There Are Few Countries Where Such Facilities Exist For Irrigation, And
The Work Should Be Commenced Without Delay.
Should next year be one of
drought like the spring of 1879, the greatest misery will befall the
population;
There is already sufficient disappointment in the want of
progress since the British occupation, and the feeling will be
intensified should the assistance of government be withheld in this
crying necessity of artificial irrigation.
The Cypriote well-sinker is wonderfully clever in discovering springs,
and I have already described the method of multiplying the water-power
of one source by securing and concentrating the neighbouring sources.
This work only requires money, and the inhabitants, without further
assistance than loans secured by a water-rate upon the district, will
rapidly develop the natural supply. There should be a special commission
appointed, in each of the six districts of Cyprus, to investigate and
report officially upon this subject. In forming the commission, care
should be taken that the native element should predominate, and that no
enthusiastic English engineer, blooming with new schemes, should thrust
into shadow the Cyprian intelligence upon the working of their own
systems. If I were an English engineer employed in any work, I should
probably have the natural failing of enforcing my own opinions; but from
many years' experience I have come to the conclusion that the
inhabitants of a country are generally better qualified than strangers
for giving practical opinions upon their own locations. There is plenty
of intelligence in Cyprus; the people are not savages, but their fault
is poverty, the natural inheritance of Turkish rule; and we, the
English, have the power to make them rich, and to restore the ancient
importance of the island.
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