Chap. II Of the Sixth Ward, and the Remaining Ancient Buildings of the Second Hill
It had been very difficult to have discover’d, either from the Situation of the Forum of Constantine, or the Pillar of Constantine still standing at Constantinople, or the Description of the Wards (although it takes Notice of the Pillar of Constantine, and tells us, that the sixth Ward enters upon a short Plain, and that ’tis afterwards lengthen’d by a long Descent) whether the sixth Ward had been on the North or the South Side of the City, unless the Author had added, that it reach’d from the Forum of Constantine down to Stairs from whence you sail over the Sycæne Ferry. It was originally call’d the Sycæne Ferry from Syca, but is now call’d Galata, or Pera, as will appear more fully, when I come to speak of it in the thirteenth Ward. That the fifth and sixth Wards join’d together, I observ’d before from the Vicinity of the Dock, the Stairs of Chalcedon, the Sycæne Stairs, and the Bosphorian Port to each other. Having therefore discover’d the Situation of Syca, I take it for granted, that the Dock stood near a Plain on the Sea Shore, which was below the Foot of the second Hill, and that the Ferry Place from whence you passed over to Syca, is the same with that from whence you sail at present to Galata, and that the Porphyry Pillar now standing, is the same with that mention’d by the Author of the Description, &c. and placed by him in the sixth Ward; though he takes no Notice in his Description of the sixth Ward, where he places the Senate-House, how near it stood to the Forum or Pillar of Constantine. But I shall make it plain to the Reader from other Historians, in what follows, that the Senate-House stood on the North Side of the Forum of Constantine, and that this Ward stood partly on the Ridge of the second Hill, where the Porphyry Pillar is now standing, as is also the Poultry Market, which the Turks call Taubasor, or Taouck Baser, the Dyers Shops, the House of Ænobarbus, a Turkish Admiral, and the Mosque of Hali-Bassa. Part of it spreads itself also over the right Side of the second Valley, and part of it covers a Plain near the Sea, below the Valley, and the Foot of the second Hill, which is much inhabited by the Jews.