ields engaged in
harvesting. Suleiman then hastened to send to Asia all the ships which
he found in the port, to transport soldiers to Tzympe; and three days
after, the fortress contained a garrison of three thousand Ottomans.

In the mean while Cantacuzenus, unable to resist any longer the forces
assembled against him by his young rival, John Palaeologus, asked the
assistance of Orkhan. Orkhan sent him the conqueror of Tzympe, an
auxiliary whose support later became more troublesome to the Emperor
than it was useful against his enemy. Ten thousand Turkish cavaliers
disembarked near Ainos, at the _embouchure_ of Maritza (Hebrus),
defeated the auxiliary troops which John Palaeologus had drawn from
Moesia and from the Triballiens, ravaged Bulgaria, and repassed into
Asia, loaded with spoil.

Cantacuzenus, more at his ease after the departure of the conquering
horde, negotiated with Suleiman the ransom of Tzympe. Scarcely had he
sent the ten thousand ducats agreed upon, when a commissary of the
Ottoman Prince arrived bringing him the keys; but at the same time a
terrific earthquake devastated the towns on the Thracian coasts. The
inhabitants who did not find death in the destruction of their dwellings
went with the garrisons to seek refuge against the destroying scourge
and the barbarity of the Turks in the towns and the castles which the
catastrophe had spared. But torrents of rain, snow, and a glacial
temperature killed the women and the children on the road. As to the
men, they fell into the power of Orkhan's soldiers, who were awaiting
their passage. Thus the Ottomans found a powerful auxiliary in the
warring elements. From that time they believed that God himself favored
their projects. Adjebeg and Ghazi-Fazil, whom Suleiman had left in front
of Gallipoli, penetrated into that town by the large breaches that the
earthquake had made in the walls, and took possession of it, owing to
the confusion which reigned among the inhabitants.

Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, the commercial _entrepot_ of the
Black Sea and of the Mediterranean, is celebrated in history by the
siege that it sustained against Philip of Macedon, and by the revolt of
the Catalans or Mogabars who, half a century before the disaster, braved
with impunity the power of the Greek Emperor and made it the centre of
their piracies. The tombs of the two Ottoman chiefs are still seen
to-day. These two mausoleums are much visited by Mussulman pilgrims, an