CHAP. II. instruments at Larneca: we bought one of them. The more antient Testudo is not yet quite extinct we procured one from a Lacedæmonian family, who were natives of Misitra, near to the remains of the antient Sparta. It is a shell of the land-tortoise, to which a wooden neck has been adjusted, like that of a guitar, or Cithara; and it has twostrings, like the Russian Balalaika. The different names of Testudo, Lyra, and Cithara were all given to the chorded shell'; nd athis was also the pópy of Homer. It seems to have been the parent of all the stringed instruments known in music. With its lengthened neck, the Testudo became, either Cithara or Lyra: afterwards it passed through the various modifications exhibited by the viol, the violin, the lute, guitar, dulcimer, harp, hurdy-gurdy, harpsichord, and many other, as the strings were multiplied, and the means of exciting their melodies were varied. Thus we find the singing-women, who came to meet Saul, when David was returned from the slaughter of Goliath, playing upon the ordinary and antient instruments of their country) described as coming (1) “When Jubal struck the chorded shell.” Dryden. out of all the cities of Israel "WITH THREE- CHAP. II. Produce of The cheese made in this island is tolerably the Island. good; and the markets are well supplied with vegetables. Among the number of things mentioned by Sandys to be found in Cyprus, very few are now to be procured. The chief products of the island are wine, raisins, citrons, oranges, pomegranates, almonds, figs, coloquintida (Cucumis Colocynthis), the native place of which Miller maintains to be unknown; also wool, cotton, silk, and salt. Almost all the inhabitants (3) Psalms xxxiii. 2. xcii. 3. (4) See Miller's Gardener's Dict. by Martyn, vol. I. part II. Lond. CHAP. keep silk-worms; and it is the business of the females to wind the silk, which is woven into shifts and shirts at Nicotia and Baffa. The harvest is generally ended before the beginning of June; and this circumstance enables us to estimate with tolerable accuracy the difference between the climate of England and that of Cyprus. In our country the harvest-home is rarely celebrated before the end of August'. We left Larneca in the evening, and found a very good road to Nicotia; travelling principally over plains, by a gradual and almost imperceptible ascent, towards the north-west. Mountains appeared in the distant scenery, on almost every side. The soil everywhere exhibited a white marly clay, said to be exceedingly rich in its nature, although neglected. The Greeks are so oppressed by their Turkish masters, that they dare not cultivate the land the harvest would instantly be taken from them if they did. Their whole aim seems to be, to scrape together sufficient, in the course of the whole year, to pay their tax to the Governor. The omission of this is punished by torture, or by death and in cases of (1) When this Edition was printing in 1816, the harvest did not begin near Cambridge until the first day of September. CHAP. II. Appear ance of the their inability to supply the impost, the inhabitants fly from the island. So many emigrations of this sort happen during the year, that the population of all Cyprus rarely exceeds sixty thousand persons; a number formerly insufficient to have peopled one of its towns. The Governor resides at Nicotia. His appointment is annual; and as it is obtained by purchase, the highest bidder succeeds; each striving, after his arrival, to surpass his predecessors in the enormity of his exactions. From this terrible oppression the Consuls and a few other families are free, in consequence of protection granted by their respective nations. Over a barren tract of land, Desolate altogether desolate, and destitute even of the meanest herbage, our journey was neither amusing nor profitable. It might have suggested reflections to a moral philosopher, thus viewing the horrid consequences of barbarian power; but when a traveller is exposed to the burning beams of an Eastern sun, mounted upon a sorry mule dislocating his very loins, fatigued, and breathing hot pestilential vapours, he will feel little disposition to moralize. We rejoiced indeed, when, in a wide plain, we came in view of the little huts where we were to pass a part of the night, previous to four more hours of similar penance. Hadgi Filippo, formerly English Consul in Cyprus, together with his Country. CHAP. Village of Primæval son and another traveller, joined our party upon the road. The Hadgi, becoming blind, had been compelled to resign his place, and lived at Limasol. This respectable old man, although deprived of sight, was in the habit of journeying from one part of the island to the other, and knew every part of it. He said that the inhabitants were shamefully oppressed. The venerable pair with whom we rested in the village of Attién' were the parents of our mule-drivers, and owners of the mules. They made us welcome to their homely supper, by placing two planks across a couple of benches, and setting thereon boiled pumpkins, eggs, and some wine of the island in a hollow gourd. We observed upon the ground the sort of stones used for grinding corn, called Querns in Scotland, common also in Lapland, and in all parts of Palæstine. These are the primæval mills of the world; and they are still found in all corn countries, where rude and antient customs have not been liable to those changes introduced by refinement. The employment of grinding with them is confined solely to females; and the practice illustrates the obser (1) Mariti writes the name of this place Atene. See vol. I. p. 87. |