Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/389

 APPENDIX. A TOUR IN LYCIA BY MR. D. E. COLNAGHI.

Thursday, March 16, 1854.—Accompanied by Mr. A. Berg, left Rhodes this evening in a sailing vessel for Castel Rosso, on our way to Lycia. A favourable breeze carried us on briskly, so that we soon left the moonlit towers and walls of the old town behind us. Castel Rosso, the ancient Megiste, is a small island, situated about sixty miles east of Rhodes, and very near the coast of Asia Minor. The town is placed partly on a promontory, which juts out into the sea, and partly at the end of the bay formed by this cape and the opposite coast of Asia. On the summit of the promontory is a fine old castle built of a red stone, a memorial of the time when the Knights of Rhodes possessed the island. The houses of the modern town are mostly built of the same red stone, and present a very picturesque appearance. The population of the island is from six to seven thousand. The men are nearly all sailors, and a fair number of vessels belong to the island. Though rich and prosperous, the Casteloriziotes bear a bad character, and are noted pirates. The island, which is about 18 miles in circumference, is very barren, being formed of rugged limestone mountains. The only water the inhabitants drink is collected in cisterns outside the town.

On the mountain side, by the harbour, is a small Doric rock tomb. I walked to the top of the mountain behind the town. On the summit are two or three Greek chapels, and the remains of a mediæval fortress. To the left of the fortress are the remains of some Hellenic walls, composed of large and beautifully squared blocks of limestone. The ruins seem to form the corner tower of a walled enceinte; the rest of the building is buried under a mound of earth. There are several cisterns within these fortifications, and a well, the only one on the island. I now crossed the mountain ridge, and descending between two hills into a small