If Schiltberger’s contemporaries sometimes designated the one city by the name of Great Nicopolis, they did so simply to distinguish it from a fortress on the opposite, the left bank of the Danube, called Little Nicopolis, that was taken by the Christians in the preceding campaign (Jirecek, 354). It is, therefore, just possible, that the sultan, having passed Trnov, or Ternova, when on his way to the besieged city, had also entered Tchunkatch (see trans. of the Turkish historiographer, Neshry, in _Zeitschr. d. D. Morgenl. Gesellsch._, xv, 346), the name possibly given by Neshry to the castle of Tchuka, the ruins of which are to be seen in the upper part of the city, called now as it was then, Shvishtov, Shistov, Sistova, situated at a distance of fifteen miles to the south-east of the field of battle. If such were indeed the case, I would venture to suggest, until some better explanation is offered, that our author may, by mistake or through some misconception, have given to the besieged city the name of Shistov, corrupted by him to “Schiltaw”.—BRUUN. (3B.) Nicopolis, the city besieged “by water and by land for XVI days”, must, unquestionably, have been the place of that name on the right bank of the Danube, and not ancient Nicopolis, “ad Istrum”, as believed by some authors, the site of which, distant nearly forty miles from the river, has been satisfactorily determined by M. Kanitz, from an inscription he has been fortunate enough to disinter out of a mass of its ruins. The present Nicopolis, built on a limestone cliff, fills a ravine formed by two heights commanding the town. Sigismund may, or may not, have occupied those heights; but, when surprised at his dinner, at ten o’clock in the morning on the day of the battle, by being informed that the Turks were making their appearance (Froissart, iv, c. 52), he advanced one mile only from his encampment outside the beleaguered city, for the purpose of encountering Bajazet; and the French assumed the offensive immediately after the “Duke of Walachy” had reconnoitred the enemy’s position. If a further advance was made at all, it could scarcely have covered much ground, seeing that the 12,000 foot-soldiers routed by Sigismund had advanced to oppose him; and when the king was about to follow up his victory by attacking a body of horse, the sultan being on the point of taking to flight, the timely aid of the latter’s ally, the despot of Servia, changed the fortunes of the day. The battle, says Froissart, lasted three hours only, and the result, so disastrous to the Christian army, he attributes to the impetuosity of Philippe d’Artois, Comte d’Eu, who disregarded the instructions of the king of Hungary. “Nous perdons hui la journée”, said the latter to the Grand Master of Rhodes, “par l’orgueil et bobant (vanity) de ces François; et s’ils m’eussent cru, nous avions gens assez pour combattre nos ennemies.”