself. It is my principle that an officer must never be wrong. I have seen two divisions beating their brains out for a fortnight against a worthless and quite impregnable castle in a pass: I knew we were only doing it for discipline, because the General had said so at first, and had not yet found any way out of his own words; and I highly admired his force of character, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from Heaven that the fort was almost impregnable in the daytime. "Send against it at once," he advised the King, "a ship full of prisoners condemned to death, and promise them their lives if they capture the fort, for they, having nothing to lose, are the only men for ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... lofty rock is so strongly grounded, bounded, and founded, that by force of man it can never be confounded; the foundation and walls are unpenetrable, the rampiers impregnable, the bulwarks invincible, no way but one it is or can be possible to be made passable. In a word, I have seen many straits and fortresses, in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and England, but they must all ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... We saw mysterious winding staircases, generally spiral, leading up and down into deep dark mystery. Certainly so far the ruins did not look as though they would protect any one from wind and rain, and we passed on, through walls that seemed impregnable, to ruined chambers, utterly roofless, in and out of which pigeons were flying happily at their ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... ever ready to comment on events, but before opening his mind fully to a stranger on the subject next to his heart, he usually felt his way, and only when he had grounds for believing that the fortress was not impregnable did he open his batteries. Even among the initiated, few would suspect the role played by this young proselytizer within one of the strongholds of the Conference, so naturally and unobtrusively was the work done. I may add that luckily he had no ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... discharged two dishwashers in less than two weeks' time, with the natural feeling that any change in that department must be for the better, but the present incumbent was even more incompetent than his predecessors. Even Nancy's impregnable nerves began to feel the strain of the continual ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... powerful house of Dudley, and were among the noblest in the land. The Sidneys were of high birth too,—not so exalted as the Dudleys in point of lineage, but of impregnable ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... might go forty miles up New River and at least twenty up the Gauley before you could find a place where either could be passed by infantry or wagons. The little ferries which had been made in a few eddies of the rivers were destroyed in the first campaign, and the post at the Gauley became nearly impregnable in front, and could only be turned by ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... of the valley through which the river flowed rose a series of rugged heights forming a crescent, on the eastern horn of which stood the fortress of Magdala, Theodore's supposed impregnable stronghold, while on the west was the rugged hill of Fahla, mid-way between it and the lofty plateau of Selassie. Magdala and Selassie were seen to be connected by a ridge, known as the Saddle of Islamgi, while the ridge joining Selassie to Fahla was called the Saddle of Fahla. The ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... shore. The town wall is flanked by twenty round towers standing at unequal distances. Both towers and walls are built with black stones of moderate size, and seem to be the work of not very remote times; the whole being in a good state of repair, the place may be considered as almost impregnable to Syrian soldiers. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... twenty-four years in fulfilling these purposes and succeeded in all. The Greeks let him alone, often even aided him; in every city he bribed partisans who spoke in his favor. "No fortress is impregnable," said he, "if only one can introduce within it a mule laden with gold." And by these means he took one after another all ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... into powder: for that mystical metal of gold, whose solary and celestial nature I admire, ex- posed unto the violence of fire, grows only hot, and liquefies, but consumeth not; so when the consumable and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a more impregnable and fixed temper, like gold, though they suffer from the action of flames, they shall never perish, but lie immortal in the arms of fire. And surely, if this flame must suffer only by the action of this element, there will many bodies ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... were her humble cavaliers—but a right tyrannical mistress she proved to them, making them scowl, and say sharp things to each other in a most ferocious manner, very amusing to us; but Lucien was impregnable. She played off all her arts in vain, he seemed unconscious, and devoted himself entirely to Effie. At first she was so occupied with securing the two other prizes she overlooked his delinquency, but when certain of them, she was piqued into accomplishing a conquest of him likewise. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... said he; "she is a Jewess, and impregnable. She has resisted the attacks of the best strategists in Turin. Her father's a famous horse-dealer; you can go and see her easily enough, but there's nothing to be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... illegal. Their action, however, was most useful to the Government. A conflict had now arisen between the two Houses, and technically the responsibility for the failure to bring the conciliation about was taken away from the Government; they could entrench themselves behind the impregnable position that the law required the Budget to be passed by both Houses; until this was done they could do nothing. The Houses would not agree; the Government was helpless. The House of Representatives ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... along the eastern border of the campus and glanced up at St. George's Hall, it no longer appeared the impregnable fortress of privilege he had once thought it. Yet, in reality, the towers of the college had never looked more formidable. Rising magnificently at the crest of a bleak expanse of snow, the embrasured battlements, silhouetted against the sunset sky, ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... development? Such were interesting questions, and following the bomb—which acted as a great stone cast in the water—these ripple-rings of thought were still widening and emanating until they took in such supposedly remote and impregnable quarters as editorial offices, banks and financial institutions generally, and the haunts of political dignitaries and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... of a night of the month of September, while everything appeared to slumber in the impregnable tower which contained the prisoners, the door of their outer chamber turned noiselessly on its hinges, and a man appeared on the threshold, clad in a brown robe confined round his waist by a cord. His feet were encased in sandals, and his hand grasped a large bunch ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... defended by him, Belle-Isle is not impregnable; and if Monsieur l'Eveque de Vannes is shut up in Belle-Isle, well, madame, the place will be besieged, and ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... views of the case. Some lawyers are successful in the elenchical mode of argument—to use a logical term—that is, in demolishing the structure of their opponents, while they fail in the deictic, that is, in raising on its ruins an impregnable fabric of their own; but it was difficult to decide which process was the most thorough in the reasoning of Tazewell. In putting his arguments before a jury he showed great adroitness. He either knew himself or learned from others the calling of every juryman; ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... the roof with his big stick. He looked about him. The examination was satisfactory. The trapdoor appeared to be the only means of access to the roof, and between this roof and that of the next building there was a broad gulf. The position was practically impregnable. Only one thing could undo him, and that was, if the enemy should mount to the next roof and shoot from there. And even then he would have cover in the shape of the chimney. It was a pity that the trap opened downward, ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... intention of deciding the quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a name that would animate his troops by the remembrance of the victory, which, on the same auspicious ground, had been obtained by the arms of his father Constantine. Yet by the impregnable fortifications with which the emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline, rather than to invite, a general engagement. It was the object of Magnentius to tempt or to compel his adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... was finished and topped with spikes, Cloomber Park became impregnable to any one but an exceptionally daring climber. It was as if the old soldier had been so imbued with military ideas that, like my Uncle Toby, he could not refrain even in times of peace from ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... must authoritatively bear His name, and be guided by revelation, direct and continuous, as the conditions of its building require. Revelation from God to His servants invested with the Holy Priesthood through authorized ordination as was Peter, is the impregnable "rock" upon which the Church is built. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... said, rose the impregnable mountain home of the Abati, but all the vast plain included in the loop of the river which he called Ebur, was the home of the savage Fung race, whose warriors could be counted by the ten thousand, and whose principal city, Harmac, was ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... yet advanced a step with our Princess Natalie," said Stephano, shrugging his shoulders; "that, it seems, is an impregnable fortress!" ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... dance." The battle opened with a charge of the English cavalry on the dense ranks of the Scottish infantry, who were armed with long spears which they held so closely together that their line seemed impregnable. The English horsemen found it so. They attempted again and again to break through that "wood of spears," as it has been called, but were every time beaten off with loss. But the Scotch horse failed to support their brave footmen. On the contrary, they fled from the field, through ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... first time in his life Arthur Carroll had a perfect sense of the staying power, of the impregnable support, of love and the natural ties of humanity. Charlotte's slender arms closed around his neck; she stood, half-weeping, half-laughing, leaning against him, but in reality he leaned against her, the soul of the man against ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... rage, but the door was shut and the great castle was dark and impregnable. Then the icy teeth of the blast bit into him, and he turned and went away ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... admiration and dismay swept the ranks of the Northern army and started in Washington a wave of bitter criticism against McClellan. No word of reply reached the world from the little Napoleon. He was busy digging trenches, felling trees and pushing his big guns steadily forward and always behind impregnable works. He was a born engineer and his soul was set on training his great siege ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... general defenses, vetoed most of his suggestions. The vast sums of money which the Russian central government appropriated for the fortification of Port Arthur, honestly used, would have made the place completely impregnable. It is not too much to say—and this will be borne out by any trained observer and student of the conditions then existing in and around Port Arthur—that sixty per cent. of the money ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... next morning we were steaming slowly towards what looked like a quite impregnable face of rock, with bare cliffs standing straight out of the water, which, luckily for us, was comparatively smooth. As we coasted to try and find a landing-place the sun was rising behind the island, which reaches to a height of two thousand feet, and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... diabolical rod, with its equilibrium, its oscillations, its cycloid, and other tormenting accessories. And yet, I suppose, before my days of studentship are over, I shall be called upon to attack some such impregnable fortresses of mathematics, when I hope to be declared equal to some twentieth wrangler, if I escape the misfortune of sharing a ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... songs (each his own) and, for want of real game, organizing curious cap-hunts. Then, war having come and the dark times, Tarascon became known by its heroic defence, its torpedoed esplanade, the club and the Cafe de la Comedie, both made impregnable; all the inhabitants enrolled in guerilla companies, their breasts braided with death's head and cross-bones, all beards grown, and such a display of battle-axes, boarding cutlasses, and American revolvers that the unfortunate inhabitants ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... the prophetic periods were found to be impregnable, opposers endeavored to discourage investigation of the subject, by teaching that the prophecies were sealed. Thus Protestants followed in the steps of Romanists. While the papal church withholds the Bible(569) ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... there will be enough to say in the ulterior stages. He wears—at least ten years hence he openly wears, though I hope it is not yet so flagrant—"a red wig with yellow bottom (CRINIERE JAUNE);" and as Flattener of the Earth, is, with his own flattish red countenance and impregnable stony eyes, a man formidable to look upon, though intent to be amiable if you do the proper homage. As to the quarrel with Madame take this Note; which may prove illustrative of some things by ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... crossed the frontier, there was no thought of resistance; but orders were despatched for the whole force to concentrate at Pirna, a strongly fortified camp among the defiles of the mountains separating Saxony from Bohemia. The position was almost an impregnable one, and they ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... combinations enabled William the Silent to overcome the most powerful and unscrupulous monarch of his age. The same hereditary audacity and fertility of genius placed the destiny of Europe in the hands of William's great-grandson, and enabled him to mould into an impregnable barrier the various elements of opposition to the overshadowing monarchy of Louis XIV. As the schemes of the Inquisition and the unparalleled tyranny of Philip, in one century, led to the establishment of the Republic of the United Provinces, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of Gustavus Adolphus in the ecclesiastical territories agreed with this brilliant commencement. Schweinfurt, and soon afterwards Wurtzburg, abandoned by their Imperial garrisons, surrendered; but Marienberg he was obliged to carry by storm. In this place, which was believed to be impregnable, the enemy had collected a large store of provisions and ammunition, all of which fell into the hands of the Swedes. The king found a valuable prize in the library of the Jesuits, which he sent to Upsal, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... uncertainty, rage, shame, helplessness, and stupefying disappointment. The worst is not only imminent, but already here. In a few hours—perhaps before the next meal—the secesh generals, with their victorious hordes, will be upon us. The dream of humanity, the vaunted Union we thought so strong, so impregnable—lo! it seems already smash'd like a china plate. One bitter, bitter hour—perhaps proud America will never again know such an hour. She must pack and fly—no time to spare. Those white palaces—the dome-crown'd ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... fortifications, and then fell back to communicate with Lee. That night a council of war was held, and it was agreed that an attack upon the front of the enemy's position was absolutely impossible. Hooker himself was so positive that his position was impregnable that he issued a general order of congratulation to his troops, saying that "the enemy must now ingloriously fly or give us battle on our own ground, where ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... were stationed on guard. The soldiers, attempting no opposition, withdrew unmolested. A huge tri-color flag, unfurled from the roof, announced with the peal of the tocsin that that important post, almost an impregnable citadel in the hands of determined men, had fallen into the possession of the people. The tidings swept the streets like a flood, giving a new impulse to the universal enthusiasm. A few moments after another band burst open the gates of Notre Dame, and another tri-color flag ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... is one which seems to arise directly from the facts, and appears for a long time to have constituted an impregnable position for idealists. It may be expressed in ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... reinforcements, Franz was confident of victory when he should again take the field, and in the meantime he felt himself quite secure in one or other of his strong places, which had recently undergone extensive repairs and seemed to be impregnable. In this anticipation he was deceived, for he had not reckoned with the new and more potent weapons of attack which were replacing the battering-ram and other mediaeval besieging appliances. Franz retired to his strong castle of the ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... him down the drive. His back looked poor and mean. It emphasized the pettiness of her victory. Even at that moment, she realized that it was the poorer part of her which had resented attack on a citadel which should be impregnable as time itself. Just then Enoch stepped into the kitchen behind her, and his voice jarred upon her ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... they threw the switches that activated a powerful protective energy screen around the ship. It was a device that was carried by all GPP Ships as a means of protection against physical attack. When activated, an energy screen was virtually impregnable, but it could only be used briefly; the power it required placed an enormous drain on a ship's energy resources, and a year's nuclear fuel could be ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... the Confederate forces, Early's division was ahead at Hamilton's Crossing, intrenched in an almost impregnable position. On Wednesday, April 29, the rest of Jackson's corps was moved up from below, where Doubleday's and Morrow's demonstrations had until now ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... was king of Lydia, one of his wives had a son in the form of a lion, whom they called Leon, and an oracle declared that if this Leon were carried around the walls of the city, it would be rendered impregnable, and should never be taken. They carried Leon, therefore, around, so far as the regular walls extended. When they came to this precipice of rocks, they returned, considering that this part of the city was impregnable without any such ceremony. A spur or eminence from the mountain of Tmolus, ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... her neighbors, would be knitting or sewing on the door-step, just as fifty other women were; but round about her skirts (though wofully patched) you would be sensible of a certain sphere of decency, which, it seemed to me, could not have been kept more impregnable in the coziest little sitting-room, where the tea-kettle on the hob was humming its good old song of domestic peace. Maidenhood had a similar power. The evil habit that grows upon us in this harsh world makes me faithless to my own better ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... door, leading to the subterranean steel chambers where Herzog eventually counted on storing some hundreds of thousands of tons of liquid oxygen—the reserve-chambers, impregnable to lightning, fire, frost or storm, to man's attacks or nature's—the chambers blasted from the living rock, deep as the Falls themselves, vacuum-lined, wondrous achievement of the highest engineering skill the world ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... town were to fall into the hands of the Carlists, the citadel still remained, where a determined leader could hold out till relief came, as long as his provisions lasted. This lofty citadel is almost impregnable. It was hither the French retired in 1813, and it took General Graham all that he knew to dislodge them. If I were asked what were the prospects of the Carlists getting into the place, I should say ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... curiously shapeless earthquake upheavals would be of priceless value to him. Be that as it may, he now looked about him with the eyes of the warrior rather than the explorer, noting with astonishment the wonderful way in which the earthquake had split and piled up the rocks into the form of a natural impregnable fortress, including both the cavern and the basin. There was one point, and one only, at which this natural fortress could be entered, and upon his previous visit he had passed through it twice without noting this fact; now, however, he not only took notice of it, but saw also ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... British held both places. With Spain in French hands, Gibraltar eventually might be taken, but the case of Malta was far different. In the possession of a seafaring nation like the English the island was impregnable. But was this in reality the only outlet for the French empire to the East? From France proper, yes; but from Italy, by the Adriatic, there was an admirable alternative, if not, indeed, the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... were nothing new to them. But the Bohemian looked at them with curiosity. He pondered both upon the possibility of their fighting qualities and compared them with the Polish and German knights. The camp was situated on a plain surrounded by forests and swamps, which rendered it impregnable, because none could wade through that treacherous marsh land. Even the place where the booths were situated was quaggy and muddy, but the soldiers had covered it with a thick layer of chips and branches of fir and pine-trees, which enabled them to camp ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... shall see two islands lying just off the west coast at that point, controlled by La Rochelle, yet affording to any foreign allies whom the Huguenots might admit there facilities for stinging France during centuries. The position of the Huguenots seemed impregnable. The city was well fortressed,—garrisoned by the bravest of men,—mistress of a noble harbor open at all times to supplies from foreign ports,—and in that harbor rode a fleet, belonging to the city, greater than the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... the latter half of the nineteenth century, Italy was dominated by foreign nations, especially Spain and Austria. In the second place, the French learned to admire the art and culture of Italy. The nobles began to change their feudal castles, which since the invention of gunpowder were no longer impregnable, into luxurious country houses. The new scholarship of Italy took root and flourished not only in France, but in England and Germany as well. Consequently, just as Italy was becoming, politically, the victim of foreign aggressions, it was also losing, never to ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... been no impregnable steel barrier between them, it is hard to say which would have triumphed in the end, the ponderous weight and fury of Last Bull, or the ripping prongs and swift wrath of the moose. The buffalo charged down the knoll at a thundering gallop; but just before reaching the fence he checked himself ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... witches had filled him with a false confidence, and he remembered the sayings of the spirits, that none of woman born was to hurt him, and that he was never to be vanquished till Birnam wood should come to Dunsinane, which he thought could never be. So he shut himself up in his castle, whose impregnable strength was such as defied a siege: here he sullenly waited the approach of Malcolm. When, upon a day, there came a messenger to him, pale and shaking with fear, almost unable to report that which he had seen; for he averred, that as he stood upon his watch on ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... charge of an overseer and make her home with him. "You are too near the probable theatre of military operations to be safe," he wrote, "and my mind cannot rest till you are with us in this city which we are rapidly making impregnable." The result was that she eventually became a member of his family. Her stern, sad face added to the young wife's depression, for the stricken woman had been rendered intensely bitter by her loss. Mary was too gentle in nature to hate readily, yet wrathful gleams would be emitted at times ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... were high so that the bottoms were generally overflowed, leaving only narrow causeways of dry land between points of debarkation and the high bluffs. These were fortified and defended at all points. The rebel position was impregnable against any force that could be brought against its front. Sherman could not use one-fourth of his force. His efforts to capture the city, or the high ground north of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... deceased did turn over in his grave, for the improvisation called into play every pipe on the whole instrument. However, I could see that this constant pelting at the hands of an unkind fate through the medium of his most cherished possession was having its effect upon Carson's hitherto impregnable philosophy. When he spoke of the organ it was with a tone of suppressed irritation which boded ill, and finally I was not surprised to hear that he had offered to ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... of Tsushima the territorial object was completely isolated by sea, and the position of Japan in Korea was rendered as impregnable as that of Wellington at Torres Vedras. All that remained was to proceed to the third stage and demonstrate to Russia that the acceptance of the situation that had been set up was more to her advantage than the further attempt to break it down. This the final advance to Mukden accomplished, ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... the usual. One had been blackmailed by an actress after an affair and railroaded her off the Earth. Another had a habit of taking bribes to advance favorite sons in civil and military service. And so on. The Republic could not suffer at their hands; the Republic and the dynasty were impregnable. You simply spied on everybody—including the spies—and ordered summary executions often enough to show that you meant it, and kept the public ignorant: deaf-dumb-blind ignorant. The spy system was simplicity itself; you had only to let things get as tangled and confused as possible until nobody ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... true, as well, New Orleans could fall, and might be sacked. It was while confessing this that with eyes down and bosom heaving she accepted the old Italian knife. Certainly unless the pooh-poohing Mandeville was wrong, who declared the forts down the river impregnable and Beauregard, on the Tennessee, invincible, flight (into the Confederacy) was safest—but—the Bazaar first, flight afterward. "We women," she said, rising close before him with both hands in his, "must stand by our guns. We've no more right"—it was difficult to talk ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... dream became possible in April, 1917, when America took up her cross of martyrdom. Great Britain, France and the United States, the three great promise-keeping nations, are standing side by side. They together, if they will when the war is ended, can build an impregnable wall for peace about the world. The plunderer who knew that it was not Great Britain, nor France, nor America, but all three of them united as Allies that he had to face, no matter how tempted he was to prove that armed force meant big business, would be persuaded to expand his commerce by more ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... but catch a solace from his splendid craft. Said he to himself: 'Am I not the most accomplished slip-string the world has known? The broken wall of every round house in town attests my bravery. Light-limbed though I be, have I not forced the impregnable Castle itself? And my enemies—are they not to-day writhing in distress ? The head of Blueskin, that pitiful thief, quivers in the noose; and Jonathan Wild bleeds at the throat from the dregs of a coward's courage. What a triumph shall be mine when the Keeper ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... of the district. Its position, occupying the crest of a sugar-loaf hill, defended by earthworks and stockades, must have made it seem impregnable to people unacquainted with artillery. The space enclosed was considerable; and the immense quantities of shells thrown down the sides of the hill attested the numbers of its population—for all the shell-fish would have to be brought up here on the backs of ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... in vain, she would not hear a word upon that subject. Then I writ a letter to her; I don't know what effects that will have, but I'll be sure to tell you when I do, though by this light I believe her virtue is impregnable. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... disabled limb because it kept her closer to me. Now He has taken her from me. I may have been wicked, but has He no mercy? "I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God." An answer in anger could better be borne than this impregnable silence. ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... the leading car "was thrown into a state of great disorder, which reacted unfavorably upon, and delayed the progress of, those which followed." Yet it is hardly less absurd to say it of the leading battalion in a night attack on a fortress almost impregnable. The leading car takes the brunt of the shock precisely because it is in that position, and so does the leading regiment. How well the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts bore the test is recognized by its being apparently included in the final admission, that "the behavior of the troops, under ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... gross to sense that the Creator has never held direct communication with the creature, and you have but stripped religion of its tattered vestments—have not laid the weight of your hand upon the impregnable citadel, the universal Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. You have never yet talked to the real question. You reject religion because Moses and Mahomet, Luther and Calvin entertained crude ideas of the plans and attributes of the Creator. You pose as an agnostic—a religious ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the individualistic influence of the English Common Law. When the Socialistic autocracy is once completely in power, with its professed policy of taking away human ambition and initiative, its position will be almost impregnable and become more and more secure as the average citizen becomes more and more servile, lazy and unambitious. Socialism is politically decadent and contains within itself the germ of self-destruction. During this process of self-destruction the people at large will offer a rich field for exploitation ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... she argued, he would certainly have written, if it were only a line of reassurance, for there his isolation was impregnable. Only the fact that he had stayed on in London could account for the need of this second arm of silence, as well as of solitude, to enforce his complete withdrawal from ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... with a strong anti-British feeling, and it was said that her activity in running up earthworks and apparently impregnable fortifications was in anticipation of Disraeli declaring war and ordering the fleet to bombard the Crimean ports; hence, too, in addition to the strong fortifications, torpedo mines were laid for miles along ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... my pet superstition about the place. Having resolved it into its constituent elements I arranged them in convenient troops and squadrons, and collecting all the forces of my logic bore down upon them from impregnable premises with the thunder of irresistible conclusions and a great noise of chariots and general intellectual shouting. Then, when my big mental guns had overturned all opposition, and were growling almost ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... of offices showered on Buckingham rendered him still more odious to the people:[239] had he not been created lord high admiral and general, he had never risked his character amidst the opposing elements, or before impregnable forts. But something more than his own towering spirit, or the temerity of vanity, must be alleged for his assumption of those opposite ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... its lofty position, surmounted by a lighthouse, be discovered at a considerable distance out at sea. Its southern side is completely inaccessible, and art has rendered the other sides equally difficult to ascend; so that it is almost, if not entirely, impregnable. The island is connected to the mainland by a bridge, at the end of which is the fine open place called the Esplanade, extending from the west side of the bay, to the palace of the Lord High Commissioner on the east. Most of the streets run at right angles to each other; the principal, the ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... Normandy. I make no doubt, that, whenever built, the sea almost washed its base: for it is known to have occupied the whole of what is called the Valley of Arques, running as far as Bouteilles. Its position, in reference to the art of war, must have been almost impregnable. Other hypotheses assign its origin to the ninth or tenth century. Whenever built, its history has been fertile in sieges. In 1144, it was commanded by a Flemish Monk, who preferred the spear to the crosier, but who perished by an arrow in the contest. Of its history, up to the sixteenth century, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... old house sandwiched between the two vacant warehouses. Through pressure of authority he had obtained keys to both warehouses. There would be a trap on the roof of that house. Doubtless it would be covered with tin; fairly impregnable if latched below. But he could find out. From the third-floor windows of either warehouse the drop was not more than six feet. If anywhere in town poor old Stefani Gregor would be in one of those rooms. But to storm the ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... embargo was laid on Dutch vessels by Great Britain. These vigorous measures disconcerted all the calculations of the Dutch monarch and of his partizans. At the beginning of this year Antwerp, supposed to have been impregnable, surrendered to Marshal Gerard. This event, together with the embargo laid on Dutch vessels, produced the convention of the 21st of May, by which the Belgian question was settled. This convention provided, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... guns, but the remainder consisted of muzzleloaders of an ancient pattern; most of the latter were mounted upon parapets of masonry. It may be said that the defences of San Juan were opposed to every theory of modern military science. The defenses might have been considered impregnable some fifty years or so ago, but to-day they ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... a half miles wide. All along the precipitous bluff which overhangs Tumbling Run on the south side, a heavy line of earthworks had been constructed when Early retreated to this point in August, and these were now being strengthened so as to make them almost impregnable; in fact, so secure did Early consider himself that, for convenience, his ammunition chests were taken from the caissons and placed behind the breastworks. Wharton, now in command of Breckenridge's division—its late commander having gone ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... trio was a shortish, thickset man of extraordinary vigour. He somehow put me in mind of a strongly-built, one-storey, stone blockhouse, and looked impregnable in every direction; evidently a man of firm character, buoyed up by vigorous physique. He was a man rather of character than of intellect, of great moral strength rather than of intellectual brilliancy—a fighter ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... impressive spectacle, and to a citizen of a threatened country a disquieting one. Nine high-sided battle-ships of ten-gun type—nine floating forts, each one, unopposed, able to reduce to smoking ruin a city out of sight of its gunners; each one impregnable to the shell fire of any fortification in the world, and to the impact of the heaviest torpedo yet constructed—they came silently along in line-ahead formation, like Indians on a trail. There were no compromises ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... the cliff dwellers were driven from their strongholds and dispersed by force is pure fiction, nor is there any evidence to support such a theory. That they had enemies no one doubts, but, being in possession of an impregnable position where one man could successfully withstand a thousand, to surrender would have been base cowardice, and weakness was not a characteristic ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... friendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion. The potboy at the corner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessing official knowledge of life and having to deal with drunken men occasionally, exchanges confidential communications with the policeman and has the appearance of an impregnable youth, unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable in station-houses. People talk across the court out of window, and bare-headed scouts come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's the matter. The general feeling seems to be that it's a blessing Mr. Krook warn't made ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... "That is what makes my position impregnable. I have no personal spite against him. He is bad, that is ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... plank. Then the animal trapper set us all to work rebuilding his camp, animal cages, and stockade. We were three solid months repairing the damage done by the savages; but then Tugg had a camp that would be impregnable to the wild men from ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... behold the pride and glory of Babylon. Here are my nobles who have at all times distinguished themselves by their valor and great bravery. Let us banish gloom, and let our hearts overflow with mirth! We may well congratulate ourselves on the perfect safety of Babylon. Our walls are impregnable and our possessions are abundant. We laugh to scorn the silly movements of the Persians that parade before the city. Dark predictions there are, I know, in regard to the future of Chaldea, but these Hebrew delusions have well-nigh vanished. I am sorry to confess that my royal grandsire gave ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... the master of Praeneste, that rich and inaccessible strong-hold, by a nocturnal escalade! That I myself have already made impossible—the magistrates are warned, the free burghers armed, and the castle garrisoned by true men, and impregnable. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... a slope of some twenty by thirty yards, and from here as they looked about over the edge a better idea of the capabilities of the place could be formed, and they looked down on what only needed a little of the work of man to make the place impregnable so long as there was no ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... gate of man's Free-will. Through that portal the powers of darkness must enter if they gained admittance at all. Elsewhere the walls were high as heaven, deeper than hell, for, except at this point, the fortress was impregnable. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... setting in, and the infant cause of it here setting up a cry, Susan escaped under pretext of putting Humfrey to bed in the next room, and carried off both the little ones. The conversation then fell upon the voyage, and the captain described the impregnable aspect of the castle of Dumbarton, which was held for Queen Mary by her faithful partisan, Lord Flemyng. On this, Cuthbert Langston asked whether he had heard any tidings of the imprisoned Queen, and he answered that it was reported at Leith ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unassailable symbol. Here the vital principle of his faithfulness was entrenched as in an impregnable fortress. He would see Isabel's heart break ere she ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... moved at the head of two thousand cuirassiers, a movement which Tilly reluctantly permitted, though strictly ordering him not to fight. Disregarding this order Pappenheim charged the vanguard of the Swedes, only to find that he had met an impregnable line and to be driven back in disorder. To check pursuit he set fire to a village at the crossing-point, but this had no effect upon the movement of the advancing troops nor his own ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... the tearing down of the walls, the earl was carried into the garden. He was followed by Sir William Wallace, to whose arm his wife yet fondly clung. At every cry of the enemy, at every shock they gave to his yet impregnable gates, she breathed the shorter, and was clasped by the lord of her heart still more ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... his head impatiently. His own invention was busy, but to no avail. Miss Blowser seemed impregnable. Kutuzoff Hedzoff, the puss, stalked up to Logan and leaped on his knees. Logan stroked him, Kutuzoff purred and blinked, Logan sought inspiration in his topaz eyes. At last he spoke: 'Will you leave this affair to me, Merton? I think I have found ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... preached and prayed, doctored and taught, ten years before they made a single convert. It was not until they bagged the king that a pawn was taken by the whites from the adversaries' stubborn game. The genius of these strugglers against an apparent impregnable seat of wickedness was patience, "the passion of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... mortal temples of a king, Keeps Death his court: and there the antic sits Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin[1] Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell, King!" [Footnote 1: In Hamlet's famous soliloquy the pin ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... to impute the lowest motives may say if they will, that Daniel and the later Isaiah found it politic to worship the rising sun, and flatter the Persian conquerors: and that Cyrus and Darius in turn were glad to see Jerusalem rebuilt, as an impregnable frontier fortress between them and Egypt. Be it so; I, who wish to talk of things noble, pure, lovely and of good report, would rather point you once more to the magnificent poetry of the later Isaiah ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... do."—Bull-fight? No. "How could you go back to Boston after seeing a bull-fight, eh?" "As if married life were anything else, eh?" And so on.—Negro ball? "Not exactly the place for a lady." "Miss Bremer went." "Very differently behaved woman from you." "Yes, virtue with a nose, impregnable." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... emergency, which ever attended her through life, that now was the moment for an attempt which, if neglected, might never return. There lay the total keys, in one massive trousseau, of that fortress impregnable even to armies from without. Saint Sebastian! do you see what your pet is going to do? And do it she will, as sure as your name is St. Sebastian. Kate went back to her aunt with the breviary and the key; but taking good care to leave that awful door, on whose hinge revolved her whole life, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Death his court; and there the antick sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit As if this flesh which walls about our life Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king! Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence: throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty; For you have but mistook me all this while: I ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... bankruptcy cannot lay siege to it; friends cannot pull it down, nor enemies blow it up; it bears a charmed life, and none of woman born can break its integrity, even by the dissipation of a single fraction. Show me the property in these perilous times that is equally compact and impregnable. We can no longer become enriched for a quarter of an hour; we can no longer succeed in such splendid failures: all our chances of making such a miss have vanished with the last of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in thoughtful silence. He allowed no emotion to find expression in his face, but I knew that the significance of my remarks had sunk in. I could almost follow his mind as he tested my position point by point and found it impregnable. ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... be little abated by the issue of the affair, or the justice I had done on one of his men. So we looked well to bolts, and bars, and windows, although the castle is well-nigh impregnable, the smooth rock falling twenty feet at least on every side from the base of the walls. The gatehouse, Pavannes had shown us, might be blown up with gunpowder indeed, but we prepared to close the iron grating which barred the way half-way ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... time the attention of Marie Antoinette was drawn off from political embarrassments by the event which alone seemed wanting to complete her personal happiness, and to place her position and popularity on an impregnable foundation. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... than they have done between the older tertiary epoch and the present day. And if that is so, uniformitarianism, even as limited by Lyell,[23] has no call to lower its crest. But if the facts were otherwise, the position Lyell took up remains impregnable. He did not say that the geological operations of nature were never more rapid, or more vast, than they are now; what he did maintain is the very different proposition that there is no good evidence of anything of the kind. And that proposition has not yet been ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... right but a privilege. I maintain the contrary. I say it is an inalienable right. You can not maintain a republican form of government and deny to half the population its right to vote. This may not be settled to-day or to-morrow, but the truth, like a mighty rock, stands there impregnable against all assault. We do not need to be in too much haste. Let the matter be sifted thoroughly. I do not object, therefore, to the phraseology of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... long since by the Marechal de la Meilleraie, began to batter a breach, but slowly, because the artillerymen felt that they had been directed to attack two impregnable points; and because, with their experience, and above all with the common sense and quick perception of French soldiers, any one of them could at once have indicated the point against which the attack should have been directed. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... from the road is by upwards of a hundred rough hardwood steps, and the castle must have been a well-nigh impregnable stronghold in former times, protected as it was on three sides by the water of the loch and by a moat on the fourth, the position of the drawbridge being ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... naval warfare, come to be an important element in the harbor defences of the Lakes. We have the testimony of Captain Ericsson himself, whose Monitor vessels have already done so much for the country, as to this availability. He writes,—"An impregnable war-vessel, twenty-five feet wide and two hundred feet long, with a shot-proof turret, carrying a gun of fifteen inch calibre, with a ball of four hundred and fifty pounds, and capable of destroying any hostile vessel that can be put on the Lakes, will draw, without ammunition, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... perhaps she might be impregnable, but the old fellow affirmed that no woman was this; that no fortress was too strong to be carried; that it all depended on the assailant and the vehemence of the assault; and if one did not succeed, another would. The young man brightened. His mentor, however, dashed his rising hopes by saying: ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... I raised. Against the waters their foundations with brick and mortar I built. [Here follows a description of the gates, with various architectural details, an account of the decorations, hangings, etc.] For the delight of mankind I filled the reservoir. Behold! besides the Ingur-Bel, the impregnable fortification of Babylon. I constructed inside Babylon on the eastern side of the river a fortification such as no king had ever made before me, viz., a long rampart, 4000 ammas square, as an extra defence. I excavated ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... eulogy of war as a cure for indecision of mind; from which, coupled with a coy reference to "some one" in distant St. Andrews, the company were enabled to gather that Mr. Waddell had carried a position with his new sword which had proved impregnable ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... shall we strip ourselves of preconceived opinion, and come to the question with minds that are truly candid? Whoever shrinks from this is a liar to his own self, and as such, the worst and most dangerous of liars. He is as one who sits in an impregnable citadel and trembles in a time of peace—so great a coward as not even to feel safe when he is in his own keeping. How loose of soul if he knows that his own keeping is worthless, how aspen-hearted if he fears lest others should ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... another; that is, that it must have had an antecedent cause. And we could never lay down a rule derived even from the greatest number of observations. Hence we must trust entirely to blind chance, abolishing all reason, and such a surrender establishes scepticism in an impregnable citadel. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... British flags waving beside French flags on several balconies and shops. England's declaration of war against Germany arouses tremendous enthusiasm. The heroic defense made by the Belgians against three German army corps advancing on the almost impregnable fortress of Lige—a second Port Arthur—is a magnificent encouragement for the French. At some of the houses in Paris one now sees occasionally assembled the flags of France, Russia, Great Britain, Belgium, ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... religious public are indebted for one of Bunyan's ablest treatises, full of the striking sparkles of his extraordinary imagination. It was a subject peculiarly adapted to display his powers—the advent of New Jerusalem, her impregnable walls and gates of precious stones, golden streets, water of life, temple, and the redeemed from all nations flocking ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of the fighting was any guide, mine was a narrowing kingdom. Every hour it seemed to grow fiercer and more near, and it was clear that some of the gates in the passage up the cleft in the cliff, impregnable though all men had thought them, had yielded to the vehemence of Phorenice's attack. And, indeed, it was scarcely to be marvelled at. With all her genius spurred on to fury by the blow that had been struck at her by wrecking so fair ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... lover, was also her instructor in this philosophy, and the principles he instilled into her mind were such as tended to seduce her. Finding her cold and impregnable on the side of her passions, and firmly attached to her husband and her duty, he attacked her by sophisms, endeavoring to prove that the list of duties she thought so sacred, was but a sort of catechism, fit only for children. That the kind of infidelity she thought so terrible, was, in ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... conveyed the greater part of his stores, together with the old, the infirm, the women and children of his tribe, to a strong fortress, where he and Philip had likewise drawn up the flower of their forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians impregnable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island of five or six acres in the midst of a swamp; it was constructed with a degree of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually displayed in Indian fortification, and ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving |
