into three or four hundred thousand. An incredulous Greek,[1] indeed, has stated that in his belief all the Turkish forces, horse and foot, could not have exceeded eighty thousand, and he describes them as a mere pitiful handful of barbarians. Finlay, we observe, accepts this estimate. It may not be easy to see how Mahomet could possibly have provided for the needs of a much larger army, but we must remember that he was utterly reckless of human life so long as he could attain his ends, and we rather incline to think it possible that he may have entered on the siege with at least a hundred thousand men. He had a numerous, though not by any means a formidable, fleet. It was, in fact, for the most part simply made up of transport vessels and half-decked coasters, which, as the events proved, were no match for Genoese and Venetian galleons. At first he had, it is said, thirty triremes or regular warships and a hundred and thirty other vessels; but by the fifteenth of April, a few days, that is, after the commencement of the siege, his fleet had been largely reinforced, and numbered in all four hundred and twenty vessels of various description. The city was now closely beleaguered both by land and sea. The enemy's entrenched lines extended from the Sea of Marmora to the Golden Horn, while the suburb of Pera or Galata was threatened by another army. Here were congregated the Genoese, who were not only reluctant to spend their blood and their treasure in defence of the city, but who could not even be thoroughly trusted. Far the best of the sultan's troops for such a work as he had in hand were the janissaries. These
- ↑ Philelphus, quoted by Gibbon
