f, and so environed with mountains that
it had been impregnable in all these wars.

It must be confessed that the historians and the map-makers did not
always attach the importance that Smith did to the battles in which he
was conspicuous, and we do not find the Land of Zarkam or the city of
Regall in the contemporary chronicles or atlases. But the region is
sufficiently identified. On the River Maruch, or Morusus, was the town
of Alba Julia, or Weisenberg, the residence of the vaivode or Prince
of Transylvania. South of this capital was the town Millenberg, and
southwest of this was a very strong fortress, commanding a narrow pass
leading into Transylvania out of Hungary, probably where the River
Maruct: broke through the mountains. We infer that it was this pass
that the earl captured by a stratagem, and carrying his army through it,
began the siege of Regall in the plain. "The earth no sooner put on her
green habit," says our knight-errant, "than the earl overspread her with
his troops." Regall occupied a strong fortress on a promontory and the
Christians encamped on the plain before it.

In the conduct of this campaign, we pass at once into the age of
chivalry, about which Smith had read so much. We cannot but recognize
that this is his opportunity. His idle boyhood had been soaked in old
romances, and he had set out in his youth to do what equally dreamy but
less venturesome devourers of old chronicles were content to read
about. Everything arranged itself as Smith would have had it. When
the Christian army arrived, the Turks sallied out and gave it a lively
welcome, which cost each side about fifteen hundred men. Meldritch had
but eight thousand soldiers, but he was re-enforced by the arrival of
nine thousand more, with six-and-twenty pieces of ordnance, under Lord
Zachel Moyses, the general of the army, who took command of the whole.

After the first skirmish the Turks remained within their fortress, the
guns of which commanded the plain, and the Christians spent a month in
intrenching themselves and mounting their guns.

The Turks, who taught Europe the art of civilized war, behaved all this
time in a courtly and chivalric manner, exchanging with the besiegers
wordy compliments until such time as the latter were ready to begin. The
Turks derided the slow progress of the works, inquired if their ordnance
was in pawn, twitted them with growing fat for want of exercise, and
expressed the fear that the Christians