Cyprus, as I Saw It in 1879

by Sir Samuel White Baker

Salt is a government monopoly in Cyprus, and is one of the most important sources of revenue. In the reign of the Lusignan dynasty, and from a much earlier date, the produce of the salt lakes formed one of the chief articles of export, and arrangements were made for regulating the amount of water to ensure the requisite evaporation. At the present time considerable uncertainty attends the collection of salt, as a violent rainfall floods the lakes and weakens the solution. There can be no doubt that a few years' experience and attention will enable the authorities to improve upon the present arrangement, and that not only will the annual supply be assured, but the foreign demand will be extended.

We passed the valley beyond the aqueduct and, ascending the steep incline upon the opposite side, followed the rutty native track parallel with the water-course; we halted for the first night opposite the village of Cheflik Pacha. This is an unhealthy place, as it lies in a valley where a mill is turned by a stream from the aqueduct and the surplus water forms a marsh after irrigating in a careless manner some fields and gardens. Lemon and orange-trees of the largest size were crowded with fruit, and exhibited in the midst of a treeless and desolate country the great necessity, WATER, and the productive powers of the soil when regularly supplied.

I was careful not to descend into the irrigated bottom, therefore we had halted on the highest point, a quarter of a mile distant. It is impossible to be too careful in the selection of a camping-ground; the effect of fever-germs may be the result of one night's bivouac in an unhealthy locality; and a new country is frequently stamped as pestilential from the utter carelessness of the traveller or officer in command of troops.

As a general rule the immediate neighbourhood of water should be avoided. A clear stream is a tempting object, and the difficulty of carrying water for the supply of troops is important; but it is less than the necessity of carrying the sick. If once the fever of malaria attacks an individual he becomes unfitted for his work; the blood is poisoned, and he is the victim of renewed attacks which baffle medical skill and lead to other serious complications. Avoid the first attack. This may generally be effected by the careful selection of the camping-ground. Never halt in a bottom, but always on a height. Throughout my journey in Cyprus neither ourselves nor servants suffered from any ailment, although we visited every portion of the country, and I attribute this immunity from fever mainly to the care in our selection of halting-places.

The first necessity in the evening halt was fire. This is one of the troubles of central Cyprus—there is no fuel. The two vans and the native cart were in a line—the bell-tent was quickly pitched for the servants, who now for the first time experienced the comfort of an arrangement I had made when in England. I had seven deal battens, each seven feet long, four inches deep, by two and a half inches broad. These were laid upon the ground twelve inches apart; seven planks, each one foot wide, were placed across the battens to form an impromptu floor. Upon this platform was laid a non-conductor of simply doubled hair-felt, sewed into a thin mattress of light canvas. There was very little trouble in this arrangement; the men were kept well off the ground, and the hair-felt not only preserved their bodily heat from escaping, but it prevented the damp of the earth from ascending. This mattress was ten feet long, therefore it could be rolled up to form a bolster at one end; and, during a hot sun, it was intended for a cover to the roof of the gipsy van.

The first day's start is always in the afternoon, and the march is short. We had only made three miles, and it was nearly dark when we halted. The absence of fuel necessitates the great trouble of carrying a supply of charcoal, and it destroys the pleasure of the cheerful night-fires that usually enliven the bivouac in wild countries. The plants and herbs that grow in Cyprus are all prickly; thus groping in the dark for the first inflammable material to produce the fire-foundation is unpleasant. There is a highly aromatic but very prickly species of wild thyme: this is always sought for, and at all times responds to the match.

The first night is always novel, in spite of old experiences. We pricked our hands in raking up thorny plants, but a useful implement, which combined the broad hoe on one side with a light pick on the other, lessened our labour, and we produced a blaze; this was bright but transient, as the fuel was unsubstantial. The dinner was quickly warmed, as it consisted of tins of preserved meats; and, climbing up the ladder, the gipsy van presented such a picture of luxury that if the world were girded by a good road instead of a useless equator I should like to be perpetually circum-vanning it.

On the following morning the thermometer marked 40 degrees. The natives were early at work, ploughing land that was to remain fallow until the following season. The oxen were sleek and in good condition, and not inferior in weight to the well-known red animals of North Devon. Although the native plough is of the unchanged and primitive pattern that is illustrated on the walls of Egyptian temples, it is well adapted for the work required in the rough and stony ground of Cyprus. I was surprised to see the depth which these exceedingly light implements attained, with apparent ease to the pair of oxen; this was not less than eight inches, and the furrows were regular, but not turned completely over. The ploughshare is not adapted for cutting the roots of weeds by means of a flat surface and a sharp edge, but the rounded top of the native iron passes beneath the soil and breaks it up like the wave produced by the ram-bow of a vessel. The plough, when complete, does not exceed forty pounds in weight, and it is conveniently carried, together with the labourer, upon the same donkey, when travelling from a distance to the morning's work. European settlers in Cyprus should be cautious before superseding the native plough by the massive European pattern; there are certain soils where the powerful iron plough, or even the double implement, might be worked with advantage, but as a general rule I should advise an agriculturist to wait patiently at the commencement of his operations, and to gain practical experience of the country before he expends capital in the purchase of European inventions. There can be no doubt that by degrees important improvements may be introduced that will benefit the Cypriote farmer, although it will be long before his primitive method will be abandoned. The great difficulty in Cyprus consists in reducing the soil to a fine surface; huge lumps of tenacious earth are turned up by the plough, which, under the baking influence of the sun, become as hard as sun-dried bricks. The native method of crushing is exceedingly rude and ineffective. A heavy plank about sixteen feet long and three inches thick, furnished with two rings, is dragged by oxen over the surface; which generally remains in so rough a state that walking over the field is most laborious. There are many stone columns lying useless among the heaps of ruins so common in Cyprus, that would form excellent rollers, but the idea of such an implement has never entered the Cypriote head. The plough, smoothing-plank, and the ancient threshing-harrow, composed of two broad planks inlaid with sharp flint stones, are the only farm machinery of the cultivator. As in the days of Abraham the oxen drew this same pattern of harrow over the corn, and reduced the straw to a coarse chaff mingled with the grain, so also the treatment in Cyprus remains to the present day. The result is a mixture of dirt and sand which is only partially rejected by the equally primitive method of winnowing.

Mr. Hamilton Lang gives an amusing description of the strictly conservative principles of the Cyprian oxen, which have always been fed upon the straw broken by the process described in threshing by the harrow of sharp flints. This coarse chaff, mixed with cotton-seed, lentils, or barley, is eaten by all animals with avidity, and the bullocks positively refused Mr. Lang's new food, which was the same straw passed through an English threshing-machine and cut fine by a modern chaff-cutter. This fact is a warning to those who would introduce too sudden reforms among men and animals in a newly-acquired country; but if Mr. Hamilton Lang had sprinkled salt over his chaff I think the refractory appetites of the oxen might have been overcome. A pair of oxen are supposed to plough one "donum" daily of fifty paces square, or about half an acre.

Having watched the various teams, and conversed with the ploughmen by the medium of the cook Christo, who spoke English and was an intelligent interpreter, I ordered the vans to move on while I walked over the country with the dogs. There was no game except a wild-duck which I shot in the thick weeds of a neighbouring swamp. Larks were in great quantities, and for want of larger birds I shot enough for a pilaff, and secured a breakfast. The route, which could be hardly called a road, had been worn by the wheels of native carts. These were narrower than our vans, and one of our wheels was generally upon a higher level, threatening on some occasions to overturn. The country around us was desolate in its aridity. We passed through the ruins of an ancient city over which the plough had triumphed, and literally not one stone was left upon another. A few stone columns of a rough description, some of which were broken, were lying in various directions, and I noticed a lower millstone formed of an exceedingly hard conglomerate rock; these pieces were too heavy to move without great exertions, therefore they had remained in situ.