them considerable damage. The numbers of knights and citizens in Rhodes began to diminish fast. They were in want of powder; the grand master caused some to be made, and hopes were entertained that this feeble succour would enable them to hold out for a long time against the Mahometan emperor. Up to this time, the war had only been carried on by artillery; and although that of the Turks, in the multitude of fiery mouths and abundance of powder, was very superior, they were not yet masters of an inch of ground in the bastions or advanced works of the place. The retirades and intrenchments dug by the knights, supplied the places of the battered-down walls. These new works could only be taken by assault; and to mount to it, it was necessary to attempt the descent of the ditch, or to fill it up. Soliman having an immense number of pioneers in his army, formed several detachments of them, with orders to throw earth and stones into the ditch. But the knights, by means of casemates, removed, by night, all the rubbish the Turks had brought during the day. Other Turkish pioneers were employed in digging mines in five different places, each one of which led to the bastion opposite to it. Some of these were detected by the vigilance of the famous De Martinengere, to whom is due the invaluable invention of discovering, by means of stretched skins, where mining is being carried on. The Turks had worked with so much address, that the different branches of these mines went from one to another, and all, to produce the greater effect, ended at the same place. Two of these mines sprang, one after the other, under the English bastion. Their explosion was so violent, that they threw down more than six toises of the wall, the ruins of which filled up the ditch. The breach was so large and so easy, that several battalions flew to the assault, with loud cries, sabre in hand. They at once gained the top of the bastion, and planted seven flags, and would have rendered themselves masters of it, if they had not met with a traverse behind it, which stopped them. The knights, recovered from the astonishment caused by the fearful noise of the exploded mine, rushed to the bastion, and charged the Turks with muskets, grenades, and stones.