View PDF version of this page

CHAPTER XXI. ON THE COMMERCE OF THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS. CYPRUS supplies to European and local commerce produce of two kinds ; the first is natural, consisting of all that is grown in the island, the second adventitious, consisting of goods imported from the adjacent shores of Caramania. Among natural products the chief is cotton, reckoned the finest in the Levant, for its whiteness, substance and length of staple. The price it commands in Europe shows its superiority. The whole crop is not of course of one quality, but is divided yearly into four kinds, the flower of the crop, thoroughly saleable, indifferent, and saleable : but when these four are mingled in due proportion the price is not affected. By due proportion is understood a mixture which to every ten bales would allow three of the flower, five of thoroughly saleable, one of indifferent, and one of saleable. A fifth kind might be added called sweepings (scorazze), which is the coarsest of all ; it is not exported, but used for the common stuffs of the country. Cotton is of two kinds, one is produced in village lands irrigated by streams or torrents, this is the finer kind, and in greatest request : the other is grown on land which is watered only by the winter rains. They begin to sow the seed in April : they might do so earlier, but then the blade would appear just when the locusts

View PDF version of this page