Note 793 — Chapter XV · THE WALLS ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN—continued.

Gyllius, De Top. CP., iii. c. i.; cf. Paspates, pp. 166, 167. The ground on which Yeni Validè Djamissi stands, near the Stamboul end of the Outer Bridge, belonged, as late as the seventeenth century, to Karaïte Jews, who claimed that the territory had been granted to their ancestors under the Byzantine Empire. In return for the seizure of the ground to build the mosque (1615-1655), the community received houses at Haskeui, and forty members of the community were exempted from taxation for life. As the site of the synagogue could not be sold, the mosque has had to pay the community an annual rent of thirty-two piastres.