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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 457

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some of them prostrating and crossing themselves liefore it seventeen or twenty times. At nine we set off and rude along the plain of Nicosia, scattered with low hills, sometimes of marl, and hounded by low mountains, consisting of a rich soil very little cultivated at a small distance from the city, and where it was so, abounding in olive trees, and thinly sown with corn and cotton. We passed the village of Cheri, and at noon reached that of Neson, where we stopt to dine. This latter was a very pretty village, full of fruitful gardens mid fields of cotton, watered by a copious mountain-stream running through it, and surrounded by brown mountains, which formed a fine contrast with its vegetation. Ave left it with regret at four o'clock, and for one hour rode through the same pretty seeneiy as that which snrronnded it. We then passed the village of Tliali, whence wc rode to Larnaca over a stony road and hilly uncultivated country till the last hour when we passed the plain of Larnaca, and passed at half-post sevon the village of Arithippou. .-Through all the afternoon we had frequent and vivid flashes of lightning, and for the last half-hour light rain. We stopped at Larnaca at hnlf past eight, and hod scarcely sheltered, ourselves within doors, when there arose a furious gale of wind with violent and incessant rain, both which continued the whole of the night. To-day is the Greek fete of S. Demetrius, on or near which day, say they, there always blows infallibly a heavy gale of wind, and so settled is their belief in this that no Greek vessel will put to sea in this season till the time of the expected storm be over. I felt no other mark of fever to-day than weakness and an utter want of appetite. November 8. Therm. 77*. In the morning 1 went down to the Marina to enquire for the Turkish Captain, whom I found not yet returned from Famagosto. While here the fever seized me suddenly with aguish shiverings, and so weakened mc that finding myself unable to reach Larnaca I crept into bed at Mr How's, where I staid till Thursday tho 16th, The fever lay very heavy on me for four days, and the other four I was so weak from the remedies applied to mo and my almost total abstinence, that I could not leave my bed till the eighth day. The Turkish Captain then called to say he should positively sail that evening, and though still so weak as to be unable to walk without a stick, 1 had such drend of the air of Cyprus, that I resolved to accompany him. I walked Mr How's horse to Larnaca, took leave of my friends, packed up, at a quarter past ten pushed off in a shore boat to follow the ship, which had sailed an hour before, and was some way with a light N.B. biwze. By firing frequently we succeeded in bringing her to, and I got on board at midnight. She was a large three-masted polacca, of 150 tons, with a captain and crew from the Black Sea, the latter all Greek. I lay down directly on a wretched bed, in a hole about six feet long and three hroud, for the captain, not expecting me, liad given his cabin, which he had promised me, to other passengers. The vessel went smoothly and slowly all night, with a light N.E. wind. Cyprus, though nominally under the authority of a Bey appointed by the Qapudan Pasha, is in fact governed by the Greek Archbishop and his subordinate clergy. The effects of this are seen everywhere throughout the island, for a Greek, as he seldom possesses power, becomes immediately intoxicated by it when given him, and from a contemptible sycophant is changed instantaneously to a rapacious tyrant. Accordingly the peasants of Cyprus, both .Mal ionic tans and Greets—not a single Jew is allowed to live in the island—ore so insufferably plundered that their labour is barely capable of supporting their existence, and they yearly desert in great numbers to the coasts of Caramania and Syria. The least Kharaj they pay is of thirty piastres, and the greatest sixty-five, that is, each whole family. Their utmost gains are from 400 to 500 piastres a year, and of this they pay annually to the government and to the Greek convents 250, but for tho sum paid to the convents—by far the greater part—they TURNER. 447

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