In taking a kingdom from you it is an arm of yours that we have cut off, while you, in beating our fleet, have merely shaved our beard.” Nor was this a piece of rodomontade. The winter after Lepanto, 1571-2, one hundred and fifty-eight galleys of different sizes were laid down in the Arsenal. And when that famous Prince of the Sea Kîlîj Ali Pasha expressed a doubt as to whether he could find the rigging and anchors he needed, the Grand Vizier said to him: “Lord Admiral, the wealth and power of the empire are such that if it were necessary we would make anchors of silver, cables of silk, and sails of satin.” A few relics of this fallen greatness are to be seen in the museum of the Arsenal, some distance up the Horn from the Admiralty proper. Some wonderful figureheads of galleys are there, flags and pennants of different sorts, a chart of the time of the Conqueror painted on parchment, a few interesting models, and one or two of the big ship lanterns that were the sign of the dignity of an admiral, corresponding to the horsetails of the _vezirs_. A pasha of three lanterns, however, was a much more important personage than a pasha of three tails. Most picturesque of all are a number of great gilded caïques, with swooping bows and high sterns, in which the sultans used to go abroad. The largest of them is said to have been a Venetian galley. It has twenty-two rowlocks on either side, and each oar was rowed by three or four men. As a matter of fact, the long horizontal overhang of the bow does look rather like some of the models in the Arsenal at Venice, while two lions guard the stern. But the lions have no wings, they were always a favourite ornament of Turkish as of Byzantine galleys, and the lines of the hull are precisely those of any caïque. As to the imperial cabin at the stern there is no doubt. It is a triple cupola rather, supported by columns, and all inlaid with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl and lumps of garnet glass. Reclining under this wonderful canopy Sultan Mehmed IV used to go about the Bosphorus, while over a hundred men in front of him rose and fell with their oars. What a splash they must have made!