Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/234

188 by intersecting Gothic vaults solidly built of stone. The templum, as the east end is called, was separated from the rest of the church by a lofty rood-loft covered with elaborate carving in very bad taste. I inquired where they had found money to build such a church, and was told that it was the result of contributions in kind, the peasants having severally given so many days' labour, and the building materials having in like manner been furnished by the richer inhabitants. It was doubtless by similar free gifts that such magnificent churches and abbeys were built in the Middle Ages, in spite of difficulties of communication and a most imperfect development of commercial credit. The tradition of the Gothic style seems to have been retained at Rhodes since the time of the Knights,

I had so many questions to ask the priest, that I stayed in the church till I was roused by a warning cry from without of Pyslli, ppsylli, "Fleas, fleas;" and looking down, saw my trousers covered until files of black monster fleas, who were storming me by escalade. I dashed down the leaders with my hands; but they continued to crawl in such quantities that I should have been devoured without the assistance of the good-natured peasants, who laughed excessively. They explained to me, that as the whole population had been on their knees for several days in the church, it very naturally swarmed with fleas, whom even the Archangel himself (to whom the church is dedicated) had no power to excommunicate.

At Archangelo is a castle built by the Knights