Minerals and Precious Stones.
Cyprus is rich in metals and minerals, including copper, silver, malachite, lead, and quicksilver. There are also quarries of asbestos, talc, sulphur, red jasper, agate, rock crystal, and marble. Soda is also found. The salt works, near Larnaka, produce a revenue of 20,000l. per annum. Gold is occasionally met with in the streams. Diamonds, emeralds, opals, amethysts, and other precious stones are sometimes found.
Natural History.
The principal animals in the island are oxen, sheep, and goats, which thrive well and are abundant. The most common of the wild animals are the fox, hare, and wild-cat. The hare feeds on fragrant herbs, which impart a most agreeable flavour to its flesh. All the birds that winter in Africa are to be found in Cyprus. Beccaficos and ortolans are very common and remarkably plump. Water-fowl are very numerous; game, such as partridges, quails, woodcock, and snipe, very plentiful.
Serpents of various species are commonly met with; these are stated to be, we believe erroneously, poisonous.
Dr. Clarke states that tarantulas, having black bodies covered with hair and bright yellow eyes, are not uncommon. A large venomous spider is sometimes seen, called by Sonnini, the Galcode of the Levant; its body, which is about an inch long, is a bright yellow, and covered with long hairs; this creature runs with extraordinary swiftness; its bite rarely produces death, but causes acute pain. The extent to which Cyprus was formerly devastated by locusts has been spoken of in another chapter. Bees are kept in great numbers in many parts of the island. Of these Dr. Clarke gives the following interesting account:
Speaking of the village of Attién, he says, “In these little cottages we found very large establishments for bees, but all the honey thus made is demanded by the governor; so that an apiary is only considered as the cause of an additional tax. The manner, however, in which the honey is collected is curious, and worthy of imitation, and it merits a particular description: the contrivance is simple, and was doubtless suggested by the more ancient custom still existing in the Crimea, of harbouring bees in cylindrical hives made from the bark of trees. They build up a wall formed entirely of earthen cylinders, each about three feet in length, placed one above the other horizontally, and closed at their extremities with mortar. This wall is then covered with a shed, and upwards of one hundred hives may thus be maintained within a very small compass.”
Revenue.
Herr Löher found it difficult to obtain trustworthy information respecting the revenue of the island. The best estimate obtainable calculated it at about sixteen and a half millions of piastres. Half a million of this, being derived from a consideration paid by Christians for exemption from military service, would have to be immediately surrendered by a Christian Government. Three, at least, of the remaining imposts, yielding an estimated return of two millions of piastres, are so execrable in principle that they ought to be abandoned with the least possible delay. These are the capitation tax on sheep, and the export duties on wine and silk. It is satisfactory to learn, on the other hand, that the annual cost of administration is not supposed to exceed at present from two to three millions of piastres, the balance of the revenue being confiscated by certain high functionaries now discharged; and that the apparent receipts do not represent the amount actually collected from the population, seeing that they have to pay half as much again in bribes. These abuses will henceforth cease; the customs revenue will be largely augmented by importations on account of the occupying force, and from the stimulus given to commerce in general; and it may even be possible, by prudent diplomacy, to make the vacouf, or Mohammedan ecclesiastical property, contribute its fair share towards the expenses of the State.