Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/77

Rh been much filled up from the accumulation of ballast discharged from ships.

The northern harbour was protected from the sea by a more massive mole, portions of which yet remain nearly in the centre of the port. It consists of two external walls composed of ashlar-work, within which is a core of rubble cemented with coarse mortar. This harbour is described as deep by Strabo, but it is now nearly filled up with rubble.$21$

We learn from Aristotle, that this harbour was called Maloeis. The Malea where the Athenians stationed their fleet and held a market in the siege of Mytilene, B.C. 428, must have been somewhere near this port on the north of the town.$22$

I could discover no trace of Hellenic Avails on the site of the ancient Acropolis, but the Genoese castle is probably built on its foundations, as it occupies the whole of the summit of the rocky peninsula. Within its precincts are numbers of houses inhabited by poor Turks who do not form part of the garrison. The protection afforded by its guns must have been formerly of great value when visits of Greek pirates were more formidable. The family of Gateluz held it till the latter part of the 15th century, when it was taken by Mahomet II. This castle is still kept up as an imperial fortress by the Turks, and though a place of no strength, serves as a depot of arms and to overawe the town of Mytilene. It is not an interesting example of military architecture, and the cypresses planted about its naked white-washed walls give it a funereal look. At the foot of the Acropolis the fields are strewn with fragments of