We Accordingly Left This Village Some Miles
To The South, But As We Were Passing Through A Broad Cultivated Plain, A
Portion Of Which Had Recently Been Ploughed, We Observed A Crowd Of
Women And Girls Who Were Engaged With Baskets In Collecting Wild
Artichokes, Which The Plough Had Dislodged.
As we approached a sudden
rush was made in our direction, the baskets were placed upon the ground,
and a race took place over the heavy soil to see who would be the first
to greet us.
We discovered that these were our friends of Volokalida,
who had walked across the hills in a large party to collect wild
vegetables; they seemed delighted to see us, and insisted upon shaking
hands, which, as they had been grubbing in the freshly-turned ground,
was rather a mouldy operation. We shook hands with about thirty members
of this primitive agricultural society, and were glad to waive an adieu
before the arrival of the older women in the rear, who with their heavy
nailed boots were running towards us, plunging about in the deep ground
in clumsy attempts at juvenile activity. A few of the young women were
very pretty, but, as usual in Cyprus, their figures were ungainly, and
their movements, hampered by baggy trousers and enormous high boots,
were most ungraceful.
On arrival at Trichomo we pitched our tent at some distance from the
dwelling in which we had fed some thousand fleas upon our former visit;
and on the following morning I determined to go straight Famagousta,
about twelve miles distant.
The route from Trichomo is for the most part along the seashore, but
occasionally cutting off the bends by a direct line. The plain is a dead
level, as it has been entirely deposited by the floods of the Pedias
river. We rode tolerably fast, the sun being hot and the country most
uninteresting; we had left the shrub-covered surface of the Carpas with
its romantic cliffs and deep valleys rich in verdure, and once more we
were upon the hateful treeless plain of Messaria. During our sojourn in
the Carpas district the rainfall by our gauge had been 1.28 inches, but
in this unattractive region there had only been one or two faint
showers, hardly sufficient to lay the dust. The crops about five inches
above the ground were almost dead, and the young wheat and barley were
completely withered.
About four or five miles from Famagousta we arrived at the ruins of
ancient Salamis. The stringent prohibition of the British authorities
against a search for antiquities in Cyprus had destroyed the interest
which would otherwise have been taken by travellers in such
explorations. As I have before remarked, there are no remains to attract
attention upon the surface, but all ancient works are buried far
beneath, therefore in the absence of permission to excavate, the
practical study of the past is impossible, and it is a sealed book.
Fortunately General di Cesnola has published his most interesting
volume, combining historical sketches of ancient times with a minute
description of the enormous collection of antiquities which rewarded his
labours during ten years' research; so that if our government will
neither explore nor permit others to investigate, we have at least an
invaluable fund of information collected by those whose consular
position during the Turkish rule enabled them to make additions to our
historical knowledge.
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