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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 401

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CLARKE. ALI BEY. 3ί»1 ALI BEY. The author of the Travels of Ali Bey announced himself as Ali Bey el Abbassi, eon of Othman Bey of Aleppo, prince of the Abbaseides, and directly descende»! from Abbas, eon of Abel El Motalleb and uncle of Mohammad. Under this fantastic désignation, and the garb of a Sherif, or member of the family of the prophet, of -Islam, was veiled the person of a Spaniard, long resident In Paris, Den Domingo Badia-y-Leyblich. He left Spain for Tangier on Jane 29, 1803, and visited in order Fes, Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus (March 4 to May IS, 1806), Egypt, Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo and Constantinople. His Tmvel* leave him at Bucharest, December 19,1807. He was born at Barcelona. April 1.1767, aud died September 1,1618, at a spot a two days' journey from Mazarib (the first castle on the pilgrim road from Damasene), having left that city with a caravan starring for Mecca, with which be hoped to make his second visit to the holy places of Islam. It is said that some of Iiis papers and effects were ransomed by Lady Hester (Stanhope. All that is known of his life may be found in the preface to the Catalan translation of Iiis Travels published at Barcelona in 1888 under the title Viuijet tie All Bey el Abbassi per Afîiea y Assia. Hie work was published in an English translation in 1816, bnt as this was not at hand, onr extracts are translated afresh from vol. il. pp. 7B—135 of the original French edition, Paris, 8 vole. 8vo, 1814. The Atlas accompanying this edition gives a map of Cyprus, a portrait of the author, and many pleasant engravings from sketches by his hand. From this volume we have copied the letter of Chrysanthos, Archbishop of Cyprus (1767—1810) to Ali Bey. to which allusion is made on page 75. From the historical notes on the Chnrch of Cyprus of Philippoe Georgion (Attiene, 1876) it may be inferred that of the personages with whom Ali Bey made acquaintance in Nicosia the bishop in jtariibns (rather a suffragan οι- χυ>ρ*νίσκσπος) was Spiridon, of Trimithus: the bishop of Larnaea ("un homme de bon sene, d'un jugement draft, et fort instruit") and Paphos ("»roi, »pionjue jeune, me parut être un homme fin et rusé), nephews of the Archbishop ; and the steward or οικονόμος, Cypriane«, who in 1810 procured the banishment to Enbcea of the aged and gouty Chrysanthos, and of Iiis nephew, another Chrysanthe», bishop of Citium, and hie own elevation to the archiépiscopal throne, from which he was translated on July 9,1821, to a halter attached to a plane tree in the courtyard of the Serai at Nicosia, by Kuchuk Mehined, MuseUim of the island. [TUB MASTER or THE VESSEL UPON WHICH ALI BEY WAS TO MAKE THE VOYAGE FROM TRIPOLI or BABBARY TO ALEXANDRIA MISTOOK HIS COURSE, AND BROUGHT UP AT LAST OFF THE ISLAND OF SAPIENZA. NEAR THE S.W. POINT OF THE MORSA. ON LEAVING THIS THEY FELL INTO A TERRIBLE STORM, BEFORE WHICH THEY WERE DRIVEN TO THE COAST OF CYPRUS.] After three days of high winds and a raging sea we anchored in the roadstead of Limassol, on March 7, 1806. How can I describe the frightful state of our ship? all the sails toni and none to replace them ! the hull making water everywhere, the pumps almost incessantly at work : everyone ill, and more than twenty men prostrate, and apparently at their last gasp. One man had died on the 4th and hie body was thrown into the sea : two others were on the point of death, two went mad. The ship's crew helping one another to jump ashore all fled : the captain only remained on board with two or three Turkish sailors. ΛΥβ were in a hurry to land, the natives seeing our terrible state of distress kept away from the vessel, no one would go on board, and the governor of the town was obliged to order a few calkers to plug at least the worst holes in the hull, so as to save the ship which seemed every moment to be on the point of going to the bottom. It was suggested that the bad water of the island of Sapienza had made us ill, aud that the vapour of some quintals of saffron had vitiated the air on board ; but the worst of all was

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