of land, Mount Sceberras, separates two deep bights or inlets.
The eastern of these was called Marsa Muset, or "Middle Port," but was
unoccupied and without defences at the time of the siege, except that
the guns of St. Elmo, the fortress at the point of the Sceberras
promontory, commanded its mouth. The Marsa Kebir, or simply La Marsa,
the "Great Port," was the chief stronghold of the Knights. Here four
projecting spits of rock formed smaller harbours on the western side.
The outermost promontory, the Pointe des Fourches, separated the Port
de la Renelle or La Arenela, from the open sea; Cape Salvador divided
the Arenela from the English Harbour; the Burg, the main fortress and
capital of the place, with Fort St. Angelo at its point, shot out
between the English Harbour and the Harbour of the Galleys; and the
Isle of La Sangle, joined by a sandy isthmus to the mainland, and
crowned by Fort St. Michael, severed the Galley Harbour from that of
La Sangle. All round these inlets high hills dominated the ports.
Behind Fort St. Elmo, the Sceberras climbed steeply to a considerable
height. Behind the Arenela and English Harbour rose Mount Salvador,
Calcara, and further back the Heights of St. Catherine. The Burg and
Fort St. Michael were overtopped by the Heights of St. Margaret,
whilst the Conradin plateau looked down upon the head of the Marsa and
the Harbour of La Sangle. To modern artillery and engineering the
siege would have been easy, despite the rocky hardness of the ground,
since the Knights had not had time to construct those field-works upon
the surrounding heights which were essential to the safety of the
forts. Even to the skilled but undeveloped artillery of the Turks, the
destruction of Malta ought not to have been either a difficult or
lengthy operation, had they begun at the right place.

To those who were acquainted with the ground, who had heard of the
siege of Rhodes, and knew that the Turks were not less but more
formidable in 1565 than in 1522, the issue of the struggle must have
appeared inevitable, when the huge Ottoman fleet hove in view on the
18th of May, 1565. One hundred and eighty vessels, of which two-thirds
were galleys-royal, carried more than thirty thousand fighting
men--the pick of the Ottoman army, tried Janissaries and Sip[=a]his,
horsemen from Thrace, rough warriors from the mountains of Anatolia,
eager volunteers from all parts of the Sultan's dominions. Mustafa
Pasha who had grown old