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therefore well supported that they used firearms on horseback, accurately fulfilling the prophecy
according to the illustration above.

In regard to the firearms used by the Islamic Turks in their campaign against Constantino-
ple, Edward B. Elliot writes --

It was to "the fire and the smoke and the sulphur," to the artillery and firearms of Ma-
homet, that the killing of the third part of men, i.e., the capture of Constantinople, and by
consequence the destruction of the Greek Empire, was owing. Eleven hundred years and
more had now elapsed since her foundation by Constantine [the Great]. In the course of
them, Goths, Huns, Avars, Persians, Bulgarians, Saracens, Russians, and indeed the Otto-
man Turks themselves, had made their hostile assaults, or laid siege against it. But the
fortifications were impregnable by them. Constantinople survived, and with it the Greek
Empire. Hence the anxiety of the sultan Mahomet to find that which would remove the
obstacle. "Canst thou cast a cannon," was his question to the founder of cannon that
deserted to him, "of size sufficient to batter down the wall of Constantinople?" Then the
foundry was established at Adrianople, the cannon cast, the artillery prepared, and the
siege began.

Continues Elliot --

It well deserves remark, how Gibbon, always the unconscious commentator on the
Apocalyptic prophecy, puts this new instrumentality of war into the foreground of his
picture, in his eloquent and striking narrative of the final catastrophe of the Greek Em-
pire. In preparation for it, he gives the history of the recent invention of gunpowder, "that
mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal;" tells, as before said, of the foundry of the
cannon at Adrianople; then, in the progress of the siege itself, describes how "the volleys
of lances and arrows were accompanied with smoke, the sound, and the fire of the mus-
ketry and cannon;" how "the long order of Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls,
fourteen batteries thundering at once on the most accessible places;" how "the fortifica-
tions which had stood for ages against hostile violence were dismantled on all sides by
the Ottoman cannon, many breaches opened, and near the gate of St. Romanus, four tow-
ers levelled with the ground:" how, "as from the lines, the galleys and the bridge, the Ot-
toman artillery thundered on all sides, the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were
involved in a cloud of smoke, which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or
destruction of the Roman empire:" and how the besiegers at length "rushing through the
breaches," "Constantinople was irretrievably subdued, her empire subverted, and her re-
ligion trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors."

I say it well deserves observation how markedly and strikingly Gibbon attributes the
capture of the city, and so the destruction of the empire, to the Ottoman artillery. For
what is it but a comment on the words of the prophecy? "By these three was the third part
of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the sulphur, which issued out their
mouths" (Horae Apocalypticae, pps. 478-479).

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