In the memorable siege of 1863, the walls of Vienna had already been breached by the thundering guns of the Moslems, whose tents in countless thousands covered the surrounding plain, and only a miracle, it seemed, could save the city from its impending doom. Famine and death and wan despair stalk through the beleaguered capital. One by one the soldiers of the Cross fall from the fast crumbling ramparts. Everywhere are heard the groans of the dying and the wild laments of its dismayed and enfeebled inhabitants, who are no longer able to stem the resistless onrush of the barbaric host. Mothers press their infants to their bosoms and trembling virgins, sobbing as if their hearts would break, are overwhelmed with dread of a fate worse than death itself. But, behold! The advancing columns of the infidel horde falter, then halt suddenly as if confronted by some horror-inspiring apparition, or, paralyzed by a colossal Medusa. What appalls proud Mustapha’s haughty warriors? What panic has seized his swarthy Janizaries? The standards of John Sobieski, the scourge and terror of the Moslems, are seen floating from the crest of Kahlenberg. Presently the hero-king, at the head of his resistless cuirassiers, dashes like a thunderbolt against the enemy and the luckless troops of the grand vizier melt like a mist before the morning sun. _Now joy was in proud Vienna’s town;_ _Brave Starenberg had won renown:_ _The sweet Cathedral bells were rung_ _As for a May-day festival,_ _And Sobieski’s fame was sung_ _Throughout the lordly capital._ The Cross had again triumphed over the Crescent and Christian Europe had blasted all Moslem hopes of further progress up the Danube. On Vienna’s ramparts might well be inscribed in letters of gold: _Warring against the Christian Jove in vain,_ _Here was the Ottoman Typhœus slain._ Some twenty odd miles east of Vienna, near Hamburg, are extensive ruins supposed to be remains of the ancient Roman town of Carnuntum. The place is interesting from the fact that Marcus Aurelius spent three years here during his wars with the Quadi and the Marcomanni. Here also he wrote a part of his “Meditations,” which have contributed more to perpetuate his name than all his achievements as Roman Emperor. Here Septimus Severus was proclaimed Emperor by his soldiers and here, too, Rome had a station for a part of its Danube flotilla. And the empire had need of many flotillas and many frontier garrisons along the extended Danube to keep in check the barbarians on its northern banks, when the prolific North poured them forth _From her frozen loins to pass_ _Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons_ _Came like a deluge on the south and spread_ _Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands._