View PDF version of this page

HUME. 341 and obliging: in whatever house we entered we were received with kindness. The inhabi-tants in general are well clothed, the shops are well rilled, and the women of the middle classes have rich dresses. There seemed to be no want of previsions ; they have sheep and fowls in great number; the gardens abound with vegetables and the vines hang almost every-where in the villages with luxuriant clusters. The desserts on their tables consisted of the finest fruits, musk and water melons, apricots &c. The musk-melons we seldom tasted, on account of their supposed tendency to produce disease, but the water melons afforded an agreeable beverage, peculiarly grateful in a hot climate. During the month of Jury, 1801, we were twice at Limasol : this place is situated in the southern part of Cyprus, in N. lat. 34*. 39', E. Ion. 33°. 30'. It stands at the extremity of an open bay, and is a long straggling town intermixed with gardens, inclosed for the most part by stone walls. It is much cooler in summer than Larnaca. I observed in the fields near the town the wild poppy in flower, a branchy species of hypericnin, with small yellow blossoms, a species of orobanche with violet coloured flowers, and the convolvulus. The gardens seemed to be equally productive with those of Larnaca. We went to Limasol for the purpose of procuring wood .and water; the latter was obtained from a well by means of a Persian wheel of rude construction, turned round by an ass. The well was in a sequestered situation, to the west of the town, overshadowed by a variety of trees, among which were the Palma Christi, or Castor-oil shrub, and the Morus alba. The plain of Limasol is perhaps one of the most fertile districts in the island, and where the ground is not cultivated there are clusters of the olive and locust tree, and the evergreen Cypress. No tract of country perhaps affords a finer variety of thorns and thistles; and there, as well as at Larnaca, the caper bush grows luxuriantly. Some small fields near the town were covered with tobacco and cotton plants, and in this plain the sugar-cane is said to have at one time abounded : I found the olive on the banks of a river, the bed of which was now dry. and on the bordeis of other streams a number of trees were in bloom, such as the Mimosa, the Oleander, the Pomegranate, and the Jasmine. The fruit of the locust-tree is very astringent when green, but as soon as it ripens it becomes sweet and pleasant, and in the winter season constitutes the ordinary food of the sheep and goats. In the hedges that beautiful shrub the Palma Christi is quite common, and its ripe fruit is sometimes used by the natives medicinally, but I do not know that they have ever extracted the oil as an article of commerce. The vine is seen growing in almost every courtyard, and its frnit is of exquisite flavour; bnt the richness of the red grape brought to Limasol in little hampers from the interior is perhaps unequalled. Plants collected in Cyprus by Dr Hume. At Limasol in July, 1S01. Gossypiuni hirsutum herbaceum ölea europsea Papmter rhxas Morus alba „ rubra Rhamnus paliurus Robinia spinosa Hypericum repens Poterium spinosum Jimiperus Sempervivum sediforme Punica granatimi Ononis Orobanche Nicotiaìia pusiüa Onosma orientalis Jasminum grandißorum

View PDF version of this page