There Appeared To Be
More Signs Of Game In This Part Of The Country, As The Cock Francolins
Were Crowing In Many Directions Throughout Our Route, Until We Arrived
At Polis, Or, In Full, "Poli-Ton-Krysokhus."
This place was formerly important as one of the principal mineral
centres of the island, and the large accumulations of scoriae in several
mounds near the coast prove that mining operations were conducted upon
an extensive scale.
A concession had recently been granted to a small
private company for the working of copper in this neighbourhood, and
should the existence of metallic wealth be proved there can be no doubt
that capital will be embarked in mining enterprises, and the locality
will recover its former importance. On the other hand, all mining
adventures should be conducted with the greatest caution. A common error
is committed by sanguine speculators in following the footsteps of the
ancients, upon the supposition that because in former ages a locality
was productive, it should remain in the same profitable condition.
Nothing can be more erroneous; it is generally poor gleaning after the
Phoenicians. The bronze of those extraordinary miners and metallurgists
was renowned above all other qualities; they worked the copper-mines of
Cyprus and the tin-mines of Cornwall, but the expenses of working a mine
in those days bore no comparison with the outlay of modern times. Slaves
were employed as a general rule: forced labour was obtainable; and the
general conditions of the labour-market were utterly at variance with
those of the present day.
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