On The West The Important Mountain-Range Which
Includes Troodos Bounded The View By The Snow-Capped Heights Of The
Ancient Mount Olympus, Between Which Several Chains Of Lower Hills
Formed A Dark Base Of Plutonic Rocks, Which Contrasted With The Painful
Glare Of The Immediate Foreground.
The highest points of this range are
Troodos, 6590 feet, Adelphe, 5380 feet, Makhera, 4730 feet.
These are
the measurements as they appear upon the maps; but the recent survey by
the Royal Engineers has reduced the height of Troodos by 250 feet. A
green patch at the foot of the Carpas range denoted the position of
Kythrea, about twelve miles distant east, watered by the extraordinary
spring which has rendered it famous both in ancient and modern times;
and almost at our feet, or a mile in a direct line, the fortified
capital, Lefkosia, presented the usual picturesque appearance of a
Turkish town. A combination of date-palms, green orange-gardens,
minarets, mosques, houses quaint in their irregularity and colouring,
and the grand old Venetian Cathedral, St. Sophia, towering above all
other buildings, were enclosed within the high masonry walls and
bastions, comprising a circuit of three statute miles.
The position of Lefkosia has been badly chosen, as it lies in the flat,
and must always have been exposed to a plunging fire from an enemy
posted upon the heights. It was fortified in the time of Constantine the
Great, but in 1570 the Venetians demolished the old works and
constructed the present elaborate fortifications.
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