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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 64

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are bound on this wheel which pour out a wonderfnl quantity of water, and there are many small pipes in the garden by which the water is distributed. Then1 is a great plenty of frnit-boaring trees, mostly pomegranates, and under the trees the ground is all full of gourds, melons, cucumbers, and other good things. Were it not for these wells there would be no dainties in Cyprus, while there are so many that it is a wonder. After I had looked well over the place I came to the convent, which is small as well as the church. But it is very pleasing and well adorned. After we had heard mass we were shown the body, which is still entire, of-a saint called Jehan de Montifort, which works many miracles and cures fevers : he was a gentleman, for he was of Brittany, and on his return from the holy voyage to Jerusalem was taken ill and died in this city of Nicossia. I saw him all naked, he seemed as though he slept, and he has been there three hundred years. Alas, I greatly wished my companions had been with ine. After we had paid our devotions I returned to dinner. And then I went to hear vespers in the church of S. Sophia, of which I have spoken, and we were shown the right arm of S. Laurence enshrined in silver, but .1 saw only a finger-joint. And we were shown a double cross in which I saw a piece quite four inches long of the holy and true Cross of our Saviour, and also many other relics, and then I went to supper. And at the hour of the Ave Maria one of our pilgrims showed ine a thing which astonished ine greatly. It was an attendant who carried on his shoulders a rail quite ten feet long and about three inches wide, and he tapped on the middle of the rail with two little wooden mallets, and produced so loud a sound that it was a marvel. He was ringing for the Ave Maria. 1 had often heard this tapping bnt knew not what it was. in many of the churches of the Greeks they have no other bells, so they are at no expense. On September ö I wont for my pleasure outside the town, not to get into the sun, but so that 1 could see that at some former time it was a grand thing, for it has two very strong castles, but now it is ngly, for the houses are chiefly of earth and have no roof except some stout reeds and then earth, that is their covering. And the streets are crooked, above and below : such destruction the king of England wrought when he avenged his sister, as I have written before. I stayed in this city of Nicossia until the following Friday. Our captain was very ill, and wo quite thought he would die, but he had a good doctor. And I, who was veiy anxious to know how my companions had fared, left that day. I had spent in all 52 gros. Friday, September 0, after supper I left the city with some Franciscan pilgrims who had hired three carts drawn by cows, and got on one of the carts, but God knows how well shaken we were. I was very sorry that I had not taken a innle. We were journeying all the night through until about an hour after dawn on the morrow. We had to rest in a village to wait- for evening, and were poorly treated there, for there were no tables, only wretched planks upon stones: and I saw them bake more than forty bits of mutton, such as shoulders and necks, just as they bake pies and set them on the edge. When I tried to eat 1 was obliged to pull and hack as if it had been bull beef: the wine was good enough. Throughout Cyprus the sheep are worth nothing at all : there is quite as much to eat on one sheep's tail as there is on two of their shouldoits, for these tails hang quite down to the ground, and are about a quarter broad. Bnt all the substance is there. The fowls are always good, but people who had passed that way had bought them all, and we had to go withont. After we had dined it was very windy, and we left in the carts. We found plenty of sand and hills and valleys, with nothing on them bnt stones and trees, and we kept on till about sunset we reached the village where there used to be a large city called Salline, because near it much salt is collected, as yon shall hear by and by. At this hour then we arrived in the village : LE SA IGE.

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