The Effect Was Remarkable, As The House-Roofs,
In Lines, Seemed Like Flights Of Steps Upon The Mountain Side.
We halted
at the first decent-looking dwelling and rested beneath the shade of an
apricot-tree within a small courtyard.
The people at once assembled, and
the owner of the house brought us black wine and raki of his own make;
the latter he was now engaged in distilling, and some pigs were
revelling in the refuse that had been thrown in a heap below the window
of the store. This man was proud of his wine, as it was tolerably free
from the taste of tar; the jars, having been more than fifty years in
constant use, had lost the objectionable flavour. We were thirsty and
hot, therefore the wine was not disagreeable, and we lunched beneath the
apricot.
After an hour's rest the real up-hill work commenced. We crossed a broad
channel of running water beneath groves of green trees, and entered a
path on the opposite side of the village; this skirted a deep and
precipitous gorge, through which the river flowed from the high and dark
ravine that cleft the mountain from the ssummit to the bottom. A
water-mill was at work below us on the right; and always ascending along
the side of the ravine, with the rushing sound of the stream below, we
arrived after half a mile at the base of the apparently impossible
route. Right and left, right and left, went the short and sharp zigzags,
the path covered with rolling stones and loose rocks, which clattered
under the feet of the tired mules and rolled down the steep inclines.
The sound of the stream below became fainter, and the narrow angle of
the deep cleft grew darker, as we ascended. We looked down upon the
rounded tops of various trees, including the rich verdure of planes,
which skirted the banks of the hidden stream, and we entered upon pines
rising from an under-growth of beautiful evergreens, including the
fragrant tremithia, the light green foliage of the arbutus, with its
bright red bark contrasting strongly with the dark shade of the dense
and bushy ilex. The mastic was there, and as we increased our altitude
the Pinus laricio and Pinus maritima varied the woods by their tall
spars, beneath which a perfect garden of flowers almost covered the
surface of the earth; these included the white and purple cistus, dog-
roses, honeysuckle, and several varieties unknown to me. Among the
ornamental dwarfs were a quantity of the Sumach, which is an article of
export from Cyprus for the use of the tanner and dyer.
The view became very beautiful as we ascended, until at length, after a
couple of miles of the steepest zigzags, we turned a corner of the rocks
and looked down the great depth at our right, below the path, upon the
long white thread of a waterfall, which for some hundred feet of a
severe incline, broken by occasional plunges, issues from the rocky
cleft, and forms the river in the ravine below.
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