upon them so completely, that more than a thousand men perished, and the Moslíms made an immense booty, which was some comfort for the hardships they had to struggle with. They rejoiced in the idea that the general assault was near, because of all the towers of the town there now remained but one, all the rest having been levelled with the dust by the seventy pieces of artillery. But the Infidels now intrenched themselves underground like so many Ferháds, and again fortified themselves in such a manner, that whenever an attempt was made to overwhelm them by a mine, they averted it, and threw the earth dug up for an intrenchment into the river. They were most able miners also, and continued to make mines even underneath the river, with resined boats. Thus they stopped the Ottoman army for the space of forty days, during which, notwithstanding great vigilance, many thousand Infidel Cossacks found means to enter the Castle by throwing themselves naked into the Tanais, and swimming across under water with a reed in their mouths; their arms and ammunition were put into leathern jacks, which they threw behind them while swimming, and thus relieved the fortress. To prevent this the Moslims shut the Tanais with a wall of stakes impenetrable even to fish, and by this means got great riches from the Infidels, who now having lost all hope of succour continued the war underground, killing a great number of the besiegers. A rumour began to spread that the Czar of Russia was coming with twenty thousand men, and this rumour, though it was only an invention of the enemy, caused a great deal of disturbance. A great council of war of all the commanders and officers was assembled to take into consideration, that though there was now no walls left, yet it had hitherto been found impossible to take the Castle; that a sedition of the janissaries, who are not obliged to continue above forty days in the trenches, was to be feared; that the winter was drawing near, when the Sea of Assov freezes, when all communication would be intercepted, and no safety for the fleet after the day of Kássim (S. Demetrius); that there would be no shelter nor provisions for the army, the country of the Infidels being on the north, and the salt steppes of Heihát on the east and south. After a long consultation, in which all these topics were touched upon, Canán Páshá and Piále Aghá, the Kiaya of the Arsenal, proposed to fix the general assault for the next morning. The Fátíhah being read on this resolution, great joy was spread in the Ottoman camp; seven thousand swords, two thousand shields, two thousand muskets, five thousand bows, forty thousand arrows, six thousand halberds, five thousand granades, and many thousand other articles of arms were distributed amongst the army, the cannons fired from seven sides and the shout of Allah raised so that it filled the steppes of Kipchák. The Moslims rushed into the castle and penetrated into the inmost recess of it, where they hoisted