The archbishop had once been an οικονομος, or commissary, and served as purveyor in the camp of the vizir, who conducted an army against the French in Egypt.
From the 3rd of February continued rain had fallen. The weather had become exceedingly tempestuous, and a succession of storms rendered it impossible for vessels to take in their cargoes; for Larnaka has no harbour, and vessels coming for a freight lie at anchor in the bay, and receive their merchandize by boats from the shore. There was a polacca brig loading for Marseilles, by which I had resolved to take my passage: but there was little prospect that she would be ready for some time, for the reasons assigned above.
On the 24th of February, after a very tempestuous night, the house of Mr. Caridi, (whose wife was sister to Mr. Vondiziano) was struck by lightning, which, after taking an irregular course through four chambers, breaking in its way a looking-glass, singeing a coverlet, and bursting a door, entered the wall of the house, which wall was of burnt brick. It so happened that there was a New Testament in Greek lying by the mirror; the mirror was broken, but the Testament remained uninjured. This book immediately acquired a degree of sanctity equal to what a τέμενος, (temenos) would have done among the ancients. But what amused me greatly was to see Mr. Caridi obliged to keep open house for three days, that people might view the book and compliment him on the miracle. His wife was much inclined to make a vow to go to Mount Athos, and return thanks for the signal deliverance. The same house was soon afterwards visited by another hurricane, when a gust of wind carried away a staircase, which led from the ground floor to the upper story, and which was on the outside, as is customary in the island.
Lent had now begun, and I resolved to live with Mr. Vondiziano’s family as if I had been of their own religion, in order to see how I could bear a meager diet. Yet he would not suffer me to do so entirely, apprehensive that it would not agree with my constitution. The eldest of Signor Vondiziano’s daughters, about twelve years old, had been so schooled by their confessor, that she fed on bread and olives only. Our meals consisted generally of rice soup, made with oil, instead of meat or butter; fish done in oil; wild and garden artichokes; salads, peas, beans, or other vegetables, fried in oil; botarga, caviare, olives, anchovies; and some other things, which I forget. The children vied with each other in undergoing privations of this kind: and the maid-servants were their abettors. Signor Vondiziano, under the plea of a weak stomach, obtained an exemption for himself twice a week.
In this way time wore on, but the weather did not change for the better: even the passage between Syria and Cyprus was interrupted. The drought of the preceding year was now more than overbalanced by the flooding rains; and, from the standing pools which they made, fevers and endemic maladies were anticipated.
The inhabitants of Larnaka, and, after them, travellers, have attributed the malignant fevers, which almost annually infest that town to a small lake of stagnant water, which lay between Larnaka and the Marina. As this lake is not more than a few hundred yards across in its longest diameter, it seems inadequate to the production of such extensive effects. There would appear to be sufficient reason in the sudden change of temperature which takes place at sunset, wherever in these latitudes there are low flats, in which heat is confined by day, and vapours are condensed by night. Even in the winter, after a sunny day, there was, at the close of it, such a chill suddenly pervading the atmosphere, as to give an instantaneous check to perspiration in any one incautiously exposed to it. In the spring and autumn, this must necessarily be more sensibly felt; as the quantity of vapour carried into the atmosphere is greater from the greater heat, and the system is then more easily acted upon, at one time from the sudden cessation of a renovated circulation, at another from the sudden contraction of relaxed pores.
Tired of waiting for the vessel’s departure, I resolved on another excursion into the interior; and, on the 21st of March, I set off with two mules, which cost me eleven piasters and a half per diem, for Leucosia. I was desirous, this time, of taking the road through Idalia; but my guide, who wished to pass the night at his own village, turned from the road which led to Idalia into that to Athegainon, imagining that, when once there, I could do no more than fume and talk, without any positive mischief to him. But I knew a Greek’s shifts well enough to suspect that the direction he took was not the right one, as I had previously instructed myself respecting the way. Accordingly, I suffered him to take the lead for about two hundred yards, and then suddenly, without apprizing him, turned off in a northerly direction. He did not look round, until I and my servant were almost out of sight; when, discovering what I had done, he came hurrying after me.
Idalia, now called Dali, is five leagues from Larnaka, west by north. It proved to be a village of eighty houses, twenty of which were Turkish, and sixty Christian. It had four papases, or priests. I was lodged at the ξενοδοκε̃ ιον, or public lodging, than which nothing could be more wretched. I went the following morning to see the site of ancient Idalia, to the south-east, over a fine plain of whitish soil. Half a dozen stones of rude workmanship, at a spot where the hills form a bogáz, or ravine, were all that now remained. My guide was very anxious that I should sit down and look around me; because, he said, the last Englishman who had been there had done the same: and I was inclined, therefore, to believe, that he had no other reason for calling these scattered stones ruins of Idalia, than because this Englishman had told him so. On my return to the village, I inquired for coins and statues, as is customary with travellers, and found, at a papas’s, a small woman’s head, in marble. I mounted my mule to depart, and, in passing a heap of stones and rubbish by the church, I observed what I thought to be the drapery of a statue peep out. I alighted, and found a statue in high relief, about twenty inches long, without a head, done in alabaster. This I brought away with me.
The road lay through hills, where I occasionally caught a glimpse of Leucosia; but did not enjoy the complete view until within a quarter of an hour’s distance from it. The day was beautifully fine. On my arrival at the monastery, the archbishop received me civilly, but with a settled gloom on his countenance, the cause of which will be presently shown. His dinner, as being Lent fare, was no better than the repasts which I had left behind me at Larnaka.
I visited, on the following day, Mâlem Anthony Brins, a native of Tripoli in Syria, who may pass as a person of some mark in the eyes of Europeans, as having been Monsieur Volney’s teacher in Arabic, when living at Mar Hanneh, on Mount Lebanon.[107]