Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/251

 streams, pours into the harbour a perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of the tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant depth of the harbour allows goods to be landed on the quays without the assistance of boats; and it has been observed that, in many places, the largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while the sterns are floating on the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that of the harbour this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a chain could be occasionally drawn across it to guard the port and city from the attack of a hostile navy."

The Hellespont, in its winding course, is about sixty miles in length, with an average breadth of three miles; its lower end, where Xerxes is believed to have built his bridge of boats, is celebrated as the spot where Leander, in ancient times, is said to have swum across, and which has, in modern days, been certainly so crossed by Byron, Ekenhead, Colquhoun, and others. Altogether Constantinople would seem to have been formed by nature as an important entrepôt for commerce; and this was peculiarly the case in ancient times, as caravan routes placed it in communication, not merely with the cities of Mesopotamia, but also with those on the Indus and the Ganges, thus securing for it the trade with the Euxine