HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 68

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The greenstone cropped out through the surface in arge masses, accompanied by a peculiar dun-stone [precisely similar to that of Knowles Hill in South Devon. In a cutting through a hill-side by the iTOvernment new road veins of bright yellow ochre «vere exposed, also red ochre in considerable quantities. I took samples of the yellow, which appeared :o be of a good quality ; but I believe the commercial [ralue is too insignificant to support the charges }f land-transport and the subsequent freight from Larnaca. Mattiati is about 1300 feet above the sea-level. [The troops were camped in wooden huts on low hills kbout forty feet above a flat valley, where olive-trees throve in considerable numbers. I should not have ι selected Mattiati as a sanitary station; the plain ''mowed evident signs of bad drainage, and the rich tteep soil would become a swamp after heavy rains. [Upon the low hills within a mile of the station were Vast quantities of scoriœ or slag from ancient smeltingjôirnaces, and the remains of broken pottery, mingled .vith stones that had been used in building, proved hat important mining operations had been carried on • η former ages. From Mattiati to Lithrodondo the country is broken !md little cultivated ; there was no longer a sign of • :retaceous rock, but the bold range of mountains rose sefore us crowned by Makheras, 4730 feet, apparently :lose above us, dark in plutonic rocks and sparsely rovered with myrtles and other evergreens. As we beared the base of the mountains, the vegetation in:reased, and passing the dirty village of Lithrodondo, we mtered upon a succession of hills divided by numerous small torrent-beds, the steep banks of which were

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