Our camp was pitched upon a small level plateau of rock, in the centre of which was a well, cut completely through the stone from top to bottom. It appeared to be about twenty-five feet deep, but was devoid of water and contained a considerable amount of rubbish. The people assured me that a dead Greek lay beneath, as a few years ago some Turks had killed one of their people and thrown him into the well; they had concealed the body by stones and rubbish, and no further steps had been taken in the matter. As a large crowd of children of both sexes were sitting round us doing nothing but stare, I set them to work to clear the surface ground from loose stones and to sweep the plateau clean with boughs from the wild cypress. When this was finished I gave them a scramble for several handfuls of copper coins upon the cleared area, to impress them pleasantly upon their work of cleanliness; this new game became very popular, and might be introduced by the British government with a certainty of gaining the admiration of the Cypriotes, especially during the collection of taxes; the latter being an Anglo-Turkish game which is not yet sufficiently appreciated.
The women were of the same type that we had seen in other districts, but they appeared sickly, and many of the children were extremely delicate. There was the usual protuberance of the abdomen to which I have before alluded; and I found upon examination of the children that an enlargement of the spleen was a chronic complaint. This is due to repeated attacks of ague. I drew the attention of the people to the so general mistake in this island of selecting a site for their villages in the most unhealthy localities. We were now camped upon a height about eighty feet above the valley, which resembled a basin beneath our feet; the village was on the lower level of this basin, and as near the level of the sea as possible. In heavy rains the valley became a temporary swamp, and it seemed unaccountable that human beings endowed with common sense should have selected the low ground instead of the immediate heights. The explanation was "that as the village was built of mud-bricks, the houses had been erected as near as possible to the source of the material, MUD!" to avoid the difficulty of carriage in the absence of carts.
The people were as usual dressed in cotton stuffs of home manufacture, and were ignorant of such a material as flannel; the children were only half-clad, and shivering; their food was generally raw, comprising olives, oil, onions, and wild vegetables, such as artichokes, wild mustard, and a variety of trash that in England would only be regarded as "weeds." There were some pretty intelligent little girls and boys; some of these were chewing mastic gum, a white leathery substance which they gathered from incisions in the bark of this common shrub. My wife found fault with the neglect of cleanliness, as their teeth, although even, were totally uncared for. On the following morning they all assembled and exhibited a show of nice white teeth, as they had followed her advice and cleaned them with wood-ashes and their forefingers, in lieu of a toothbrush. We saw these children again a month afterwards upon our return, and they ran across the fields to meet us, at once opening their mouths to show that they had not forgotten the lesson, and that their teeth were properly attended to. I pitied all these poor people: they are downtrodden and miserable in mind and body. Instead of squeezing them for taxes they should be supported and encouraged by government assistance in every manner possible. Centuries of oppression and neglect in addition to a deceptive climate have rendered them the mere slaves of circumstances, but they exhibit a patience and stolid endurance which is beyond all praise; and when Cyprus shall belong absolutely to Great Britain, so that the Cypriotes shall feel that they are British subjects, they will become the most amenable and contented people in the Empire.
The usual difficulty exists in passing through this island which is felt by most English travellers in wild countries. The sick invariably assemble, believing that your medical knowledge will produce miraculous cures; and the lame, halt, and blind besiege you even cripples from their birth are brought by their hopeful mothers to receive something from your medicine-chest that will restore them to strength. It was in vain that I explained to these afflicted people that spleen-disease required a long course of medicine, and could not be cured in a day. It was equally in vain that I assured them that raw vegetables were unwholesome for children, and that sea-bathing was invigorating to the system: they hated bathing; so did the children; and they liked raw vegetables. I was obliged to give them some trifle which could neither do harm nor good; and they went away contented.
I now discovered from the head-men of the village the cause of the wreck which was lying in the bay. An Austrian steamer was conveying 1200 Circassians from Constantinople to some port on the coast of Asia Minor, when the wild horde of emigrants mutinied and threatened to murder the chief officers. The captain accordingly ran the vessel ashore upon this coast, having ordered the engineer to blow up the boilers.
A great number of the mutineers perished in the attempt to land, but the captain and officers were hospitably received by the people of Volokalida and forwarded to Famagousta. The vessel was pierced amidships by a rock that had completely impaled her, otherwise she might have been saved and repaired.
We left this village on March 4th, a heavy but welcome shower on the preceding day having laid the dust and freshened the vegetation. The route lay through a hilly and rocky country covered with the usual evergreens. We quickly lost our way and arrived at a complete cul-de-sac in the corner of a narrow swampy valley. Retracing our steps we met two men mounted on donkeys, who with extreme civility turned from their own direction and became our guides. We passed over a hill of solid crystallised gypsum, which sparkled in the sun like glass, and after a march of about ten miles through a lovely country we ascended to the plateau of Lithrankomi and halted at the monastery. The priest was an agreeable, well-mannered man, and as rain had begun to fall he insisted upon our accepting his invitation to await the arrival of our luggage under his roof. We visited his curious old church, which is sadly out of repair, and the mosaic, of a coarse description, which covered an arched ceiling, has mostly disappeared.
This was the most agreeable position that I had seen in Cyprus. A very extensive plateau about 400 feet above the sea formed a natural terrace for seven or eight miles, backed by the equally flat hill-tops which rose only half a mile behind the monastery. These were covered with the Pinus Maritima, none of which exceeded twenty feet in height, and resembled a thriving young plantation in England. From the flat pine-covered tableland I had a very beautiful view of the sea on either side this narrow portion of the island, and of the richly-wooded slopes both north and south, cut by deep and dark water-riven gorges, with white cliffs which descended to the shore. Villages and snow-white churches lay beneath in all directions, and the crops had a far more favourable appearance than those of the Messaria, as this portion of the country had experienced a superior rainfall.
It is much to be regretted that the total absence of roads excludes this district from general communication. We were struck by the fantastic scenery of deep ravines, rocks covered with evergreens of varying colours, and handsome caroub-trees which would have ornamented an English park; mulberry-trees were very numerous, but at this season they were barren of leaves; the only want lay in the absence of oranges and lemons, which the priest assured me would not thrive in this locality. For the last two months I had cordially detested Cyprus, but I was now converted to a belief that some portions of the country were thoroughly enjoyable, provided that a traveller could be contented with rough fare and be accustomed to the happy independence of a camp-life with a good tent and hardy servants. The temperature was a little too low for out-door existence, as it averaged 48 degrees at 7 A.M. and 54 degrees at 3 P.M., which is the hottest hour of the day; but we were all well, and free from colds; the servants had plenty of warm blankets, and the false floor that I had arranged added greatly to their comfort when camping upon the sodden ground.
I had become convinced that "the man of ability" Theodori had deceived me, and that it would be impossible for the two-wheeled carts, or any other conveyance, to travel through this country. Our last two marches had proved that not only would the delay be serious, but the luggage would be destroyed by the extreme jolting over rocks and ruts, which had already injured several of our boxes and broken some useful articles. Every package seemed to assume an individual vitality and to attack its neighbour; the sharp-cornered metal boxes endeavoured to tunnel through the cases of wine and liquors, which in retaliation bumped against and bruised their antagonists, and a few marches had already caused more mischief than a twelvemonth's journey by camels. The priest assured me that it would be madness to attempt a march beyond Gallibornu, about eleven miles in advance, and that he doubted the possibility of the carts reaching that point, which certainly had never been visited by any wheeled conveyances. The honest, strong, but unintelligent driver Georgi was innocent, and he was at the time as ignorant as myself that the true object of the "man of ability" Theodori was to deal in cattle, which was his reason for persisting in accompanying me into the Carpas country and declaring that the route was practicable for carts. We left Lithrankomi on 5th March after a shower which made the earth slippery and the dangerous portions of the route rather exciting for the carts. The first two or three miles lay along the level terrace commanding a splendid view of the sea about four miles distant. We passed through several villages, and the crops looked well. At length we emerged upon a wild portion of the plateau which resembled a park, the surface being green and diversified by ornamental clumps of evergreens; upon our left was the cliff-like higher terrace which formed the table-top from which the usual huge blocks had been detached and fallen like inverted cottages to the lower level. The view on our right was exceedingly interesting, as we had now arrived upon the extreme verge of the terrace, which broke down suddenly into a horseshoe-shaped amphitheatre, the steep sides covered with bushes and trees, to the bottom of a valley some 300 feet below, which drained through a narrow and richly-wooded gorge into the neighbouring sea.