HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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MALLOCK W.
In an enchanted island
page 210

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THE ENGINEERING OF THE PAST 207 ancient rubbish that had choked them, and also the foundations of buildings by which formerly parts of the court must have been occupied. Amongst these was a great hall of state, of which one wall, with its corbels, was still existing. I was then taken to some of the prisoners' cells, fortunately empty, and then to the prisoners' kitchen. The lofty mediawal groining was here perfect and beautiful, and the ribs sprang from shields carved with the Hons of the Lusignans. ' And now,' said my guide, ' you would like to visit the chapel. It is Byzantine and very curious.' We crossed the court to an opposite angle of the castle, and entered a quarter full of ancient chambers. The chapel was reached by a dark stair and a passage. In form it was a stunted cross, with four semicircular apses, and it was lit by an aperture in a dome that covered the centre. There were traces of frescoes still" on the broken plaster, and the floor was still half covered with the old tesselated pavement. And now there awaited me sights of a different order. I had heard already of the galleries which used to contain the cannon ; and when I mentioned them to my guide, he at once said he would show them to me. When we regained the court, he called to a sentry for a candle, and, furnished with this, he took me to a black arch in a wall, which proved to be the mouth of a steeply descending tunnel. At the bottom of this was one of the galleries in question. The floor was slimy with mud, which had been washed down, the tunnel from above ; but this mud

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