assured me, it would furnish twelve thousand fighting men.  These towns look very odd; their houses stand in rows, many thousands of them so close together, that they appear, at a little distance, like old-fashioned thatched tents.  They consist, every one of them, of one hovel above, and another under ground; these are their summer and winter apartments.  Buda was first taken by Solyman the Magnificent, in 1526, and lost the following year to Ferdinand I, king of Bohemia.  Solyman regained it by the treachery of the garrison, and voluntarily gave it into the hands of king John of Hungary; after whose death, his son being an infant, Ferdinand laid siege to it, and the queen mother was forced to call Solyman to her aid.  He indeed raised the siege, but left a Turkish garrison in the town, and commanded her to remove her court from thence, which she was forced to submit to, in 1541.  It resisted afterwards the sieges laid to it by the marquis of Brandenburg, in the year 1542; count Schwartzenburg, in 1598; General Rosworm, in 1602; and the duke of Lorrain, commander of the emperor’s forces, in 1684, to whom it yielded, in 1686, after an obstinate defence, Apti Bassa, the governor, being killed, fighting in the breach with a Roman bravery.  The loss of this town was so important, and so much resented by the Turks, that it occasioned the deposing of their emperor Mahomet IV. the year following.

WE did not proceed on our journey till the twenty-third, when we passed through Adam and Todowar, both considerable towns, when in the hands of the Turks, but now quite ruined.  The remains, however, of some Turkish towns, shew something of what they have been.  This part of the country is very much overgrown with wood, and little frequented.  ’Tis incredible what vast numbers of wild-fowl we saw, which often live here to a good old age,—­and undisturb’d by guns, in quiet sleep.—­We came the five and twentieth, to Mohatch, and were shewed the field near it, where Lewis, the young king of Hungary lost his army and his life, being drowned in a ditch, trying to fly from Balybeus, general of Solyman the Magnificent.  This battle opened the first passage for the Turks into the heart of Hungary.—­I don’t name to you the little villages, of which I can say nothing remarkable; but I’ll assure you, I have always found a warm stove, and great plenty, particularly of wild boar, venison, and all kinds of gibier.  The few people that inhabit Hungary, live easily enough; they have no money, but the woods and plains afford them provision in great abundance; they were ordered to give us all things necessary, even what horses we pleased to demand, gratis; but Mr W——­y would not oppress the poor country people, by making use of this order, and always paid them to the full worth of what we had.  They were so surprised at this unexpected generosity, which they are very little used to, that they always pressed upon us, at parting, a dozen of fat pheasants,