Two Very Large Apricot-Trees Promised A Shade For The Tent, But The Sakyeeah, Or Water-Wheel, Together With Two Powerful English Lifting-Pumps That Were Connected With A Large Reservoir And Aqueduct Of Masonry, Were In The Last Stage Of Rust And Rottenness.

I was not prepossessed with the aspect of the spot, as it reminded me strongly of an English property in charge of the Court of Chancery.

The baggage animals with the tents arrived while our people were employed in clearing a space beneath the trees from the innumerable stones, which, as usual throughout Cyprus, covered the surface. The servants were busily engaged in erecting the tent, when a long, lanky individual, with a repulsive countenance, marched through the little crowd and haughtily inquired "who we were, and what business we had there?"

This was the first instance of incivility that I had met with in our journey through the island. The man was a Turk, and was not the proprietor, but only the agent for this wretchedly-neglected property. The unfortunate owner was sleeping with his fathers, or he would, I feel sure, have welcomed us with true Turkish politeness and hospitality but having departed this life, some legal difficulties had occasioned trouble, and the estate was in the hands of the uncivil agent, who, of course, being nobody, assumed the airs of somebody, and endeavoured by rudeness to exhibit his importance. We were travel-stained and dusty as millers, therefore our personal appearance had not impressed him favourably; he was in a thread-bare long black cloth habit that combined the cloak, dressing-gown, and frock-coat in a manner inexplicable, and known only to Turks. This garment was trimmed in the front edges with rather mangy-looking fox-skin: loose pegtop trousers of greasy-looking cloth, dirty and threadbare, completed the costume of the great curiosity of Cyprus, "a rude person."

I was not at the time aware that he understood Arabic, and happily I addressed Amarn in that language, expressing my surprise that in this country, where we had travelled so widely and found civility upon all sides, we should be subjected to such rudeness. My servants, who were more annoyed than myself, spoke rather loudly, and assured him that if he was a Turk, their master was a pasha of his Sultan, and we would at once quit his miserable neglected ground and mention his inhospitality to the chief commissioner. By this time the rear baggage animals had appeared, and the imposing array of luggage and people seemed to impress him with the fact that we were neither gipsies nor vagabonds. I explained to him that we should not have presumed to intrude within a walled garden, but as the old walls had disappeared and the place was in an open and ruinous condition, we had trespassed innocently. He disappeared with an apology, but upon the first opportunity after we had examined the neighbourhood of Limasol we changed our camp to a good position on the eastern outskirts of the town.

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