Cyprus, As I Saw It In 1879 By Sir Samuel White Baker





















































 -  The productions of the gardens exhibit the
miserable position of the island, which emanates from a want of
elasticity in - Page 382
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The Productions Of The Gardens Exhibit The Miserable Position Of The Island, Which Emanates From A Want Of Elasticity In A Debased And Oppressed Population Too Apathetic And Hopeless To Attempt Improvements.

England can change this wretched stagnation by the application of capital, and by encouraging the development of the first necessity, WATER; without which, all attempts at agricultural improvements, and the extension of tree-planting in the low country, would be futile.

I shall therefore devote the following chapter to the subject of artificial irrigation, and its results.

CHAPTER XIV.

REMARKS ON IRRIGATION.

The ancient prosperity of Cyprus must have been due to artificial irrigation, which ensured a maximum of production, similar to the inundated lands of Egypt. In the latter country the Nile is a "Salvator Mundi," without which Egypt would be a simple prolongation of the Nubian and Libyan deserts, in the absence of a seasonable rainfall. The difference between the great cereal-producing portion of Cyprus and the Delta of Egypt is, that, although the plain of Messaria has been formed chiefly through the action of the Pedias river and other periodical mountain streams, which have deposited a rich stratum of soil during inundations, the rivers are merely torrents, or simple conduits, which carry off the waters of heavy storms, or intervals of rain, and act as drains in conveying the surplus waters during floods; while at other times they are absolutely dry.

If the Nile were controlled by a series of weirs or dams, with sluices to divert the high waters of the period into natural depressions within the desert, to form reservoirs at high levels for the supply of Egypt in seasons of scarcity, the command of the water-supply would be far preferable to the chances of rain in the most favoured country.

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