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 219

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amiability, gentility, and as many other " ilitys " as] could be squeezed into his expressive features. It is] hardly necessary after this description to say that Iianu was a very tall humbug, pleasant in manner when hej had his own way. He was lazy to such a degree that he invariably fell asleep upon his mule after smokingj innumerable cigarettes. In these cases his long body! swayed to the right and left, and occasionally nodded! forward to an extent that sometimes awoke him with] the jerk ; after which spasmodic return of conscious-^ ness an immediate relapse took place, and he fe .asleep again. A s he rode directly before me, as guid this chronic somnolency was most annoying, and I had to drive his mule into a faster walk by poking its hind-quarters with my stick. The animal would the break into a sudden trot, which would awaken th rider to the fact that he had been dreaming ; upo which he burst into some peculiar song that was in tended to prove that he was wide awake ; but after few bars the ditty ceased ; the head once more nodde and swung from side to side ; the mule relaxed it pace. . . . Iiani was asleep again ! In another sense he was very wide-awake. H had represented to me that he was the proprietor the seven camels and five mules, but I quickly di covered that he was only the owner of a completel worn-out old camel and four mules : he had hire the other animals at a considerably lower rate tha I had agreed to pay him, therefore I should hav the difficulty of several discontented owners instead one. However, we had started before this fact w explained by my factotum Christo. The route lay along the sea-shore through a fore of caroub-trees and olives, occasionally varied b

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