Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant, 1810-1817: The Journal of C. R. Cockerell, R.A.Cockerell, C. R. (Charles Robert)
History
Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant, 1810-1817: The Journal of C. R. Cockerell, R.A.
Cockerell, C. R. (Charles Robert)
Cockerell, C. R. (Charles Robert), 1788-1863; Europe -- Description and travel; Middle East -- Description and travel
Thence to Chelindreh, which, being the nearest point of communication
with Cyprus for couriers from Constantinople and other travellers,
boasts some twenty huts and their inhabitants. They are barbarous and
savage to a degree, and were disposed to treat the crew of the
captain's boat, who were looking for inscriptions among the tombs of the
ancient city, very roughly. One man even drew his yatagan, when the
sudden appearance of the frigate frightened them into politeness.
_June 1st._--To the captain, who is always earnestly employed, one day
is like another. Even Sundays are only distinguished by the officers'
invitation to him and to myself to dine in the gun-room, and by the
clean clothes of the men at muster; but the other officers did not
forget that to-day was an anniversary, and we all drank the health of
Lord Howe.
_Porto Cavaliero._--To the eastward of us lay Isola Provenzale, once
without doubt a settlement of the Knights of Rhodes. While the captain
examined Cape Cavaliero, I went, burning with expectation, to the
island, not doubting but that I should come home with a load of
inscriptions and arms for the Heralds; but we found no sort of remains
of the occupation of the Knights that one could identify. We landed near
a quarry of soft stone, in the middle of which an upright rock is left
standing, in which it appears that a hermit had made his cell. There are
crosses cut in the three sides, and several neat little receptacles for
utensils. At the top of the hill are fortifications and two churches,
themselves built of the materials of older Greek buildings. Clefts in
the rock had been carefully stopped and used as reservoirs. The walls
are built with an inner and an outer face of squared stones set in
mortar, the interval being filled in with chips and rubble without
cement, and the whole making a thickness of eight or nine feet. The
north-west side of the island is also covered with ruins, all of the
same Romaic work. One was of a church to which several rooms were
attached, and in one of them a considerable tomb--probably of a saint of
the Early Church. This must at all times have been a valuable station,
and would be now. It has one of the best and most defensible harbours on
this coast, and is within easy reach of supplies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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