As from a laborious and very dangerous sea into a safe and very quiet port, one enters the city of Constantinople, after the great trouble and inconvenience of the ride which he has endured over the long road.[713] This city (to continue until I have here made an end of particular description) was anciently called Byzantium, and afterwards was called New Rome, and then Constantinople from the first Constantine. Byzantium, as it is reported, was in the region where Pera is now, and was so named from the river Byzantium, which afterward, by reason of an earthquake such as are frequent in that region, changed its course elsewhere. But I do not believe this, nor does it seem to me to agree with the description of Polybius and other writers, who call those here Chalcedonians; these, when they might themselves in ancient times have built upon this site, did not care for it, but built in Asia, not having discerned the convenience and beauty they were leaving to others; who might deprive them even of their own site, as indeed happened. The city is 18 miles in circuit. It has seven little hills, not very high. It is surrounded by wretched walls, and is full of houses, not many of which are good, being made of clay and wood and only a few of stone. It is full of groves, that is, of places wild and uninhabited, where cypresses grow, and other such trees.[714] In Constantinople, then, is the palace of the Turkish Signor, which is a singular structure and very large, as will be told later. There is the palace of the ladies of the Signor, the palace of the Janissaries, the Patriarcate, the palace of the Emperor Constantine, which is in part ruined, the church of St. Sophia, which is a structure most beautiful and divine; this was built by the Emperor Justinian from the oldest and finest columns and marbles, as one can see now; in part of it the Turkish Signor has made stalls for his horses. There is the mosque of Sultan Mohammed, which has an _Imaret_ attached to it that is like a hostel; in which they lodge any one, of any nation or law, who may wish to enter, and they give him food for three days,—honey, rice, meat, bread, and water, and a room in which to sleep. They say that from day to day there are more than a thousand guests from various nations. Near this they have baths and some fountains, most beautiful and delightful to behold. There are the mosques of Sultan Bayezid, Sultan Selim, and other Signors, which are very beautiful and exceedingly well-built. This makes it clear that, when they wish, they know also how to build houses and palaces that are magnificent and sumptuous.