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CHAP. IV.] ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

one hundred thousand strong.” But the ropequickly rewarded the villain’s scheme . 1

Three thousand seven hundred (some of them theheaviest of all cannon) have battered their walls forseveral days, to say nothing of the roaring of aninfinity of mortars and lighter artillery, which playday and night round the entire city; that shower ofbombs fall into it at all hours, exploding, burning,demolishing houses, towers, palaces, entire streets,without exciting the least sign of wish to sur-render . 2

Yet as to the siege itself, which Beccatini says,lasted ninety-nine days, with the death of aboveforty thousand Turks ; 3 but the official documenthas a little less, with strict exactitude. I knowthat others have got up a particularised account,reposing on the memory of eye-witnesses. Still Iown I am a little afraid of recounting what I havenot documentary proof of; nor is there any urgentreason for risking a tedious enumeration of storm-ings and repulses, in face of the declaration of theauthor of a diary, who might be of weight did henot deprive himself of it by his acknowledging

1 Mestro George, lie was called by Mary Dupuis, 601.

2 Bosio : par. ii., lib. xii. If exaggeration, not mine; I givemy authority.

3 Storia Ragionata dei Turcbi, lib. ii., cap. ii.

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