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JUSTINIANI'S STOCKADE 309 John Justiniani with his two thousand men, among whom were his own four hundred Genoese cuirassiers with their arms glittering in the sun to the delight, says Leonard, of their Greek fellow fighters. "While the cannon had greatly- damaged the walls in the other two places mentioned, here, says Critobulus, they had entirely destroyed them. There was a wall no longer, nor did there in this part exist any longer a ditch, for it had been filled up by the Turkish troops. Hence it was that in this part Justiniani and those under him had been constantly occupied in repairs. Day after day the diarists recount that the principal occupation of the besieged was to repair during the night the part of the walls destroyed during the day by the cannon. Without experi- ence of the power of great guns even in their then early stage of development, the besieged tried to lessen the force of the balls by suspending from the summit of the walls a sheathing of bales of wool. This and other expedients had failed. As the best substitute for the broken-down Outer Wall Construe- Justiniani had gradually, as it was destroyed, constructed stockade, a Stockade, called by the Latin writers a Vallum and by the Greeks a Stauroma. On the ruined wall a new one was thus built almost as rapidly as the old one was destroyed. It was made with such materials as were at hand, of stones from the broken wall, of baulks of timber, of trees and branches, and even of crates filled with straw and vine cuttings, of ladders and fascines, all cemented hastily together with earth and clay. The whole was faced with hides and skins so as to prevent the materials being burnt by ' fire-bearing arrows.' In employing earth and clay the defenders intended that the stone cannon-balls should bury themselves in the yielding mass and thus do less damage than when striking against stone. Within the stockade was a second ditch from which probably the clay had been removed to cement the materials of the stockade, while above it were placed barrels or vats filled with earth so as to form a crenellation and a defence to the fighters against the missiles of the Turks. 1 Crit. lx.