Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/201

Rh east of the gate of St. George, was probably the church of the Apostles. It has a portico of white marble columns; on each side of the door is a pilaster, on which are richly sculptured in relief helmets, battle-axes, and angels' heads between festoons. The design is a beautiful specimen of Renaissance ornament, and must have been executed at the close of the fifteenth century. The Benedictine and Augustine convents have also been converted into mosques.

Two gates originally led into the tower town from the land side,—the gate of St. George, which was afterwards walled up by the Knights, and the gate of St. John the Baptist, now known as the Koskino gate, on the south. Between these two gates arc the Spanish tower and the tower of St. Mary, which defends the south-eastern angle of the fortress. Over the gate of St. John is a relief of the saint sculptured in freestone; below, on a tablet of blue marble, the arms of the Order and of D'Aubusson, which seem of a later insertion.

From this gate the fortifications bend round to the north-east, between the Jews' quarter and Jewish cemetery, till they reach the rocky shore, where they turn nearly due north, running to the commencement of the eastern mole of the harbour, which is prolonged in the same direction. Here the fortifications meet the sea-wall of the harbour nearly at a right angle.

The part of the fortifications between this angle and the gate of St. John was twice assailed by the Turks with their whole force, during the siege. On