Siege-train, stores of every sort, which he had set afloat upon the Dnieper in time enough, were to have been ready for him at Oczakow.

But the flotilla had been detained by shallows, by waterfalls; not a boat was come, nor could anybody say when they were coming.

Meanwhile nothing is to be had here; the very face of the earth the Turks have burnt: not a blade of grass for cavalry within eight miles, nor a stick of wood for engineers; not a hole for covert, and the ground so hard you cannot raise redoubts on it: Munnich perceives he must attempt, nevertheless.
"On his right, by the sea-shore, Munnich finds some remains of gardens, palisades; scrapes together some vestige of shelter there (five thousand, or even ten thousand pioneers working desperately all that first night, 11th July, with only half success); and on the morrow commences firing with what artillery he has.

Much outfired by the Turks inside;--his enterprise as good as desperate, unless the Dnieper flotilla come soon.

July 12th, all day the firing continues, and all night; Turks extremely furious: about an hour before daybreak, we notice burning in the interior, 'Some wooden house kindled by us, town got on fire yonder,'-- and, praise to Heaven, they do not seem to succeed in quenching it again.