which I visited in the summer of l876—­but neither of these is the place alluded to.  Possibly it may be the strongly fortified town of Kerak=Kir Moab, to the West of the Dead Sea.  There is no notice about this in ALEXIS PERCY, Memoire sur les tremblements de terres ressentis dans la peninsule turco- hellenique et en Syrie (Memoires couronnes et memoires des savants etrangers, Academie Royale de Belgique, Tome XXIII).]

1102.

Rhodes has in it 5000 houses.

Cyprus (1103. 1104).

1103.

SITE FOR [A TEMPLE OF] VENUS.

You must make steps on four sides, by which to mount to a meadow formed by nature at the top of a rock which may be hollowed out and supported in front by pilasters and open underneath in a large portico,

[Footnote:  See Pl.  LXXXIII.  Compare also p. 33 of this Vol.  The standing male figure at the side is evidently suggested by Michael Angelo’s David.  On the same place a slight sketch of horses seems to have been drawn first; there is no reason for assuming that the text and this sketch, which have no connection with each other, are of the same date.

Sito di Venere. By this heading Leonardo appears to mean Cyprus, which was always considered by the ancients to be the home and birth place of Aphrodite (Kirpic in Homer).]

in which the water may fall into various vases of granite, porphyryand serpentine, within semi-circular recesses; and the water may overflow from these.  And round this portico towards the North there should be a lake with a little island in the midst of which should be a thick and shady wood; the waters at the top of the pilasters should pour into vases at their base, from whence they should flow in little channels.

Starting from the shore of Cilicia towards the South you discover the beauties of the island of Cyprus.

The Caspian Sea (1105. 1106).

1104.

>From the shore of the Southern coast of Cilicia may be seen to the South the beautiful island of Cyprus, which was the realm of the goddess Venus, and many navigators being attracted by her beauty, had their ships and rigging broken amidst the reefs, surrounded by the whirling waters.  Here the beauty of delightful hills tempts wandering mariners to refresh themselves amidst their flowery verdure, where the winds are tempered and fill the island and the surrounding seas with fragrant odours.  Ah! how many a ship has here been sunk.  Ah! how many a vessel broken on these rocks.  Here might be seen barks without number, some wrecked and half covered by the sand; others showing the poop and another the prow, here a keel and there the ribs; and it seems like a day of judgment when there should be a resurrection of dead ships, so great is the number of them covering all the Northern shore; and while the North gale makes various and fearful noises there.

1105.

Write to Bartolomeo the Turk as to the flow and ebb of the Black sea, and whether he is aware if there be such a flow and ebb in the Hyrcanean or Caspian sea. [Footnote:  The handwriting of this note points to a late date.]