I learned that these old castles were crown property and belonged to the Sultan. During the course of our conversation the origin and intention of the building became manifest to me. I found that I was in the very centre of the world-renowned Commanderia. The Knights of St. John, after they were obliged to quit the Holy Land, established the head quarters of their order at Cyprus, just as at a later period they did in Rhodes and Malta. From Cyprus they issued forth under the protection and leadership of its knightly king, to fight gloriously against the Crescent, and very frequently the victory was due to the courage and prowess of these soldiers of the Church. The Bishop of Akkon, Jacques de Vitrey, in his account of the Holy Land gives us the following sketch of the Knights Templars: “Covered with their white mantles, which were embroidered with a red cross, with their black and white banner ‘Beauseant,’ they rush forward to battle in silence. They have no war-cry. As soon as the general’s trumpet sounds, they lay their lances at rest, and repeating from one of the Psalms of David ‘Lord give us the victory, not for us but for thy holy name,’ they throw themselves upon the strongest part of the enemies’ forces. They never give way! they must break through or die! Does one of the brotherhood lose heart, he is deprived of his mantle and all his knightly honours for a year, and must eat his meals from the ground, without a tablecloth, disturbed by the dogs, that he is forbidden to drive away.” The order already possessed a “commande” (as the possessions of the knights were called) in Cyprus, and important privileges were conferred upon them by King Hugo I., in the year 1210. They were allowed to acquire territory, wherever they wished, to import or export all sorts of produce, and to grind their corn without charge in the king’s mills, which were situated on the stream Kythrea, near Buffavento. They had residences and gardens in Nikosia and Limasol, where the head-quarters of the order were established, and in addition to this occupied Platanistia and Finika, in the district of Paphos, and Mamgrallu and Kolossin in the district of Limasol.