A sheep in good condition of the fat-tailed species weighs when dressed, without the head, 16 okes, or 44 lbs. Fowls in the country can generally be purchased for 1 shilling each, but they are double that price in the market-towns. Turkeys fetch about 4 or 5 shillings each; pigeons 6 pence; fish is about 2 shillings the oke, or 8 pence the lb.; milk about 4 pence a quart; eggs from 24 to 30 for one shilling.
The grapes are the best fruit in Cyprus; these are really good, and in some instances would compare favourably with the hot-house produce of England. The best varieties can be purchased at the vineyards for less than 1 penny the lb. The above prices prove that the expense of necessaries is moderate, and the actual cost of existence low, but the want of good servants is a serious disadvantage.
At some future time Cyprus will become the resort of delicate persons to escape the winter and spring of England, as the climate of the southern portion of the island is most enjoyable during the cool season. In the neighbourhood of Limasol there are many excellent sites for building, in picturesque spots within two or three miles of the town. At present there is no adequate comfort for invalids, and the hotels are hardly adapted for persons who are accustomed to luxury. The commencement is attended with risk, and it would be dangerous under the existing conditions of the island to build and furnish an hotel with grounds and gardens sufficiently attractive for English visitors. There is no direct communication from England, which effectually debars Cyprus from an influx of travellers. It is necessary to land at Alexandria either from Marseilles or Brindisi, and thence to re-ship in small and uncomfortable steamers, which are by no means suitable for ladies or invalids. The extra expense, and above all the trouble and delay of landing in Egypt and again embarking, together with the cost of hotel charges at Alexandria, are quite sufficient to deter strangers from visiting Cyprus. The first necessary step will be the establishment of direct communication from Marseilles and Brindisi, or from Trieste. In that case, a commencement might be made by a small company of friends who determine to visit Cyprus annually, and to arrange an hotel upon some favourable site near Limasol, which they will themselves occupy, and which can be extended according to future requirements. English people are somewhat like sheep in following each other, and a quiet beginning in this simple but convenient form would quickly develop, and Cyprus would be linked with the beaten paths of tourists. The neighbourhood of Kyrenia is the most beautiful, but during winter it is exposed to severe north winds from the snowy mountains.
So much has been written and spoken against the climate of Cyprus that an unprejudiced account may be acceptable. There are serious disadvantages to those who by their official position are obliged to remain in the low country during the summer months, where the extreme heat must always be prejudicial to the health of Europeans. From the middle of October to May the climate is most agreeable, but the five intervening months should be passed at higher altitudes, which, as I have already described, afford a variety of climates.
Neither Lady Baker nor myself or servants had any climatic ailment throughout our journeys in every portion of the island. A horsekeeper had fever while at Famagousta, but he was a native who had suffered previously, and the fit was a return of chronic ague; my own people never required a dose of medicine although we were living in tents through winter and summer.
The water is generally wholesome, therefore dysentery and bowel complaints are rare; CONSUMPTION IS UNKNOWN; and pulmonary affections are uncommon. Fevers, including those of a typhoid character, and ague from malaria, are the usual types; outbreaks of small-pox have been reduced by general vaccination. The improvement in sanitary regulations will no doubt diminish the occurrence of typhoid fevers, which even now are rare considering the filth of the villages and the generally dirty habits of the population.
Hydrophobia among dogs is very rare, and distemper among puppies is unknown. Pigs are the general scavengers in the Cypriote villages, and the flesh of these filthy feeders is much esteemed by the Christian inhabitants during the winter months. In the monasteries, which, from their great altitude among the mountains, are occasionally snowed up and excluded from communication, a winter supply of stores is laid up during the autumn. The pigs and the fattest goats are killed, and salted in a most peculiar manner. Without removing a bone, the animal is split from the neck along the abdomen throughout, and it is laid completely open like a smoked haddock. Every joint is most carefully dislocated, even to the shoulder-blade bones, and remains in its place. The flesh is neatly detached from every bone, and in this form the carcase is salted, and stretched out in the sun to dry. When prepared it resembles a shield, as it remains perfectly flat, the back presenting a smooth surface, while the inside represents a beautiful specimen of comparative anatomy, every joint dislocated, but secured by the original integument to the socket, and every bone cleanly detached, but undisturbed from its original position. The dried body looks like a surgical preparation carefully arranged for an explanatory lecture.
The common and low quality of food of the lower classes, and especially of the agricultural population, must induce a want of stamina which is unable to resist the fever in malarious districts, and this results in chronic disease of the spleen. I have already described the general protuberance of the abdomen among the children throughout the Messaria and the Carpas districts, all of whom are more or less affected by splenetic diseases. On the mountains a marked difference is observed, as throughout the numerous villages at high altitudes the children are as healthy as those of England, although poorly clad in the home-made cotton-stuffs of the country.
I have already remarked the absence of flannel or other woollen material worn next the skin; the natives prefer their own manufactures to those of Europe, and as they grow the cotton, which is spun and woven into cloth by their own women, there is no actual outlay of coin. Some of the native material is very superior in strength to the machine-made stuffs of Manchester, especially a blue stout cotton with a thin red line that is in general request both for men and women. The only woollen stuff that is manufactured in Cyprus is confined to Nicosia, where the dark brown and immensely thick capotes are made for the winter wear of the common people. A cart-driver during the halt in a winter night simply draws the hood over his head and face, and, wrapped in his long and impervious capote, he lays himself beneath his cart and goes to sleep. Coarse woollen saddle-cloths and bags are also made at Nicosia. The same locality is celebrated for manufactures of silk and gold embroidery, all of which is performed by the hands of women, while the printing of calicoes and the production of morocco leather are local industries confined to the labour of men.
No country is better adapted for silk culture than Cyprus, where the mulberry-tree grows in great luxuriance to the altitude of 5000 feet, and the warmth and dryness of the climate is highly favourable to the silkworm. There is no tax upon the mulberry, and should artificial irrigation be encouraged by the government, this tree should be generally planted throughout the Messaria and all other districts, and a special impulse should be directed to silk development. Formerly the production of silk was an important export to France, but of late years it has decreased to a mere bagatelle. In the spot where I am now writing there are numerous mulberries in a profusion of rich foliage sufficient for the production of two pounds of silk by each tree; but they are entirely neglected, and the same depression in the silk cultivation may be remarked throughout the island.