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264 DESTBUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE of the attack seem to have been concentrated on the capture of the imperial ship. Chalcondylas declares that she would have been taken had it not been for the help which the Genoese were able to give her ; and Leonard also says that she was protected by ' ours ' — that is, by the Genoese ships. Probably it was in consequence of the risk which the imperial ship had run of being captured that presently the whole four lashed themselves together, so that, in the words of Pusculus, they appeared to move like four towers. 1 Each of the four ships, however, remained during the protracted battle a centre of attack in which the triremes took the most important positions, grappling them and being themselves supported by the smaller boats. The fight was seen and every incident noted by the friends alike of attackers and attacked from the opposite sides of the Golden Horn. « We, watching from the walls what passed, raised our prayers to God that He would have mercy upon us.' 2 Flatanelas, the captain of the imperial ship, was observed on his deck fighting like a lion and urging his men to follow his example. It was followed both by his officers and by those on board the Genoese ships. Nothing whatever occurred to show that they lost courage for an instant. The attack on the ships was apparently no nearer success than when it began. The spectators on both sides had seen ships and fleet drifting towards the Galata shore, and the citizens were aware that Mahomet with his staff was watching the fierce struggle. This shore contains a wide strip of level ground which has been silted up during the last few centuries and is now built upon, but which, like the corresponding low-lying ground outside the walls of Coustantinople on the opposite side of the Golden Horn, either did not exist four centuries ago or was in part covered with shallow water. 3 Into the shallow water the 1 Pusculus, iv. 340. 2 Phrantzes. 3 Gyllius mentions this foreshore as existing in his time, gives its width, and vividly describes how it was utilised and increased by the inhabitants of Galata (book iv. ch. 10). In digging for the foundations of the British post office in Galata in 1895, on a site that is now upwards of a hundred yards from the water, remains of an old wooden jetty were discovered. Indeed, I think