T. E. Lawrence’s Undergraduate Dissertation – Page 126

filled in. If so the castle would be a compound of Crusader keep and gateway, of Byzantine outer walls, and Arab fore- works: and the unsuitability of the different parts, when arranged as they are, points rather at a composite effort. The keep is 38 feet long and 24 broad, and about 40 feet high. Inland from Kalaat Yahmur stands Chastel Blanc (Safita... the most elaborate of the keeps of Northern Syria. The castle at Safita occupies the summit of a hill of consider- able steepness, and the keep is on the highest point of all. Its dimensions are some 100 feet long by 60 broad, and it is still standing to-day, complete to its battlements well over a hundred feet above the poor houses of the village, clustered round its foot. The lower story of the keep, is used as the village church, as formerly it was the chapel of the castle. The door of entrance was blocked only by a single hinged gate, and appears a weak point : which is perhaps the reason why the door at the foot of the stair leading to the hall on the upper floor is also heavily barred and bolted. In the chapel there is one loophole high up above the altar, and two on each side of the nave. They are however so narrow, and at such a height above the ground as to be evidently unfitted for de- fence. Indeed as a rule loopholes are meant less for firing through than for admitting light : the recesses in which they are placed are seldom made high enough for a long bow, or