Some of them embraced the Islám, and received presents, then were sent altogether to the castle of Khoros Kermán near Assov. By this immense booty every thing became immensely cheap in the Ottoman camp, so that a horse was sold for one piastre, a girl for five, and a boy for six piastres. The safe return of the Tátár army was celebrated by a triple salute of muskets and guns, and the whole camp illuminated during the night. But winter drawing near, a new council was held, all the seniors of the regular troops and of the Tátárs agreed, and signed unanimously a petition of three hundred signatures of Vezírs, and officers of all ranks, saying: “that for this year it was impossible to take the castle, that one of the Russian Capitals had been laid waste, that seventy thousand Infidels had been taken prisoners, and more than one hundred thousand destroyed by the sword.” At the same time two of the prisoners, who had been instructed accordingly, were sent back into the castle to say; “that if the Turks had intended to take the castle, they might have taken it in a month, but their object was to pillage the Russian countries, and to return with a rich booty, which they had now accomplished.” The same night as the messengers went off to Constantinople there was such a hard frost that all the Moslim warriors thought they could not stand it, and by this specimen found out that the salt steppe of Heihát was as unmerciful as the Black Sea. At last the despair of conquering the castle becoming general, the whole army at once resolved to raise the siege. The trumpets were sounded, the artillery and ammunition embarked and carried to Bálisíra, where the fleet was lying at anchor. The army returned by different ways, some by sea and some by land, to Constantinople; some by the desert of Kipchák in six days and nights to the river Kúbán, to Circassia, Taman and Crimea; some through the steppes (Heihát), returned by the north into their native country Circassia. When the Imperial fleet weighed for Constantinople I got permission, from the Commander-in-Chief Hossein Páshá, to accompany the Khán of Crimea into his country, and the Imperial fleet sailed, trusting in God, through the sea of Assov. JOURNEY TO THE CRIMEA. I left Assov in company with the army of Geraï Khán of eighty thousand men, and twenty thousand Infidels of Moldavia and Valachia, and crossed the Tanais with them, which disembogues at the end of the sea of Assov. The water being shallow in the great Don, it was passed by eight hundred thousand horsemen without the least difficulty, the water reaching only to the stirrups. The Tátárs tied their jacks and luggage to the tails of their horses, and in the space of twenty-one hours, the whole army reached the opposite steppes of Heihát.