Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/170

 158 CHKONICLE OF THE SAGA XII. land with all his fleet at Engilsness.* Here he lay still for a fortnight, although every day it blew a breeze for going before the wind to the north ; but Sigurd would wait a side wind, so that the sails might stretch fore and aft in the ship: for in all his sails there was silk joined in, before and behind in the sail, and neither those before nor those behind the ships could see the slightest appearance of this, if the vessel was before the wind ; so they would rather wait a side wind. Chavter When King Sigurd sailed into Constantinople, he King Si- steered near the land. Over all the land there are ^cdfdorto ^^^'gl^s? castles, country towns, the one upon the Constan- othcr without iutcrval. There from the land one "'°^ ^' could see into the bights of the sails ; and the sails stood so close beside each other, that they seemed to form one enclosure. All the people turned out to see King Sigurd sailing past. The Emperor Alexius had also heard of King Sigurd's expedition, and ordered the city port of Constantinople to be opened, which is called the Gold Tower, through Avhich the emperor rides when he has been long absent from Constanti- nople, or has made a campaign in which he has been victorious. The emperor had precious cloths spread out from the Gold Tower to Loktiar, which is the name of the emperor's most splendid hall. King Sigurd ordered his men to ride in great state into the city, and not to regard all the new things they might see ; and this they did. The emperor sent singers and stringed instruments to meet them; and with this great splendour King Sigurd and his followers were received into Constantinople. It is told that King Sigurd had his horse shod with golden shoes before he rode into the city, and managed so that one of the iEgisnes in the Orkeyinga Saga, within the Dardanelles ; not Cape Saint Angelo in the Morea.
 * Engilsness, — supposed to be the ness at the river iEgos, called