Zuniga's acute concern, and the main reason for his visit, was defense. Despite being "unwell on account of the rigorous season of cold and rains," he had already been up to inspect the wooden watchtower at the bar of San Pedro. He asked the people of Tupique to keep the road to the tower clean and to continue to provide the soldiers on sentry duty with fish and shellfish. Then, "His Lordship proposed to the chiefs that it would be advisable to build an offensive and defensive palisade to enclose the king's house where the soldiers live, with bastions and walls reinforced with heartwood supports, every tenth one taller and heavier, so that the crosswise ones may be strong and bind together the other ones, and to terreplein the interior with fascines and earth up to chest height, the earth being two thirds [ofa vara] in thickness for the protection of the soldiers. "They should add to the said house a large room into which the women of the three towns could gather themselves for protection in the event of some infestation, and that all the natives of them should enter with the soldiers to defend the said house and stockade, and all the canoas be brought within musket range of the said defense, and that they be always on the alert, maintaining sentinels and watches and having their nightly rounds in all the towns, and quivers of arrows sufficient for any occasion that might unexpectly come up, and the firearms cleaned and ready. "And they should start on the said stockade as soon as the next fields to ripen were harvested, the natives of the three towns working on it as chosen by their chiefs, and His Lordship would assist them with some tools and with the nails (Caciques de Guale, 1701). Once again, the Guales had promised to build a stockade. Whether or not they would do so remained to be seen. (Bushnell SS)