capital.

On April 6th Sultan Mahomet II encamped on the slope of the hill facing
the quarter of Blachern, a little beyond the ground occupied by the
crusaders in 1203, and immediately ordered the construction of lines
extending from the head of the port to the shore of the Propontis. These
lines were formed of a mound of earth, and they served both to restrain
the sorties of the besieged and to cover the troops from the fire of
the enemy's artillery and missiles. The batteries were then formed; the
principal were erected against the gate of Charsias, in the quarter of
Blachern, and against the gate of St. Romanus, near the centre of the
city wall. It was against this last gate that the fire of the monster gun
was directed and the chief attack was made.

The land forces of the Turks probably amounted to about seventy thousand
men of all arms and qualities; but the real strength of the army lay in
the corps of janizaries, then the best infantry in Europe, and their
number did not exceed twelve thousand. At the same time, twenty thousand
cavalry, mounted on the finest horses of the Turkoman breed, and hardened
by long service, were ready to fight either on horseback or on foot,
under the eye of their young Sultan. The fleet which had been collected
along the Asiatic coast, from the ports of the Black Sea to those of
the Aegean, brought additional supplies of men, provisions, and military
stores. It consisted of three hundred twenty vessels of various sizes
and forms. The greater part were only half-decked coasters, and even the
largest were far inferior in size to the galleys and galeases of the
Greeks and Italians.

The fortifications of Constantinople toward the land side vary so little
from a straight line that they afford great facilities for attack. The