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 391

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or other moufflon, but I only came across a solitary ewe with a lamb about four months old ; which I saw twice during my walk round the mountain tops. Upon arriving during my descent at the highest spring of Troodos, where the cold water dripped into a narrow stream bed, I lay down beneath a fine shady cypress, and having eaten two hard-boiled eggs and drunk a cupful of the pure icy water mixed with a tinge of Geneva from my flask, I watched till after noon in the hope that my two rams might arrive to drink. Nothing came except a few tame goats without a goatherd ; therefore I descended the abominable stones which rattled down the mountain side, and by the time that I arrived at our camp at Trooditissa, my best shooting boots of quagga hide, that were as dear to me as my rifle, were almost cut to pieces. There was a terrible picture of destruction throughout the forests of Troodos. Near the summit, the pines and cypress were of large growth, but excepting the cypress, there were scarcely any trees unscathed, and the ground was covered by magnificent spars that were felled only to rot upon the surface. I was not sorry to arrive at the shepherd's hut upon the ridge overhanging the monastery upon my return. The good wife was as usual busy in making cheeses from the goat's milk, which is a very important occupation throughout Cyprus. The curd was pressed into tiny baskets made of myrtle wands, which produced a cheese not quite so large as a man's fist. I think these dry and tasteless productions of the original Cyprian dairy uneatable, unless grated when old and hard ; but among the natives they are highly esteemed, and form a considerable article of trade and export. Cesnola mentions that 2,000,000 (two million) cheeses

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