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443 APPENDIX III NOTE ON TKANSPOET OF MAHOMET'S SHIPS WHAT WAS THE KOUTE ADOPTED? In commenting on the story of the transport of Mahomet's ships overland from the Bosporus into Cassim Pasha bay, Gibbon says ' I could wish to contract the distance of ten miles and to prolong the term of one night.' 1 I have sufficiently remarked in the text upon the time occupied in the transit. The distances given by the various authors who describe the incident are confusing, but ten miles is beyond a doubt wrong. In order to learn what the distance was, it is necessary to determine what was the route adopted by Mahomet. Two routes have been suggested : the first is from Dolma Bagshe, across the ridge where the Taxim Public Gardens now exist and down the valley leading to Cassim Pasha; the second, from Tophana along the valley which the Eue Koumbaraji now occupies, across the Grande Eue, and down the valley commencing at the street between the Pera Palace Hotel and the Club to Cassim Pasha. It is convenient to speak of these routes as those of Dolma Bagshe and Tophana respectively. No writer who saw the transport of the ships has described the route. We may gather evidence, however, on several points which will aid us to determine it. The evidence as to the distance traversed is the following. The archbishop speaks of it as being seventy stadia. I should agree with Karl Miiller, the editor of Critobulus, that the seventy stadia of Leonard is a clerical error, the figure being intended to -apply to the number of ships, but for the fact that a little later Leonard speaks of the bridge built over the upper Horn as thirty stadia long and gives the distance of the Turkish fleet from the Propontis to its anchorage at the Double Columns as a hundred stadia. As both these distances are about nine or ten times too long, it is evident that by ' stadium ' he-means some other measure 1 Vol. vii. p. 184.