THE DECLINE AND FALL

216

CHAP.

LXVIII.

peatedly practised by the ancients:' the Otto-man gallies (I must again repeat) should be con-sidered as large boats; and, if we compare themagnitude and the distance, the obstacles andthe means, the boasted miracle d has perhapsbeen equalled by the industry of our own times.'As soon as Mahomet had occupied the upperharbour with a fleet and army, lie constructed,in the narrowest part, a bridge, or rather mole, offiftycubits in breadth,and one hundred in length:it was formed of casks and hogsheads, joinedwith rafters linked with iron, and covered with asolid floor. On this floating battery he plantedone of his largest cannon, while the fourscoregallies, with troops and scaling-ladders, ap-proached the most accessible side, which hadformerly been stormed by the Latin conquerors.The indolence of the Christians has been accusedfor not destroying these unfinished works; buttheir fire, by a superior fire, was controlled andsilenced; nor were they wanting in a nocturnalattempt to burn the vessels as well as the bridgeof the sultan. Ilis vigilance prevented their ap-proach ; the foremost galliots were sunk or taken:forty youths, the bravest of Italy and Greece ,

* Phianza relates two examples of a similar transportation over thesix miles of the isthmus of Corinth; the oi.e fabulous, of Augustus after the battle of Actium ; the other true, of Nicetas, a Greek gene-ral in the tenth century. To these he might have added a bold enter-prise of Hannibal, to introduce his vessels into the harbour of Taren-tum (Polybius, 1. viii, p. 749, edit. Gronov.)

4 A Greek of Candia, who had served the Venetians in a similar un-dertaking (Spond. A. d. 1438, No. 37), might possibly be the adviserand agent of Mahomet

' I particularly allude to our own embarkations on the lakes of Ca-nada in the yeais 1776 and 1777, so great in the labour, so fruitless inthe event.