Even Georgi's Pretty Wife Was Untidy About The
Hair, Although She Was In Her Best Attire; And A Close Inspection Of All
Women And Girls Showed That Their Throats And Breasts Were Literally
Covered With Ancient And Modern Fleabites.
Their dwellings are extremely
filthy, and swarm with vermin, as the fowls, goats, or even a cow or
two, generally increase the domestic party.
It is well known that Paphos
in Cyprus was the supposed birthplace of Venus, and that the island was
at one time celebrated for the beauty of women and immorality: the
change has been radical, as I believe no women are more chaste, and at
the same time less attractive, than the Cypriotes of the present time.
They are generally short and thickset; they are hardly treated by the
men, as they perform most of the rough work in cultivation of the
ground, and, from the extreme coarseness of their hands, they can seldom
be idle; the men, on the contrary, are usually good-looking, and are far
more attentive to their personal appearance.
Dali was an interesting spot to any agriculturist. The soil was
exceedingly rich, as it had been formed, like all valleys in Cyprus, by
the alluvium washed down from the surrounding hills; these were from
three to six hundred feet above the level of the plain, and were
composed of the usual hard species of chalk and gypsum; thus the deposit
from their denudation by rains supplied the chief constituents for the
growth of vines and cereals.
There is a depressing absence of all recent improvements in journeying
through Cyprus; even at Dali, where the water from the river was used
for irrigation, and large farms in the occupation of the wealthy
landowner, M. Richard Mattei, were successfully cultivated, I could not
help remarking the total neglect of tree-planting. The ancient
olive-groves still exist by the river's side, and, could they speak,
those grand old trees would be historians of the glorious days of
Cyprus; but there are no recent plantations, and the natives explained
the cause in the usual manner by attributing all wretchedness and
popular apathy to the oppression of the Turkish rule. This wholesale
accusation must be received with caution; there can be no doubt of the
pre-existing misrule, but at the same time it is impossible to travel
through Cyprus without the painful conviction that the modern Cypriote
is a reckless tree-destroyer, and that destruction is more natural to
his character than the propagation of timber. There is no reason for the
neglect of olive-planting, but I observed an absence of such cultivation
which must have prevailed during several centuries, even during the
Venetian rule. It is difficult to determine the age of an olive-tree,
which is almost imperishable; it is one of those remarkable examples of
vegetation that illustrates the eternal, and explains the first
instincts of adoration which tree-worship exhibited in the distant past.
I spent some hours with the olive trees of Dali; they were grand old
specimens of the everlasting.
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