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two, brokerage one p.c. on the first cost, commission two p.c. on the cost and expenses. Further if the Cypriot correspondent has had to get bills of exchange on some foreign town, generally Constantinople, he adds one p.c. commission to meet expenses on the bill. The tariff charges will be noticed as we speak of each kind of produce ; the other charges may be taken to follow the rules given above. Cotton exported to Europe pays on each bale tariff at 5 piastres Turkish, or 18 J Tuscan lire. We shall reckon the Levant piastre at 3f lire ; the оке weight at з| Florentine pounds, the rotolo at 6f pounds. The greater part of the cotton crop is sent to Venice, whence Germany draws its quantum. It fetches so good a price there that a great many English and Dutch houses, as well as merchants in Constantinople and Aleppo, give orders for Cypriot cotton to be consigned to Venice and sold there on their account. Some goes every year by way of Venice to France and Tuscany, and to England and Holland direct. The second most important article of produce is silk. In May it is all wound off and ready for shipment. The silkworm is treated just as in Tuscany, but runs less risk from the uncertainty of the weather which in the Cypriot spring is more settled. The quality of the silk varies with the places where it is spun : the finest and whitest comes from Famagusta and the Carpasso, that of a lemon or sulphur hue from Citerea and the villages on the same side of the northern range, the golden yellow or orange cocoons from villages in the district of Paphos. The white is most esteemed in Europe, but bales, except those consigned to England, Holland and France occasionally contain lemon or sulphur coloured silk. Venice and Leghorn accept hues equally: white is certainly preferred, but not so exclusively as in the countries farther north. The orange silk is generally bought by the Turks, who pay a piastre more for it, and send it to Cairo, where the colour is much admired, and the thread too is finer. c. Μ. т. 8 m xxi] Island of Cyprus 113

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