I.

for ten or twelve years, it requires a slight CHAP. degree of fermentation upon exposure to the air; and this, added to its sweetness and high colour, causes it to resemble Tokay more than any other wine; but the Cypriots do not drink it in this state; it is preserved by them in casks, to which the air has constantly access, and will keep in this manner for any number of years. After it has withstood the vicissitudes of the seasons for a single year, it is supposed to have passed the requisite proof, and then it sells for three Turkish piastres the gooze'. Afterwards, the price augments in proportion to its age. We tasted some of the Commanderia, which they said was forty years old, although still in the cask. After this period it is considered as a balm, and reserved on the account of its supposed restorative and healing quality for the sick and dying. A greater proof of its strength cannot be given, than by relating the manner in which it is kept; in casks neither filled nor closed. A piece of sheet lead is merely laid over the bung-hole; and this is removed almost every day, when customers visit their cellars to taste the different sorts of wine proposed for sale. Upon these occasions, taking the covering from the bung

(1) About twenty-one pints. The value of their piastre varies continually. It was worth about twenty-pence, when we were in Turkey.

I.

CHAP. hole, they dip a hollow cane or reed into the liquor, and by suction drawing some of it, let it run from the reed into a glass. Both the Commanderia and the Muscad are white wines. When quite new, they have a slight tinge of a violet colour; but age soon removes this, and afterwards they retain the colour of Madeira. Cyprus produces also red wines; but these are little esteemed, and they are used only as weak liquors for the table, answering to the ordinary "Vin du Pays" of France. If the inhabitants were iudustrious, and capable of turning their vintage to the best account, the red wine of the island might be rendered as famous as the white; and perhaps better calculated for exportation. It has the flavour of Tenedos; resembling that wine in colour and in strength: and good Tenedos not only excels every other wine of Greece, but perhaps has no where its equal in Europe.

Wretched

Condition of the Country.

This island, that had so highly excited, amply gratified our curiosity, by its most interesting antiquities; although there be nothing in its present state pleasing to the eye. Instead of a beautiful and fertile land, covered with groves of fruit and fine woods, once rendering it the Paradise of the Levant, there is hardly upon earth a more wretched spot than Cyprus now exhibits. A few words may convey all the statistical

I.

information a traveller can obtain; agriculture CHAP. neglected--population almost annihilated-pes

tiferous air indolence

poverty desolation. Even the situation of its once distinguished mines cannot now be ascertained. Its antiquities alone render it worthy of resort'; and these, if any person had leisure and opportunity to search for them, would amply repay the trouble. In this pursuit, Cyprus may be considered as yet untrodden. A few inscribed marbles were removed from Baffa by Sir Sidney Smith. Of two that the author examined, one was an epitaph, in Greek hexameter and pentameter lines; and the other commemorated public benefits conferred by one of the Ptolemies. But the Phænician relics upon the island are Idols. the most likely to obtain notice, and these have hitherto been unregarded. The inhabitants of Larneca rarely dig near their town without discovering either the traces of antient buildings,

(1) That the hunting after antiquities may leave little leisure for other inquiries, the author is ready to admit: but his Readers will have no reason to regret his inattention to other pursuits, when it is known that the condition of Cyprus at present is such, that an investigation of its moral and political state would be attended with as little result as a similar research carried on in a desert. What could be undertaken for this purpose was attempted by the Abbé Mariti; and if the Reader be curious to learn with how little effect, he may be referred to an entire volume which the Abbé has written upon the Island of Cyprus. See Travels through Cyprus, &c. vol. 1. Lond. 1791

CHAP.

I.

Not

subterraneous chambers, or sepulchres1. long before our arrival, the English Consul, Signor Peristiani, a Venetian, dug up, in one place, above thirty idols belonging to the most antient mythology of the heathen world. Their origin refers to a period long anterior to the conquest of Cyprus by the Ptolemies, and may relate to the earliest establishment of the Phoenician colonies. Some of these are of terra cotta; others of a coarse limestone; and some of soft crumbling marble. They were all sent to our Ambassador at Constantinople, who presented them to Mr. Cripps. The principal Nature of figures seem to have been very antient representations of the most popular divinity of the island, the PANTAMORPHA MATER; more frequently represented as Ceres than as Venus, (notwithstanding all that Poets have feigned of the Paphian Goddess,) if we may safely trust to such documents as engraved gems, medals, marbles, and to these idols, the authentic records of the country. Upon almost all the intaglios found in Cyprus, even among the ruins of Paphos, the representations are either those of Ceres

the Cy

prian

Venus.

(1) De La Roque was in Cyprus in May 1688. At that time, a relation of his, Monsr. Feau, the French Consul at Larneca, shewed to him sundry antiquities recently discovered in sepulchres near the town. He particularly mentions lachrymatories and lamps. Voy. de Syrie et du Mon Liban, par De La Roque, tom. 1. p. 2. Par. 1722.

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herself, or of symbols designating her various CHAP. modifications. Of these, the author collected many, which it would be tedious to enumerate. In their origin, the worship of Ceres and of Venus was the same. The Moon, or Dea Jana, called Diana by the Romans, and Astarte, "DAUGHTER OF HEAVEN," by the Phænicians3, whether under the name of Urania, Juno, or Isis, was also the Ceres of Eleusis. Having in a former publication pointed out their connection, and their common reference to a single principle in Nature, (a subject involving more extraneous discussion than might be deemed consistent with the present undertaking,) it is not necessary to renew the argument further, than to explain the reason why the symbols of the Eleusinian Ceres were also employed as the

(2)" The Latin DIANA (Vossius de Idolat. lib. ii. c. 25.) is the contract of Diva Jana, or Dea Jana." See also the erudite dissertation of Gale (Court of the Gentiles, p. 119. Oxon. 1669. "They styled the Moon Urania, Juno, Jana, Diana, Venus, &c.; and as the Sun was called Jupiter, from ja warǹę, and Janus, from the same, so also the Moon was called first Jana, and thence Juno, from proper name of God." So Vossius de Idolat. lib. ii. c. 26: referred to as the Moon, and comes from jah, the prope

jah, the

"Juno is

name of Amongst the Antient Romans

(3) According to the learned Gale, our word Easter, considered of such doubtful etymology, is derived from the Saxon Goddess ÆSTAR or Astarte, to whom they sacrificed in the month of April. See Gale's Court of the Gentiles, b. ii. e. 2.

(4)" Greek Marbles," p. 74.