Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/187

Rh entered by the gate of St. Catherine, now called the Bazaar gate. An inner wall, commencing from this gate, runs across the interior of the town from east to west, and after throwing out an angle to the north, joins the main line of circumvallation about halfway between the Amboise gate and the gate of St. George. The area on the north, enclosed between the inner wall and the outer lines, is called in the old chronicles the upper town, or Castello, and contained the palace of the Grand Master, the auberges or lodges of the different langues of the Order, and the churches of St. John the Baptist and St. Catherine. In this upper town or Castello dwelt the Grand Master and the Knights; the lower town was inhabited by a mixed population of Jews and Greeks. In the north-west angle of the Castello is the palace of the Grand Master, which, as it occupies the highest ground within the fortress, was naturally chosen by the Knights as their citadel.

The Castello is entered from the west by a noble gateway (Plate 6), commenced by the Grand Master D'Aubusson after a great earthquake, and finished by his successor D'Amboise, from whom this gate takes its name. Over the door within an ogee frame is a slab of white marble, on which is sculptured in relief an angel holding the escutcheon of Amboise, with the inscription, "Amboyse MDXII." A drawbridge connects this gateway with a stone bridge which here spans the fosse with three arches. (Plate 7.) Over the Amboise gate a head was formerly fixed, which has been thus described to me. It was flat at the top, and pointed like the head of a