The Thirty Years' War - James Aitken Wylie

more substantial rampart. Immediately outside the
space appropriated to the general and his staff were
the tents of the officers. They were made of canvas,
and conical in form. Outside these, running in
parallel rows or streets, were the huts of the
common soldiers. They were composed of boards
and straw, and the soldiers were huddled together
in them, two and four, with their wives, daughters,
boys, and dogs. The whole formed a great square
or circle, regiment lying alongside regiment, the
encampment being strongly fortified; and out
beyond its defense there stretched away a wide
cleared space, to admit of the enemy being espied a
long while before he could make his near approach.
In former times it had been customary to utilize
the baggage wagons in fortifying an encampment.
The wagons were ranged all round the tents,
sometimes in double, sometimes in treble line; they
were fastened the one to the other by iron chains,
forming a rampart not easily to be breached by an
enemy. Such, as we have already seen, were the
fortifications within which the Hussites were wont
to encamp. But by the time of which we write this
27