OF REGULAR FORTIFICATION.

depth, and extends to a mountain opposite Machaerus. This is how he speaks of it.

Natural fortification by desert and solitude.

Sallust speaks of Capsa and Thala, cities of Numidia, as very strong places, because of the desert and the solitude where they are placed: which is certainly a strange and extraordinary sort of fortification; of which I do not know if they have as much reason to thank as to complain of Nature.

But so that I do not stop at the Ancients, not only in Asia and in Africa; but in various parts of our Europe, in Germany, in France, in Spain, in Italy, in England, and in other Provinces, one still sees in great numbers castles and places impregnable by the sole care of Nature, which has liberally covered them with ditches and walls that it is not possible for human force to penetrate. The Italians, Machiavelli (a), Guicciardini, and the others, will put forward their Morgues, and their Santo Leo. The Germans will speak to you of their Ehrenbreitstein, or of their Breisach original: "Brifac". Those of the Low Countries will allege to you their castle of Namur (b) and so of others; there would be too much trouble to put them all in order.

Nature has fortified certain places by waters. And Art has imitated it in its ditches.

The care and foresight of Nature have been no less in fortifying some places of the earth with water; in imitation of which, Art has dug ditches, which serve as a powerful brake to the impetuosity of the enemy.

A very remarkable example of a province that Nature has fortified by waters. In Holland.

I do not wish to speak here of England, which Nature has separated, as an ancient said, from all the rest of the world, nor of other Islands where the sea serves as a ditch that a land army could not cross; I will only produce Holland, the most renowned province of the world, and which has spread the noise of its weapons no less than the traffic of its merchandise throughout the earth. Nature seems to have forgotten nothing of its industry to fortify it by waters, as it has ramparted the preceding places by rocks and mountains. The Ocean waters and serves as a defense to the greatest part of Holland; it advances its arms where it cannot reach with its whole body; and in default of the sea, various famous rivers succeed; where these cannot go, lakes provide defense; and where all that fails, there are marshes where it is dangerous for the enemy to risk a passage. So it is not without reason that Cardinal Bentivoglio (c) puts this among the wonders of Holland:

One can remain in doubt whether there is more land occupied by the earth or by the water in Holland. And it is populated by such a great number of vessels of all kinds that one may even doubt if there is a greater quantity of mobile dwellings on water or fixed houses on land.

Leiden un-besieged.

Events have often shown what relief the Dutch can draw from these waters, when by letting loose the floodgates of their sluices they have drowned the enemies who were in the heart of the country, as happened at the siege of Leiden; or when, without other defense, they have stopped and repulsed them at the point of entering; as was the case not long ago, when the army of the King of Spain and the Emperor made an incursion into the Veluwe, and