This exterior wall has been built with great care on a broad and deep foundation, since it shows no sign of settlement, though built in what, until recently, was a deep and muddy ditch. At one part indeed, close south of Brass Mount, it has been strengthened by three very clumsy buttresses of 12 ft. in breadth and 22 ft. projection. One covers the internal angle of the

bastion; the next is about 40 ft. distant; and the third, at about the same space, is in fact a rectangular mural tower, resembling Galleyman, and contains a small chamber having two loops on each of its three free faces. Its parapet is new, and pierced for two guns.

MIDDLE tower is the outwork of Byward tower, and a barbican covering the landward entrance to the

fortress. It stands on the counterscarp of the ditch, at the outer end of the bridge, and was originally enveloped by a special ditch of its own, a loop from the main ditch of the place, filled up in the eighteenth century. In design and execution it resembles closely Byward tower, though rather smaller, its breadth being 40 ft., and its height 30 ft. from the roadway. It is evidently of the date of Byward, and like it was open at the rear. It also has been cased with Portland stone. Its portal has a double portcullis, gateway, vertical holes, side loops and lodges, and its

Middle Tower.-First-floor.

central part is ceiled with timber. In neither tower is there any trace of a drawbridge. The lodges are tolerably perfect; the stair in the north-east angle is in use, and takes the place of the Byward oratory; and in the south-east turret is a lobby and a garderobe, and above these a chamber 7 ft. by 8 ft. 6 in., and again on the leads another chamber 7 ft. 4 in. by 10 ft. 10 in.

Between the two gate-houses the ditch is traversed by a stone bridge, 130 ft. long, and at the narrowest

20 ft. wide. As the towers are not precisely opposite, the line of the bridge is broken by a slight zigzag. In the centre appears to have been an opening of 20 ft., now a stone arch, once the place of a drawbridge, as shown in old drawings.

The QUAY does not appear to have had any permanent parapet wall, which indeed would have interfered with its uses. It was sufficiently commanded by the defences of the outer ward. It was probably the work of Henry III., in the twelfth of whose reign it is first mentioned, and called "Kaia Regis;" and John de Crumbwell, Custos 8-9 Edward III., had then an order for 300 alder poles from Windsor forest for repairing it. The quay is in length about 1130 ft., that being the full frontage of the Tower.

The Ditch.--This, by far the most formidable of the defences of the Tower, varies in breadth from 100 ft. on the east to 110 ft. on the north, and 120 ft. on the west or City side. Along the south or river front it is only 40 ft. broad, probably because on that side it was covered by the wharf, the narrow limits of which did not permit any great force of assailants to be drawn up upon it; besides which the tower covering Traitors' gate, and the two small postern bridges which it was convenient to have towards the wharf and river, did not allow any great breadth of ditch.

The ditch was not only broad, but of great depth, so that when filled to the level of high water it was scarcely to be passed, and indeed when the water was low, the mud which accumulated there, and which made it of late years an unhealthy nuisance, must have

been quite as formidable as a defence. Nevertheless, care was taken to cleanse it, and the "Liber Albus' informs us that, in the reign of Edward III., the penalty for bathing in the Tower foss, or in the Thames near the Tower, was death! (vol. i. p. xlix.) Its exterior circuit is computed at 3156 ft.

Also, from the great height of the ground to the west and north, the counterscarp is so very high as to be in itself a considerable obstacle to crossing the ditch, although no doubt this was in other respects advantageous to besiegers. Besides the main bridge, the ditch was crossed by St. Thomas's tower and the dam between Galleyman and Iron gate, all of which served to hold up the water. There were also the posterns of Iron gate, Byward, and Cradle tower.

No doubt the Conqueror's ditch, even when deepened by Longchamp, was fed by the Thames; and the water rose and fell with the tide. The intervention of the wharf, and the St. Thomas's sluice-gate, were devised to make the water in the ditch independent of the tide, and thus add materially to the strength of the defences. The ditch was drained and its bottom raised and levelled by the Duke of Wellington during his constabulate. There are seen in the modern brick revetment of the counterscarp a number of walled-up arches, resembling sewer-mouths, which appear to have been intended to facilitate the mining the glacis in the event of a siege.

The outwork in advance of Middle tower, though its ditch is filled up, and its other buildings removed, is still indicated by a line of stockades, which contain

the ticket-office and a small engine-house. Here stood the Lion tower, and the Royal Menagerie; and this whole tête-du-pont was further protected by a smaller tower and drawbridge of its own, shown in some of the early drawings.

Lions were a part of the royal state, and lodged in the Tower bulwark, in the reign of Henry I. The Emperor Frederick, in 1235, sent Henry II. three leopards; and, in 1252, Henry III. received a white bear from Norway, for whose sustenance, with his keeper, the sheriffs of London provided four-pence daily, with a muzzle and iron chain, to keep him when "extra aquam," and a stout cord to hold him when a-fishing in the Thames. In 1254, Louis of France. sent the King an elephant. He was brought from Sandwich to the Tower, where the sheriffs were to build him a strong and suitable house, 40 ft. by 20 ft., and to support him and his keeper. Edward I. and Edward II. kept lions here. At a time when the allowance for an esquire was one penny per day, a lion had a quarter of mutton and three-halfpence for the keeper; and, afterwards, sixpence was the lion's allowance; the same for a leopard, and three-halfpence for the keeper. 16 Edw. III., there were a lion and lioness, a leopard, and two cat-lions. In 1543, the Duke of Najara saw here four large and fierce lions, and two leopards. The menagerie was finally closed about 1830. Its establishment on this particular spot was probably due to Henry III.

The whole outward space was, in 1597, called the Bulwark, and sometimes the Spur-yard.