reat European empires in this also. There is no neutral
zone, no buffer state, no silver streak between Mansoul and her immediate
and military neighbours. And thus it is that her statesmen, and her
soldiers, and even her very common-soldier sentries must be for ever on
the watch; they must never say peace, peace; they must never leave for
one moment their appointed post.

And then, as for the wall of the city, hear our excellent historian's own
words about that. 'The wall of the town was well built,' so he says.
'Yea, so fast and firm was it knit and compact together that, had it not
been for the townsmen themselves, it could not have been shaken or broken
down for ever. For here lay the excellent wisdom of Him that builded
Mansoul, that the walls could never be broken down nor hurt by the most
mighty adverse potentate unless the townsmen gave their consent thereto.'
Now, what would the military engineers of Chatham and Paris and Berlin,
who are now at their wits' end, not give for a secret like that! A wall
impregnable and insurmountable and not to be sapped or mined from the
outside: a wall that could only suffer hurt from the inside! And then
that wonderful wall was pierced from within with five magnificently
answerable gates. That is to say, the gates could neither be burst in
nor any way forced from without. 'This famous town of Mansoul had five
gates, in at which to come, out of which to go; and these were made
likewise answerable to the walls; to wit, impregnable, and such as could
never be opened or forced but by the will and leave of those within. The
names of the gates were these: Ear-gate, Eye-gate, Mouth-gate; in short,
'the five senses,' as we say.

In the south of England, in the time of Edward the Confessor and after
the battle of Hastings, there were five cities which had special
immunities and peculiar privileges bestowed upon them, in recognition of
the special dangers to which they were exposed and the eminent services
they performed as facing the hostile shores of France. Owing to their
privileges and their position, the 'Cinque Ports' came to be cities of
great strength, till, as time went on, they became a positive weakness
rather than a strength to the land that lay behind them. Privilege bred
pride, and in their pride the Cinque Ports proclaimed wars and formed
alliances on their own account: piracies by sea and robberies by land
were hatched within their walls; and it took centuries t