After Luncheon, The Camels Having Arrived, I Would Not Allow Them To
Unload, But Directed Them Straight To Limasol.
Of course their owners
declared the distance to be a long day's march, but as the map showed it
to be six miles, I insisted.
From Kolossi the country was perfectly open and cultivated; the
peasantry were engaged in reaping barley, which was carried away upon
donkeys' backs instead of being conveyed by carts. The usual
caroub-trees, although plentiful upon the rising ground in the distance,
were few and far between, and from this to Limasol, which was now in
view, the beauty of the landscape had departed . . . . . I dislike the
approach to a large town in a semi-wild country; the charming simplicity
and independence of travelling is destroyed, and the servants become
more or less demoralised by a love of new associations which produces a
neglect of duty. Iiani was with us in addition to our guide the
zaphtieh, therefore, as an utter stranger to the locality, I ordered
them to lead us to a convenient camping-ground. As we approached the
town there were the usual minarets and date-palms, and several vessels,
including steamers, were lying in the roadstead. We halted near the
entrance in a forsaken garden, where the walls were broken down and the
unwatered orange-trees, although in faint blossom, were parched and
faded. Two very large apricot-trees promised a shade for the tent, but
the sakyeeah, or water-wheel, together with two powerful English
lifting-pumps that were connected with a large reservoir and aqueduct of
masonry, were in the last stage of rust and rottenness.
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