um, and
to observe how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile
attack, while it was accessible on every side to the benefits of
commercial intercourse.

Many ages before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of
antiquity had described the advantages of a situation, from whence a
feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the sea and the honors of
a flourishing and independent republic.[50]

The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the
Bosporus, obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the
"Golden Horn." The curve which it describes might be compared to the
horn of a stag, or as it should seem, with more propriety, to that of an
ox. The epithet of _golden_ was expressive of the riches which every
wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and
capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus, formed by the conflux
of two little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh
water, which serves to cleanse the bottom and to invite the periodical
shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the
vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant
depth of the harbor allows goods to be landed on the quays without the
assistance of boats; and it has been observed that in many places the
largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their
sterns are floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that
of the harbor, this arm of the Bosporus is more than seven miles in
length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong
chain could be occasionally thrown across it, to guard the port and city
from the attack of a hostile navy.

The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the
form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the
winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth, of those
celebrated straits. But the narrowest part of the channel is found to
the northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus
and Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage
of the flood for the possession of his mistress.[51] It was here
likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite banks
cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous
bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into Europe a hundred
and seventy myriads of barbarians. A sea contra