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.
 
 
 
 
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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 97

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through crevices to a cistern some yards below. This cistern was within a few feet of the cypress-tree, and " accounted for its superior growth, as the roots hadi been duly nourished. About a hundred feet above this spot were the ruins of an ancient Greek churchy that had no doubt been associated with the holy dripping fountain, and thé solitary tree had beenspared from the ruthless axes of the lime-burner* through some superstition connected with the spoti On arrival at the crumbling ruins of the church w l dismounted from our animals, and put them in the? rude stable of the lime-burners who had located! themselves among the walls of the once religious^ buildings, which they had converted into huts. Animals! could go no farther ; we therefore continued the ascentl on foot, to the delight of my dogs, who seemed ten think it looked more like business. There was a large growth of the usual shrubs, arbutus, mastic, and dwarf-cypress, and the surface^ of the ground was so completely covered with massea of rock that walking was most difficult. Notwithstanding! the apparent barrenness of the locality, we arrived at a tolerably even surface of rich brown soil in a hollow near the shoulder of the mountain ; this had recently been cleared for cultivation by the lime-burners to the extent of about two acres, and I remarked that both pine-trees and cypresses as thick as a man's thigh had recently been felled and burnt in spite of the government stringent regulations. In these out-of-the-way localities the natives can laugh at laws and special enactments. Upon arrival at the crest of the mountain, which formed a shoulder for a peak of silvery rocks, about 100 feet above me, my aneroid showed 1830 feet

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