Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/32

10 the garden of a M. Kritikos. On the front is a relief of eight naked boys, with the type of Cupid, but wingless. At one end of the sarcophagus are Bellerophon, Pegasus, and the Chimæra; at the opposite end a female sphinx seated. These sculptures are executed in a better style than is generally found on sarcophagi.

The bottom inside is perforated with round holes, five inches above which is a thin slab. The body, probably, was placed on this, the perforations below being intended to drain off all that was dissolved in the process of natural decay.

Having to wait for an Austrian steamer to take us to Corinth, we rode to see a castle at Rhion, the Gibraltar which commands the narrowest point in the gulf.

In this fortress were a number of prisoners, the most determined cut-throats and bandits in all Greece. They were kept in cells, through the bars of which we could see them. Their eyes had a ferocious glare, like those of wild beasts in a cage. Two sentinels were pacing up and down with their muskets loaded, ready to fire in case there was any attempt to escape, and a cannon was placed so as to command the whole line of windows. One of these brigands managed to escape two or three years ago, and afterwards committed fourteen murders, and when he was again tried and condemned, threatened the judge and jury with death. When he was taken to execution, he managed to conceal a small knife, with which he cut his cords, and then defied the executioner. It happened, however, that among the