The general character of the operations of the Sackman has been sufficiently described. From the foot of the Kahlenberg, from Heiligenstadt and Döbling to the shore of the Leitha, his presence was proclaimed by the smoke of burning villages, and his march was tracked by wasted fields and vineyards. In the first days of the investment of Vienna the vineyards of Heiligenstadt had been destroyed by the Bosnian light troops; and on the day of the last assault its failure was avenged by the indiscriminate massacre of the inhabitants. At Döbling the pastor, Peter Heindl, was flung on a burning pile of the registers and archives of the district. Hütteldorf, St. Veit, Brunn, and Enzersdorf were burnt. In Perchtoldsdorf the inhabitants indeed held out in the castle, but every thing beyond its walls was destroyed. From the fortress of Lichtenstein the eldest son of its possessor of that day was dragged into slavery. In Closter-Neuburg the upper town and the ecclesiastical buildings held out, but the lower was destroyed. Baden shared its fate. The destroyers penetrated even into Upper Austria, and thence into Styria, where, however, they on several occasions met with their match, for the people rose upon their scattered bands, and burned alive those whom they overpowered. A detachment also crossed the Danube in thirty vessels, and made an incursion on the left bank. After having set fire to the village and castle of Schmida, they were surprised and in great part destroyed by a body of 200 cavalry under Count Hardegg. A number of fugitives were pursued to the shore, and perished in an over-crowded vessel, which went to the bottom. Another body, which, disturbed in its occupation of plunder, had taken refuge in a tower near Korneuburg, were surrounded and cut to pieces by the land-bailiff George von Leuchtenberg, and the Bavarian colonel of cavalry Wolfgang von Weichs. In spite of these isolated acts of vengeance and resistance, upwards of 20,000 Christians were slaughtered or dragged into slavery; and but few of the latter, most of them young persons of either sex and priests, ever returned. It is a remarkable fact, proved from all the original accounts, that the Turks preferred making slaves of the clergy to the putting them to death; possibly, for the pleasure of tormenting them at leisure. According to a contemporary narrative, upwards of 14,000 of the Akindschis perished in these desultory conflicts. Taking their whole force at the number, usually admitted, of 40,000, the proportion is not improbable. FOOTNOTES: [9] This specimen of favouritism, won, not by mean arts, but by soldierlike and simple bearing, does honour to both parties. No one in these days would, like the Chronicler, give credit to the tale of slow poison with which his credulity impairs the merit justly due to the Turk. Even were it more consistent than it is with the character of Soliman or his minister, it is obviously irreconcilable with the other facts recorded.—E.