The Country Was Exceedingly Wild For Some Miles As We Ascended Through Bush Of Young Pines, Dwarf-Cypress, And Mastic, Occasionally Passing Pines Of Larger Growth, Which Had, As Usual, Been Mutilated.

We moved partridges in several places, but these were old birds packed in considerable numbers: a bad sign at

This season, when they should have been sitting upon eggs. At an elevation of about 1000 feet above the sea we came upon a park of caroub-trees, in which was a spring of water; large flocks of goats and cattle, together with many mules and horses, were roaming through this verdant district, which afforded abundant pasturage in the shape of wild artichokes, a variety of succulent thistles, and many plants suitable to the native animals in the absence of actual grasses. This is a distressing want throughout Cyprus; when the country is green, the verdure is produced by cultivated crops of cereals, which quickly change to yellow as they ripen; all the natural productions of the earth are what in England we should term "weeds "--there is no real grass, except in some rare localities where a species of "couch-grass" (the British farmer's enemy) crawls along the surface, being nourished by its knotty roots, which, penetrating into the deep soil, are enabled to escape the burning sun.

Upon reaching the summit, about 1200 feet above the sea, we looked over the richest landscape that I had seen in Cyprus. A succession of broad valleys and undulating hills gradually ascended, until in the far distance they terminated in elevated plateaux upwards of 2000 feet above the sea. The whole of this district, as far and no doubt much farther than the eye could reach, was richly wooded with caroub-trees and occasional olive-groves, while the distant villages were marked by the peculiar light-green of mulberry-clumps and other fruit-trees. The bottoms of the numerous valleys were dark with well-irrigated crops of cereals, and contrasted strongly with those of the higher ground, which had depended solely upon the uncertain rainfall.

There were beautiful sites for country residences throughout this scene, and it appeared strange that no house was visible except the ordinary mud-built dwellings in the native villages. The route over this country was abominable, as it was a succession of the steepest ups-and-downs into valleys many hundred feet in depth, which necessitated a scramble up a rocky zigzag for a similar height above, to be repeated after we had crossed each shoulder that formed a spur from the distant mountains, the drainage being at right angles to our path. Every plateau exhibited the same lovely view of the sea, cliffs of snow-white cretaceous rock, green hills, and deep vales, through which a stream of water had given birth to a thick growth of foliage. After a march of fourteen miles we halted in a deep dell beneath shady caroubs, a few yards from a brook of clear water which irrigated some of the richest crops I had seen in Cyprus.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 146 of 274
Words from 75774 to 76283 of 143016