If Any Stranger Should Now Arrive
From England At Trooditissa He Would Appreciate The Calm And Cool Asylum
Contrasting With The Heat Of The Lower Country; But Should He Arrive
Even One Short Month After Our Departure, I Fear The Picture Will Have
Changed.
Throngs of mules will have defiled our clean courtyard, and
will be stabled within our shady retreat beneath the walnut-tree, which
will remain unswept.
The filthy habits of the people, now restrained
only by strong remonstrance, will be too apparent. The old monks,
Neophitos and Woomonos, (who are dear old people when clean) will cease
to wash, and the place and people will certainly relapse into the
primeval state of dirt and holiness in which we first discovered it.
We leave in friendship with all, and during our sojourn at Trooditissa
of more than three months, no quarrels, or even trifling disagreements,
have occurred between the servants or the people. The temporary storm
occasioned by the abrupt departure of Christina was quickly lulled by
the arrival of the middle-aged-maid of all work of seventy-five, who
has performed all her arduous duties with admirable patience. Our own
servants have been most satisfactory since their first engagement upon
our arrival in Cyprus in January last; Georgi the "prodigal son," has
been of much service as interpreter, and is an honest and willing young
man, but there is a peculiarity in his physical constitution exhibited
in the mutual want of attachment between his person and his buttons.
These small but necessary friends continually desert him; and his shoes
appear to walk a few inches faster than his feet, leaving him in a
chronic state of down-at-heel.
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