DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5074#0342
324
RHODES.
Christians were allowed to possess in the Holy Land,
viz. an hospital for the reception of such pious pilgrims
as felt sick at Jerusalem, for whose nursing and protec-
tion the Order of the Knights of St. John was instituted
in 1048. It is built in the same shape and form as that
the ruins of which are still in part existing, in the Holy
City, which the Knights so unwillingly quitted, but this
building is larger : it is a square of four arches on each
side, and of two stories, covering a wide corridor into
which the rooms open ; one side was wholly taken up
by a very fine hall — the ancient Eefectory — with a
ceiling of cypress* wood (a durable wood of a pretty
red-brown colour, with a pleasant perfume and the
property of resisting the intrusion of any and all in-
sects) : the arches of the hall, ornamented with cable
mouldings and leaves, are supported on very short
columns, the capitals and bosses bearing the shields of
the Knights. All this building the English-taught
Colonel makes the soldiers keep beautifully clean and
nice; they have also a small court containing twenty-
four streams of water issuing from Saracenic mosaics in
marble, for their ablutions. We went into the great
kitchen, which was perfectly clean and tidy, and tasted
the dinner of boiled rice, suet, and beans, preparing for
the soldiers; five times a week they have meat.
With all this seeming comfort there was yet discontent
and misery among them, for these soldiers had been
sponge-divers, or sailors, or artisans of various lucrative
handicrafts, from which they earned enough to support
their wives and families, besides serving as a sort of
militia-men occasionally: now that their Government has
seized them and made them soldiers perforce, they have
* This wood is frequently misnamed "Cyprus wood;" there is no
•wood peculiar to that Island.
RHODES.
Christians were allowed to possess in the Holy Land,
viz. an hospital for the reception of such pious pilgrims
as felt sick at Jerusalem, for whose nursing and protec-
tion the Order of the Knights of St. John was instituted
in 1048. It is built in the same shape and form as that
the ruins of which are still in part existing, in the Holy
City, which the Knights so unwillingly quitted, but this
building is larger : it is a square of four arches on each
side, and of two stories, covering a wide corridor into
which the rooms open ; one side was wholly taken up
by a very fine hall — the ancient Eefectory — with a
ceiling of cypress* wood (a durable wood of a pretty
red-brown colour, with a pleasant perfume and the
property of resisting the intrusion of any and all in-
sects) : the arches of the hall, ornamented with cable
mouldings and leaves, are supported on very short
columns, the capitals and bosses bearing the shields of
the Knights. All this building the English-taught
Colonel makes the soldiers keep beautifully clean and
nice; they have also a small court containing twenty-
four streams of water issuing from Saracenic mosaics in
marble, for their ablutions. We went into the great
kitchen, which was perfectly clean and tidy, and tasted
the dinner of boiled rice, suet, and beans, preparing for
the soldiers; five times a week they have meat.
With all this seeming comfort there was yet discontent
and misery among them, for these soldiers had been
sponge-divers, or sailors, or artisans of various lucrative
handicrafts, from which they earned enough to support
their wives and families, besides serving as a sort of
militia-men occasionally: now that their Government has
seized them and made them soldiers perforce, they have
* This wood is frequently misnamed "Cyprus wood;" there is no
•wood peculiar to that Island.