The Tátár Khán having arrived on the border of the river Sud, heard of the flight of the garrison from some prisoners he had taken, and made the greatest possible haste to reach the fortress. He found it empty, not only of men, but also of animals, neither dog, cat nor mouse being seen; only one Genoese tower remained standing. The Tátár Khán then sent the welcome news to Constantinople. On the eleventh day some Russian spies coming from Constantinople were taken and brought before the Tátár Khán. They confessed freely and openly, that there were forty spies at the Port, who, having been aware of the immense preparations of the Ottoman Army, had given notice to the garrison to leave the Castle, and that arriving there themselves, they had fallen into the hands of the Tátárs. These three spies were beheaded. On the 13th day of this month the Ottoman army arrived with great pomp, commanded by Chowán Kapújí-báshí Vezir Mohammed Páshá, and found the fortress empty. They ascribed it at first to some infernal stratagem of the Infidels, and waited three days, on the fourth day Moslim prayer was proclaimed, and all the Moldavians and Valachians were commanded to work on the foundations and to build them anew. They dug three days till they came to springs of water; the ships were all busy carrying stones from an old Convent in the island of Timúrlenk, and the work of building was begun. In one month two towers were finished, stronger than the former Genoese towers, and the histories of Crimea record the date of its building and name of the builder. It was declared the seat of a Sanjak Beg belonging to the government of Kaffa, a Begler-Beg was left as commander with twenty regiments of Janissaries, six regiments of artillerymen, ten regiments of armourers, seven thousand Tátárs, seven Sanjak Begs, and twelve Alaï Begs, with twenty-six thousand men; seventy large guns on the bulwarks, and three hundred small ones on the border of the ditch. The complete repair and fitting out cost the sum of five thousand purses. During its building the Tátárs made seven inroads into Russia, and returned with from fifteen to twenty thousand prisoners to the Ottoman camp, so that the prisoners were sold for no more than ten piastres each. At last the King of the Moscovites imploring pardon and crying out, Amán! Amán! (pardon O Family of Osmán!) sent ambassadors to Constantinople. The building being nearly finished, the Commander-in-Chief Mahommed Páshá returned to Constantinople, and the rest of the army got permission to return to their homes. I again followed the tribe of Mássúrlí, and came with them to Crimea. We took our pleasure for twenty days in Bágcheseraï, then got permission from the Khán to return to Constantinople, with a present of a purse of piastres, three slaves, a sable pelisse, and a caftán. The Kalgha Sultán and Núr-ud-dín Sultán (the two first dignities of the Tátár court) and fourteen Aghás, gave me a slave