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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 251

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is said to have prod need formerly sugar-canes in abundance. Now it is planted with cotton. There is a fairly large tishpond in the neighbourhood, about a thousand paces from Cape la gata abdima, aud two hundred more from the sea. There are some clomps of olive trees. Conglia is but little distant from the sea. There is nothing to see there. Silk and cotton aro produced iu abundance. Baffa is nothing bnt a ruined village on the seashore. Lefkara is at the foot of Sonnt Olympus quite close to the sea. The mountain begins from this point to rise gently, and stretching always inland attains at last a great height. There is nothing to see at Lefkara except a river which rises in the mountain, and waters in its course several pleasant villages. It is here that is collected the famous Lailaimm, which is prodnced by η dew falling on the leaves of a little plant about half η foot high, not unlike the smaller sage. To gather the Ladanum the peasants drive their goats to the fields before sunrise that they may brome on this herb, and ns the Laäanum is soft aud sticky it adheres to their beards, which are ont once a year and the gain is extracted by the use of Are. This is the best, or virgin Ladaimm. There is a second kind which is caught on a little tuft of hair on the goat's shanks. A third way of gathering it is with a coarse rope made of cow's hair which two men drag across the plants. There is yet a fourth way, to tie several little cords to a short stick and to rub them about the plants every morning as long as there is any gum on them. But the last two methods only give a coarser and inferior quality, because sand gets mixed with it and spoils it. [jadunum is black, has a strong odour, and is of great service in time of piagne, and has other nses in medicine. Nor is there anything to see at Lapida, except a convent of Greek monks near the sea, and a chnrch which the apostles, it is said, caused to be built. One sees from the romains of old buildings that several houses had their fishponds which were refilled by the tide. All that remains of Snrignia or Cerines, anciently called Cerannia, is a harbour for galleys and a strongish fort. This is the point of starting for Carmauia and Natòlia. At an hour's distance is the magnificent building called de la Paix, or from the Templars. About five miles from Lamica, on a lofty mountain which serves as a landmark to sailors entering -the bay of Salines, there is a convent called S. Croce, or the convent of the Cross, inhabited by some twenty Caloyers, a kind of Greek monk. These good folk protend to have there a piece of the wood of the Cross of our Saviour, about the thickness of a ducat and nearly a foot in length, which was brought there by S. Helena. They say it is suspended between heaven and earth, without support, or connection with anything. A perpetual miracle holds it in the air. All the world flocks there every year on September 14, which the Greeks keep as the feast of the Holy Cross. It is a great holiday, and people go to kiss this miraculous fragment, a privilege accorded to all, and of which all, the short as well as the tall, avail themselves with equal ease, though they do not see it moving downwards or upwards. But I have been told by those who have seen it—I had not an opportunity of doing so myself—that the wood is enclosed in a little shrine of silver gilt, where it can be seen at all times, but that on Holy Cross day a small cover is slipped to the right of an opening as large as a ducat just where the wood is, and then everyone can kiss it. Under this convent is a grotto in which is a spring with the scent of roses. Sick persons, whatever be their disease or infirmity, drink of it and bathe therein, with such success, if one may believe the Greeks, that withont further treatment they are healed. In the year 1608 throughout the island, bnt especially in the country round Famagnsta, there was such a vast quantity of locusts that when they were on the wing they were like a dark cloud through which the sun's rays could scarcely pierce. This lasted about a month, VAN BRUYN. 241

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