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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 168 View PDF version of this page Upon entering the fortress by the drawbridge we passed through the arched and dark way beneath the ramparts, and emerged into a narrow street, which was swept and free from the usual impurities of a Turkish town, thus exhibiting proofs of a British oc-I cupation. A perfect labyrinth of narrow lanes, bordered ; by most inferior dwellings, confused a stranger, but with the assistance of a guide I reached the residence of the chief commissioner and the various officers attached to the establishment. Beyond this all modern buildings ceased, and Famagousta was presented as it ι must have appeared after the sack and utter destruction ; by the Turks in 1571. It looked as though a town 1 had been shattered and utterly destroyed by an earthi quake, whose terrible tremblings had shaken every ) house to its foundation, and left nothing but shapeless I heaps of squared stones. Ο Turk ! insatiable in > destruction, who breaks down, but never restores, what a picture of desolation was here ! Three cen» turies had passed away since by treachery the place , was won, and from that hour the neglected harbour had . silted up and ceased to be ; the stones of palaces rested ' where they fell ; the filth of ages sweltered among ' these blood-sodden ruins ; and the proverb seemed ful; filled, " The grass never grows on the foot-print of the
Turk. " I never saw so fearful an example of ruin.
1
Although the town was in this hideous state, the ι fortifications were in very tolerable repair, and had guns been mounted an enemy would quickly have ! acknowledged their formidable importance. Time , appeared to be almost harmless in attacks against these vast piles of solid masonry. The parapets in the angles of the embrasures were twenty-five and ; twenty-seven feet in thickness. From these we ; looked down forty-five and fifty feet into the ditch
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