Even From This Elevated Point Of View Morphu Looked A Long Way Off.
The
sleepy Iiani was sufficiently wide awake to steer for his wife, and we
had made a long march already.
I doubted the possibility of the loaded
camels ascending the steep slope, which had severely tried our mules,
and I felt sure that liani's old camel would either knock up or tumble
down with his load, should he attempt the ascent. It was of no use to
reflect, and as Morphu lay before us in the now barren and sun-smitten
plain, we touched our animals with the spur and pressed on. Descending
for some miles, we passed a garden of olives, that must have been
upwards of a thousand years old, upon our right; and still inclining
downwards, through ground cultivated with cereals completely withered by
the drought, we at length arrived at the broad but perfectly dry bed of
the river. Crossing this, we steered for a grove of ancient olive-trees,
which I at once selected for a camping-place, on the outskirts of the
town. We were now twenty-three miles from Lapithus, and I felt sure that
our baggage animals would not arrive till nightfall.
As we sat beneath one of these grand old olive-trees alone, Iiani having
taken his mules to his home, and probably at the same time having
advertised our arrival, throngs of women and children approached to
salaam and to stare. I always travelled with binocular glasses slung
across my back, and these were admirable stare-repellers; it was only
necessary to direct them upon the curious crowd, and the most prominent
individuals acknowledged their power by first looking shy and conscious,
and then confusedly laughing and retreating to the rear.
We had arrived at 2.20 P.M., and we waited beneath the olive-trees until
8 P.M., when the advance camels at length came in after dark. It was
9.30 before the tents were pitched and the camp arranged. The great
delay had been occasioned by Iiani's old camel, which had, as I had
expected, rolled down the steep bill with its load, and having nearly
killed itself, had mortally wounded the sacred copper kettle, which
every traveller knows is one of his Penates, or household gods, to
which he clings with reverence and affection. This beautiful object had
lost its plump and well-rounded figure, and had been crushed into a
museum-shaped antiquity that would have puzzled the most experienced
archaeologist. Metal water-jugs upon which the camel had rolled had
been reduced to the shape of soup-plates, and a general destruction of
indispensable utensils had inflicted a loss more than equal to the value
of Iiani's animal.
The following morning (12th April) exhibited the extraordinary change of
climate between the northern and southern sides of the Carpas
mountain-range. The average temperature of the week had been at 7 A.M.
57.5 degrees F, 3 P.M. 66.5 degrees. At Morphu the thermometer at 7 A.M.
showed 62 degrees, and at 3 P.M. 83 degrees! It was precisely the same
on the following day.
It was a distressing contrast to the beautiful Kyrenia and the
interesting north coast to have exchanged the green trees and rippling
streams for the arid and desolate aspect of the Messaria. The town of
Morphu has no special interest; like all others, it consists of houses
constructed of sun-baked bricks of clay and broken straw, with
flat-topped roofs of the same materials. There are fruitful gardens
irrigated by water-wheels, and formerly the extremely rich sandy loam of
the valley produced madder-roots of excellent quality, which added
materially to the value of the land. This industry having been
completely eclipsed by the alizarine dye, Morphu has to depend upon silk
and cereals for its agricultural wealth. The population is composed
almost entirely of Greeks. There is a monastery and a large school.
I rode to the bay, about four miles and a half distant, passing many
villages, which, as we neared the sea, were in the midst of magnificent
crops of barley and wheat, resulting from artificial irrigation by the
water that percolates beneath the sandy bed of the dry river at a
certain level, which has been led into numerous channels before it can
reach the natural exit at its mouth. It must be exceedingly unhealthy,
as, for several square miles upon the sea margin, the country is an
expanse of marsh and bulrushes, abounding with snipe during the winter
months. On 13th April I walked over the greater portion of this locality
with my three spaniels, but the snipe had departed, and we did not move
a bird.
On the right side of Morphu Bay to the east, by Kormachiti, there are
extensive sand-dunes, forming deep drifts, which extend for several
miles inland at the foot of the hill-range that we had descended. These
exhibit the prevailing wind (north). Many people upon observing
sand-dunes attribute the most distant limit of the sand to the extreme
violence of the wind; but this is not the case. It is the steady
prevalence of moderately strong winds that causes the extension of
sand-drifts. The wind of to-day deposits the sand at a certain distance
from the shore. The wind to-morrow starts the accumulated sand from that
depot to form a new deposit about equidistant; and thus by slow degrees
the dunes are formed by a succession of mounds, conveyed onwards by an
unchanging force; but the maximum power of a gale would be unable to
carry thousands of tons of heavy sand to form a hill-range at the
extreme distance from the original base of the material. At Hambantotte,
in the southern district of Ceylon, there is an extraordinary example of
this action, where during one monsoon a range of mounds is formed which
might be termed hills; when the monsoon changes, these by degrees
disappear, and, according to the alteration in the wind, a range of
hills is formed in an exactly opposite direction.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 64 of 140
Words from 64670 to 65693
of 143016
