At sunrise of the 14th July the main force of the enemy showed itself on the heights of the Wienerberg. It was difficult for the most practised eye to distinguish particular objects from amidst the multitudinous crowd of men, horses, camels, and carriages. The mass extended itself from the Lauer wood to near the Hundsthurm, by Gumpendorf, Penzing, Ottakring, Hernals, Währing and Döbling, towards Nussdorf and the Danube, in a circuit of some 25,000 paces. The camp was marked out in the form of a half-moon. In a few hours 25,000 tents had risen from the ground. That of the Vizier was pitched on the high ground in the present suburb of St. Ulric, behind the walls of the houses which had been burned. It rivalled in beauty and splendour of decoration Soliman’s famous pavilion of 1529, being of green silk worked with gold and silver, and adorned within with pearls, precious stones, and carpets, and contained in a central sanctuary the sacred standard of the Prophet. Within its precincts were baths, fountains, and flower-gardens, and even a menagerie. In respect of its numerous alleys and compartments, it was likened to a town of canvas. The value of it with its contents was estimated at a million dollars. Under St. Ulric, towards the Burg gate, the Aga of the Janissaries had arrayed his forces: the precincts of St. Ulric itself were occupied by the Tartars under Kara Mehemed. The other Pachas were stationed opposite the Kärnthner and Stuben gates, and the city was threatened from five distinct quarters, though it was soon easy to perceive that the main attack would be directed against the Burg and the Löbelbastion. The first care of the Turks was to plunder and destroy the few buildings which had escaped destruction in the suburbs. The church of the Servites in the Rossau was the only edifice that escaped, and this exception was due to a singular incident. Its distance from the town had preserved it from the general conflagration. The Turks are said to have taken the Patriarchs depicted on the ceiling, with their long beards and Oriental costume, for followers of Mahomet, and under this misapprehension to have spared the church. Such is the solution of the fact to be found in all the accounts of the time, but it is probable that there was no misapprehension in the case. The Mussulman holds the Jewish Patriarchs in as much respect as does the Christian, and has even adopted their names, for Ibrahim is nothing but Abraham, Musa Moses, &c. &c. It is not therefore necessary to suppose that the Turks entertained the absurd notion imputed to them that a Christian temple could have been decorated with portraits of Mahometan saints. FOOTNOTES: [10] Sigbert Count von Heister, one of the best soldiers of his day. At the beginning of the siege his hat was shot through by a Turkish arrow. Arrow and hat are preserved in the Ambros collection at Vienna. CHAPTER IX. From the 9th to the 17th July.