There would be no engineering
difficulty in the formation of a boat-harbour, to combine by extensive
pile-jetties the facility of landing in all weathers. A very cursory
view of Larnaca exhibited a true picture of its miserable financial
position. The numerous stores kept by Europeans were the result of a
spasmodic impulse. There was no wholesome trade; those who represented
the commercial element were for the most part unfortunates who had
rushed to Cyprus at the first intelligence of the British occupation,
strong in expectations of a golden harvest. The sudden withdrawal of the
large military force left Larnaca in the condition of streets full of
sellers, but denuded of buyers. The stores were supplied with the usual
amount of liquors, and tins of preserved provisions; none of the
imported articles were adapted for native requirements; an utter
stagnation of trade was the consequence, and prices fell below the cost
of home production. The preceding year had been exceptionally sickly;
many of the storekeepers were suffering from the effects of fever,
which, combined with the depression of spirits caused by ruined
prospects, produced a condition of total collapse, from which there was
only one relief--that of writing to the newspapers and abusing the
Government and the island generally.
There must always be martyrs--somebody must be sacrificed--whether burnt
at the stake for religious principles, or put in a bell-tent in the sun
with the thermometer at 110 degrees Fahr. simply because they are
British soldiers--it does not much matter--but the moment your merchants
are slain upon the altar, the boiling-point is reached.
The store-keepers sat despondingly behind their counters while the
hinges of their doors rusted from the absence of in-comers. It was
impossible to rouse them from their state of mercantile coma, except by
one word, which had a magnetic effect upon their nervous
system---"Custom House."
"I suppose you have no difficulty at the Custom House, Mr.--in this
simple island?" This was invariably the red rag to the bull.
"No difficulty, Sir!--no difficulty?--it is THE difficulty--we are
absolutely paralysed by the Custom House. Every box is broken open and
the contents strewed upon the ground. The duty is ad valorem upon all
articles, and an ignorant Turk is the valuer. This man does not know the
difference between a bootjack and a lemon-squeezer: only the other day
he valued wire dish-covers as `articles of head-dress,' (probably he had
seen wire fencing-masks). If he is perplexed, he is obliged to refer the
questionable article to the Chief Office,--this is two hundred yards
from the landing place:--thus he passes half the day in running
backwards and forwards with trifles of contested value to his superior,
while crowds are kept waiting, and the store is piled with goods most
urgently required." . . .
I immediately went to see this eccentric representative of Anglo-Turkish
political-and-mercantile-combination, and found very little
exaggeration in the description, except that the distance was 187 paces
instead of 200 which he had to perform, whenever the character of the
article was beyond the sphere of his experience.
