k the high road. The country through which we
passed was beautifully undulated; hill and dale following each other in
regular succession, and in a far different state of order and cultivation
to the neglected plains of Bohemia. We were now in Austria proper, and
everything spoke of prosperity and comfort. Neat, populous villages,
hung upon every hill-side--the southern side invariably--and there were
no shortcomings in the accommodation for man or horse. But our finances
were in a miserable plight; and our sustenance during the two and a half
days occupied in tramping the more than eighty miles between Brunn and
Vienna, consisted for the most part of fruit, bread, and water. We
crossed the Danube at a place called "Am Spitz," where there is an
interminable bridge across the broad flood, and entered Vienna almost
penniless.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE TURKS' CELLAR.

You enter the old town of Vienna from Leopoldstadt by the Ferdinand
Bridge; and, walking for a few minutes parallel with the river, come into
a hollow called the Tiefer Grund; passing next under a broad arch which
itself supports a street spanning the gulley, you find on the left hand a
rising ground which must be climbed in order to reach a certain open
space of a triangular form, walled in by lofty houses, called "Die
Freiung,"--the Deliverance. In it there is an old wine-house, the Turks'
Cellar, and there belongs to this spot one of the legends of Vienna.

In the autumn of the year sixteen hundred and twenty-seven, when the city
was so closely invested by the Turks, that the people were half famished,
there stood in the place now called "Freiung," or thereabouts, the
military bakery for that portion of the garrison which had its quarters
in the neighbourhood. The bakery had to supply not only the soldiers,
but bread was made in it to be doled out to destitute civilians by the
municipal authorities; and, as the number of the destitute was great, the
bakers there employed had little rest. Once in the dead of the night,
while some of the apprentices were getting their dough ready for the
early morning batch, they were alarmed by a hollow ghostly sound as of
spirits knocking in the earth. The blows were regular and quite
distinct, and without cessation until cockcrow. The next night these
awful sounds were again heard, and seemed to become louder and more
urgent as the day drew near; but, with the first scent of morning air,
they suddenly ceased