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.
 
 
 
 
uses Google technology and indexes only and selectively internet - libraries having books with free public access
 
  Previous Next  

CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 455

View PDF version of this page

consisting of 150 mnd houses, of which 100 are Greeks, and 00 Turks; yet of the fifty shiploads of wine which Cyprus exports annually, twenty are on an average despatched from Limesole. A mountain-stream runs throngh it, over whieh is a broken Venetian bridge. We stopped an hour at the house of the English agent, and at half past nine set off again. We continned till eleven along the plain of Limesole, which is cultivated iu the immediate vicinity of the town, but beyond it is quite barren. All the cultivation on it is of corn, and indeed since we left Sinti we have seen no vines except a small plantation at Misour. At eleven we entered a line of low mountains, along which we continned till half past three. These were generally naked, but at intervals clothed with carobas, brushwood and brambles. We rode always by the side of the sea, and at half past eleven had to our right a precipitate cliff, of which the sides contained a few ruins, but so nearly washed away that it was impossible to distinguish what they were. The villages we passed on these mountains were Honaphrouli, Penta khoma and Maroni, At the termination of the mountains we stopt to snatch a bread and cheese dinner, near a small pool of bad water. Thence we rode along an uncultivated plain covered with brambles and brushwood, with the sea close on onr right, and low brown mountains to our left, till eight o'clock, when we were glad to stop at the village of Mazoto, where, in the cottage of a Greek peasant, we got a good supper of fowls, winch, as usual with ns, were killed, picked, cooked and eaten in twenty minutes, and slept not a wink all night for the same reason as last night. My companion during our excursion has carried his gun with him in the hopes of finding game, but he has not once had an opportunity of firing it. In the proper season red-legged partridges and Francolins are veiy common in Cyprus. October 25. Therm. 84% We set off at dawn, ragged and feverish from want of sleep. The whole of our road lay along a fine level plain, little cultivated except in the neighbour-hood of the villages, and even there overgrown with thistles. Half an hour to the west of the Scala of Larnaea is an extensive salt-pit, near which is a considerable aqueduct built but seventy years ago by a Turkish governor of Cyprus. At nine o'clock 1 reached the Scala or Marina, left my horse with his master, and returned to the house of Signor Vondiziano, where I passed the rest of the day with the exception of a visit or two in the afternoon. The villages round Larnaea, within three hours, are Anaphotitha, Kyphino, a Turkish village, Anglisithes—this name appears to have some connection with our nation—Alethrikon, Chivrsila, Klaria, Kyttion (Cittì), Terzephanon, Arpera, Thromolazia, Meneoo, Tekeh, Kalon Khorion and Arathippou. • * « * Qctober SO. Therm. 80*. In the afternoon I went with M. and Madame La Pierre (the wife was boni in Constantinople, and I knew her there : the husband is dragoman to the French Consulate here) to the village of Arathippou, an hour N.E. of Larnaca on the plain, this being the Greek fête of S. Luke, to whom the church there is dedicated. All the peasants in the neighbourhood go there on tliis occasion in gala, but we arrived too late, most of them having gone in the morning. October 81. Therm. 80". In the evening while I was sitting in the house of M. L. P., an old Greek woman came in frantick with terror, and on her knees begged for protection, swearing her neighbour's wife wanted to murder her. It appears that this old woman, having some money, at sixty years old had persuaded a young peasant of thirty-five to marry her. He naturally soon grew tii*ed of her, and fell in love with his neighbour's wife, who returned his love. After this he and his dulcinea amused themselves by thrashing his old wife whenever she fell in their way. The husband is now fled to Nicosia to avoid his wife, whom he detests, aud she is preparing to follow hiin, nnd entreat the Archbishop there to force TURNER.

View PDF version of this page


  Previous First Next