I allow, that they will swim very swiftly, as do the _Porpisces_; and that they will follow a Ship for several Leagues together: but then they Swim somewhat deep in the Water, sometimes are catch'd, though not often. The Seamen have reached them with a Fisgig, a kind of barbed Iron, at the End of a Pole tied fast to a Rope, and have made good Chear with them. But this is only my Conjecture, with which I end my Journal. _Deo Servatori Laus._ _Historical Observations relating to _Constantinople_. By the Reverend and Learned _Tho. Smith_, D. D. Fellow of _Magd. Coll. Oxon._ and of the _Royal Society_._ _Constantinople_, formerly _Byzantium_, was[1] by _Constantine_ the Great, called so after his own Name, who being mightily pleased with the beautiful and advantageous situation of the Place between two Seas, and defended by narrow Streights on both sides, removed the Seat of the Empire hither, and laid the foundation of its future Splendor and Greatness. It was also by a[2]special Edict or Law of the same Emperor, which he caused to be engraven on a Marble Pillar, placed near his own Statue on Horse-back, in one of the Piazza's of his new built City called _Strategium_, where the Soldiers used to Muster, as in the _Campus Martius_, called _second or new Rome_, in emulation of old _Rome_, which he designed and endeavoured this should equal in all things. Accordingly he endowed it with the same Priviledges and Immunities, and established the same number of Magistrates and Orders of People, and divided the whole extent of it into fourteen Precincts or[3]Regions, according to the division of _Rome_. And the _Greek_ Writers were as elegant and extravagant in their commendations of it; but the usual Title in their ordinary Discourses and Writings, when they had occasion to mention it without any flourish, was ἡ βασιλευούσα, ἡ βασιλίς, that is, the Imperial City, to the same sense with that of[4]_Sidonius Apollinaris_, _Salve sceptrorum columen, Regina orientis, Orbis Roma tui._