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 123

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of rubbish. The people assured me that a dead Greek lay beneath, as a few years ago some Turks had killed one of their people and thrown him into the well ; they, had concealed the body by stones and rubbish, and nfl further steps had been taken in the matter. A s a large crowd of children of both sexes were sitting round us doing nothing but stare, I set them to work to clear the surface ground from loose stones and to sweep the plateau clean with boughs from the wild cypress. When this was finished I gave them a scramble for several handfuls of copper coins upon the cleared area, to impress them pleasantly upon their work of cleanliness ; this new game became very popular, and* might be introduced by the British government with!; a certainty of gaining the admiration of the Cypriotes, " especially during the collection of taxes ; the latter being an Anglo-Turkish game which is not yet; sufficiently appreciated. The women were of the same type that we had seen in other districts, but they appeared sickly, and many of the children were extremely delicate. There was the usual protuberance of the abdomen to which I have before alluded ; and I found upon examination of the children that an enlargement of the spleen was a chronic complaint. This is due to repeated attacks of ague. I drew the attention of the people to the so general mistake in this island of selecting a site for their villages in the most unhealthy localities. W e were now camped upon a height about eighty feet above the valley, which resembled a basin beneath our feet ; the village was on the lower level of this basin, and as near the level of the sea as possible. In heavy rains the valley became a temporary swamp, and it seemed uni accountable that human beings endowed with common

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