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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 333 View PDF version of this page the Paffu gate looking west. It is the saddest thing to see the palaces, churches, and many convents, which in part are entire, possessed by the vile Mohammedan sect for the sins of the inhabitants; since—as 1 read in an old account by a Dominican father, who was a native of the island, preserved in the archives of this convent—the Christians of that time were worse livers than the Turks, and thus they lost it.
When I found that there was nothing for me to do in Cyprusi seeing that the only Catholics are Maronites who have their own parish priests, I asked pennission to return to Damascus, where the harvest is greater and the labourers fewer, leaving this land of delights and liberty, to work in the Lord's vineyard. So when September 1771 came I left for l'Arnica and there embarked with another Cantabrian monk who was going to learn Arabie at Damascus.
JOURNAL.
A small 8vo volume of pp. 155, printed at Horsham in 1784, contains "a journal kept on a journey from Bassora to Bagdad, over the little deseri, to Aleppo, Cyprus, Rhodes, Zante, Corfu, and Otranto in Italy in the year 1779, by a Gentleman, late an officer in the service of the Honourable East India Company." The anonymous author left Bassora March 10 and readied Famagusta June 30,1779. On July 22 he continued hie voyage to Rhodes, pp. 115—120.
Cyprus, June 30.
About sunset we anchored off the town of Fan*agusta, formerly the capital of this island, when the Venetians had the possession of it, at which period it was a most beautiful flourish-ing city, and remarkable for the stately cathedral church, which at present is made use of as a Turkish mosque. The fortifications were certainly very streng and extensive, and main-tained a siege of si* months before the town surrendered to the Turks, who although it capitulated with the honours of war, cruelly caused the governor to be flead alive, and put the rest of the inhabitants to the sword.
This beautiful place, once so much admired, is now entirely neglected ; its stately edifices are all in ruins, and inhabited by Greeks. The Turkish governor has his seat at the city of Nicosia (now the metropolis) in the middle of the country. The European merchants who reside on tliis island live at Lamica, a town abont twenty miles distant from hence, which has a more convenient harbour, and is coirsequently better situated for traffic.
Thursday, July 1. In the evening we weighed anchor, and sailed for Lamica and arrived about noon of the 2nd at the Marine, a mile distant from the town; Ave went immediately on shore, and being conducted to the Consular house found Mr Burford in a very indifferent state of health, and likewise learned that the Consul M. Devezin had been seized that morning with a violent fever. He however soon eame out to receive us, and gave us as kind and genteel a reception as could be expected from a person in his situation, and we are all accommodated with lodgings at his house.
In .the evening we paid a visit to Mr Rizzini, a merchant of this place, and brother to the Venetian Consul of Aleppo, and also to the lady of tho latter, who lives at present at the house of her brother Mr Caprara, the Venetian proconsul. We met with a very polite reception, and found the lady sensible and accomplished ; she was Very agreeable in her person, but being an Italian, of French education, she was veiy partial to their manners.
LOPKZ. JOURNAL
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