"Loopholed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... possession. Furthermore, on examination, I soon discovered that, as the doors and windows faced the wrong way, it would have been impossible for a Boer to do much shooting at our men, unless the walls at the gable end were loopholed, which they were not, I know, for I examined them minutely. Fortunately for the credit of the British Army, most of our generals are coolheaded men who do not allow the irresponsible chatter of the army to influence them. Otherwise our guns would have been trained upon ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... Ensign Gooch, Ensign Hervey, and Sergeant Graham, by sheer strength, closed the gate again, in spite of the efforts of the French from without, and effectually barricaded it against further assaults. Over and through the loopholed wall of the courtyard, the English garrison now kept up a deadly fire of musketry, which was fiercely answered by the French, who swarmed round the curtilage like ravening wolves. Shells, too, from their batteries, were falling fast into the besieged place, one ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... first in the vigorous scenery and changeful weather; nor less in the antique and dilapidated mansion where I dwelt. This was a large oblong, flanked at two opposite corners by bastion-like projections, one of which commanded the door, while both were loopholed for musketry. The lower story was, besides, naked of windows, so that the building, if garrisoned, could not be carried without artillery. It enclosed an open court planted with pomegranate trees. From this a broad flight ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... regular troops were in the town, and crowds of the citizens and of the peasantry of the adjoining country were in arms along with them. The pavement had been taken up, the streets barricadoed, the houses on the outskirts loopholed, and the Retiro, a large but weak edifice, occupied by a strong garrison. Terrible violence prevailed—many persons suspected of adhering to the side of the French were assassinated; the bells of churches and convents rung incessantly; ferocious bands paraded the streets day and night: ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... strung on low posts, or hooked from rock to rock to the stone building away up at the basin. To return, however, to the building: the veranda rested on square rough masonry full twenty feet from the ground, which was loopholed for musketry, and with but one narrow slip of a doorway that fell like a portcullis, banded and strapped with bars and studs of wrought iron. Within this stone inclosure was a large and roomy vault, half filled with cases, barrels, and packages, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... up the front of our stockade and a portion of the sides of the parallelogram. It was all loopholed for our musketry, and was firm and strong, being carefully stiffened behind by cross beams and shored up with buttresses of big logs in a manner that, if not thoroughly workmanlike, was at least satisfactory from the point of strength, which was just then our main consideration. ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... although useless against cannon, are considered by the Arabs as impregnable. The walls are of solid mud and sun-baked bricks, carefully loopholed for musketry, while a deep fosse, by which it is surrounded, is a ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... the night intermittent firing went on. The Mexicans increased their fortifications, preparing for a desperate combat on the morrow. They threw up new earthworks, and they loopholed many of the houses that they held. Cos, his dark face darker with rage and fury, went among them, urging them to renewed efforts, telling them that they were bound to take prisoners all the Texans whom they did not slay in battle, and that they should hang every prisoner. ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... three days' rations were served out to the troops, and the advance begun; the movement being directed against the Secunderbagh, a large garden surrounded by a very high and strong wall loopholed for musketry. To reach it a village, fortified and strongly held, had first to be carried. The attack was led by Brigadier Hope's brigade, of which the regiment formed part. As they approached the village, so heavy a musketry fire was opened upon them ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... been almost entirely deserted by their inhabitants, but were crowded with soldiers who stood at doors and windows, watching our curious caravan. The bridge across the Marne was mined, but still intact, and defended at the farther end by an entrenched and loopholed redoubt, faced by some very intricate and artistic chevaux-de-frise. Once across the river, we wound round to the left, through the village of Alfort, where all the villas and river-side restaurants had been turned into military posts; and on looking back we saw the huge Charenton ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... attempt at fortifications; but, as all the villages are built quite as much with a view to defence as convenience, these are hardly necessary. Every house is surrounded by a court-yard, in most cases loopholed. Taking up our quarters at the only house capable of affording the most ordinary shelter, we passed the evening, as far as I was concerned, pleasantly enough. The Secretary, a middle-aged and very ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... the whole power of the little black despotism. Bosman [Footnote: Eerste Brief, 1737: the original Dutch edition was lent to me by M. Paulus Dahse.] shows 'Fort St. Antonio' protected by two landward bastions and an old doorway opening upon a loopholed courtyard. Barbot (1700) sketches a brick house in gable-shape, based ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... command of the united bands. With their aid the engineer, Descombles, reconnoitred the English forts, and came back with the report that success was certain.[427] It was but a confirmation of what had already been learned from deserters and prisoners, who declared that the main fort was but a loopholed wall held by six or seven hundred men, ill fed, discontented, and mutinous.[428] Others said that they had been driven to desert by the want of good food, and that within a year twelve hundred men had died of disease ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... partly embattled, and partly loopholed, and a banquette of earth rammed hard ran all round inside, so that the defenders might discharge darts or arrows through the embrasures, and step down out of sight to prepare a fresh supply. At each corner there was a large platform, where a considerable number of men could stand and command ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... the Natalian. He is invaded; his cattle have been seized by the Boer; his towns are shelled or captured; the most powerful force on which he relies for protection is isolated in Ladysmith; his capital is being loopholed and intrenched; Newcastle has been abandoned, Colenso has fallen, Estcourt is threatened; the possibility that the whole province will be overrun stares him in the face. From the beginning he asked for ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... of the Talbots, considered by some to excel even Sheffield. It stood high, on ground falling very steeply from the walls on three sides, and on the south well fortified, court within court, and each with a deep-arched and portcullised gateway, with loopholed turrets on either side, a porter's ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... several pieces of cannon, under cover of darkness, on a lovely night in May, landed at this place. Soon after, they were attacked by a party of English regulars and militiamen, who drove them into a windmill and two strong stone houses, which they loopholed, and defended themselves with a pertinacity which one would have called heroism, had it been in a better cause. They finally surrendered, and were carried prisoners to Kingston, where six of them ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... latter, however, were not only resolute and well-armed, but were also on the alert to guard against surprise; the Indians were discovered as they advanced in the gray light, and were at once beaten back with loss from the loopholed stockade. Robertson commanded in the fort, Sevier acting as his lieutenant. Of course, the only hope of assistance was from Virginia, North Carolina being separated from the Watauga people by great mountain chains; and Sevier had already notified the officers ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the time, sir," answered Dolly Venn, wisely. "They can never get below if you cover the door; and I can keep the sea. It's lucky Czerny loopholed this place, anyway. If ever I meet him I shall quote poetry: 'He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel.' It would about ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... steeper, so that an attacking party would have to use ladders, both for descending into it and climbing out. The bastions were repaired, as far as could be done; and the houses in the lane that ran round, inside the wall, were all loopholed ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... He sent presents to his Mohawk parents, who afterwards played an important part in saving the French of Onondaga. Having passed the falls, they came to the French fort situated on the crest of a hill above a lake. Two high towers loopholed for musketry occupied the centre of the courtyard. Double walls, trenched between, ran round a space large enough to enable the French to keep their cattle inside the fort. The voyageurs were welcomed to Onondaga by Major Dupuis, fifty Frenchmen, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... side of the stream, was the Brazilian military post on the frontier. A neatly-built, loopholed, square blockhouse, painted white, was situated some fifty feet above the level of the river on the summit of the bank. It was reached by a long flight of white cement steps. The Brazilian flag flew gaily upon a flagstaff at this most westerly point of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor |
