of peace and plenty, to their domestic virtues, and the chase of this animal in cellars and over roofs became not merely a pastime of the young and mischievous, but the occupation of serious and hungry men. The Viennese love for a jest is discernible in the appellation of _dachshase_, or roof hare, bestowed on this new object of the chase. The perilous condition of the city was announced to its yet distant friends by discharges of rockets through the nights of the 24th, 28th, and 30th. They were answered by fire-signals from the crest of the Bisamberg; but it was not from the left bank of the Danube that succour was to be expected, and no cheering sign yet broke the darkness in the direction of the Kahlenberg. The besieged looked forward with deep anxiety to the 29th August, the anniversary of the decapitation of St. John, one held peculiarly sacred and fortunate by the Turks. In Soliman’s reign it was the day of the fall of Rhodes, of Belgrade, of Pesth, and of that fight of Mohacs of which three centuries have not effaced the recollection. A general assault was reasonably to be expected on this awful anniversary; but it passed over with no other occurrence than the ordinary explosion of some mines, and a cannonade principally directed at St. Stephen’s. The scanty portion of the Burg ravelin yet held by the besieged had now become untenable. Its communication with the curtain behind was all but cut off, and a reluctant order was at length, on the 3rd September, issued to the officer in command to withdraw his men, which was as reluctantly obeyed, the artillery having been previously removed, and the palisades burnt. It had been actively assailed for twenty-nine days, had withstood fifteen main assaults and the explosion of ten powerful mines, and had been the grave of many thousands of the Turks. Its defence, which was closed in the last moment of withdrawal by the death of the officer in command of the day, a Captain Müller, has been considered by military writers as one of the finest on record. The Grand Vizier gave it a name which implied that the arts of hell and magic had been applied to its defence. During the French occupation of 1809, this outwork, worthy of being preserved as a monument, was blown up, and altogether levelled by order of Napoleon. The Turks took immediate advantage of their acquisition to plant on it two guns and two mortars, from which they opened a heavy fire on the main defences. The danger was now become most imminent, and called for the application of every resource, and the exertion of every faculty, to meet it. Every gate except the Stuben, still reserved as a sally-port, was barricaded afresh with masonry and timber; the chains were drawn across the streets, especially those which led to the Löbel; new batteries were erected; and internal defences so accumulated one behind the other, that, at every ten paces, there rose a breastwork thronged with men and bristling with palisades.