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UAPODILISTA. FELIX FAßER 37 "With good weather we returned to the port called Salina: there we took the weaker pilgrims to a town hard by, the sounder of us went with our captain on hired horses to Nyehosia, which is the metropolis of Cyprus and the royal residence, six German miles from the sea. It is an ancient custom that the knights of the Holy Sepulchre present themselves to the king of Cyprus and make with him a kind of pact. He calls them his companions, and enters their names in a book, and gives them a silver dagger in a sheath with a belt for it, and at the end of the dagger hangs a silver flowret like a violet, in token of the alliance between them. For this reason my lord Georius de Lapide, whom 1 never left, with other nobles entered Nichosia and stayed there three days. Rut because the kingdom of Cyprus has now no king, the nobles begged of the Queen to be received into the companionship of the kings of Cyprus. She summoned them to a large banqueting hall, and when they were set before her proposed to them through an interpreter the statutes of that companionship, which are: that they should strive to help the kingdom of Cyprus in its need, since it lies midway between Saracens, Turks and Tartars. "They pledged their faith to the Queen with their hands, and she delivered to them the daggers, and allowed them to depart. We then returned on horseback to the sea. Moreover we passed on the road the skirts of a certain very high mountain, on the crest of which is a chapel, in which they told us is set the cress of the thief on our Lord's right, suspended in wonderful wise, which I would gladly have seen. But I had no time, and so put this off until niy second pilgrimage. When we reached our galley we found two pilgrims dead : one was a priest of the Order of S. Francis, a strong and learned man, the other was a tailor of Picai-dy, an honest and good fellow. Others were in their death agonies. We too who came from Nichosia took to our beds with a great illness, nnd the sick were now so many that there were no servants to supply their urgent wants. The old ladies, seeing our need, were moved to pity for us, and tended us, for not one of them was ill. Herein did God by the strength of these women confound the pride of the knights who had flouted them at Venice, and willed not to travel with them. For they ran about the galley from one sick man to another, and tended in their berths those who had spurned and derided them. Besides these sicknesses and discomforts there arose new fear of the Turks, and our terror was greater than ever. Meanwhile the captain had taken the galley to sea, but the wind gave us no help, and we cruised uselessly along the coast of Cyprus. So we put in again at the barren port of Limona, and waited impatiently for a favouring breeze. Two days later we put out again to sea. But a foni wind carried us farther than ever away from the land, and out of our course, and so we strayed about for many days to no purpose, and began to suffer on board from a lack of all necessaries. One knight died miserably, whom we wrapped in a sheet weighted with stones, and committed with weeping to the deep. Three days later another knight went mad, and died howling in his pain. Him we took in a boat to bury on shore, for we were close to the coast near Paphus. We had a wretched passage and suffered for want of water, bread and other things. A foul "wind drove us out of sight of Cyprus, and for three days and nights we saw no laud; later on we were again carried into the harbour of Paphus, which is mentioned in Acts xiii. There we bought what was needful, and sailing ont drifted aimlessly along the coast (i. 42—44). On Jnne 25, 1483, we came over against the most ancient harbour of Cyprus which is called Paphus, and mentioned in Acts xiii. 6 and 13, near which we saw the mount of Venns, as I shall tell on my return, and sailed slowly up to mid day. Then a fresh breeze sprang up and carried us along the coast speedily to the port of Limonnia and Biscopia, and towards

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