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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 292

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management (which are very small) seldom exceeds P. 16,000 or £2,000 : hut this is not the only duty levied on these goods, for silk pays at the garden P. 1 per oke, cotton I1. If per quintal, and the rest in proportion. The import consists in broad-cloth, by fur the greatest part of which is from Fiance, and some from a new manufactory at Venice ; a few bales come from Great Britain, but none, as yet, from Holland; in watches, toys of every kind, cutlery ware, pepper, tin, load, sugar, all sorts of silk manufactures, and other things of less consequence ; but there is no great quantity of any article consumed; for the inhabitants are kept so wretchedly poor, that they cannot indulge their taste for luxury and extravagance, yet they are lazy to an unfortunate degree, and the time which should be employed to some rational purpose, for the benefit of their families, or the common weal, is spent in childish diversions, or in hatching villainous schemes. They have indeed some mannfactures in the island, and do not want capacity, were they willing to be rightly instructed. Of cotton dimities, with a little Bilk, they make about 10,000 pieces, of ten piks each, the pik being equal to 27 inches: of qutuni and bamna, coarse kinds uf cotton-satin, about 15,000 pieces: of bitani, or"broad cotton cloth, about 1,000 pieces : of course silk handkerchiefs veiy bad, 20,000 pieces : of skimity, which is a kind of cotton-linen, about 40,000 pieces; and of a thin coarse, cotton shirting a great quantity, though I do not know precisely what. Estimate of the manufactures in Cyprus, part of which is exported. 40,000 pieces of skimity at P. 3| per piece P. 140,000 20,000 „ „ coverlets for beds „ „ 12| „ „ „ 250,000 20,000 „ „ handkerchiefs „ „ 6 „ „ „ 120,000 15,000 „ „ qutuni & bassina „ „ 4£ „ „ „ f>7,500 10,000 „ „ dimity „ „ 2 „ „ „ 20,000 1,000 „ „ bitani „ „ 4 „ „ „ 4,000 £75,187. 10. 0. P. uOl/xX exclusive of the shirting. This country (as 1 am told) produces a great many medicinal herbs, together with a variety of fossils; but 1 am so ignorant of these matters that I scarce know under what species to class the asbestos, of which there is a great quantity near Paphos. This extraordinary production of the earth in some places lies in one continued stratum, and sometimes is found here and there in little detached beds, yet nevertheless it is dear. Here likewise is found vermilion of three different kinds. [Here foliotes a prescientific and wordy description of the Tarantula, called in Cyprus ρόβα (püiyu. jW. μάξ.) της κουφής, which Ute author heiteres to he the true φαΧάγγνον, a poisonous spider with eight legs composed of three joints each. Of the effects of ite bite he has nothing to tell of his own observation, but adds "This I will venture to say, with great confidence, that if any kind of mortal stupor attends the bite of the tarantula, the Cypriots have not yet hit upon the melodious knack of expelling it, though there is not a more wanton fiddling set of mortals upon the race uf the earth."] In the beginning of September I accompanied Mr Consnl Wakeman, and Mr Boddingtou to Mount Croce, which is a pretty high hill, at the distance of abont four hours and a quarter, or seventeen miles from Lamica, and so remarkable as to be an excellent land-mark for sea-faring people: fur this very reason, it must havo had some name from the ancients, though now it is not known. 282 EXCERPTA CYPRIA.

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