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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 95

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Lefcara is a fine village at the foot of Mt Olympus, with a church dedicated to the Holy Cross. It has abundant water, and produces good cotton crops. Here too they collect ladanum. Chibaiani, 18 miles from Limasol in the direction of Mt Olympus, produces much wine. Here was a city called Corineum or Curreo, near which Richard, King of England, routed Duke Isaac. Amiantus, near Pellandros, was a large place in the days of the Romans. They dug hence the stone amiantus, from which they made the bags in which they burnt the corpses of their Emperors. The castle of the god of Love, 15 miles to the north of Nicosia, was destroyed by the Venetians, who did not wish to have a number of small fortresses scattered about the island. It is now called after St Hilarion, who died here A.D. 371 at the age of 80, and was buried in a garden, where now stands a church erected in his honour, for he is greatly venerated by the Greeks. After resting here one year his body was carried to Egypt, as says St Jerome in his life of the saint (vol. 11. col. 39, 40, ed. Migne, Paris, 1845). In Pirga and Anglipsidia are many olive trees, planted symmetrically at equal distances so that they form a kind of grove. Some of them are so thick that two men can hardly join their arms round them. I am sure they must be ex-tremely old, and they are generally admired as the finest trees of their kind. Mt Santa Croce, 18 miles from Larnaca, is considered a spur of Mt Olympus, though it stands quite distinct from it. Being at no great distance from the southern shore, it is a landmark to direct mariners to the roadstead of Larnaca. If they drop their anchor as soon as they have the mountain full in face they are quite sure of finding safe moorings. Ships which come in by day never fail to see it, for however thick the clouds lie over the plain and about its slopes the top itself xix] other Inland Places in Cyprus 91

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