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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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GIOVANNI MARITI
Travels in the Island of Cyprus
page 83

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xv] Citti 79 believe that here is the tomb of the mother of Mohammad, their false prophet. For many years it was but a small oratory, in charge of a Moslem monk, but it was not held in any great veneration until 1760. In the following year Ali Agha, Governor of Cyprus, erected the building mentioned above, which I saw completed, and the place began to grow in im-portance. Now it is so highly revered that no Turkish personage who visits the island fails to go to pray there, and even the ships that pass along this coast salute it with their guns. The mosque is under the care of a small college of Turkish Santons, who pass their lives in their usual extravagant austerities. In the neighbourhood is an enclosure with many orange, lemon and other fruit trees, and flowers. There is no order or arrangement, but the place has a certain charm, and is a favourite resort of the people of Larnaca. The garden was planted by some Pasha, a former governor of Cyprus, and is still called the Pasha's garden. Returning to the road which leads from the Salines to Citti, you reach the village of Meneou. The lands are under cultivation, but there are few inhabitants. It used to be a very large village, but is now ruined, and a Greek church which had survived until 1760 was then destroyed, and the stones used in the building of the Tekye. A little to the right you see the village of Arpera, where are the springs which feed the aqueducts by which Larnaca is supplied with water, and at last you come to Citti, four miles from the Salines. Citti is the village mentioned in my third chapter, where I showed that Lusignan was wrong in calling it the ancient city of Citium, for it was never anything but a village, which took its name from the promontory of the ancient Citium half a mile away. It was once a fief of one of the houses of Lusignan, and even now shows some signs of its old im-portance. The church is large, and dedicated to the Virgin, whose picture in mosaic is venerated by the Greeks. In the

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