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 272 DESTRUCTION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE his fleet at the Double Columns and his fortresses at Boumelia-Hissar, the only means of communication between the main body of his troops encamped before the walls and those under Zagan was the distant and dangerous ford over the upper portion of the Golden Horn at Kiat-Hana, then called Cydaris. Once Mahomet obtained possession of the harbour he could without interruption build a bridge over the upper end of the Golden Horn by which communi- cations between the two divisions of his army would be greatly facilitated. To accomplish these three objects Mahomet judged that his wisest course was to let the Genoese severely alone and to attempt to obtain possession of the harbour by a method which should not force the neutrals to become open enemies. He resolved to accomplish the difficult feat of transporting a fleet overland from the Bosporus to the Horn. This feat may have been suggested to him by a Venetian who, four- teen years earlier, had seen one of a similar kind performed, in which his fellow citizens had transported a number of ships from the Adige to Lake Garda. 1 The sultan's entire command of the country behind Galata would enable him to make his preparations possibly without even the knowledge of the Genoese. The ridge of hills now occupied by Pera was covered partly with vineyards and partly with bushes. The western slope, from the ridge along which runs the Grande Kue de Pera, down to the ' Valley of the Springs,' now known as Cassim Pasha, was used as a Genoese graveyard, and is still covered by the cypress trees that mark the Turkish cemetery which took its place. There existed a path from a place on the Bosporus near the present Tophana to The Springs at right angles to the road on the ridge of Pera Hill, the two roads forming a 1 Leonard, and Sauli's Colonia dei Oenovesi in Galata, p. 158. Other similar instances are cited by contemporaries, but it is not necessary to suppose that Mahomet had ever heard either of the fable of Caesar's attack upon Antony and Cleopatra or of a like feat performed by Xerxes. The Avars had made a crossing similar to that contemplated by Mahomet. The transport of the imperial fleet into Lake Ascanius in order to take possession of Nicaea in 1097 might possibly have been known to him.