"I think we had better attend to that lesson now, as we have nothing else to do," said the captain after they had looked about them for a time. "I don't care to have the pirate suppose we are on the anxious seat."
"All right," replied Louis, as he seated himself on the rail by the bow flag-pole. "I have studied my lesson, and I am all ready."
"Blaze away, then," replied the captain.
"If any of you have not yet found it out, I will begin by informing you that the land on three sides of us belongs to the island of Cyprus, and you are again on Turkish territory. The owners of the island call it Kebris, written by them G'br's, if you can make anything of that combination of consonants," Louis began, spelling out the strange names he introduced. "The Greeks call it Kupros, and the French, Chypre. Venus was the original goddess of spring among the Romans, but became the goddess of love, the Aphrodite of the Greeks, and was worshipped as such in this island by the Phœnicians and other ancients.
"One of this lady's names was Cypris, or Cypria; and that is why the island happens to be called Cyprus. It is in about the same latitude as South Carolina. It is about 35 to 50 miles from Asia Minor on the south and Syria on the east. It is 140 miles long by 60 in breadth, containing 3,707 square miles, or larger than both Rhode Island and Delaware united.
"It has two ranges of mountains extending east and west, the highest peak being 6,352 feet. It has plenty of rivers, with no water in them except after heavy rains, or when the snow melts on the mountains. There is no room for lakes of any size, though there is a small one on the east coast, which dries up completely in summer, like the rivers, but has an abundance of fish in winter. This is rather remarkable, and the fact is not doubted, though the phenomenon has not been explained."
"The fish must go down where the water goes," laughed Felix. "If there are any volcanoes here, I suppose they come up in the winter all boiled or broiled ready for the table."
"I don't know how that is, Flix, and we haven't time to investigate the matter. The interior of the island is mostly composed of a great plain, which was once famous for its crops of grain; but the system of irrigation which prevailed has been discontinued, and its fertility no longer exists. In a scarcity of rain five years ago there was almost a famine in the island.
"As you have seen for yourselves, there is a deficiency of harbors, and this bay is a fair specimen of them. It has two places they call seaports, but they are not worthy of the name. They are on the south side, and in such a blow as we had last night, they afford no shelter to shipping from southerly storms; and Captain Scott was wise in coming here instead of going to Limasol, which is just inside of Cape Gata. The ports on this side of the island would be similarly exposed in a northerly storm. Safe ports are necessary for the commerce of a country or an island, and therefore to its prosperity.
"In ancient times there were ports at Salamis, Paphos, and Famagusta, in the eastern part of the island, which was the portion celebrated in the past. The capital is Leucosia, as I find it on my chart, though I find it elsewhere put down as Nicosia; and even the cape we have in sight is Pifanio in a standard atlas. The population is 186,000, of whom not quite 50,000 are Mohammedans, and the rest are orthodox Greeks. The great majority of the people speak the Greek language, but it is so much corrupted that Flix would not understand it."