In favour of the Top Haneh route, there is, first, the fact that it was the shortest route; and secondly, that its length corresponds to that which Critobulus[873] assigns to the road taken by the ships across the hills, viz. eight stadia, or one mile. Accordingly, Dr. Dethier[874] and Dr. Paspates[875] maintain that the Sultan’s ships were transported from the Bosporus to the Golden Horn by way of Top Haneh, Koumbaradji Sokaki, Asmali-Medjid Sokaki, and the Petits Champs. On the other hand, the Dolma Bagtchè route has in its favour, first, the statement made by several historians, including Critobulus himself, that the point on the Bosporus from which the ships started to cross the hills was near the Diplokionion, the name for Beshiktash in Byzantine times. Ducas[876] describes that point as situated to the east of Galata, below the Diplokionion. Pusculus[877] speaks of it as not far from the twin columns: “Columnis haud longè a geminis, surgunt quæ ad sidera rectæ.” Nicolò Barbaro[878] is, if possible, even more explicit. According to him, the levelling of the road across the hill above Pera commenced from the shore where the columns, and the station of the Turkish fleet, were found: “_Siando tuta la sua armada sorta a le colone_, che sun mia de luntan de la tera, fexe che tute le zurme muntasse in tera, e fexe spianar tuto el monte che son de sopra a zitade de Pera, _comenzando da la marina, zae da li da le colone dove che era armada_.” Critobulus,[879] as already intimated, styles the starting-point of the expedition the Diplokionion. Now, the Diplokionion was not at Top Haneh, but at Beshiktash, and the harbour of the Diplokionion must have been the bay which formerly occupied the site of Dolma Bagtchè.[880] In the second place, in the Dolma Bagtchè route we have the distance which Nicolò Barbaro[881] declares was traversed by the Turkish ships in their overland passage, _i.e._ three miles: “Comenzando de la marina, zae da li da le colone dove che era armada, per infino dentro dal porte de Constantinopoli, _che son mia tre_.” Great weight attaches to the testimony of Barbaro upon this point; for Critobulus was not present at the siege, while Nicolò Barbaro was surgeon of one of the Venetian galleys which took part in the defence of the chain across the entrance to the Golden Horn, kept a diary of the incidents of the siege, must have taken particular interest in the movements of the Turkish fleet, and was in the way of obtaining the best available information on the subject. Certainly, if the transport of the Turkish ships started from a point so near the chain and the Greek and foreign ships guarding it as the site of Top Haneh, Barbaro had every opportunity to know the fact, and it is inexplicable how he could have made the mistake of representing another locality as the scene of the achievement.