Page:Harry Charles Luke and Edward Keith-Roach - The Handbook of Palestine (1922).djvu/125

From the direction of Haifa a picturesque view is obtained of the southern battlements, the ruins of the 'Tower of Flies,' and the remains of the Phoenician breakwater. The town is entered through an archway in which still stand the original massive iron-plated gates. Here can be seen a beam on which criminals were formerly hanged. Inside the gate is the 'White Market,' with a vaulted roof of curious construction, while the general markets and bazaars stretch down towards the harbour. Acre possesses no less than four commodious khans, for, prior to the construction of the Damascus-Haifa Railway, all the wheat trade passed through Acre; during the season from two to three thousand camels would arrive daily laden with grain. The most interesting of the khans are the Khan Shahwarda, which contains a number of old cannon of the time of Sir Sidney Smith, and the Khan al-Umdan near the harbour. The most important of Acre’s six mosques was built by Jezzar Pasha about 1790 of materials brought from Ascalon, Caesarea, Sidon and elsewhere; it has dignity and grace, and is set in pleasant surroundings. The courtyard is surrounded by a colonnade and by domed cells for the accommodation of scholars. In a detached building are the tombs of its bloodthirsty founder, Ahmed Pasha al-Jezzar, the Butcher Pasha of Napoleon's siege, and of his successor Suleyman. On the opposite side of the road is the Turkish arsenal, where lie stacks of round shot of all sizes, bar and chain shot, fireballs, cannister, grape and other ordnance of the eighteenth century, much of which was put on shore by the English at the time of Napoleon's siege. Under the Citadel, which was built by ʾAbdallah Pasha about 1820 and is now used as a central prison, and under the Girls' School on the opposite side of the road, are the crypts of the residence of the Knights of S. John, in good preservation and worthy of a visit. The porch of the Crusaders' Cathedral, now destroyed, was removed after the city's fall to Cairo, where it may still be seen embodied in the façade of the türbé of Mohammed al-Nasr. In the Citadel tower, whence there is a fine view, is a small museum with a