CHAP. II.] ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. 11

wells was one of the ordinary defences of thetimes; for Bosio relates quite simply, as nothingunfrequent or astonishing, or at all criminal, thatthe chief physician was ordered over the wholeisland on that inhuman service, “ attended withconsiderable success until the barbarians discoveredthe stratagem, and had the waters diligently•purged .” 1

The crescent sailing leisurely round its victim,so close to land that the ships were generallywithin a stone’s throw of it; and where the rockwas high, and projected out a little over the sea,they passed immediately under the feet of theMaltese explorers; so that these could look downperpendicularly on the decks, and numbered theshipping, and their number agreed precisely withthe review off Greece. While that was going on,the poor from the casali, with their infants intheir arms, and their other little ones on theirshoulders, continued retiring into the forts. TheMarshal Couppier, Knight of Auvergne, with hishorse and foot, according to orders, kept march-ing along the sea-side, observing the hostile fleet,which, on arrival off Mugiazzo (Haintofecha), afew miles south of Citta Yecchia, opposite a large

1 Bosio: par. iii., lib. xxiv. 514.