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 131

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we could plainly distinguish a square-cut entrance, to which an exceedingly narrow ledge cut in the rock formed a most dangerous approach, more adapted for wild cats than for human occupants. I halted to examine this with a good glass, and I could perceive that the greatest care had been taken in the formation of a smooth perpendicular front, and that the narrow ledge which formed the approach was a natural feature that had been artificially improved. There were several similar lines observable at unequal distances, nearly parallel with each other : these were the natural limits of overlying strata in the sedimentary rock,, which, as the general surface had fallen through decay, still preserved their character, and formed ledges. My guide assured us that the entire cliff was honeycombed by internal galleries, which had been constructed by the ancients as a place of refuge that would contain several thousand persons, and that I well existed in the interior, which from a great depth supplied the water. I have never seen a notice of this, work in any book upon Cyprus, and I regret that II had no opportunity of making a close examination of| the artificial cave, which, from the accounts I received,! remains in a perfect state to the present moment. It was a wild route to Gallibornu, through a suc-J cession of small valleys separated by wooded heights,! and bounded by hills, either bare in white cliffs, or with steep slopes thickly covered with evergreens. W e passed a few miserable villages, one of which was solely inhabited by gipsies, who came out to meet us clad in rags and extremely filthy, but the faces of the women were good-looking. W e crossed numerous watercourses in the narrow bottoms betweenj the hills ; their steep banks were fringed with bushes!

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