View PDF version of this page

58 Excursion front Lapasis [CH. or treated as a place of worship, and serves as a shelter for animals. If the monastery is wanting in the magnificence which one sees in others in the island, still it has many conveniences, and from its site on the skirts of the mountains it enjoys a view of the plain of Nicosia, and its neighbourhood full of farms and villages which it would be long to enumerate. There are generally ten or twelve monks there : the Greeks call them Calogeroi and they obey an Hegoumenos or Superior. It is to be noted that these Calogeroi are all Regulars, dis-tributed in three different orders, of St Basil, St Elias and St Marcellus. All three take the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience ; they do not eat flesh, and live a very austere life. Few of those who go to St Chrysostom fail to visit the ruins of the ancient castle of Buffavento on the highest point of the northern range. The slopes of the mountain on which the castle stands are about two miles from St Chrysostom and are reached by a gentle ascent. Thence you see a peak which it seems impossible to scale, but at last with some risk, and climbing with feet and hands along narrow ledges, in about an hour you get to the ruins of the ancient castle, which was purposely demolished, along with several others in the island, by the Venetians. It is wonderful how men could ever have raised a building so strong and extensive, with about 100 chambers, especially if you think of the water necessary for the work ; but as one sees various cisterns, one must suppose that these were built first, and that rain water was used in the construction of the castle. This was built in the thirteenth century by a noble Cypriot lady, the very same who erected the church of St Chrysostom, and here she retired to be free from the persecutions of the Templars, who for a year or little more that they held Cyprus tyrannised over the natives. Hence they were compelled to restore the island to King Richard of England, who had sold

View PDF version of this page