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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 248

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destructive agency of weather. It is painful to an English traveller, whose life may have been passed in practical development, to survey the country as it now lis, to reflect upon what it has been, and to see that even under the auspicious reputation of an English occupation nothing can be done to awaken resources that have so long lain dormant. Money is wanted— money must be had. Without an expenditure of capital, riches may exist, but they will remain buried in obscurity. A responsible official would reply— " We will give you s. concession, we will give you every possible encouragement. " The capitalist will ask one simple question, "Is Cyprus a portion of the British Empire upon which I can depend, or is it a swallow's nest of a political season, to be abandoned when the partyschemes have flown ? " [ An y number of questions may be asked at the •present moment, but in the absence of all definite information no capitalist will embark in any enterprise in Cyprus, which may be ultimately abandoned like Corfu ; and the value of all property would be reduced to a ruinous degree. The mining interests of Cyprus must remain for the most part undeveloped until some satisfactory change shall be effected in the tenure of the island that will establish confidence. Polis was a straggling place situated upon either side of a river, through the bed of which a very reduced stream was flowing about three inches in depth. A flat valley lay between the heights, both .of which were occupied by numerous houses and narrow lanes, while the rich soil of the low ground, irrigated by the water of the river withdrawn by

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