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cutting the sky like a ruler. I need hardly say that * I recognised the ramparts of Famagusta. At first nothing struck me but a single straight line. Then I perceived that here and there were bastions, and to the left, away from the cluster of sombre towers. Towards these towers it was that the road conducted me, and just opposite to them it entered a shallow cutting. Eeaching this spot, I perceived for the first time that before the walls there ran an enormous fosse, cut in the solid rock ; and here a causeway crossed it, which led to an arched gate. In all directions the walls were scarred and seamed with the marks of former gates, older even than this one ; and this one must have dated from the days of the Venetian conquest, whilst one of the others had been the work of the engineers of Genoa. But before I explain any further details of this singular town, at whose threshold I was now stand-ing, let me say a word about its general plan and situation. It will help the reader better to under-stand what follows. Famagusta is, roughly speak-ing, a square of about a mile, and is surrounded by waUs of which every yard is perfect. These walls are about fifty feet in height, and are, on an average, twenty-seven feet in thickness. One of the four faces the sea and harbour ; the three others overlook an immense plain, parts of which are barren and strewn with sand. Bound the whole of these landward walls the fosse runs continuously. 248 IN AN ENCHANTED ISLAND

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