Some Of The
Native Material Is Very Superior In Strength To The Machine-Made Stuffs
Of Manchester, Especially A Blue Stout Cotton With A Thin Red Line That
Is In General Request Both For Men And Women.
The only woollen stuff
that is manufactured in Cyprus is confined to Nicosia, where the dark
brown and immensely thick capotes are made for the winter wear of the
common people.
A cart-driver during the halt in a winter night simply
draws the hood over his head and face, and, wrapped in his long and
impervious capote, he lays himself beneath his cart and goes to sleep.
Coarse woollen saddle-cloths and bags are also made at Nicosia. The same
locality is celebrated for manufactures of silk and gold embroidery, all
of which is performed by the hands of women, while the printing of
calicoes and the production of morocco leather are local industries
confined to the labour of men.
No country is better adapted for silk culture than Cyprus, where the
mulberry-tree grows in great luxuriance to the altitude of 5000 feet,
and the warmth and dryness of the climate is highly favourable to the
silkworm. There is no tax upon the mulberry, and should artificial
irrigation be encouraged by the government, this tree should be
generally planted throughout the Messaria and all other districts, and a
special impulse should be directed to silk development. Formerly the
production of silk was an important export to France, but of late years
it has decreased to a mere bagatelle.
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