Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/205

Rh and Portugal; and thence to the palace of the Grand Masters was the post of the French.

The palace itself, as far as the post of the Germans, was guarded by a special body of knights under the command of the Grand Master himself.

It is curious that in the tower of St. Mary, assigned in both sieges to the English, the marble tombstone of an English knight may yet be seen built into the walls. It bears the following inscription:—

HIC JACET. FR. THOMAS

NEWPORT. PODATUS.

ĀGLIE. MILES. Q̄I. OBIIT

1502, XXII. DIE. MĒSIS

SEPTEMBRIS. CVIVS. ANIMA

REQVIESCAT. IN. PACE

AMEN

1502.$73$

The numerous bronze guns which still remain in the batteries have been already noticed. Their range is said to be about 2,000 yards. They are all honeycombed, and therefore unsafe. Much powder from the time of the Knights still remains, stowed away in vast magazines, connected with each other and with the ramparts by subterraneous galleries. In the upper town is a small armoury, in which are preserved helmets, cuirasses, battle-axes, bronze mortars, hand grenades made of a kind of opaque glass, and various other interesting relics of the Knights.

The western and southern sides of the fortifications are surrounded by two cemeteries; that of the Turks extending from the Amboise gate to beyond the gate