HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
uses Google technology and indexes only and selectively internet - libraries having books with free public access
 
  Previous Next  

SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 92

View PDF version of this page

'the mills of Kythrea at a considerable expense of transport ; I have met droves of mules laden with wheat and barley on their way from Larnaca, to which distant spot they would again return when their loads should have been reduced to flour. In the face of this difficulty a general want of energy and of the necessary capital is exhibited by the total neglect of windpower, in a country where a steady breeze is the rule, with few exceptions. Throughout the great plain of Messaria windmills would be invaluable, both for grinding purposes and for raising water ; nothing would be more simple than the combination of the windvane with the cattle-pump ; but this great and almost omnipresent power is absolutely ignored. On our return to camp in the evening, I resolved bo have a quiet day with my dogs on the following .morning, when I could stroll at my leisure over the mountains, and enjoy myself thoroughly according to my own tastes, sometimes obtaining a shot at game, and observing every object in nature. It was 15th February, and with a native guide and interpreter who spoke Arabic, which was my medium of dialogue, I started to cross the mountain-range upon the east of the well-known five-knuckled-top named " Pentadactylon. " A t the expense of repetition I cannot help extracting from my diary the exact words of description rough from the first impulse : " The base of this range is an extraordinary example of the action of rainfall in melting and washing down into conical mounds several hundred feet high, what was originally a high level of continuous but alternating strata of marls and alluvium that had descended from the higher mountains. These vast masses are in a chaotic confusion of separate heaps, which at a distance

View PDF version of this page


  Previous First Next