Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/206

164 of St. John; whence to the shore is the burial-place of the Jews, lying immediately outside their quarter. Large Turkish gardens border these cemeteries, beyond which on the south are the suburbs Bpano Maras and Kato Maras (the upper and lower Maras), both inhabited by Greeks. To the north-west of the town is the suburb Neo Chorio, or Neo Maras, the Frank quarter of Rhodes. Here are the residences of the consuls and the Roman Catholic church; and a large proportion of the population of this suburb profess the Latin faith.

These suburbs extend to the foot of St. Stephen's hill, which lies along the northern shore overlooking the town. This hill completely commands the fortifications of Rhodes, and, had the Turks possessed in the 15th century artillery of sufficient range to reach the town from such a distance, they would of course have made this ground the centre of their operations during the siege.

When the British fleet was at Marmarice in 1802, Sir Sidney Smith lived in a house on the summit of this hill, which has since been known to English travellers as Sir Sidney Smith's hill. It is here that the ancient city had its Acropolis.

This hill is an irregular plateau, lying nearly parallel with the seashore, in a direction from N.E. to S.W., and descending on the S.B. and N.B. sides in a series of terraces to lower ground. The highest part of the hill is where it overlooks the sea facing the N.W. On this side it terminates in a broken fine of cliff very steep and inaccessible for the most part; below which the road to Trianta, resting on a