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FROM CORFU TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 311 ence of the most civilized nation in Europe could do towards making the triple walls strong had been done. Nor were these fortiiications untried. Again and again in the history of the city they had proved stronger than the power of any invader. Not to speak of less important sieges, it may possibly have been known to some of those who now sat down before these walls that the great horde of Arab invaders which had been checked in its hitherto irresistible progress had been encamped on almost precisely the same spot which Boniface and Baldwin now occupied. The site is among the most interesting in the world. Occupied, within a half century, by two invading hosts of Arabs which had spent their strength before the vir- gin city, and wdiicli had been as completely defeated by the Romans as were the Moors^who had crossed the Pyrenees by Charles Martel, it was destined to be the place from which the city was to be destroyed by "Western Europeans. Two centu- ries and a half later it was to witness a greater triumph over the city — a victory which was to inflict upon the Balkan peninsula four centuries and a half of barbarism. The army of Mahomet, the second of the Ottoman house, was encamped on the same corner, and effected its entrance at a point very little outside the grounds which were enclosed within the pal- ace walls of the Blachern. On a portion of this historical site the mosque of Job, or Eyoub, now marks the supposed burying-place of the great leader of the chief Arab attempt upon the city. The mosque is regarded with more sanctity than any other now in the city. No unbeliever is allowed to enter it. Within it is kept the sacred banner of the prophet, and no sultan is considered invested until he has been cfirt with the sword of Osman, which is treasured within its sacred walls. As soon as the crusading army had taken up its position at Gyrolemna, the Greeks within the city sought to harass them. Their efforts, however, were feeble. Several sorties were made under the command of Theodore Lascaris, son-in- law of the Emperor.* The Crusaders enclosed their camp with ^ The sorties were made most commonly from a gate above the palace of Blacliern, probably, therefore, from the very same gate which in 1453 was the first to full into the hands of the Ottoman Turks.