MDDM Ch. 52

[Otto]

Dave Monroe:
> Subject: Re: MDDM Ch. 52


> "By now he knows the Castle like a Cat, no perch too
> precarious nor roof-slate too slippery, as he goes
> a-flowing one to the next among holds upon the facial
> features of Gargoyles known, perforce, with some
> intimacy, across Counter-scarps, to an through
> Machicolations in the Moon-light...." (M&D, Ch. 52, p.
> 506)

> Counterscarf

> Coun"ter*scarf` (-sk?rf`), n. [Counter- + scarp: cf.
> F. contrescarpe.] (Fort.) The exterior slope or wall
> of the ditch; -- sometimes, the whole covered way,
> beyond the ditch, with its parapet and glacis; as, the
> enemy have lodged themselves on the counterscarp.
>

And Laurence Sterne of course always comes to mind when the topic is
fortification:

Chapter 26 (or Book 2, Chap. 1)
"I have begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to
explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle Toby was involved,
from the many discourses and interrogations about the siege of Namur, where
he received his wound.
I must remind the reader, in case he has read the history of King William's
wars,-but if he has not,-I then inform him, that one of the most memorable
attacks in that siege, was that which was made by the English and Dutch upon
the point of the advanced counterscarp, between the gate of St. Nicolas,
which inclosed the great sluice or water-stop, where the English were
terribly exposed to the shot of the counter-guard and demi-bastion of St.
Roch: The issue of which hot dispute, in three words, was this; That the
Dutch lodged themselves upon the counter-guard,-and that the English made
themselves masters of the covered-way before St. Nicolas-gate,
notwithstanding the gallantry of the French officers, who exposed themselves
upon the glacis sword in hand."
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Otto