There Is Plenty
Of Intelligence In Cyprus; The People Are Not Savages, But Their Fault
Is Poverty, The Natural Inheritance Of Turkish Rule; And We, The
English, Have The Power To Make Them Rich, And To Restore The Ancient
Importance Of The Island.
In England, at the time that I am writing,
money is not worth 2 per cent.
Owing to the general depression of trade;
the money-market has been in this plethoric or dropsical state for the
last three years, and there appears to be no hope upon the commercial
horizon of a favourable change. In Cyprus the resources are great, but
the capital is wanting, and the strange anomaly is presented that the
exchange of the British for the Turkish flag has not increased public
confidence. Something must be done to change the present stupor; if
Cypriotes were Candians (Cretans) their voices would be forcibly heard,
and the Turkish rule beneath the British uniform would be quickly
overthrown. The Cypriote, down-trodden for centuries, is like sodden
tinder that will not awaken to the spark: he is what is called "easily
governed;" which means an abject race, in which all noble aspirations
have been stamped out by years of unremitting oppression and injustice;
still, like the Cyprian ox, he ploughs the ground. It is the earth alone
that yields the world's wealth: if we have no other thoughts but
avarice, let us treat the Cypriote as we should his animal, and make him
a wealth-producer. England has acquired the reputation of the civiliser
of the world; it is in this character that we were expected to effect a
magic change in the position of Cyprus; instead of which we have
hitherto presented a miserable result of half-measures, where
irresolution has reduced the brilliant picture of our widely-trumpeted
political surprise to a dull "arrangement in whitey-brown" . . . which
is the pervading tint of the Cyprian surface in the absence of
artificial irrigation.
CHAPTER XV.
LIFE AT THE MONASTERY OF TROODITISSA.
The life at our quiet camp at Trooditissa was a complete calm: there
could not be a more secluded spot, as no human habitation was near,
except the invisible village of Phyni two miles deep beneath, at the
mountain's base. The good old monk Neophitos knitted, and taught his
boys always in the same daily spot: the swallows built their nests under
the eaves of the monastery roof and beneath the arch which covered in
the spring, and sat in domestic flocks upon the over-hanging boughs
within a few feet of our breakfast-table, when their young could fly.
Nightingales sang before sunset, and birds of many varieties occupied
the great walnut-tree above our camp, and made the early morning
cheerful with a chorus of different songs. There was no change from day
to day, except in the progress of the gardens; the plums grew large: the
mulberries ripened in the last week of July, and the shepherd's pretty
children and the monastery boys were covered with red stains, as though
from a battlefield, as they descended from the attractive boughs.
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