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 380 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE poverty, ignominy, dishonour, and shameful slavery. The lamentations of Ducas are as sincere as those of Jeremiah. Its inhabitants gone; its womanhood destined to dishonourable servitude ; its nobles massacred ; the very babes at the breast butchered ; the temples of God denied : all present a spectacle on which he enlarges with the expression of a hope that the anger of God will be appeased and that His people will yet find favour. Unhappily, the Greek race had entered upon the darkness of the blackest night, and nearly four centuries had to pass before the dawn of their new day was at hand. Mahomet's At a later date Mahomet himself recognised that it was t^repeopie necessary to do something towards the repeopling of Constan- ts capital. jji n0 pi e> jj e g ave orders that five thousand families should be sent from the provinces to the capital, and commanded the repair of the walls. 1 It does not appear, however, that they were repaired in an efficient manner. It is generally easy to distinguish between Turkish repairs and those effected at an earlier date. Critobulus states that Mahomet ordered the renewal of those parts which had been overthrown by the cannon and of both the sea and the landward walls, which had suffered by time and weather. 2 The sea walls were probably thoroughly repaired; of those on the land- ward side probably only the Inner "Wall. Experience had shown that more than one strong wall was a disadvantage rather than otherwise. Ducas states that the five thousand families sent to Constantinople by Mahomet from Trebizond, Sinope, and Asprocastron under pain of death included masons and lime-burners for repairing the walls. 3 1 Ducas, 142. 2 Crit. bk. ii. ch. i. 3 Von Hammer states that the walls were completely repaired in 1477, but gives no authority (Histoire de Vempire ottoman, iii. 209). A valuable hint is obtained from Knolles, who, writing his history of the Turks in 1610, says that ' the two utter walls with the whole space between them are now but slenderly maintained by the Turks, lying full of earth and other rubbish' (Knolles's History, p. 341, 3rd ed. 1621). The lowest of the three walls has almost entirely disappeared except as to the lower portion, which forms one of the sides of the foss. In the Lycus valley, and even throughout the whole length of the landward walls, I think it is manifest to an observer that only the Inner Wall has been repaired.