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Upon entering the fortress by the drawbridge we passed through the arched and dark way beneath the ramparts, and emerged into a narrow street, which was swept and free from the usual impurities of a Turkish town, thus exhibiting proofs of a British oc-I cupation. A perfect labyrinth of narrow lanes, bordered ; by most inferior dwellings, confused a stranger, but with the assistance of a guide I reached the residence of the chief commissioner and the various officers attached to the establishment. Beyond this all modern buildings ceased, and Famagousta was presented as it ι must have appeared after the sack and utter destruction ; by the Turks in 1571. It looked as though a town 1 had been shattered and utterly destroyed by an earthi quake, whose terrible tremblings had shaken every ) house to its foundation, and left nothing but shapeless I heaps of squared stones. Ο Turk ! insatiable in > destruction, who breaks down, but never restores, what a picture of desolation was here ! Three cen» turies had passed away since by treachery the place , was won, and from that hour the neglected harbour had . silted up and ceased to be ; the stones of palaces rested ' where they fell ; the filth of ages sweltered among ' these blood-sodden ruins ; and the proverb seemed ful; filled, " The grass never grows on the foot-print of the Turk. " I never saw so fearful an example of ruin. 1 Although the town was in this hideous state, the ι fortifications were in very tolerable repair, and had guns been mounted an enemy would quickly have ! acknowledged their formidable importance. Time , appeared to be almost harmless in attacks against these vast piles of solid masonry. The parapets in the angles of the embrasures were twenty-five and ; twenty-seven feet in thickness. From these we ; looked down forty-five and fifty feet into the ditch

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