In the interior even of the city, at the entrance of the Ballplatz, and near the hotel then occupied by the Spanish ambassador (now the Chancery), were bulwarks, strengthened with beams, and fenced by ditches; and orders were issued to break away the iron gratings of the windows, in order, if necessary, to apply these also to the defence of the streets. In every cellar of the neighbouring houses were placed vessels of water, and drums with pease strewn on their parchment, to give warning, by their vibratory motion, of the approach of the Turkish miners. The subterranean warfare was carried on with much effect by the Austrian counterminers, who frequently succeeded in burying or suffocating the Turkish labourers, and carried off many hundredweights of powder from their chambers. The tenacity of the Turks in prosecuting this mode of attack is shown by the loss they experienced: 16,000 of their miners perished during the siege. On one occasion a fourier or quartermaster of the Beck regiment having detected the end of a mine, sprung like Curtius into the abyss, and encountering five Turks, killed three, and drove the other two to flight. The neighbourhood of the Burg bastion was the scene of the principal of these exploits, and under that fortification occurred also the discovery, more interesting to antiquarians than soldiers, of an ancient stair of sixty-six steps. As the excavations in this quarter soon descended into water, the operations of the enemy were the less to be dreaded, and the vigilance of the besieged was relaxed, but the cellars near the Burg were nevertheless still garrisoned by night, and it was thought necessary to extend this precaution shortly to other parts of the city. The armed force of the city, both regular and irregular, was now so reduced in numbers by repeated assaults and sallies, that the remnant began to pine for the long promised relief. The Burg ravelin being now in the hands of the enemy, the Burg itself, as well as the Löbel bastion, were hourly threatened with the same fate, the more so that the curtain which connected them was so ruined as scarcely to afford a shelter to the troops which manned it. Almost every house in the city was thronged with invalids; and while the energies of the besieged sunk under such pressure, it was to be expected that the courage and hopes of the assailants would rise in proportion. This was not, however, the case. While through the livelong night whole clusters of rockets were discharged together at frequent intervals as signals of increasing distress and danger, and as invocations for succour, there was trouble also in the camp. On the 24th August a mutinous spirit had displayed itself among the Janissaries. The term of 40 days, to which, for love of the Sultan and the Vizier, they had added three, was expired, and they demanded to be released from further duty in the trenches. The exhortations and prophecies of the Vani Effendi, a popular preacher, had persuaded them