It was customary for Christians to take up their lodgings either there or in the village of Merash, close by, there being, as I was told, a law that no Christian should lodge in the town of Famagusta. Prohibitions of this sort, however, were probably not strictly enforced towards Franks; as no inhabitant of Famagusta would, I am persuaded, have been so uncivil as to eject a Frank traveller, who demanded merely a night’s lodging.
After dinner, I walked with the priest to the town. We made the circuit of the fortifications, which are very considerable. We then visited the port, the ancient church of St. Sophia, now a ruined Gothic edifice, and afterwards betook ourselves to the coffee-house, to smoke a pipe. Some Turks, who were sitting on the benches at the door, made me welcome, and severally desired the waiter to present me with a cup of coffee, which is a mark of civility they show to a friend, or to one whom they have not seen for some time. I came away with much good will in my heart towards them.
On the following morning, the 2nd of February, we departed betimes, in order to arrive early at Larnaka, as the appearance of the sky indicated the approach of a storm. We marched two hours by moonlight, as on the preceding day, over an uncultivated champaign country. When the sun rose, we found ourselves abreast of a Christian village. The land around it attracted my notice by the high state of its cultivation. The soil itself seemed rich, being of a fine red mould. Soon afterwards, we again came upon uncultivated plains, which lasted for two leagues more, and then reached the village of Ormethia, on the sea-shore, where the English consul had a country-house, at which I alighted. Giovanni procured such provisions as the place afforded, and I rested and ate something. One league before coming to Ormethia, there grew a low shrub like the juniper, which covered the soil as far as the village. From Ormethia to Larnaka, the road lay by the sea-side. At three o’clock I reached Mr. Vondiziano’s, having been absent seven days. Cyprus afforded more accommodation for travellers than Syria; for at every little distance there generally was a convent, where was to be found a sufficiency of most necessaries. In most parts, the roads were good.
I had arrived in Cyprus in the middle of carnival; and, as the Catholics formed the greater portion of the Franks, this festival was celebrated with much gaiety. There were two faro-tables constantly open, to which fathers, mothers, and children, resorted together. In adjoining rooms were balls; and dissipation exerted its most baneful effects on the morals and constitutions of young and old. At the end of the faro-room, an elevated sofa afforded the spectators an opportunity at once of smoking and of enjoying the game. The transition from the sober and grave habits of those I had just left in Syria to the tumultuous assemblies of those I was now among, formed a striking contrast, which somewhat shocked me, and was, upon the whole, favourable to the Mahometans.
The Frank society was composed of a few individuals of every nation in Europe. In Europe, the Turks are cried down as barbarians; no doubt because arts, and sciences, and polite letters, are so little cultivated among them; but in Cyprus the epithet was applied to them because they did not gamble, dance, and drink wine: and, affecting an opposite extreme, the Franks ran into excesses unknown in the countries they sprang from. But, in a society made up of parts so heterogeneous, and which could never, from the constant clashing of its religious and social institutions, amalgamate, no wonder that the whole had a tendency to confusion, which could only serve to let loose men’s vicious propensities without confirming their virtuous dispositions.
Each consul was the head of the subjects of the nation he represented: he was a king to them, and nothing to others. Hence the friendship of the consul was immunity from laws, and his enmity a bugbear to the poor only; for the wealthy did not hesitate to change masters, when those they acknowledged were no longer sufficiently complaisant; and there were persons, who, by what is called “changing protection,” had been English, French, Swedish, Ragusan, and Danish, subjects, in the course of a few years.
Larnaka, as to its buildings, represented, in some manner, a large country village in England. The houses were straggling, and built of sun-dried bricks; they were, nevertheless, not devoid of neatness in their exterior; and, in their interior, they were commodious, spacious, and, in some instances, handsome. They were mostly of two stories, having generally a large courtyard, with a coach entrance for their calèches. All had window casements, with weatherboard blinds. There were no fireplaces in their rooms, nor was it ever cold enough for two days following to make a fire desirable. In some of the best furnished houses, there was much richness and even elegance displayed in the furniture, as far as French clocks, fine chandeliers, lamps on pedestals, good prints, tables, beaufets, and sofas, can be so considered.
I made a ground-plan of a house at Citi, near Larnaka, considered as one of the best country-houses in the neighbourhood. It was built of sun-dried bricks; and, being neither plastered nor whitewashed externally, had a sombre appearance, like the cottages on the banks of the Nile; indeed, throughout Cyprus, there were many marks of its intercourse with Egypt. This house was two stories high. The whole of the buildings were walled in. A garden, containing orange and lemon trees, attached to it, was irrigated by a Persian wheel, turned by a mule. Citi is about two leagues and a half from Larnaka; and its name is a corruption of the ancient Citium.
The calèches in use in Cyprus were like clumsy cabriolets, being a rude single-horse chaise, without an apron or splashing board, guided by a driver who sat on the shaft. All the houses had large ovens. The water of Larnaka is not what I should call bad, but Pococke has pronounced it to be so. Lamb, mutton, game, and pork were plentiful, and beef was generally to be had.
The Christian inhabitants of this island had little purity of blood. The Franks were not Europeans, and the Greeks, intermarrying perpetually with the Franks, had ceased to have the characteristics of their own nation. I do not, however, wish to speak disrespectfully of persons who were generally so very kind to me.