The Summit Of The Mountain Was Disappointing, As The Haze Occasioned By
The Heat In The Low Country Obscured The Distant View.
It was 8.10.
A.M., and the air was still deliciously cool and fresh upon the highest
point of Cyprus, which affords a complete panorama that in the month of
October or during early spring must be very beautiful.
Even now I could
distinguish Larnaca, Limasol, Morphu, all in opposite directions, in
addition to the sea surrounding the island upon every point except the
east. The lofty coast of Caramania, which had formed a prominent object
in the landscape when at Kyrenia, was now unfortunately hidden within
the haze.
From this elevated position I could faintly hear the military band
practising at the camp of the 20th Regiment, invisible, about a mile
distant among the pine-forests, at a lower level of 700 feet. There were
no trees upon the rounded knoll which forms the highest point of Cyprus:
these must have been cleared away and rooted out when the ancient camp
was formed, and the pines have not re-grown, for the simple reason that
no higher ground exists from which the rains could have washed the cones
to root upon a lower level.
I now examined every ravine with the greatest caution in the hopes of
meeting either the two rams, or other moufflon, but I only came across a
solitary ewe with a lamb about four months old; which I saw twice during
my walk round the mountain tops.
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