THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIEGE.

Immediately after Realmah’s retreat into the town, the causeways were destroyed, the drawbridges pulled up, and every part of the town finally prepared for a state of siege.

Before describing this siege it is necessary to give some notion of the skill of the inhabitants of Abibah in the art of building. This is the more necessary as it is a fond idea of modern people that they are pre-eminent in that art; overlooking the masses of falseness, pretentiousness, and inappropriateness which deform so large a part of their greatest towns. It would rather astonish them if they could see again ancient Mexico, Thebes, Memphis, Nineveh, Babylon, and Cusco[29]--the last perhaps the grandest city that has ever been built upon this earth.

Footnote 29:

An eye-witness says: “I measured a stone at Tiaguanaco, twenty-eight feet long, eighteen feet broad, and about six feet thick; but in the wall of the fortress of Cusco, which is constructed of masonry, there are many stones of much greater size.” It appears from modern research that some of these stones were fifty feet long, twenty-two feet broad, and six feet thick. “Habia entre ellas algunas que tenian cincuenta piés de largo, veinte y dos de alto, y seis de ancho.”--_Antiguedades Peruanas_, por Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Juan Diego de Tschudi, cap. ix. p. 250.

The construction of these Lake cities was also most remarkable. In the remains of one of them there are this day to be seen the relics of about twenty thousand piles. Now the art of pile-driving is a most difficult one; and those who are skilled in it move from place to place where their services are wanted. But if we were to say to the inhabitants of any ordinary English town, “Build us, with all the means and appliances that are at your command, but without any aid from specially skilled workmen, a town upon water which shall have for its basis twenty thousand piles,” we should find, from their difficulties and their failures, what great mechanical and workmanlike skill would be requisite for such an undertaking, and should have a just respect for the powers, the skill, and the perseverance of the men of Abibah.

Five days after the battle of the Ramassa, the enemy commenced the siege. They naturally commenced it at the southern part of the town, which was the part nearest to the shore. They had employed the intervening days in constructing rafts, which they did by tying together the smaller trees which they had hewn down in the great wood.

A low, long building, devoted to barracks, formed the principal defence on the southern side of the town. It was, in fact, a long semi-inclosed balcony, for the most part open at the back, but having in front only those openings which admitted of missiles being thrown from them.

Realmah’s plan of defence for this building was very singular. He meant the enemy to take it, and to perish after they had taken it. The whole of the flooring was to fall into the water, and the enemy with it, immediately after they had occupied it. But what showed his skill in its construction and his knowledge of human nature, was, that he had planned that this falling-in of the flooring should take place in separate portions, separately. Between the piles there was generally a portion of the flooring that would enable thirty men to stand upon it and defend it; and each of these compartments was so constructed that, by the cutting of a single cord, it would descend into the water.

Realmah knew well that if all the men who were to defend this position knew that the flooring was suddenly, and perhaps without their knowledge, to descend into the water, they would be apprehensive of being left with the enemy and perishing with them. He also knew that if it depended upon the occupants of any particular compartment, or rather upon their captain, at what moment the flooring of that compartment should fall in, the men defending it would fight bravely to the last. To insure and reward this bravery, he offered a reward of iron swords with amber handles, to the survivors of that band of thirty men who should make the stoutest resistance.

The enemy advanced upon their rafts to the attack with great determination, and with great confidence of success. Their advance was covered by 3,000 archers, who occupied a small eminence just above the shore, and whose missiles dealt death to many a brave defender who but for a moment exposed himself to their deadly shafts. The besieged on their part were not inactive. Many of the attacking party fell by their iron-pointed javelins; many more were disabled by the boiling pitch poured down upon them as they neared the fortress. Still they pressed on, and swarming up the low building, found entrance here and there. For fully an hour the attack and the defence were vigorously maintained. The time would have been much shorter, but that the archers, who formed the covering party on the hill, were no longer able to give assistance to their friends, when besiegers and besieged were commingled in the fight. At length the enemy gained entrance at all points, and then the stratagem of Realmah had its full effect. The floorings everywhere descended almost simultaneously, and nothing was to be heard but the cries of drowning men, shouting helplessly for succour from their friends, who were cut off from them. Thus ended the first day’s siege, with a signal failure on the part of the besiegers.

For seventeen days there was no further attack. Realmah was at first much puzzled at this inaction, but by his spies he soon learnt that a division of the enemy’s army had gone to attack Abinamanche, the capital of the Phelatahs.

He readily conjectured that this was done in order to possess themselves of the fleet of canoes belonging to Abinamanche, and therefore was not the least surprised when, on the fifteenth and sixteenth days after the first encounter, he perceived numerous canoes creeping along the shore, and making their rendezvous not far from the enemy’s head-quarters on the shore.

On the eighteenth day the siege recommenced. This time it was a much more formidable attack. It may seem strange, but will be accounted for hereafter, that Realmah did not bring his own little fleet of canoes into action, but reserved it for a much more critical occasion.

The enemy, who were skilled warriors, having been accustomed to fight the men of their own hardy North, had not been idle during these seventeen days. Besides availing themselves of the fleet of the Phelatahs, they had constructed three times the number of rafts with which they had attempted the former attack.

On this second attack they brought no less than 16,000 men into immediate action.

Realmah was undismayed. He had too long thought of the coming evil to be unprepared for it.

It is needless to give the almost innumerable details of the attack and defence on this day. Both sides showed the utmost determination; but, as the sun descended behind Bidolo-Vamah, that luminary might have seen that the enemy had made a lodgment in Abibah, and that their troops occupied the “Street of the Ambassadors,” which ran parallel to the fortress that had been the point of attack on the first day, and which communicated with the whole of the southern part of the town by four other principal streets. Previously to this lodgment being made by the enemy, Realmah had caused barricades to be formed at the end of these streets.

For eleven more days no fresh general attack was made by the enemy, though continual fighting and great slaughter took place at these barricades.

Meanwhile the valorous Athlah was re-forming his army. Meanwhile the enemy were constructing more rafts.