On The Following Morning The Thermometer Marked 40 Degrees.
The natives
were early at work, ploughing land that was to remain fallow until the
following season.
The oxen were sleek and in good condition, and not
inferior in weight to the well-known red animals of North Devon.
Although the native plough is of the unchanged and primitive pattern
that is illustrated on the walls of Egyptian temples, it is well adapted
for the work required in the rough and stony ground of Cyprus. I was
surprised to see the depth which these exceedingly light implements
attained, with apparent ease to the pair of oxen; this was not less than
eight inches, and the furrows were regular, but not turned completely
over. The ploughshare is not adapted for cutting the roots of weeds by
means of a flat surface and a sharp edge, but the rounded top of the
native iron passes beneath the soil and breaks it up like the wave
produced by the ram-bow of a vessel. The plough, when complete, does not
exceed forty pounds in weight, and it is conveniently carried, together
with the labourer, upon the same donkey, when travelling from a distance
to the morning's work. European settlers in Cyprus should be cautious
before superseding the native plough by the massive European pattern;
there are certain soils where the powerful iron plough, or even the
double implement, might be worked with advantage, but as a general rule
I should advise an agriculturist to wait patiently at the commencement
of his operations, and to gain practical experience of the country
before he expends capital in the purchase of European inventions. There
can be no doubt that by degrees important improvements may be introduced
that will benefit the Cypriote farmer, although it will be long before
his primitive method will be abandoned. The great difficulty in Cyprus
consists in reducing the soil to a fine surface; huge lumps of tenacious
earth are turned up by the plough, which, under the baking influence of
the sun, become as hard as sun-dried bricks. The native method of
crushing is exceedingly rude and ineffective. A heavy plank about
sixteen feet long and three inches thick, furnished with two rings, is
dragged by oxen over the surface; which generally remains in so rough a
state that walking over the field is most laborious. There are many
stone columns lying useless among the heaps of ruins so common in
Cyprus, that would form excellent rollers, but the idea of such an
implement has never entered the Cypriote head. The plough,
smoothing-plank, and the ancient threshing-harrow, composed of two broad
planks inlaid with sharp flint stones, are the only farm machinery of
the cultivator. As in the days of Abraham the oxen drew this same
pattern of harrow over the corn, and reduced the straw to a coarse chaff
mingled with the grain, so also the treatment in Cyprus remains to the
present day. The result is a mixture of dirt and sand which is only
partially rejected by the equally primitive method of winnowing.
Mr. Hamilton Lang gives an amusing description of the strictly
conservative principles of the Cyprian oxen, which have always been fed
upon the straw broken by the process described in threshing by the
harrow of sharp flints. This coarse chaff, mixed with cotton-seed,
lentils, or barley, is eaten by all animals with avidity, and the
bullocks positively refused Mr. Lang's new food, which was the same
straw passed through an English threshing-machine and cut fine by a
modern chaff-cutter. This fact is a warning to those who would introduce
too sudden reforms among men and animals in a newly-acquired country;
but if Mr. Hamilton Lang had sprinkled salt over his chaff I think the
refractory appetites of the oxen might have been overcome. A pair of
oxen are supposed to plough one "donum" daily of fifty paces square, or
about half an acre.
Having watched the various teams, and conversed with the ploughmen by
the medium of the cook Christo, who spoke English and was an intelligent
interpreter, I ordered the vans to move on while I walked over the
country with the dogs. There was no game except a wild-duck which I shot
in the thick weeds of a neighbouring swamp. Larks were in great
quantities, and for want of larger birds I shot enough for a pilaff, and
secured a breakfast. The route, which could be hardly called a road, had
been worn by the wheels of native carts. These were narrower than our
vans, and one of our wheels was generally upon a higher level,
threatening on some occasions to overturn. The country around us was
desolate in its aridity. We passed through the ruins of an ancient city
over which the plough had triumphed, and literally not one stone was
left upon another. A few stone columns of a rough description, some of
which were broken, were lying in various directions, and I noticed a
lower millstone formed of an exceedingly hard conglomerate rock; these
pieces were too heavy to move without great exertions, therefore they
had remained in situ.
After a short march of three miles we arrived at the steep banks of the
river a mile above the village of Arpera. The bed of this river was
about forty feet below the level of the country, and here our first real
difficulty commenced in descending a rugged and precipitous track, which
at first sight appeared destructive to any springs. The gipsy-van was
conducted by the owner of the fine pair of bullocks; but this fellow
(Theodoris) was an obstinate and utterly reckless character, and instead
of obeying orders to go steadily with the drag on the wheels, he put his
animals into a gallop down the steep descent, with the intention of
gaining sufficient momentum to cross the sandy bottom and to ascend the
other side. If the original gipsy proprietor could have seen his van
leaping and tossing like a ship in a heavy sea, with the frantic driver
shouting and yelling at his bullocks while he accelerated their gallop
by a sharp application of the needle-pointed driving prick, he would
have considered it the last moment of his movable home.
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