June xvii.
Our next stage, which was three Hungarian miles, brought us from Igmand to Rab, thro a level country, and well cultivated. Half an hour before we enter the town, his Excellency is met by a troop of Hussars well mounted, and each man carrying a small flag in his hand. Rab, which is the proper government of the Prince of Baden, is pleasantly seated at the confluence of the rivers Rab and Rabnitz, which unite near the walls of the castle, and then in one stream immediately fall into the Danube. The castle is large, and well fortified with seven bastions, four cavaliers, and proportionable outworks. It contains within an ample space of ground, possessed with houses, and divided into streets, which make the best part of the city, the rest being more scattered and diffused on both sides of the Rabnitz. It is now about a century, since this place was taken from the Turks by a stratagem of Count Schaurtzenburg, who applying a petard to one of the gates in the night, at one stroke blew open the great iron door, which flew many paces within the town, and is now kept as a memorial of the fact in the cathedral church. The Turks marched in the sight of this garrison to the siege of Vienna, and received several shot from thence; and at their return, had the Imperialists of this place known their defeat, they might have intercepted their passage, by cutting down the bridges of the Rab.