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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 376

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I should probably have the natural failing- of enforcing my own opinions; but from many years' experience I have come to the conclusion that the inhabitants of a country are generally better qualified than strangers for giving practical opinions upon their own locations. There is plenty of intelligence in Cyprus ; the people are not savages, but their fault is poverty, the natural inheritance of Turkish rule ; and we, the English, have the power to make them rich, and to restore the ancient importance of the island. In England, at the time that I am writing, money is not worth 2 per cent, owing to the general depression of trade ; the moneymarket has been in this plethoric or dropsical state for the last three years, and there appears to be no hope upon the commercial horizon of a favourable change. In Cyprus the resources are great, but the capital is wanting, and the strange anomaly is presented that the exchange of the British for the Turkish flag has not increased public confidence. Something must be done to change the present stupor ; if Cypriotes were Candians (Cretans) their voices would be forcibly heard, and the Turkish rule beneath the British uniform would be quickly overthrown. The Cypriote, down-trodden for centuries, is like sodden tinder that will not awaken to the spark : he is what is called " easily governed ; " which means .an abject race, in which all noble aspirations have been stamped out by years of unremitting oppression and injustice ; still, like the Cyprian ox, he ploughs the ground. It is the earth alone that yields the world's wealth : if we have no other thoughts but avarice, let us treat the Cypriote as we should his animal, and make him a wealthproducer. England has acquired the reputation of the civiliser of the world ; it is in this character that

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