We Were Now About To Enter The Great
Vine-Growing District Of Cyprus, Which Produces The Large Exportations
That Form The Chief Industry Of Limasol.
At a distance of a mile from our camp we entered the new government road
which connected Limasol with Platraes, thirty miles distant.
The country
quickly assumed an agreeable character; undulations and watercourses
were more or less covered with trees, and the road scarped out of the
steep sides exhibited the cretaceous formation similar to that between
Larnaca and Lefkosia. Wild lavender was just blooming upon many portions
of the way, while along the rocky courses of ravines the oleanders were
in the richest blossom. The road was furnished with mile-posts, and the
mules ambled along at a little more than five miles an hour. I found
considerable fault in the low gradients (one in thirty), which had
produced a road unnecessary for the vehicles of the country, at a
proportionate outlay; it was altogether too good, and would have been
excellent trotting-ground for a light phaeton and pair. As there was no
such vehicle in the island, the beautifully traced highway exhibited a
model of engineering that was scarcely appreciated by the natives, who
invariably took the short and direct cuts to avoid the circuitous
zigzags in descending the numerous valleys and in rounding the deep
ravines. After a ride of twelve miles through a beautiful country, well
wooded, and comprising a succession of wild hills and deep gorges, which
formed torrents in the wet season, we arrived at a river flowing in a
clear but extremely shallow and narrow stream beneath cliffs of
cretaceous limestone.
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