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LUSIGNAK 121 If this city had been furnished with revêtements, the walls and the bastions with stone, and the fosses properly arranged, it would most certainly have been an impregnable fortress. Because it was already provided with cannon—there were 250 large and small—the air too being good, the water good, and tho supply of grain ample (as it was then, and is still), if it had had a sufficient garrison, and its Governors and Commanders had been experienced and watchful, the Turks would not have got it so quickly, or at least they would have had wounds and swordthrusts in plenty. We may say then in conclusion that it was the secret judgment of God to purge certain sins on one side and the other. In this city lived all the nobility of Cyprus, Barons, Knights and Feudatories, nearly all of whom died in this affair, with the townsfolk to the number of twenty thousand : all men devoted to the service of God most High, and of their sovereign. The remnant of the souls that were left were all made slaves. Without the city, from the Lower Gate to the Qate of S. Dominic, all the land was full of gardens which stretched away for a league, so abundant was the water, which they drew from wells with cei*tain great wheels, as at Famagosta. The iralls of the ancient city were built in the days of Constantine the Great by the Dukes who ruled here. And in pulling them down to build the new ones they found in many places copper coins of the said Constantine, and of S. Helena his mother, and many in one spot. The city had formerly many relics of different saints, and of the Holy Cross given by S. Helena, and a coin of the thirty for which Jesus Christ was sold, and the whole body of S.John of'Montiert, one of those three hundred Barons of France and Germany who all lived holy lives. Nicosia is 12 leagues distant from Famagosta, 8 from Salines, 18 from Limisso, 83 from Pa,rTo, and from Cerines 5. Arsenoe. This is the city of Famagosta of to-day. Ptolemy Philadelphus began its construction in memory of bis sistei* who bore that name. And not only this, but he built or restored other three cities, and called all four Arsenoe : one is the village of Afdimou, the second is Famagosta, the third is the village Lefca, the fourth the village Arzos. Thus then Famagosta got its naine. In the time of the Romans some say it was called in Greek Ainochusta, which means in Latin "hidden in the sand," because outside there is nothing but sand, but the word got corrupted into Famagosta. It grew by the destruction of Salamis. Famagosta had a fine closed pori into which in the time of Ptolemy I., king of Egypt, the said Ptolemy, who wanted to bring aid to the war of Salamis with Demetrius Antigonns, king of Macedonia, entered with many ships. The harbour was then large, and Demetrius was ontside besieging its mouth with a few ships, where he defeated Ptolemy, and captured on shore Menelans his brother and Leuco his son, with 12,000 men. Between the harbour and the cape della Grea was formerly a port called Leucola, which was destroyed by the sea, but there is still some small shelter there, where vessels go for rest, and in this very year the Turk's fleet went there. This harbour is near the vineyards of the people of Famagosta, almost at the end. Later the city was fortified by the Lnsignan kings, and then by the Genoese, who held it for ninety years. Then the bastard king, and lastly the Venetians, added to its buildings. It is founded on the live rock, and cannot be undermined. Its walls are massive, built of live stone, and so broad that two carts can travel on them. At the top they are scarped and within the earthwork is broad enough for four carts; but it is not so high as the walls, so as to leave parapets. Inside it has a tall cavalier, and three bastions of earth. Also a Availed

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