Voyage to Mount Libanus (Google Books)

CHAP. V.

Of the JJk of Cyprus.

*y His Isle is at least 480 Miles about, 80 Miles ‘f broad, and 200 in length, and haih two Capes i that on the West comprehends the Cape of St. Epiphany, which the Ancients called Acamante, and the Cape of Srapano, or la Pointemeconta, or the Cape Zephlro; the other is called St. Anclrevo^ from whence you pass into the East, it has no other Port on the East-fide but Fama

fitsta, it is a famous Town which hath been built y Ptolomy Philadelphia. The great Ships are safe, nevertheless on the Coasts or Raffb, Simifo, Salines, Crafoco,lvA Cerines. There are in divers places more Capes, which are somewhat advanced into the Sea, the most considerable of which is the Cape of Cats, so called from a great number of Cats which they bred there in the Monastery of St. Nicholas, where live the Religious Order of St. Basil; they have put in these Cats, for to destroy a great number of Serpents which breed there, and there is a considerable Revenue left for that purpose.

This Island had once very many fair Cities, but has none now, saving Nicosia and Famagufia, who retain somewhat of that ancient Grandeur; all the rest are Villages, there is none of them inhabited by the ancient Nobility.for they are either entirely extinct, or are retired elsewhere since the Turks have made themselves Masters of it; the famous Mountain of Olympus is almost in the midst, very near to Nicosa, it is very high, and 54 Miles in circumference, and at every 4 Miles end there is a Monastery of those Monks of whom we shall speak hereafter, with delicate Springs, and Fruit in abundance: The Air there is very agreeable, and is never so cold, in the extremity of Winter, that one has need of warming, but the heat is so incommodious, both night and day, that ’tis impossible to travel in the day time.

There is every where in this Jsle fine Fields filled with Fruits, as well on the Mountains as on the Plains, which renders the Country fertile and plentiful; wherefore it has been called Macaria, from a Greek word which signifies Happy. The Ancients had reason to say it was the Country of Venut, and to give Venm the name of Cyprian a, and to the Isle tsiat of Cytherea; for ’tis not onlysaid that she was born at Apbrodmumjsxd brought up at Cytherea, but that she reigned at Idalium, called at this day Dalits 12 Miles from Nicosia Southwards.- Hence it comes that they Sacrificed naked ‘Men and Women to Vtniu at Paffb, which was sometime built by Agapenor General to the Army of Agament King of Mictnes. This abuse ceased, when the Temple was demolished at the request of the Apostle St. Barnabas. There is near onto the Cape of St. Epiphany two fetnous Fountains, one of which is called the Amirrom Fountain^ because that those who drink of its Water grow passionately in Love ‘, and the other quite contrary, because it extinguished this passion in a moment.

This Isle abounds in Wheat as well as Wine.and other excellent Viands^ and supplieth other Countries; the Sun and *Soil render the Wines very strong and agreeable, but after they are put into pitched Vessels, they receive such a gust as is not pleasing to those that are not accustomed thereto,

nevernevertheless all agree they are good for the stomach. You will find there all manner of Pulse in abundance. Barley, Dates, Mulberries, Oranges, Lemons, Citrons, and all other Fruits, except Cherries, Chesnuts, and Sorb-Apples. There is no want of Sugar, Saffron, Coriander, Scsamum, Lintell-seed, Honey, and sometimes Manna j the tALzyptian Bean, the Herb whose a Dies serves to make Sous, and that with which they wash Camlets, and other Cloths. There may be had Rubard, Turpentine, and Scamony, and other things that are valuable: There are .”lib Veins of Gold, Copper, Marcafite, Latten, and of Iron, RoachAllom, Pitch, Rofin, Sulphur, and Salt-Petre; and besides, you may have there the Berry w herewith they Dye Scarlec; as also Coral, the Emerald, Chrystal Diamonds, and other precious stones.

There are no great Rivers in all die Island, but only Brnoks and Rivolets. There is a litrle River runs very near unto Nicosia, wherein are a great quantity of Jaspers, which have the vertue, as is known, to stop blaud. Besides, there is so great a quantity of Cotton, that the Inhabitants not only Cloath themlelves, and make all sortsof Cloths therewith, but they furnish also Italy, and other Parts j ’tis that which makes their principal Revenues. They also gain considerable profit by white Salt, which they get from a fair Salt-Pit of flveet Water and Rain. This Salt Pit is at. least ten Miles about, and ’tis an admirable thing to view all that vast Campaign, which appears as covered with Snow ‘, there is in the midst a Pit that never freezeth, altho’all the Salt-Pit is congealed. There may be seen also whole Fields, which Nature hath enriched with Capers without the laC 4 hour bourof cultivating, and every one has the liberty to take as many as he pleases. Their Mutton is very good Meat, their Sheep are large and fat, and have a prodigieus Tail, which yet is no longer than those of our Country, but is at least halt a foot broad, and so thick, that it appears round j It hangs behind, and beats always their sides as they go along. Their Goats have Ears hanging downwards, and 3 fingers in breath, their Horns are a little more elevated than ours, and their Forehead more short, which gives them a greater grace and hardiness j they have also a tuft of hair in the midst of their Forehead. It will be hard to believe a thing I have experimented, which is, That I have not seen in this Kingdom, nor any part of the Levant, any Animal, whether Horse, Mule, or Ass, which, trotting joulted his Rider; they all go lightly and easie, and Men are accustomed to ride their Horses there without Bridle, Saddle,Stirrup, or Spurs, an Halter {ufficeth them, with a little Clout spread upon the back of the Beast. Finally, we may say, That this Isle aboundeth with a’1 delicacies: Before they became subject to the Turks, they lived splendidly, and in freedom, but sensual. It produced formerly divers illustrious Persons, performing great Services to their Country, and who have been very commendable for their KnowledgeandPiety,w’^.>4yc/f^WfjtheHistorian, Solo?) one of the 7 Sages of Greece, Evagoras, Celobuia, Kenon of Cittia, Author of the Sect of the Stoicks, Apolloniai the Physician, Xenopbon the Historian j and besides these, the Apostle St. Bar* nabas, and Marl his Cousin, Epapherodittu, PaulSergitu, Tims, Nicanor, Epyph’emwy and divers others.

This

This Kingdom hath been from time to time subject to several Masters \ it were too tedious to make a repetition of its Changes and Revolutions. Selim, Sultan of the Turkj, Cook it by force in the Year 1570. with an Army of 200000 Men: But enough of Cyp; we pals now into Syria.

Lemesos: A History of Limassol in Cyprus from Antiquity to the Ottoman Conquest (Extrait)

The decline of the Latin rite and the rise of the Greek is especially apparent in the countryside, absenteeism being the main characteristic in rural areas as it was in the city. In a document dated 14 May 1445 a ‘Burchardus Junghe’ is said to be the absentee prior of the church of St John the Baptist in Alaminos (‘prior ecclesie Johannis Baptiste de Lamyno Nimociensis dyocesis et capellanus serenissimi Regis Cipri’). We have seen how abbots of Benedictine Stavrovouni were charged with severe negligence in the fourteenth century. In 1394, Nicolas de Martoni gives a very gloomy picture of his pilgrimage to the monastery during a very cold December. The only accommodation he could find in a nearby village was ‘a rug upon which I slept that night with the greatest discomfort, on account of those accursed fleas which bit me incessantly’. He completed his journey to the monastery on a donkey and he complained bitterly about the unhospitable monks who refused to give him a room for the night. Stavrovouni was raided and looted by the Egyptian army during the 1426 invasion. An Arab chronicler gives an interesting account of the events:

General Tangrivirdi, after his victory, sent troops to the Mount of the Cross four leagues distant, to destroy a church there which was much revered by the Christians, and to rob the treasures it possessed. They returned home with immense booty, amongst which was a massive gold cross that was a veritable masterpiece. It was so cunningly made that by means of certain interior springs it was always in motion without anyone touching it.

The legend of the miracle of the Cross of the Good Thief remained from earlier reports, for instance in the chapter on Cyprus in the anonymous fifteenth-century encyclopedia of Les merveilles du monde, ou les secrets de l’histoire naturelle, which, citing the thirteenth-century English writer Gervase of Tillbury, related if a pilgrim tried to kiss the cross, it would remain still, but if one tried to touch it, it would move back and rise in the air. Some travellers, like Martoni, who also lists a number of relics, still confuse the cross of the good thief with that of Jesus Christ.

It is likely that Latin monks did abandon the abbey after the 1426 destruction. Benedictine Abbot Bernard of Stavrovouni resigned his post ni 1441, and the care of the monastery was given to John of Cyprus, a master of theology, but an Augustinian monk, not a Benedictine monk, and in 1481 it was a Franciscan named Bartholomew. By 1450 visitors reported that Greek monks or individual hermits occupied the site, so in the end Stavrovouni was Benedictine for only about half the Latin period.

Nevertheless, some thirty years later the cross miraculously reemerges in the sources. Felix Faber’s description of his visit to Stavrovouni in 1483 is much longer than that of Limassol. The priest who welcomed the pilgrims at the church knew no Latin, but ‘he brought out some very old Latin books, with what else was necessary’ for the visitors to proceed with the Mass. According to Faber, they then witnessed the miracle of the suspended Cross of the Good Thief, which they ‘observed carefully before and behind’:

The cross is fairly large,covered in silver-gilt plates, but on the side to the wall it is bare, of a fair and sound wood like cypress. They say it is the cross of Dysmas, the thief on the right hand to whom Jesus on the cross promised Paradise, St Helena carried it whole from Jerusalem to this mountain, and here she built a large monastery of monks and a church, in which she left the cross as a relic of rare value, and caused it to be built for it near the altar a niche or shrine, and set it therein. And there it still remains, untouched, though long since the monastery was utterly destroyed by the Turks and Saracens, and the monks of St Benedict, who served the church, are scattered. It is in a niche dimly lighted, both its arms are sunk in recesses made in the wall, and its foot is sunk in a recess. But the recesses of the arms and the foot are large, disproportionately so to what they hold, yet does not the cross touch the wall, but it is free from any contact with it; and this wonderful story about the cross that it hangs in the air without support.

On the way back, Faber’s party stopped at the village of Stavrovouni, where a Greek priest showed them more relics and explained to them that he celebrated Mass in both the Latin and Greek church according to each rite, a confession which shocked the pilgrims!

The Greek monastery of St Nicholas of the Cats takes it place as a major tourist destination at this time. The first visitor to comment on St Nicholas was the pilgrim Peter Rot from Basel in 1453, but the monastery was soon to rival Stavrovouni as an attraction. The main spectacle was, of course the multitude of cats that the monks kept to hunt and kill the many snakes that infested the Akrotiri Peninsula. A bell was used to summon the cats to the monastery for meals, but otherwise they hunted the snakes in the fields. Rot puts the number of cats at 200, a visitor in 1460 wrote 400, and by 1470 the mathematical progression had continued, reaching 600 cats allegedly hunting the serpents, with King James II providing the monastery with 350 ducats (ca. 2,400 bezants) annually for the cats’ upkeep, including the services of a veterinarian. Another tourist that same year only reported 300 of the animals, while a third wrote 1,000. In 1472, a pilgrim estimated 1,000-1,200, but ten years later the number was again quoted as 400. Felix Faber’s detailed description of the activities of the monastery of St Nicholas in 1483 is again much longer than that of Limassol itself. He says that ‘daily war is waged between the cats and the snakes,’ as well as ‘mice, dormice, and rats’, providing his readers with a pseudo-scientific analysis of the feline’s qualities. In around 1484 or 1485, a Flemish traveller reserves most of his remarks on St Nicholas on the Cape of Cats. In the summer of 1484 Francesco Suriano gives one of his nicest descriptions:

From the said city of Limassol up to this cape the soil produces so many snakes that men cannot till it or walk without hurt thereon. And were it not for the remedy which God has set there, in a short time these would multiply so fast that the island would be depopulated. At this place there is a Greek monastery which rears an infinite number of cats, which wage unceasing war with these snakes. It is wonderful to see them, for nearly all are maimed by the snakes: one has lost a nose, another an ear; the skin of one is torn, another is lame; one is blind of one eye, another of both. And it is a strange thing that at the hour for their food at the sound of the bell all those scattered in the fields collect in said monastery. And when they have eaten enough, at the sound of the bell they all leave together and go fight the snakes. On this account the monastery has large revenues.

The partially Gothic church of St Nicholas still stands today, along with a wing of the claustral buildings and foundations of other sections, about two miles east of the Akrotiri village. The church seems to be a construction of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with fifteenth century reconstruction. Since the 1980s it has been used as a nunery.

It has been suggested that St Nicholas was the same as St Mary of Stylos discussed above for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but the ‘monastery of the sanit of Stylos’ is still mentioned in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, again attached to Argos. It has scribes and enjoyed, at one point, the patronage of Sir Jean de Lessy or de Laze. The production of Greek manuscripts is also attested in the Limassol hinterland in this period in connection with Greek churches and monasteries in the villages of Lefkara, Alsos, Pelendri, Mallia, Kivides and Sylikou.

Writing probably started in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, Leontios Makharias mentions several other Greek shrines in the Limassol diocese, burial places of saints and prelates, many of which Makharias saw or heard of: St Therapon in Kilani, St Barnabas the Monk in Vasa, St Kassianos in Avdimou, Holy Cross in Tokhni and Stavrovouni. He also mentions miracles that the icon of the Latin St John de Montfort worked in Limassol. At the close of the Lusignan period, then, although Lmiassol itself was itself largely ruined and empty, its surroundings were prosperous and full of life.

“A Handbook of Cyprus”

“A Handbook of Cyprus”

In the centre of the Paphos forest, about six miles west of the Codar.
Kykko monastery, there is a considerable area covered with some
thousands of young Cedrus Libani brevifolia ; the oldest of them
cannot be much more than 100 years in age. This is a very
picturesque part of the forest, and accessible from Kykko and
Paphos by good mule tracks.

22

HANDBOOK OF CYPRUS

Northern
hills; Piue,
cypress,
jnniper, &c.

Elm,
arbutus

Chestnuts,
Va Ionia
oak.

Liquid-
am bar.

Sycamore.

Walnut.
Pistacia.

Sumac.

Caroub,
olive.

Rc-afforti
tatiou.

The trees in the northern range consist for the most part ot
Pinus innastcr and. Cup ressus sempervirens at the west end; and
at the east end are found large quantities of Junipei-us Phcenicea
interspersed with wild olives and caroubs.

Other Trees. — The Uhnus canqie^itris and the Arbutus unedo
are indigenous to the Island, and many specimens of both are to
be found in the fore.sts.

The edible chestnut has been raised and planted out in the hill
villages of late years ; also a large number of the Quercus ayilojts,
which produces the valonia of commerce.

There are several specimens of the Liqiiidanibar imberbe at
St. Neophytos, in Paphos district, and one at Antiphoniti, in
Kyrenia district.

The Ficus sycomorus (the crvKOjxuipnia of S. Luke xix. 4) grows
at Famagusta, Larnaca, and Limasol; the one in front of the
great mosque (S. Nicolas) at Famagusta is a splendid specimen
of the tree. Its fruit, called by its Turkish name (Junbez,
T(TioviJ.n€(Tui), is like a small fig, and is eaten.

The walnut tree grows to a great size where there is water,
and cuts u]) into very good wood for cabinet work.

At Nicosia a castle was being rebuilt in 1211, a new one was
in construction in 1382; the walls, of four miles in circuit, were
completed by Pierre II. in 1372. These were destroyed by the
Venetians in 1564, together with eighty churches, the Palace,
and the famous monastery of S. Dominic, with the tombs of five
inngs and sixteen archbishops. In rebuilding the walls the
circular form of the city was retained, but the circuit was reduced
to three miles. They were completed by eleven bastions named
(going west from the Famagusta gate) Podocataro, Costanza,
Davila, Tripoli, Roccas, Mula,Quirini, Barbaro, Loredano, Flatro,
and Carafia ; and three gates. Porta Giuliana (opening towards
Larnaca), S. Domenico (towards Paphos), and Del Proveditore
(towards Kyrenia). But the revetements were still incomplete
when the Turks attacked it, and the defences on the south were
entirely at the mercy of the enemy’s artillery. At the same time
the river, which had flowed through the city, was turned into a
new channel outside it. The Cathedral ofS. Sophia, begun about
1195, was hardly finished within the next century. It was much
injured by an earthquake in 1491, and adapted as a mosque
September 15, 1570. The Armenian church, formerly a Latin
church dedicated to Notre-Dame de Tvt, was handed over to the
Armenians by the Turks soon after their conquest ; the firman
making the grant is in existence and describes the church as ‘ the
State Salt Store.’ The Latin churches of S. Nicolas of the
English (now a grain store) and S. Catherine and S. Mary
(mosques) must be studied on the spot, and in Enlart, vol. i. Of
the siege we have spoken elsewhere. Since 1878 the fosse has
been planted witli trees, the old Paphos gate has given place
to a new opening, and three more have been cut througli the
ramparts on the south. A Government House on the eminence
beyond the villag;e of Hagioi Ilomologitades, Ciovernment otHces
outside the walls, and a new Qonaq within, a liospital, club,
schools, wider streets and new houses attest the activity and
impulse of the new administration,
Kyrenia. Kyrenia (or Keryneia), though its foundation is ascribed to

Cyrus, had but little importance until tlie days of the Lusignan
kings, the older settlement being I^apelhos, nine miles to the
west. The castle, though of no grt!at strengtli, and completely
commanded by the hills behind it, was never taken by assault.
It was built at the end of the twelfth, or in the early j-ears of
ihe thirteenth century, and strengthened in 1544. Two other
towers, part of a regular system of fortification, are preserved in
the little town.

A large sum of money was spent between 1886 and 1891 on
the eastern breakwater and quay, but tlie anchorage is still un-
safe during a N.E. wind.

PRINCIPAL TOWNS 49

About five miles east of Kyrenia stands the glorious Premon-
stratensian abbey of Delapais or Bellapais (De la Paix or Belle
Abbaye — described by M. Enlart, i. :202-236, and the subject of
a monograph by Dr. F. Seesselberg ‘ Kloster Delapais,’ Berlin,
1901). Its construction is ascribed to Hugues IV. (1324-1359) ;
it is on a fascinating site between the mountains and the sea ;
and even in its ruin it is the most beautiful and important
Gothic monument in the Levant.

The romantic castle of S. Hilarion or Dieu d’ Amour, tower-
ing 2,200 feet above Kyrenia, is of unknown age. It figured
certainly in the struggle of 1228 between Frederick II. and the
guardians of the young king, Henri I., and was dismantled by
the Venetians.

Concerning the almost inaccessible fortress of Bufiiivento
(Chateau de la Heine, or du Lion) there are legends, but no
history.

New Paphos, with its tiny harbour, is about a mile from papho
Ktema, the district centre. A mass of featureless ruins attests
that the town suffered perhaps more than any other at the
hands of the invading Turks. Old Paphos, now Kouklia,
where stood the great temple of Aphrodite, is ten miles
from New Paphos. The earliest temple followed a Phoenician
model, reminding the English explorers of Solomon’s Temple at
.lerusalem. They conclude that ‘ the Court surrounded by por-
ticoes, and approached by regular entrances, contained both the
sacred cone itself, and the altar which, though in the open air,
was never wet by rain ‘ (Tacitus, Hist. ii. 3). It was rebuilt,
probably after damage by an earthquake, by Augustus in B.C. 15,
and again destroyed by an earthquake under Vespasian in a.d. 71.
The remains received very scant notice from medifeval travellers :
they were recognised in 1728 by R. Pococke, and in 1810 by
J. von Hammer, but the famous shrine remained unexplored until
1888 (see the ‘ Journal of Hellenic Studies,’ vol. ix.), when ex-
tensive and systematic excavations were made, the plan of the
buildings, which lie within a rectangular area 400 feet by 230,
accurately traced, and the harvest of inscriptions Avas rich indeed.
A curious phenomenon observable on the western shores, and
especially near Paphos, is taken to explain the legend of Aphro-
dite Anadyomene. A very slight wind carries on shore large
drifts of white foam, suggesting the landing of the foam-born
goddess. Similar foam has been noticed on the edges of the
Larnaca salt lake, charged with the eggs or bodies of microscopic
insects. About six miles from Ktema, near Tsada, are the rock-
cut cell and chapel of S. Neophytos, a hermit who was alive in

1205. In a well-known tract ‘ Concerning the Misfortunes of
      the Land of Cyprus ‘ he has described the invasion of Richard I.
      ‘ The monastery buildings are situated in a little paradise of
      running water and deep groves . . . and command a matchless

ij

60 HANDBOOK OF CYPRUS

yiew down the strait wooded glen to the sea nearly a thousand
feet below.’ 1). G. Hogarth, ‘ Devia Cypria,’ p. 71.
Liu.nsoi. LiMASOL (Lemesos), with a convenient roadstead, is the

great centre of the caroub and wine trades. It has a fort,
ascribed to Guy de Lusignan and taken by the Egyptians in
1425, and the largest Orthodox church built since the British
occupation. At Limasol on May 12, 1191, Richard Coeur de Lion
was married by iSicolas his chaplain to Berengaria, and here on
the same day she was crowned by John, Bishop of Evreux.
About four miles away, on the military road to Troodos, is
Polemidia, the winter quarters of His Majesty’s troops.

A little west stands Colossi, a massive tower of the Hospi-
tallers, dating from the earliest years of the fourteenth century.

Curium, a city of Argive origin, ten miles west of Limasol,
had a temple of Apollo Hylates. It has yielded a quantity of
portable antiquities, including the much-contested ‘ Treasure,’
assigned by Signor L, P. di Cesnola to this site.

Amathus, of Phoenician origin, once famous for its metals,
stood on a cliif about seven miles east of Limasol. The site of
the city, with its town wall and harbour works, is clearly
marked. It had temples of 3Ielkart, the Syrian Hercules, and
of Adonis and Aphrodite. A colossal stone vase was removed
from the hill in 1 865 by the French, and is now in the Louvre.
Its fellow lies in fragments on the ground.
Lfiruaca. Laknaca {Aapva^, a cofter, chest, cinerary urn), the ancient

Cition, and very probably the Chittim of Numbers xxiv. 24 and
Isaiah xxiii. 1, 12 (cf. Genesis x. 4), seems to have been the
oldest Phoenician settlement in Cyprus. It had a ditch, of
which a great part can still be traced, an enclosed harbour, and
on two small eminences have been discovered the foundations of
large buildings, temples rather than forts, which commanded the
town. On one, near what is now Bamboula Marsh, were found
in 1878 two important stone tablets inscribed with Phoenician
characters in red and black ink of the fourth century B.C. On
the other in 1894 Avas disclosed a favis^m containing at least a
thousand rude clay figurines, many of them painted. Tombs are
found everywhere to the N.W. of the town, and actually in the
course of the ditch is the I’anagia Phaneromene (p. 54).

As long as piracy was rife in the I>evant, the older town, a
mile from the shore, was the residence of the foreign consuls and
principal merchants, who liad offices along the sea front. Now
thi’ir houses, some of which were quite stately, are mostly aban-
doned, and Scala, or the Marina, the new town, is the favourite
quarter. Old Larnaca has a mosque, three Orthodox churches,
and a large Latin church and convent. In Scala is the cliurch
of 8. Lazarus, a strange medley of fragments of pagan buildings.
It contains a cenotaph, shown as the tomb of the saint whose
remains were translated to Constantinople, and then to Marseille.

PRINCIPAL TOWNS 51

There is a square fort, built by the Turks in 1625, now used
as a police barrack and prison. The Government offices, Court
House, Custom House, tithe grain stores, quay, three piers, three
schools, and an excellent hospital, have been built since the British
occupation. Water is brought a distance of six miles by an aque-
duct, a creditable work carried out by Abu Bekr Pasha in 174o.

A little more than a mile S.W. of Scala is the great Salt Lake,
of two square miles in area and ten miles in circuit. A depression
in the soil, ten feet below the level of the sea, receives during the
Avinter just as much rain water as the sun will exhaust in summer,
the surplus being carried into the sea by a side channel. Into this
the sea water filters, and by the end of August a compact coat of
salt about eight inches thick is formed all over the lake, which is
roughly skimmed off, and piled in heaps on the edge. It is sold
by retail at 38 jmras the oke (2| lbs.). Beyond the lake lies the
picturesque tomb of I’mm Haram (p. 65).

Three buildings of prehistoric date deserve separate notice-
We can hardly guess at their use — temples, tombs, or treasuries ;
but their Cyclopean construction and the enormous size and
weight of the stones employed, make them well worthy of
examination. The largest, not far west from the ruins of Salamis,
is known as the prison of S. Catharine ; the second, a little west
of Larnaca, is called the Hagia Phaneromene ; and the third, on
the edge of the Larnaca Salt Lake, forms the tomb of Umm
Ilaram, a lady of the kin of Mohammed, who died near this spot.
Arcliitec- Of Byzantine buildings there are few, and these generally

tureauci^ remodelled. They have been little studied. Mosaics of the
A,.* ,„..,o,„^ twelfth century are still preserved in the churches of Kanakaria^
near Leonarisso, in the Carpas, and at Kiti, near Larnaca. A
silver treasure, found near the monastery of Acheiropoietos
(Kyrenia) in 1897, and now in the British Museum, comprises a
paten and basin, a lamp or censer, and ‘2i spoons, ascribed to the
second half of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century.
The Gothic remains have been amply described and illustrated
and their French affinities traced by 3Ions. C. Enlart in his
admirable work, ‘ L’Art Gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre,’
2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1899. The more important are : —
Of the thirteenth century —

The Castles of Kj^renia, Ililarion, Buti’avento, and

Kantara.
The Eastern part of S. Sophia, the Cathedral of Nicosia.
The Church of Lapais,
Of the fourteenth century — ■
The Porch of S. Sophia.
The Cathedral of Famagusta.
The Castle of Famagusta.
S. Catharine and the Yeni Jami, >sicosia.
S. Nicolas, Nicosia.
Of the fifteenth century —

The Towers of Colossi, Kiti, and Pyla.
Of the sixteenth century —

The Fortifications of Famagusta and Nicosia.
Some coarse but interesting native pottery, the best specimens
of which are ascribed by M. Jiliilart to the fourteenth century,
a little peasant jewellery, and some embroidered linen, known
locally as Levkara work, are probably the only minor objects still
attractive to collectors.

COINS

The autonomous coins of Cyprus (often forged) extend from
tlie sixth century until the conquest of Ptolemy Soter, B.C. 312.
The design and execution of some are quite excellent. Six
J’hffinician Kings of Citium, one of Lapethos, two Greek Kings
(if Curium, one of Marium, five of Paphos, six of Salamis, four of

COINS— BIBLIOGRAPHY 65

Soli — some of the types bearing Cypriot characters-are thought
to be represented (B. V. Head, ‘Historia Numorum,’ pp. 620-6:^8,
and Ct. F. Hill, ‘ The Greek Coins of Cyprus,’ 1904). A few gold,
and many silver and bronze, were struck by the Ptolemies.
(J. N. Svoronos, Tct vofiia-fiaTa rov Kparovs raiv nroXf/iaicoj/, 3 vols.
4to, Athens, 1904). From Augustus to Caracalla we have
Iloman bronze coins. An interesting type struck under several
emperors shows ‘the temple of Aphrodite at Paphos, in the
midst of which is a conical stone, the symbol of the Goddess.’
Gold Byzantine coins are occasionally found, and Scyphati of
Isaac Comnenus.

The Lusignan coinage, from Guy to Catharine Cornaro, is
poor in design and execution. Those of the earlier reigns are
common enough ; the later ones, from Jacques I. onward, are rare.
Venetian coins (except the deniers carzie or x^^’^^’^) of three or
four doges, are scarce. The series closes with the interesting
siege piece struck in copper in Famagusta to pass as a silver
besant, with the legends ‘ Pro regni Cypri prsesidio ‘ and ‘ Vene-
torum fides inviolabilis.’ (G. Schlumberger, ‘ Numismatique de
I’Orient Latin,’ Paris, 1878, with supplement, 1882.)

Valuable hoards have laeen occasionally found, such as the
silver coins representing six or seven different kingdoms, six
different types with Cypriot characters, three with Phrenician
legends, and seven specimens of the early Athenian tetradrachms,
unearthed at Dali in 1868 by Mr. R. H. Lang; the 800 gold
staters of Philip and Alexander, some of them fresh as from the
mint, found by a youth at the Salt Lake in 1870, and the 2,680
Lusignan coins found near Morphou in 1904.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Since 1887 a list of the books printed in the island appears
yearly in the Government Gazette, in pursuance of Law II. of

1887. ‘ An Attempt at a Bibliography of Cyprus,’ by C. D.
      Cobham (4th edition, Nicosia, 1900) registers 728 works treating
      of the island, its people, history, numismatics, epigraphy and
      language, as well as local newspapers, maps. Consular Reports,
      and Parliamentary Papers.

‘ Die Insel Cypern, eine Landeskunde auf historischen Grund-
lage,’ by Dr. E. Oberhummer (vol. i. royal 8vo, pp. xvi. and 488,
and map ; Th. Ackermann, Munich, 1903), promises to complete
and supersede all former works on the island. The present
instalment deals with the material used, the geography, geology,
climate, flora and fauna, and the cartography of Cyprus.

The first book printed in Cyprus professed to be a reissue of
the ‘Icrropla xpovoXoyiKT] ttjs vi]aov Kvirpov, 4to, Venice, 1788.
It appeared at Larnaca in 4to in 1880. The first English work
was the ‘ Cyprus Guide and Directory,’ 12mo. Limasol, 1886.

56

HANDBOOK OF CYPRUS

POPULATION

Places

Census of

Census of

Census of

1881

1891

1901

Total Population of Cyprus ‘

186,173

209,286

‘ 237,022

Population (within Municipal

limits) of towns with up-

wards of 1,000 inhabitants :

Akanthou . . . .

1,162

1,178

1,403

Aradippo ….

1,225

1,338

1,534

Asha …..

989

1,009

1,173

Athienou ….

1,192

The See of Paphos has been vacant since February 5, 1899.
Representatives from the diocese assembled in JMay 1899 and
adjourned. In January 1901 they met again and elected a
stranger to the Island, who declined the See.

The conquering Turks rigidly expelled the Latin clergy from Latin.
Cyprus ; yet already in 1593 monks of the Order of S. Francis,
detailed from the convent of Terra Santa in Jerusalem, had
built a church (rebuilt in 1641 and 1900) in Nicosia. The
Superior (^Presidente) of this is always a Spaniard. In 159.3 they
had a convent, and in 1596 a church, in Larnaca. The present
building was completed in 1848. Their church at Limasol dates
from 1879. The Capucins built a chapel in old Larnaca in 1702,
the very site of which was forgotten in 1878. The sisters of
S. Joseph, whose parent house is at Marseille, first came to the
Island in 1844. They have establishments (school, orphanage,
and pharmacy) at Larnaca, Limasol, and Nicosia. The Roman
Catholics, who number 824, are under the Latin Patriarch of
Jerusalem, represented at Larnaca by a Vicar-General. The
Maronites are 1,130, chiefly in the diocese of Kyrenia ; Armenians,
517, mostly in Nicosia, with a church in Nicosia and a monastery
in the Kyrenia District. There has been an Armenian community
in Cyprus for over seven centuries; most of its members belong
to the Gregorian Church. The Copts, Abyssinians, Nestorians,
and Jacobites, mentioned by E. de Lusignan, have disappeared.

The Linobambaki (‘flax cotton’) are outwardly Moslem, but
foUow in secret the Orthodox rite. They are probably descended
from Latin Christians, who were offered their choice between
Islam and the sword. Their number is decreasing.

The principal monastery is that of Kykko, on a mountain in Monasteries.
the district called Marathasa, 4,603 feet above the sea. It was
founded about 1100, in the reign of Alexios Comnenos, who gave
it a picture of the Virgin Mary, ascribed to the Ijrusli of S. Luke,

62 HANDBOOK OF CYPRUS

and a grant of land. Four fires have destroyed its archives and
library, with all that was interesting in the buildings except the
sacred eicon. It draws from properties situate in Cyprus, liussia,
Const antino])le, and Asia Minor a yearly revenue estimated at
i?2,500 ; and in the monastery and its three dependencies (/ifro^ta)
are maintained over 200 persons, of whom 33 are regular clergy.

The monastery of Machaira is south-west of Lithrodonda, on a
height of 2,250 feet. Its founder was Neilos, who obtained from
Isaac Angelos, about 1190, a charter and an endowment.

The Enkleistra, in the district of Paphos, was founded by
Xeophytos about 1200, His * Ivitual Ordinance,’ printed at
Venice in 1779, and Westminster, 1881, gives an interesting view
of early Greek monasticism.

The monasteries of Stavrovouni, Chrysorroiatissa, Trooditissa,
Hagios Panteleemon, Ilagios Mamas, and S. John Chrysostom
are each happy in the possession of some wonder-working eicon
or relic. Many others are mere farms.
Local saints-. The Orthodox Church delights to honour in particular villages
a number of local saints, Ileracleidios, Mnason, John Lampadistes,
Therapon, Kendeas, Auxentios, and others. They are interesting
because the ofHces used on their feasts embody a life of each
{syyiaxarion), which preserves no doubt a tradition extending
back to a very early date. Of wider fame are S. Spj’ridon, a.d.
325, the patron of Corfu ; S. Epiphanios, in a.u. 368 Bishop of
Constantia ; and S. John the Almoner, in a.d. 609 Patriarch of
Alexandria,

The feasts of obligation are many, perhaps thirtj^ in the year.
Prelate’s, Archbishopric. — Vacant. (The last Archbishop, Sophronios,

elected I860, died May 22, 1900, aged 75.)
Archimandrite. — Philotheos.
Exarch, — Vacant.

JBishopncs. — Paphos — Vacant. (The last Bishop, Epiphanios,
died February 5, 1899.)
Kition — Kjrrillos Papadopoulos, elected April 15, 1893.
Kyrenia — Kyrillos Basiliou, elected May 9, 1895,
JSynoa. The Archbishop, with the three Metropolitans above named,

the Ilegoumenoi of Kylvko (Oerasimos) and Machaira (Metro-
phanes), and the Archimandrite and Exarch of the Arch-diocese,
form the Holy Synod of Cyprus.

The late Archbishop of Cy])rus held his high office under a
Berat or Commission granted in February 1866 by the Sultan
Abd-ul-Aziz. The ^Metropolitans of Kition and Kyrenia have
been elected since the British occupation. The Archbishop’s
jurisdiction extends over the civil district of Famagusta, and
parts of those of Nicosia and Larnaca ; that of the Bishop of
Paphos over Paphos; that of Kition over l^arnaca and Limasol ;
that of Kyrenia over Kyrenia and i)art of Nicosia. The style of
the Archbishop is Md^H/ncoTHroj ‘ Xpx^ifn’uTKonoi ‘Stns ^lovcrTiviavr^i

CHRISTIANITY— CIIUECH OF ENGLAND

KOI Trdarjs Kvjrpov : the BIsLops are addressed as HafieparaToi,
and Archimandrites and Abbots as HavocriaraToi.
The income of a Bishop is made up of —

1. KavoviKii, fixed payments from the churches of his diocese.
2. “KetTovpyiKci, offerings made by the villagers at the annual

services held by the diocesan.

3. cf>i\6Tifj.a, fees paid by his clergy.
4. ^rjTe’iai, contributions in kind, grain, oil, &c.
5. Revenues of the monasteries administered directly by him.
6. Fees for mari’iage licences, dispensations, &c.

The revenues of the Archbishopric are reckoned roughly at
£2,000; oftheSeeofPaphosat£500; Kition,£600; andKyrenia,
£500.

The Orthodox clergy in the Island number about 900.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN CYPRUS

Early in the fourteenth century the English had their church
in Nicosia, known as S. Nicolas of the English, which was the
headquarters of the English Order of the Knights of S. Thomas
of Acre. This beautiful building, which stands only a few paces
S.W. of the Cathedral of S. Sophia, though it has long been used
as a grain store, has lost few of its essential features.

The English church of S. Paul at Nicosia, originally built on
a knoll near the Government offices, was consecrated on April 27,
1886, in the presence of the Archbishop Sophronios of Cyprus,
by the Right Rev. C. W. Sandford, Bishop of Gibraltar. Some
years later the structure showed cracks and signs of subsidence,
and it was eventually taken down and rebuilt in 1894 on surer
foundations on a site nearer the city walls. There are English
cemeteries episcopally consecrated at Nicosia, Larnaca, Fama-
gusta, and Polemidia. At Famagusta one of the old churches
has been given to the British residents to be restored and used
for Anglican worship. At Larnaca a church in the Byzantine
«tyle, designed by Mr. G. Jeflery, F.R.I.B.A., to seat sixty
persons, approaches completion. Adjoining the church of S.
Lazarus at Larnaca is a small graveyard containing monuments
to Englishmen who died in the town between 1685 and 1849.

Clergymen of the Church of England now resident in Cyprus
are the Ven. Archdeacon Beresford Potter, the Rev. F. D. New-
ham, and the Rev. S. Cooke Collis Smith at Nicosia ; and the
(vacant^, Chaplain at Limasol and to His Majesty’s troops
at Limasol and Polemidia. The Island is in the jurisdiction ot
the Right Rev. G. Popham Blyth, Bishop in Jerusalem and the
East.

64 HANDBOOK OF CYPRUS

THE AMERICAN REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN
MISSION

In 1834 missionaries from Beirut began evangelistic and
educational work in Cyprus, with their headquarters in Larnaca,
but were forced in 1841 to retreat before the unhealthinessof the
climate. In 1888 delegates from Latakia resumed the work ; an
iron chapel was built in 1892 and a missionary dwelling-house in

1897. The former was destroyed by tii-e in 1901, but a stone
      chapel has been erected on the same site. Two missionary
      families reside in Larnaca, and there are about 70 persons in
      connection with the mission.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY

This Society, whose headquarters are in Queen Victoria
Street, London, has for many years maintained in the Island a
branch of its agency at Alexandria, and since 1896 the Bible
Depot at Larnaca has been under the care of the American Re-
formed Presbyterian Mission. Entire Bibles, Testaments, or
single books of the Holy Scriptures in many tongues, are sold at
the Depot, and at Nicosia and Kyrenia by two colporteurs, who
carry out the Society’s work in the Island.

ISLAM IN CYPRUS

Though Moslem hosts had more than once invaded the Island,
notably in a.d. 649 and 1425, there was probably no Moslem
community established there until the Ottoman Conquest in 1571.
Drummond gives the number of Turks in 1750 as 150,000;
Cyprianos in 1777 reduces this to 47,000. In 1901 there were
51,309 Moslems. They are all traditionists ( Sunni) of the Ilanifite
rite. They have a Miifti, a chief (^azi and tliree Qazis of Districts,
who preside in the courts called Mehkeme i Sheri’, whicli were
retained under the Convention of June 4, 1878, to ‘ take exclusive
cognizance of religious matters, and of no others, concerning the
Mussulman population of the Island.’

The Evqaf (plural of Waqf), or property appropriated or
dedicated to charitable uses and the service of God, is adminis-
tered under the same Convention by one delegate ap])ointed by
the Ottoman Minister of Evqaf and one appointed by the British
authorities. This property is of two kinds: Mazl»d((,&Ci\n\r\h-
tered for the general benefit of tlie jNIoslem community by the
delegates ; and MulhcKfa, ])roptTty charged with certain definite
religious or charitable duties, administered by the heirs of the
donor, who retain the surjjhis of its income after those duties are
satisfied. All Jrwy/iiroperty is inalienable Mulhaqa AVaqfs,

ISLAM IN CYPRUS 66

on the extinction of the donor’s heirs, would revert to the Holy
Cities of Mecca and Medina.

The larger places of Mohammadan religious worship are called
mosques ( j«ww”) ; the smaller Mesjids. Where a convent, as of
dervishes, is attached, a large establishment would be called a
Tekye, a smaller one a Zai’ieli. The tomb of a Veli or Saint is
known as a Turbeh.

There is one famous shrine in Cyprus, the Khalati-i-Sultan
Tekye, about four miles from Larnaca on the western shore of the
great salt lake from which the town (Tuzla) takes its Turkish
name. There a monolithic structure of prehistoric date covers the
remains of Umm Haram, daughter of Milhan the Ansari, who
followed her husband Ubada in the train of Moawiya, governor
of Syria, in the first expedition which the Khalifa Othman
allowed to cross the sea. The lady, who was of the kin of the
Prophet of Mecca, fell from her mule and broke her neck ; and
where she died she was buried, in the spring of a.d. 649. The
mosque and its surroundings are not without dignity and grace,
and the shrine is a favourite place of pilgrimage.

Another notable spot is the Bairaqdar Mosque on the Costanza
bastion of Nicosia, erected over the grave of the hero who first
planted the Ottoman standard on the walls, August 1570.

The Turahi Tekye (S. Therapon) and the Kirklar Tekye
(Hagioi Saranta) are visited alike by Moslem and Christian
devotees.

There is in Nicosia a Tekye of the Mevlevi dancing der-
vishes.

At Famagusta disciples, few but faithful, gather round Mirza
Yahya, Subh-i-Ezel (Morning of Eternity), tlie successor of Mirza
Ali Mohammad, the Bab^ or Gate of Truth. The latter, who was
born at Shiraz on October 9, 1820, died a martyr’s death at Tabriz,
Jvily 9, 1850. His adherents were slain, tortui’ed, imprisoned and
banished, and Mirza Y’ahya (born in 1830) was found at the
British occupation a State prisoner at Famagusta, which he has
never left. The Babi faith dwells on the endless progressiveness
of Revelation, and aims primarily at ‘ a universal reign of peace,
love, freedom, and unity of belief and efibrt.’ The general
collection of their sacred writings is called Beyan (Utterance or
Revelation).

A history of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus from the coming of … Hackett, John, 1851-1915.

A history of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus from the coming of … Hackett, John, 1851-1915.

THE CHURCH OF CYPRUS 359 day (6th Dec.) were formerly presented to the monastery, the captors being firmly persuaded that they would otherwise have no further luck throughout the ensuing year. In the course of time the brethren acquired a wide-spread reputation not so much for their skill as theologians, nor yet for the strictness of their rule, as for the number of cats they maintained within the precinctsof their establishment. During the long drought prior to the Lusignan, visit of Saint Helena the venomous snakes, for which the island5’8 has always been noted, increased to an alarming extent. The place most infested by these pests was the region anciently called Cape Kurias, but since known as the Cape of the Cats (Capodelle Gatte) from the following circumstance.1 Kalokairos, to whom the government of the island had been entrusted at the time, determined to do all he could to remove the plague. Aware of the natural antipathy of cats for snakes he sent 1000 of theseanimals to the monastery, charging the public revenue with a certain annual sum for their maintenance. So successful was the expedient that the reptiles were almost exterminated. The catswere trained to return morning and evening to the monastery at the sound of a bell for their food, which was placed on long planks containing a series of circular depressions to receive it. At the time when Lusignan lived the brethren still main tained a score of these useful pets, though no urgent need for them seems to have any longer existed. Pococke questions Pococke, vol. • ii d 228 the story, but the evidence is too circumstantial to admit of ” 1 Fu chiamato questo (teneno) capo delle Gatte, perche nelli tempi ehe erano venuti da Costantinopoli li Duchi, come governatori, mandati dalli Im- peratori, et massime il primo al tempo del Magno Costantino, essendo stata 1′ Isola 30 anni, ehe non v’era piovuto, quasi era dishabitata : onde multiplicorno li serpenti, quali in greco si adimandano Cum, et penso ehe siano aspidi sordi : liquali ad una lunatione sono sordi, ad un’altra sono ciechi, et quando sono sordi, non sono ciechi, et quando sono ciechi, non sono sordi, et sono venenosi, et hanno una testa grande, et il corpo non ha ossi, et quando piglia un’ agnello, 6 un capretto, lo manda cosi intiero nella pancia a poco a poco : et dipoi va ad un’ albero, et si storze di qua et di la, insin tanto ehe siano fracassati gli ossi dell’ animale gia mangiato ; et quando more, odora come muschio. — Ma li serpenti Cuffi si ritrovano per l’isola et spesso, et in quelli tempi erano gia generati assai, onde volendo il Duca Callocero esterminarli, perche abondavano assai in questo capo per essere un boschetto, messe piu di mille gatti in San Nicolo detto in greco de’ Acrotiri. II Duca havendovi posti li gatti, li fece anchora la sua provisione, accioche non mangiassero sempre cose venenose, et ehe fussero estirpati : onde mattina et sera erano avezzati al suono della campana, et tutti correano, et haveano apparecchiato in certe asse di legno larghe, et in mezo erano concavi a modo delle scudelle, et di dentro li mettevano le minestre : accio ehe fussero tutte accommodate, dipoi il resto del tempo andavano alia caccia de’ serpenti, et cosi gli hanno estirpati quasi tutti, pero quel Monasterio anchora tiene una vintina de’ gatti, et per questo quel capo fu adimandato il capo delle gatte,

360 THE CHURCH OF CYPRUS doubt. For instance, De Viiiamont owns that he would have found great difficulty in believing it had not his informant sworn to the truth of it from personal knowledge, and his statement been corroborated by others who had also wit nessed it. Marvellous, too, are the reports as to the size of these noxious reptiles. The last-named writer, who describes them as being black and white in colour, asserts that they were at least seven feet in length and as thick as a man’s thigh. Lusignan, however, surpasses him in his flights of imagination. He says that these snakes were called Cuffi by the Greeks, being blind and deaf alternate months, while they were accustomed on swallowing a lamb or a kid, to coil themselves round a tree in order to crush Menxsins. the bones of their victim. But after what Martinus Crusius on IS.lib. i.,

Cyprus,

p-‘tc- ‘the authority of one Stamatius Donatus, a Cypriot, writes con cerning a mysterious kind of beast, which had its habitat on Mount Olympus (Stavro Vouni), we can no longer question the ability of the island mouser to attack and subdue even such formidable opponents as these.1 According to this veracious chronicler there was to be found on that mountain a species of quadruped resembling a snake in the shape of its body and tail, as long as a horse and fairly tall, with a skin so thick as to be impervious to anything but a bullet, which devoured all human beings unfortunate enough to come in its way. The cats used to hunt it either singly or in couples, and to kill itby springing on its back and tearing out the eyes. As one reads this outrageous yarn one cannot help suspecting that his informant was slyly endeavouring to gauge the extent of the worthy Crusius1 credulity.2 The writer at any rate is thankful to think that during a residence of some days on Mount Olympus he never encountered any of these truly alarming monsters. Lujtaan, During the later period of the Latin occupation the Orthodox are said to have possessed in Nikosia four houses for men and ‘Ait, in Olympo, qui solus in Cipro sit mons, animal, corpore et Cauda btpioeiSes, quadrupes, magnum, longitudine equi, et satis altum, robusta pelle, ferrum non curans, sed bombardas, homines obviam venientes devorans : vinci tamen a catto uno, aut duobus, insidiantibus, insilientibus, oculos magnos eruentibus, et necantibus (Martinus Crusius, Turcogrcecice , lib. ii.). Menratua 2 Meursius at least seems to have had considerable doubts as to Donatus’ Cyprus, lib. t, bona fides since, when chronicling another of his flights of imagination, he remarks: ” Imposuit Martino Crusio, viro bono et erudito, Graeculus ille Stamatius Donatus,” an opinion which will find very general acceptance.

THE CHURCH OF CYPRUS 361 the same number for women also.1 Some have since been dis-rui solved, while others have been converted into parish churches, p-41- The names of those for men are : — 1. St. John Bibi. As this establishment will be more fully noticed elsewhere the mere mention of its name here will alone be sufficient. 2. St. George of Mankana,2 situated on the outskirts of strambaldi, Nikosia was constructed by Helena Palaeologos, the Greek con-Iurtgmuli sort of Jean II., about 1453 for the reception of certain fugitive ^ “J*^ monks, who had escaped to the island on the capture of Con-?-3”- stantinople by Mohammed II. After existing for little more than a century it was demolished by the Venetians in 1567 when reconstructing the fortifications of the capital. Its endowment, which originally amounted to 1500 ducats annually, had by the end of the fifteenth century sunk to 600. The foundress hadmst.deohyp., given orders that her interment should take place within the “”‘ walls, but the Dominicans of Nikosia prevented their execution by refusing to deliver up the body. 3. Andrio and 4, Sergi Flatro are the names of the remaining two. According to Kyprianos one of these, though he is un- Kyprfano., certain which, has since been converted into the Church of the Archangel Michael situated in the Tripioti quarter of the town, while all traces of the other seem to have totally disappeared. It was the hegoumenos of Andrio who officiated at all episcopal Lusigan, ordinations in the absence of any of the three remaining Ortho dox prelates.3 But the list is by no means yet exhausted, for in the Consti- Raynaidi, tutio Cypria (a.d. 1260) 4 mention is also made ofthe church orNo. 49.’ 1 Li Religiosi de’ Monaci et Monache di San Basilio sono assai. De’ Monaci in Nicosia sono 4 : Bibi, Andrio, Manchana, et Sergi Flatro. De Monache 4 ; Palluriotissa, hora Santo Magedoni, Ienechio, Santi omnes, et Faneromeni. 2 Et essendo ehe del 1453 ha tuolto l’infidel Turco Costantinopoli, ha fatto gran lamento la signora regina (Helena Paleologo) in Cipro ; et venero in Cipro molte cose buone, et nobili monachi. Ha voluto et ha tuolto et fatto fabricar monasterio, fuori delta citta, nominato san Zorzi de Mangana ; et ha fatto molte intrade nel ditto monasterio, per esser fatte le sue commemorationi ; et cosi fanno fino al presente. Fabrico un Monasterio greco detto Manchana, et donogli dui casali, et ornollo di privilegii. Fece edificare il monastero di Mangana, et li diede casali ed entrate per piu di 1500 ducati all’ anno. 3 Dipoi si fa consecrare da 3 altri vescovi greci, et se non saranno se non due, l’abbate del monasterio di Antrio debba supplire per l’altro absente. 4 Praefato vero Germano archiepiscopo dictas sedem et ecclesiam de Solia, tam in spiritualibus, quam temporalibus, de eisdem consilio et potestate, com- mittimus, sibi retentis semper dignitatis archiepiscopalis honoie ac nomine,

362 THE CHURCH OF CYPRUS monastery of St. Barnabas, which was assigned by Alexander IV. as an alternative residence for the then Orthodox primate, Ger manos, in place of Solea. Moreover the letter written in 1223 by the Oecumenical Patriarch, Germanos, to the Cypriots men tions yet another called Apsinthi (rwv ,A-^riv0Uov). But, as no particulars are given as to its position, it cannot with certainty be included among the monasteries of the capital. Its hegou menos, Leontios, was one of the two delegates sent to Germanos at Nica?a after the expulsion of Archbishop Neophytos by the Latins. The names ofthe houses for women as given by Lusignan are : — 1. Palluriotissa. 2. Ienechio. 3. All Saints, and 4, Phanero mene. The two following lists show the monasteries, classed under their respective dioceses, as existing when Kyprianos wrote, and also at the present, time. The second, which may be regarded as containing the latest information on the subject, being com piled from returns supplied to the Ecclesiastical Properties Commission lately sitting at Nikosia, is given exactly as received by the writer : — The Archbishopric.1 1. Hagia Napa. 2. Mavrovouni. 3. Tochni. 4. Hagios Spyridon. 5. Hagios Anastasios. 6. Avgasis. 7. Kouratha. 8. Chordakii. 9. Apostolos Barnabas. 10. Kantara. 11. Kana- karia. 12. Hagia Photeine. 13. Makedonitissa. 14. Libadiotissa. 15. Neta. 16. Hagios Nikolaos of Davlos. 17. Hagios Kendeas. 18. Maloura. 19. Hagia Thekla. 20. Archangelos of Analionta. 21. Machaera. 22. Prophetes Elias. 23. Hagios Herakleidios. 24. Hagios Mnason. 25. Hagios Panteleemon of Achera. 26. Palourgiotissa.episcopaliter gubernandas ; ita tamen quod ei sit liberum, vel in dicta sede de Solia, vel apud ecclesiam Graecorum beati Barnaba? Nicosiensis, quam ad epis copum sedis ejusdem, ex hujusmodi nostrse ordinationis beneficio, pertinere perpetuo volumus, pro libito commorari. 1 Archbishopric : — 2. Mavrovouni (St. George). Buildings ruined except the church. Let as a farm. 8. Chordakiotissa (tojc XopSaKiwv), near Sotira, south of Famagusta. A church only exists which is reckoned as an appendix to Hagia Napa. 17. Hagios Kendeas, no monks there. 18. Maloura (Archangelos), near Goshi, a ruin. ig. Hagia Thekla, let as a farm. 23. Hagios Herakleides. In this monastery are preserved the relics of that

THE CHURCH OF CYPRUS 363
Stauropegia. 1. Kykko. 2. Hagia Enklistra at Paphos. 3. Hagia Mone, Metochion of Kykko at Paphos. 4. Piani, Metochion of Kykko at Paphos. 5. Sinte, Metochion of Kykko at Paphos. 6. Hagios Nikolaos Stege at Solea. 7. Kathari at Kyrenia. Paphos. 1. Trooditissa. 2. Stavros of Omodos. 3. Hagii Anargyri of Phini. 4. Pente Litharia. 5. Stavros of Anogyra. 6. Hagios Sabbas. 7. Salamiou. 8. Haginikoloudin. 9. Hagios Georgios Koumanou. 10. Hagios Onesiphoros. 11. Chrysorrhogiatissa. 12. Stavros of Mitha. 13. Zalakia. 14. Chrysolakourna. 15. Hagii Anargyri of Giolo. 16. Hagios Nikolaos Nikoxylites. Kition. 1. Mesapotamos. 2. Hagios Nikolaos of Ergasterion. 3. Hagia Mavra. 4. Archangelos of Monagri. 5. Amasgou. 6. Sphalan- giotissa. 7. Hagios Nikolaos of Akrotiri. 8. Amerou. 9. Stavrovouni. 10. Hagios Menas. 11. Stavros of Kouka. 12. Megas Agros. 13. Iamatike.

Kyrenia. 1. Achiropietos. 2. Hagios Panteleemon of Myrtou. 3. Asinou. 4. Hagios Mamas of Morphou. 5. Podithou. 6. Ara- saint. Kyprianos reports that it was restored by Archbishop Chrysanthos in 1775 at his own expense in memory of himself and his parents. Paphos : — 3. Hagii Anargyri at Phini, only a church now exists there. 4. Pente Litharia is a ruin tolerably well preserved in the valley above Vasa, and midway between Omodos and Hagios Nikolaos. 6. Hagios Sabbas, now a ruin. 10. Hagios Onesiphoros. Only a church now exists there. 13. Zalakia, at Peyia, no monks there. 14. Chrysolakourna, at Steni, in ruins. Kition : —

5. Amasgou, no monks there. g. Stavrovouni (Santa Croce), has only one monk and one acolyte. Property let as a farm. 10. Hagios Menas, no monks, let as a farm. n. Stavros of Kouka, only a church now exists. Kyrenia : — 7. Hagios Joannes Lampadistes, a large monastery in the Marathasa Real between Moutoulla and Kalopanagiotis. The church, which is united to that of Hagios Herakleides, contains a beautiful silver reliquary, within which is the head of the former saint. 9. Hagia Argia, at Chakistra, in ruins,

Felix Faber nearly a century before Lusignan notices the cats atHagios Nikolaos : ” Super Nimonam est quidam locus nemorosus, adeo plenus serpentibus et nocivis animalibus, quod nemo potest ibi manere, hoc tamen non obstante, in medio nemoris construxerunt antiqui patres monasterium, ut circumdati serpentibus minus visitarentur a saecularibus, quorum utique crebra visitatio devotis monachis noscitur esse molesta. Sed ne serpentes ipsos in monasterio molestent, nutriunt multitudinem cattorum, qui serpentibus et muribus, gliribus, soricibus naturaliter insidiant, et eos non sinunt prope muros morari, sicque quotidie pugnant catti isti cum serpentibus a muris repellentes, noctibus vero intersunt et officinas omnes lustrant, ne aliquod reptile ibi manere possit, diurnis vero horis per nemus vagantur, et quando hora refectionis eorum instat, tunc deputatus monachus quamdam campanam pulsat, cujus audientes sonum omnes occurrunt ad locum suas comestionis.”

A description of the historic monuments of Cyprus. Studies in the …

A description of the historic monuments of Cyprus. Studies in the …

The oldest portion of the fragment — the great square hall —
which was originally very much larger, extending over the space

LIMAS80L. 369

now occupied by the prison cells, is precisely similar in character
to the early XlVth century citadel of Famagusta, with arrow-slit
windows, having embrasures with side seats. This portion was
evidently arranged for subdivision in its height by wood flooring,
but has been completely altered in the XVth or XVIth centuries
by vaulting the space at a different level from that originally
intended, and transforming it into a very lofty interior of some
eight metres in height. This vaulting was originally carried on
massive square wall pilasters, and a central column, but again at
some subsequent period the design has been modified by removing
the central support, and in its place substituting a square piece
of segmental vaulting in a very bold and original manner carried
on the centre rib or ridge of the old quadripartite vaults, and
forming an elliptical covering to the whole space. This last altera-
tion was doubtless carried out by the Venetians or the Turks, when
the encompassing artillery wall and platform were added to the
tower. The north-east portion of the building is supposed by
M. Enlart to date from possibly the XlVth century, but its very
modern appearance and the total absence of detail prevent such
an identification. In all probability this portion, which is in two
storeys, is not older than the encompassing wall and consequently
dates from the XVIth century. The prison cells are of course no
older. The great hall of the castle, of which an arch may be seen
in the east wall of the remaining portion, evidently belonged to
the grand architectural style of Bella Paise refectory, and other
buildings of the kind in Cyprus now demolished.

The Castle of Limassol is associated in folklore history with
the mediseval romance of ” Valentine and Orson.” * Jacques le
Saige, Draper of Douai, when visiting Cyprus in 1518, mentions
that ” seven or eight of my companions vowed to me that they
had been in the Castle of Limassol, and had there been shewn the
bronze head which spoke to Valentine the brother of Orson.”
He adds : ” I knew about this too late, or I would have gone to
see it myself.” A few years later the Castle was probably reduced
to its present condition.

The town of Limassol may be considered as an entirely modern
settlement around the ancient fort ; not a trace survives of any
ancient domestic buildings. The old churches of this once im-
portant sea-port have disappeared completely, and even their
very sites have long since been forgotten. Their modern repre-
sentatives are as follows : —

Ay. Napa. — The large new church near the port, completed for
use in 1903, is one of the most ambitious attempts at church
building in Cyprus of recent years ; but like the same type of
church elsewhere in the island possesses but little character or

• “

» “Valentine and Orson” is a French mediaeval romance of twin brothers who
were Paladins of Charlemagne: the connection with Limassol is mysterious, unless
we admit another version of the story which makes Orson to have been the son of
an Emperor of Constantinople who grew up as the “Wild Man of the Forest.”

Aa

370 MONUMENTS OF CYPRUS.

style in its design and details. It occupies the site of an older
church dated 1738, dedicated to the Panayia.

Ay. Antonios.—A ” parekklesia ” built in 1870, partly under-
ground, and restored in 1896 after damage by a flood. The old
church was covered with frescoes of the life of St. Anthony.

Ay. Trias (or Khrysoroiatissa). — A “metoche ” of the Khryso-
roiatissa Monastery. Formerly the residence of the Bishop of
Paphos, when in Limassol. The church was rebuilt in 1870.

KaihoKke Panayia (KocOoAwo) xai. ‘AttocttoXlxyj). — Eebuilt in 1864,
this building possesses two minarets (of different designs) and
much wood carving. It is a singularly picturesque example of
a Cypriot church, viewed from any point, although not of much
architectural character.

Santa Catarina di Limassol. — The Latin church of the Fran-
ciscans (Terra Santa) dedicated ” To the glory of God and in
honour of St. Catherine,” was built in 1872. The monastery was
founded in 1850. Nothing of an architectural character can be
discovered in this building any more than in those of the native
Christians, which it much resembles.

One of the principal mosques of Limassol is strangely con-
structed on a site which encroaches on the river bed — forming in
fact a massive groin or dam to the water in winter time. It is
a completely new building. In the course of re-building the great
mosque (Djami Kebir) in 1906, traces of a Christian church were
found at some depth below the floor level. Stone coffins and grave
slabs, and a small Lusignan lion badge, 1ft. 6ins. square, gave
evidence of the site having been occupied by a Latin church.
Also some lower courses of walling still retained their intonaco with
traces of mediaeval painting. These fragments possibly belonged
to the original Latin cathedral. Two small mosques entirely
without architectural interest or character survive in other parts
of the town.

The Metropolis of the Orthodox Church, and now the residence
of the Bishop of Paphos, is a small enclosure with a chapel dedicated
to SS. Andronicos, Mamas, and Spyridon. An inscription states
that the building was begun in 1835 and completed in 1850, on
October 8th, the date of an annual festival. This appears to be
the oldest church of the town.

A characteristic Turkish khan for merchants, closely resembling
in style the khans of Mcosia, is situated near the landing stage
of the ” Scala.” As is usually the case with such buildings it is
constructed out of the ruins of the locality and has a more venerable
appearance than it is really entitled to : it is probably compara-
tively modern. The subsoil of the neighbourhood of this khan
is a mass of ruined houses and foundations resulting from the
earthquakes of former days.

A carriage road passes due north from Limassol to join the
Troodos-Mcosia Eoad in the mountains. This communicates with
the villages of Ay. Phylaxis, a name of the same order as Sofia,

LIMASSOL. 371

or Irene, meaning ” guardian,” Turner in 1812 found this ” a
miserable village with a broken Venetian bridge ” ; Palodhia (St.
Nicholas) ; Paramytha (B.V.M.) ; Spitali (St. Anna) ; and Pha-
soulla (B.V.M.). The name ” Paramytha ” is an attribute of the
B.V.M. = ” Consoler ” or ” Healer.”

Apesia (St. George and B.V.M. Kyra), Yerasa, Korfi, and
Apsiou, are all comparatively modern and uninteresting. In a
contiguous valley approached by a mule path from Apesia is
Khalasa, an insignificant hamlet at the junction of two valleys,
in the eastern of which are the villages of Limnatis, marked on the
old maps as ” Limniti,” now a place of no importance ; Kapilio
(in Cyprus this means a tavern), and Ay. Mamas. With the
exception of Limnatis all these villages are insignificant and un-
interesting.

The monastery of the Panayia Manasyou, and the small
monastery of the Archangel, are associated with a cluster of villages
on the west of the road, and most easily approached from Doros
where several of the modern wine-roads or cart-tracks meet. In
this neighbourhood is a place called Karkia, with a singularly
cold spring of water known as the Nepov tyjc Xap>o]<;. The monas-
tery of the Panayia perhaps takes its name from an unusual
word Mavo?, a necklace or bracelet.

XXVII. LIMASSOL TO PAPHOS.

Making a detour round the promontory of Akrotiri with its
large salt lake, the important mediaeval monastery of St. Nicholas
of the Cats can be visited, from which the promontory, also takes
its name amongst Europeans of Capo della Gata. This monastery
according to Stefano di Lusignano was built by Calocer, the
first Christian Duke of Cyprus in the time of Constantine and
Helena. A community of Basilian monks was established here,
the surrounding lands and district being granted to them on
condition of their maintaining at least one hundred cats on the
premises for the purpose of destroying the venomous snakes
which abounded in the neighbourhood. The cats, which were not
supposed to be able to live entirely on these reptiles, were to be
furnished with food also by the monks in the morning and the
evening, and at feeding time they were to be summoned by ringing
a bell. Father Felix Faber (1480) speaks of this place as a certain
wooded spot so full of serpents and noxious animals that no one
can live there. ” Nevertheless in the middle of the wood some
ancient fathers built a monastery, so that being surrounded with
serpents they might be less exposed to the visits of worldlings,
which are known to disturb devout monks. But lest the serpents
should molest the inmates of the convent, they maintain a number
of cats, who naturally make a prey of snakes, mice, dormice and
rats, and roam about the offices lest any reptile be hidden there,

AA 2

372 MONUMENTS OF CYPRUS.

but during the day they hunt in the wood, and when their dinner
hour comes the monk on duty rings a bell, at the sound of which
they all run to the place where they are fed. For the ancients
laid down that every man had always at his side a good and an
evil genius, just as Christian truth tells us that with every man
are associated two angels, one good the other bad. The Lares
were said to be the sons of Mercury and the nymph Lar. They
lived in the homes of men and guarded them, their seat being in
the common hall of the house near the fire, and there men paid
them due reverence, a custom not wholly fallen into disuse. And
because cats have flashing eyes, and like to lie on the ashes near
the fire, they said they were of kin to the Genii, Lares and
Penates.”

The monastery with its cats seems to have survived until the
Turkish invasion, but by the time of M. de Beauveau’s ” Voyage “
(1604) the famous institution had come to an end as far as the cats
were concerned, although a few caloyers, or monks, are said to
have remained in the buildings.

On the opposite side of the Egyptian Sea, in the middle of
the Nile delta near Zagazig stand the ruins of the famous temple
of Bubastis or Pasht, where the cat-headed goddess, prototype
of the classical Diana, was worshipped a thousand years B.C.
The proximity of this Cape of Cats in Cyprus to the centre of
cat-worship amongst the ancients suggests some descent of the
mediaeval cats from their remote Egyptian ancestors — perhaps a
shrine of the cat-headed Diana may have stood on Acrotiri at
some period not recorded.

M. Enlart, the learned author of ” L’Art Gothique en Chypre,”
offers some interesting suggestions on the subject of the cats of
Akrotiri. He remarks upon the possibility of their having been
of a special breed like the sacred cats of Egypt, or the almost
extinct species called ” chat d’Espagne.” It is also of interest to
find that the Knights of Bhodes are credited with having intro-
duced into that island a breed of cats for this very purpose of
exterminating reptiles, and it is but probable that they carried
them over from Cyprus when the Order removed its headquarters
from one island to the other in 1310. When M. de Villamont
visited Cyprus in 1588 the Abbey remained almost whole, ” having
received no injury from the Turks when they took Cyprus from

the Venetians in 1570 the cats are dead for want of food, but

their memory lives in the name Capo delle Gatte.” At the present
day the monastery of St. Nicholas of the Cats is a ruin of which
only the church and one arcade of the cloister survive in a condi-
tion to shew the original design. Around these fragments are
heaps of debris from buildings of earlier ages.

The church, like most of the monastic chapels of Cyprus, was
a simple monotholos of small size, its only architectural features
being the doorways on the west, north and south sides. These
are of some interest, for although of small size, they possess the

LIMASSOL TO PAPBOS. 373

mouldings and some carving of genuine mediaeval style. The
doorway on the north side is remarkable for a sculptured lintel,
supporting the tympanum of the pointed and moulded arch, and
for two dripstone terminations in the form of capitals of foliage
on which appear the rudely sculptured miniature figures of SS.
Peter and Paid. The lintel is carved with a cross in the centre
and on either side two shields of arms. The coats of arms on the
church door lintel of Akrotiri are singular and at present without
explanation. Counting from left to right : — (1) On a shield, a
pigeoncote or perhaps a ciborium. (2) On a shield a lion rampant
of the usual Lusignan variety. (3) On a shield a cross potencee.
(4) On a shield a cross, in the four angles of which are four keys
erect, the wards outwards (reminiscent of the episcopal arms of
Laon). In addition to the cross sculptured between the shields
already referred to, are the letters of the Greek alphabet — B.I.K.A.
The coats of arms JSTos. (1) and (4) are doubtless personal ones,
the other two shields probably represent the free rendering of the
Lusignan royal badge which not uncommonly occurs on Orthodox
buildings of the middle ages. The ruins of this convent are full
of fragments which have evidently been brought from the classic
sites in the neighbourhood.

Akrotiri. — A hamlet which accommodates the few peasants
inhabiting the peninsula of the same name. It possesses two small
rustic churches dedicated respectively to St. Cross and St. George.
To the south of Akrotiri is a site called Kurias which has been
surveyed by Hogarth and others but does not seem to be more
than an ancient village in ruins of no importance.*

ZakaM, with a modern church of St. Barbara ; TraJchoni, with
two small rustic chapels of St. Mamas and the B.V.M. ; and
Asomatos with a modern church of St. Michael, are all small
hamlets without any particular interest.

Between Limassol and Kolossi is a small village called Ypsona,
apparently of modern origin with a new church. It seems to be
one of the ” summer villages ” inhabited chiefly at the time of
harvest.

The Book of Cats, by Charles H. Ross

The Book of Cats, by Charles H. Ross

A very great number of Cats’ mummies, discovered in Egypt, afford ample proof of the esteem in which Pussy was held in “Thebes’ Streets Three Thousand Years Ago.” If one died a natural death, it was mourned for with many ceremonies; among others the entire household, where the death took place, shaved off their eyebrows. If killed, the murderer was given up to the mob to buffet him to death. Cats were held sacred when alive, and when they died were embalmed and deposited in the niches of the catacombs. An insult offered by a Roman to a Cat caused an insurrection among the Egyptians when nothing else could excite them. Cambyses gained Pelusis, which had previously successfully resisted all attacks, by the following stratagem:—He gave to each of his soldiers employed in the attack a live Cat, instead of a buckler, and the Egyptians, rather than hurt the objects of their veneration, suffered themselves to be vanquished without striking a blow.

Herodotus tells us that “on every occasion of a fire in Egypt, the strangest prodigy occurs with the Cats. The inhabitants allow the fire to rage as long as it pleases, while they stand about, at[Pg 100] intervals, and watch these animals, which, slipping by the men, or else leaping over them, rush headlong into the flames.”

In some of the curious Egyptian pictures at the British Museum, you may see the representation of Cats being trained to catch birds.

Cats are frequently trained in California to catch a species of burrowing pouched rat, called a gopher, a destructive animal infesting fields and gardens. Cats, so trained, are very valuable.

We are told that there was once a Cape in the Island of Cyprus, which was called Cat Cape. A monastery stood here, the monks of which were compelled by their vows to keep a great number of Cats, to wage war against the snakes, with which the Island was swarming. At the sound of a certain bell the Cats came trooping home to their meals, and then rushed out again to the chase. When, however, the Turks conquered the Island, they destroyed both the Cats and their home.

In the middle ages, animals formed as prominent a part in the worship of the time as in the old religion of Egypt. The Cat was a very important personage in religious festivals. At Aix, in Provence, on the festival of Corpus Christi, the finest Tom-cat of the country, wrapt in swaddling[Pg 101] clothes like a child, was exhibited in a magnificent shrine to public admiration. Every knee was bent, every hand strewed flowers, or poured incense, and Grimalkin was treated in all respects as the god of the day. But on the festival of St. John, poor Tom’s fate was reversed. A number of the tabby tribe were put into a wicker basket, and thrown alive into the midst of an immense fire, kindled in the public square by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were sung, and processions were made by the priest and people in honour of the sacrifice.

In the reign of Howel the Good, who died in 948, a law was made in Wales, fixing the price of the Cat, which was then of great scarcity. A kitten before it got its sight was to cost one penny; until a warranty was given of its having caught a mouse, twopence; after this important event, fourpence, and a very high price, too, the times considered. The Cat, however, was required to be perfect in its senses of seeing and hearing, should be a good mouser, have its claws uninjured, and, if a lady pussy, be a good mamma. If after it was sold, it was found wanting in any of these particulars, the seller was to forfeit a third of the purchase-money. If any one stole or killed the Cat that[Pg 102] was guarding the prince’s granary, the criminal forfeited a milch ewe with her fleece and lamb, or as much wheat as when poured upon a Cat suspended by its tail, would bury the animal up to the top of its tail.

In Abyssinia, Cats are so valuable, that a marriageable girl who is likely to come in for a Cat, is looked upon as quite an heiress.

The resemblance between the Tiger and the Cat is so striking, that little children first taken to the Zoological Gardens almost always call the Tigers great Cats; and, in their native woods, Tigers purr.

The domestic species require no description, but one or two of the varieties may be mentioned:

The Cat of Angora, is a very beautiful variety, with silvery hair of fine silken texture, generally longest on the neck, but also long on the tail. Some are yellowish, and others olive, approaching to the colour of the Lion; but they are all delicate creatures, and of gentle dispositions. Mr. Wood, while staying in Paris, made the acquaintance of an Angora, which ate two plates of almond biscuits at a sitting. This breed of Cats has singular tastes; I knew one that took very kindly to gin and water, and was rather partial to curry. He also ate peas,[Pg 103] greens, and broad beans (in moderation). Most Cats are fond of asparagus.

The Persian Cat is a variety with hair very long, and very silky, perhaps more so than the Cat of Angora; it is however differently coloured, being of a fine uniform grey on the upper part, with the texture of the fur as soft as silk, and the lustre glossy; the colour fades off on the lower parts of the sides, and passes into white, or nearly so, on the belly. This is, probably, one of the most beautiful varieties, and it is said to be exceedingly gentle in its manners.

The Chinese Cat has the fur beautifully glossed, but it is very different from either of those which have been mentioned. It is variegated with black and yellow, and, unlike most of the race, has the ears pendulous. Bosman, writing about the ears, says: “It is worthy of observation, that there is in animals evident signs of ancestry of their slavery. Long ears are produced by time and civilization, and all wild animals have straight round ears.”

The Tortoise-shell or Spanish Cat is one of the prettiest varieties of those which have the fur of moderate length, and without any particular silvery gloss. The colours are very pure, black, white, and reddish orange; and, in this country, at least, males[Pg 104] thus marked are said to be rare, though they are quite common in Egypt and the south of Europe. This variety has other qualities to recommend it, besides the beauty of its colours. Tortoise-shell Cats are very elegant, though delicate in their form, and are, at the same time, very active, and among the most attached and grateful of the whole race.

Bluish grey is not a common colour; this species are styled “Chartreux Cats,” and are esteemed rarities.

The Manx Cat is perhaps the most singular; its limbs are gaunt, its fur close set, its eyes staring and restless, and it has no tail; that is to say, there is only a sort of knob as though its tail had been amputated. “A black Manx Cat,” says a modern writer, “with its staring eyes and its stump of a tail, is a most measly looking beast, which would find a more appropriate resting place at Kirk Alloway or the Black Bay, than at the fireside of a respectable household. So it might fitly be the quadrupedal form in which the ancient sorcerers were wont to clothe themselves on their nocturnal excursions.”

I read in an article by Mr. Lord that there is a variety of tailless Cats found in various parts of the[Pg 105] world, and he suggests that this deficiency may be due to an accident originally, but perpetuated by interbreeding. I am not quite of the same opinion. It reminds one of the old saying, “It runs in the blood, like wooden legs.”

I recollect the case of a young gentleman who devoted his leisure evenings to cutting off Cats’ tails in the neighbourhood in which he lived. He hung them up in bunches to dry, and had rare sport, while it lasted, in making the collection, only some one, who was a Cat-owner, did not see the fun of it, and put an end to the joke. Some young men think it a manly sport to kill or hunt down Cats; and, by the way, do you remember Sir Robert Peel’s memorable speech about the Volunteers, thus reported in Hansard?:—

“At Hythe the first prize was carried off by a genuine Cockney. Upon being asked how he had acquired his extraordinary skill and precision—

“‘Oh,’ said he, as reported in the columns of the Court Journal, ‘I live in London, and have had considerable practice in shooting at the Cats of my Brompton neighbours.’

“It was not, perhaps, of much consequence in the depth of winter (continued Sir R. Peel), but no[Pg 106] man could tell what a scene London would present in the height of the season. Everybody would be shooting at his neighbour’s Cat. There would be the stoker of the Railway Rifles potting at the funnels of the North Western, and we should have the Finsbury Filibusters fluking over Cripplegate. He trusted, however, that before that time a stop would be put to the Volunteer movement,” etc., etc.

Cats do certainly seem to enjoy themselves on moonlight nights, anyhow they make noise enough. The Cat was believed by the ancients to stand in some relation to the moon, for Plutarch says that the Cat was the symbol of the moon on account of her different colours, her busy ways at night, and her giving birth to twenty-eight young ones during the course of her life, which is exactly the number of the phases of the moon.

The ancients identified Bubastis with the Greek Artemis (or Diana), and each was regarded as the Goddess of the moon. Bubastis was generally represented as a woman with a Cat’s head.

It might occur to some, that “Puss” is derived from the Egyptian name, Pasht; but perhaps it is better to acquiesce in the derivation from the Latin, Pusus (a little boy), or Pusa (a little girl). By others this term is thought to be a corruption of Pers.[Pg 107] The French of Cat is Chat; the German, Katze; the Italian, Gatto; the Spanish, Gato; the Dutch and Danish, Kat; the Welsh, Cath; the Latin, Catus: the French of Puss is Minette. You have heard the story, I suppose, of the person who being told to decline the noun Cat, when he came to the vocative, said “O Cat!” on which he was reminded that if he spoke to a Cat he would say “Puss.”

Mr. Buchton says, that “the only language in which the name of the Cat is significant, is the Zend, where the word Gatu, almost identical with the Spanish Gato, means a place—a word peculiarly significant in reference to this animal, whose attachment is peculiar to place, and not to the person, so strikingly indicated by the dog.”

In some parts of Lancashire, a Tom is still called a “Gib” or “Gibbe” Cat, the g being pronounced hard, not jibbe, as found in most dictionaries. According to Nares, Gib, the contraction of Gilbert, was the name formerly applied to a Cat, as Tom is now, and that Tibert, as given in Reynard the Fox, was the old French for Gilbert. Chaucer in his Romance of the Rose translates Thibert le Cas by “Gibbe our Cat.” Shakespeare applies the word Gibbe to an old worn-out animal. The term Gib-face means the lower lip of a horse. In mechanics, the pieces of[Pg 108] iron employed to clasp together the pieces of wood or metal of a frame which is to be keyed previous to inserting the keys, are called Gibs. Anyone curious upon the subject of Gib Cats, may find the subject treated at length in the Etymologicon.

The Gentleman’s Magazine, Volume 295

The Gentleman’s Magazine, Volume 295

The place is most pleasant with fruitful hills, and was of old consecrated to the goddess Venus, queen of this island ; and they say that adamants are found here, which skilful jewellers repute almost as precious as the Oriental. A mile from this place is the cave where they fain the Seven sleepers to have slept I know not how many years. The 21st of May towards evening we entered the port of Cyprus called La Saline, and on the 22nd, obtaining license of the Turkish Cadi to go on land, we lodged at the village of Larnaca, within a monastery of European Friars. Here some of us, having to sail to Joppa and thence to go by land to Jerusalem, did leave the Venetian ship, which sailed forward to Scanderoon. The Turks did conquer the island of Cyprus from the Venetians in 1570, and to this day possess it; the chief cities whereof are Nicosia (seated in the midst of the Island), Famagosta (seated in the fruittiest part of the Island towards the East). The Turkish Bashaw or Governor useth to choose Famagosta for his seat (though Nicosia be the fairer city) because it hath a good haven and a most strong fort which the Venetians built. The Island lieth 240 (140) miles in length from west to east, and some 8o (60) miles in breadth, and 6oo in compass. This Island is said to be distant from the Island of Candia (which is some 230 miles long, but I speak of the next promontories in both of them); and from Alexan dretta (at this day called Scanderoon) 80 miles; from Tripoli, Syria, 90 miles, from Joppa 230 miles, speaking of the uttermost promon tories on all sides. The Island yieldeth to no place in fruitfulness or pleasure, being enriched with corn, oil, cheese (most sweet), pork, sheep (having tails that weigh more than 2 lbs.), capers (growing upon pricking bushes) pomegranites, oranges, and the like fruits, canes or reeds of sugar (which they beat in mills, drawing out a water which they ‘seeth.’ to make sugar), with rich wines (but gnawing or burning the stomach), odoriferous ‘ciprus’ trees (whereof they make fires), store of cotton and many other blessings of nature. Near the promontory Del Gatto, so called of cats which used to kill the serpents, they take falcons, which hawks the Governors are commanded to send-to Constantinople. They sow corn in the month of October and reap it April. I know not how it comes to pass that in this island of Venus all fruits taste of salt, which Venus loved so well. And I thought this was only proper to the place at which we landed, where they make salt, till many islanders affirmed to me that the very earth, the very herbs, the beasts feeding there, and the fountains of water had a natural saltness. The houses are built after the manner of Asia, of a little stone one roof high and plain on the top, which is VOL. CCxcv. No. 2072. P

plastered, and there they eat and sleep in the open air. We lodged at Cyprus in a Monastery, whence being now to depart the Friars of our Company and also the laymen gave each of us 8 lire of Venice to the guardian of the Monastery, and 1 lire to the Friar who attended us, in the name of gift or alms, but indeed for three days lodging and diet.” Many of these “blessings of nature” are still produced, and wine, oil, cotton, and corn are now exported to Egypt, France, Italy, and England. Cyprus barley is so excellent that much of it is used by Messrs. Bass in brewing their beer. The barley harvest is so early in Cyprus that the present writer has seen reapers at work in a barley field on April 7. The sugar-cane is no longer cultivated, but great quantities of delicious oranges and pomegranates are grown. The general saline flavour which, according to what the islanders told Moryson, permeated everything, has certainly evapo rated in the course of three centuries. There are still salt lakes at Larnaca and Limassol, where salt is produced and sold as a government monopoly. The story of Cape Gatto and the serpent eating cats is thus told by Cesnola in his book on Cyprus published in 1877 (p. 348): “Passing the Cape,” says Cesnola, “my mule was startled by the sudden flight from a bush of what appeared to me to be a cat, and the guide assured me that both at the Cape and near to Acrotiri there are wild cats, which hunt and destroy the asps abounding there. I recollected to have read somewhere . . . that the ‘Caloyers’ of the convent of Acrotiri raised and trained a pecu liar breed of cats, which they imported from Constantinople, to kill the asps in their neighbourhood, and that at the tolling of a particu lar bell in the convent these cats would come in to be fed twice a day, and then return to their work of destruction. Probably it is in reference to these cats that the ancient promontory of Curias is now known as Cape Gatto, or Delle Gatte.” With the assistance of a Venetian merchant Moryson hired a ship to take him and his com panions to Joppa. By an admirable arrangement the greater part of the passage-money was deposited with the merchant, to be paid to the captain of the vessel on his return from the voyage, and on proof of his having satisfactorily performed his contract. The ship was pro visioned for seven persons, and Moryson mentions amongst the items “a cheese costing four aspers,” a jar of oil, and “a barrel full of rich wine which fretted our very entrails.” After touching at Limassol, one of the principal ports of Cyprus, Moryson sailed across to Joppa and thence to Tripoli in Syria, where he hears the following account of the Egyptian pigeon post : “My host told me a strange thing;

An Elizabethan Tourist. 2O3

namely, that in Alexandria in Egypt, seated upon one of the mouths of the river Nilus, there was a dovecote, and that also at Cairo (or Babylon), farre within the land of Egypt, there was another dovecote; and because it much concerns the merchants to have speedy news of any commodity arising, he assured me that they used to tie letter

about the necks of the doves at Alexandria and so let them loose, which doves, having formerly bred in the dovecote at Cairo, did fly thither most quickly, and the keeper of them, taking the letters they brought, used to deliver them to the merchants. This I believed not until I came to Haleppo, and telling it for a fable to the English merchants there, they seriously affirmed the same to be true.” In addition to this confirmation of the story of the “pigeon post,” Moryson found that at (H)Aleppo considerable “traffic” was carried on “by the Turkey Company of London to their great profit.” Here also he gave utterance to one of his frequent culinary regrets. “The Turks want not good meat, but only good cooks to cook it.” This is applicable to other countries than Turkey, and to other centuries than the sixteenth. At Aleppo our traveller comes across a wonderful snake. “In a garden in the suburbs I did see a serpent of wonderful bigness; and they report that the male serpent and young ones being killed by certain boys, this she-serpent, observing the water where the boys used to drink, did poison the same, so as many of the boys died thereof; and that the citizens thereupon came out to kill her, but seeing her lie with her face upward, as complaining to the heavens that her revenge was just, that they, touched with a superstitious conceit, let her alone ; finally, that this serpent had lived there many ages, and was of incredible age.” In the month of June, accompanied by his brother Henry, the representative of Sir John Spencer, merchant, Moryson left Aleppo with a caravan sent by “Master George Dorrington” to Constanti nople, distant some sixteen days’ journey. The merchandise appears to have been the joint venture of Sir John Spencer and Master Dorring ton. The expedition, however, proved most disastrous. “For my brother dying by the way, and the great Turk being heir to all Chris tians and strangers dying in his Empire, the Turks either thought or fraudulently pretended that these goods belonged to my brother, and so took them into the great Turk’s storehouses and kept them there till they had unjustly extorted great sums of money from Master Dorrington, besides the great loss which was sustained by the servants and camels in vain.” Henry Moryson “fell sick of a flux,” and died at Beilan, near Scanderoon, on July 4, 1596, aged 27, much to the grief of his brother, who writes: “I am sure from hat

day to this I never enjoyed my former health, and that hour was the first of my old age.” The Turks appear to have behaved abomi nably, stealing the dead man’s clothes and refusing to allow the body to be buried even in the “open fields” without exacting extortionate payment. When at last the remains were deposited in the “open fields,” Fynes Moryson had to pile stones over the grave to prevent the jackals from pulling up the body. Doubtless in consequence of the great depression caused by these experiences combined with the intense heat of a Syrian summer, Moryson was taken ill of a fever at Scanderoon (the port of Aleppo) and paid a piastre a day to a poor man who “continually cooled his head with a fan.” Having recovered from his fever, in the month of October Moryson sailed in a French ship for Crete (Candia). Much to his annoyance, his ser vant, an Englishman whom he had lately taken into his service, fell ill and became a “burthen ” and “no comfort,” but rather “an ex pense.” He also became anxious about himself, as from “a lean man” he had become “a fat man,” perhaps, he adds, from eating “salt meat instead of hens’ eggs and damask prunes,” which he had brought with him. He sought, however, consolation in tobacco, which he found “consoled his stomach.” After an uneventful run the French ship landed Moryson and his English servant at a Greek monastery on the shore of Crete, far from any town. At first they were taken for pirates, but were afterwards hospitably received by the monks. Crete was then subject to the Venetians, who were very particular in enforcing their stringent quarantine regulations. The monks had to notify the arrival of two strangers to the “Provisors of Health” of the neighbouring town (a kind of Urban Sanitary authority), and in the meantime to keep Moryson and his servant shut up in the monastery. They were, however, allowed to use the garden, “where,” says our traveller, “we had pleasant walks and store of oranges and like fruits, the country people bringing us partridges and many good things to eat ; and my man having skill to dress them and the monks furnishing us with such necessaries as we could not otherwise buy, we wanted here no convenience to make the time of our abode seem shorter, but only good beds.” After the interchange of polite letters between Moryson and the Provisors of Health, in which the latter signed themselves “Yours in place of Brethren,” and the production by Moryson of a certifi cate of health from the Venetian consul at Scanderoon, our traveller was permitted to visit the interior of the island. Having hired horses for himself and servant, they rode to Candia, where, upon their arrival, they were put into quarantine at the Lazaretto in the

day to this I never enjoyed my former health, and that hour was the first of my old age.” The Turks appear to have behaved abomi nably, stealing the dead man’s clothes and refusing to allow the body to be buried even in the “open fields” without exacting extortionate payment. When at last the remains were deposited in the “open fields,” Fynes Moryson had to pile stones over the grave to prevent the jackals from pulling up the body. Doubtless in consequence of the great depression caused by these experiences combined with the intense heat of a Syrian summer, Moryson was taken ill of a fever at Scanderoon (the port of Aleppo) and paid a piastre a day to a poor man who “continually cooled his head with a fan.” Having recovered from his fever, in the month of October Moryson sailed in a French ship for Crete (Candia). Much to his annoyance, his ser vant, an Englishman whom he had lately taken into his service, fell ill and became a “burthen ” and “no comfort,” but rather “an ex pense.” He also became anxious about himself, as from “a lean man” he had become “a fat man,” perhaps, he adds, from eating “salt meat instead of hens’ eggs and damask prunes,” which he had brought with him. He sought, however, consolation in tobacco, which he found “consoled his stomach.” After an uneventful run the French ship landed Moryson and his English servant at a Greek monastery on the shore of Crete, far from any town. At first they were taken for pirates, but were afterwards hospitably received by the monks. Crete was then subject to the Venetians, who were very particular in enforcing their stringent quarantine regulations. The monks had to notify the arrival of two strangers to the “Provisors of Health” of the neighbouring town (a kind of Urban Sanitary authority), and in the meantime to keep Moryson and his servant shut up in the monastery. They were, however, allowed to use the garden, “where,” says our traveller, “we had pleasant walks and store of oranges and like fruits, the country people bringing us partridges and many good things to eat ; and my man having skill to dress them and the monks furnishing us with such necessaries as we could not otherwise buy, we wanted here no convenience to make the time of our abode seem shorter, but only good beds.” After the interchange of polite letters between Moryson and the Provisors of Health, in which the latter signed themselves “Yours in place of Brethren,” and the production by Moryson of a certifi cate of health from the Venetian consul at Scanderoon, our traveller was permitted to visit the interior of the island. Having hired horses for himself and servant, they rode to Candia, where, upon their arrival, they were put into quarantine at the Lazaretto in the

An Elizabethan 7 ourist. 2O5

hope that they would pay a ransom for their speedy liberty. Find ing that the Cambridge Fellow did not prove to be a “merchant with jewells,” and was therefore unable to pay a good ransom, the authorities, after all their things “had been hung on a rope and fumi gated with brimstone,” let them out and permitted them to go whither they would. At first they lodged at a native’s house, but subsequently Moryson took up his quarters at the house of an English merchant who had come to Candia to purchase mus cadine. The English lodgings were found better and less expensive than those of the native. The following was the tariff: two and a half quarts of rich wine, one lira ; a partridge, one lira ; veal seven, and mutton five soldi per pound. By a certain Cretan law (Foscherini) it was ordered that no one should kill “a beef.” until it was unfit to draw a plough. Under these conditions it seems superfluous for Moryson to write “beef, therefore, was not very good.” During his stay at Candia Moryson purchased a pair of shoes for four lire. Judging from these prices and the present rela tive value of money it would appear that Candia was rather an ex pensive place to live in at the end of the sixteenth century. At the time of Moryson’s visit Crete contained only three cities, Canea, Retimo, and Candia, the capital, which was built in the Italian style. “Once,” he writes, “it had one hundred cities,” but only those three remained. Crete then produced corn, oil, pulse, and sugar, and, like Ireland, had no “venemous beasts.” After spending over two months in Crete, on December 20 Moryson, on a small Greek ship, freighted with lemons, onions, and muscadine, sailed for Constantinople. Liquor running short during the voyage, Mr. Fynes Moryson discovered an original if somewhat reprehensible plan of remedying the defect. In his private cabin he found “the head of a tun of muscadine,” which was used as a bolster for the head. This he pierced, and “fitting a reed” (on the modern principle of a sherry cobbler) “got good wine to our ill fare, and drunk so merrily that before we came to our journey’s end our former reed became too short, so as we were fain to piece it with another.” On reaching Constantinople Moryson lodged with one Master Edward Barton, the English Ambassador. He has little of interest to tell about the city, and only tells one anecdote, as to an old woman who mistook him for a slave, and made a bid to the Ambassador’s Janissary, who was accompanying him, of one hundred aspers for his purchase. This he relates as a joke. At the beginning of March he left Con stantinople, and travelling viá the Greek Islands, Venice, and Ger many, reached Gravesend on July 9, 1597. SYDNEY HASTINGS.

A description of the historic monuments of Cyprus. Studies in the …

A description of the historic monuments of Cyprus. Studies in the …

Ay. Antonios.—A ” parekklesia ” built in 1870, partly under-
ground, and restored in 1896 after damage by a flood. The old
church was covered with frescoes of the life of St. Anthony.

Ay. Trias (or Khrysoroiatissa). — A “metoche ” of the Khryso-
roiatissa Monastery. Formerly the residence of the Bishop of
Paphos, when in Limassol. The church was rebuilt in 1870.

KaihoKke Panayia (KocOoAwo) xai. ‘AttocttoXlxyj). — Eebuilt in 1864,
this building possesses two minarets (of different designs) and
much wood carving. It is a singularly picturesque example of
a Cypriot church, viewed from any point, although not of much
architectural character.

Santa Catarina di Limassol. — The Latin church of the Fran-
ciscans (Terra Santa) dedicated ” To the glory of God and in
honour of St. Catherine,” was built in 1872. The monastery was
founded in 1850. Nothing of an architectural character can be
discovered in this building any more than in those of the native
Christians, which it much resembles.

One of the principal mosques of Limassol is strangely con-
structed on a site which encroaches on the river bed — forming in
fact a massive groin or dam to the water in winter time. It is
a completely new building. In the course of re-building the great
mosque (Djami Kebir) in 1906, traces of a Christian church were
found at some depth below the floor level. Stone coffins and grave
slabs, and a small Lusignan lion badge, 1ft. 6ins. square, gave
evidence of the site having been occupied by a Latin church.
Also some lower courses of walling still retained their intonaco with
traces of mediaeval painting. These fragments possibly belonged
to the original Latin cathedral. Two small mosques entirely
without architectural interest or character survive in other parts
of the town.

The Metropolis of the Orthodox Church, and now the residence
of the Bishop of Paphos, is a small enclosure with a chapel dedicated
to SS. Andronicos, Mamas, and Spyridon. An inscription states
that the building was begun in 1835 and completed in 1850, on
October 8th, the date of an annual festival. This appears to be
the oldest church of the town.

A characteristic Turkish khan for merchants, closely resembling
in style the khans of Mcosia, is situated near the landing stage
of the ” Scala.” As is usually the case with such buildings it is
constructed out of the ruins of the locality and has a more venerable
appearance than it is really entitled to : it is probably compara-
tively modern. The subsoil of the neighbourhood of this khan
is a mass of ruined houses and foundations resulting from the
earthquakes of former days.

A carriage road passes due north from Limassol to join the
Troodos-Mcosia Eoad in the mountains. This communicates with
the villages of Ay. Phylaxis, a name of the same order as Sofia,

LIMASSOL. 371

or Irene, meaning ” guardian,” Turner in 1812 found this ” a
miserable village with a broken Venetian bridge ” ; Palodhia (St.
Nicholas) ; Paramytha (B.V.M.) ; Spitali (St. Anna) ; and Pha-
soulla (B.V.M.). The name ” Paramytha ” is an attribute of the
B.V.M. = ” Consoler ” or ” Healer.”

Apesia (St. George and B.V.M. Kyra), Yerasa, Korfi, and
Apsiou, are all comparatively modern and uninteresting. In a
contiguous valley approached by a mule path from Apesia is
Khalasa, an insignificant hamlet at the junction of two valleys,
in the eastern of which are the villages of Limnatis, marked on the
old maps as ” Limniti,” now a place of no importance ; Kapilio
(in Cyprus this means a tavern), and Ay. Mamas. With the
exception of Limnatis all these villages are insignificant and un-
interesting.

The monastery of the Panayia Manasyou, and the small
monastery of the Archangel, are associated with a cluster of villages
on the west of the road, and most easily approached from Doros
where several of the modern wine-roads or cart-tracks meet. In
this neighbourhood is a place called Karkia, with a singularly
cold spring of water known as the Nepov tyjc Xap>o]<;. The monas-
tery of the Panayia perhaps takes its name from an unusual
word Mavo?, a necklace or bracelet.

XXVII. LIMASSOL TO PAPHOS.

Making a detour round the promontory of Akrotiri with its
large salt lake, the important mediaeval monastery of St. Nicholas
of the Cats can be visited, from which the promontory, also takes
its name amongst Europeans of Capo della Gata. This monastery
according to Stefano di Lusignano was built by Calocer, the
first Christian Duke of Cyprus in the time of Constantine and
Helena. A community of Basilian monks was established here,
the surrounding lands and district being granted to them on
condition of their maintaining at least one hundred cats on the
premises for the purpose of destroying the venomous snakes
which abounded in the neighbourhood. The cats, which were not
supposed to be able to live entirely on these reptiles, were to be
furnished with food also by the monks in the morning and the
evening, and at feeding time they were to be summoned by ringing
a bell. Father Felix Faber (1480) speaks of this place as a certain
wooded spot so full of serpents and noxious animals that no one
can live there. ” Nevertheless in the middle of the wood some
ancient fathers built a monastery, so that being surrounded with
serpents they might be less exposed to the visits of worldlings,
which are known to disturb devout monks. But lest the serpents
should molest the inmates of the convent, they maintain a number
of cats, who naturally make a prey of snakes, mice, dormice and
rats, and roam about the offices lest any reptile be hidden there,

AA 2

372 MONUMENTS OF CYPRUS.

but during the day they hunt in the wood, and when their dinner
hour comes the monk on duty rings a bell, at the sound of which
they all run to the place where they are fed. For the ancients
laid down that every man had always at his side a good and an
evil genius, just as Christian truth tells us that with every man
are associated two angels, one good the other bad. The Lares
were said to be the sons of Mercury and the nymph Lar. They
lived in the homes of men and guarded them, their seat being in
the common hall of the house near the fire, and there men paid
them due reverence, a custom not wholly fallen into disuse. And
because cats have flashing eyes, and like to lie on the ashes near
the fire, they said they were of kin to the Genii, Lares and
Penates.”

The monastery with its cats seems to have survived until the
Turkish invasion, but by the time of M. de Beauveau’s ” Voyage “
(1604) the famous institution had come to an end as far as the cats
were concerned, although a few caloyers, or monks, are said to
have remained in the buildings.

On the opposite side of the Egyptian Sea, in the middle of
the Nile delta near Zagazig stand the ruins of the famous temple
of Bubastis or Pasht, where the cat-headed goddess, prototype
of the classical Diana, was worshipped a thousand years B.C.
The proximity of this Cape of Cats in Cyprus to the centre of
cat-worship amongst the ancients suggests some descent of the
mediaeval cats from their remote Egyptian ancestors — perhaps a
shrine of the cat-headed Diana may have stood on Acrotiri at
some period not recorded.

M. Enlart, the learned author of ” L’Art Gothique en Chypre,”
offers some interesting suggestions on the subject of the cats of
Akrotiri. He remarks upon the possibility of their having been
of a special breed like the sacred cats of Egypt, or the almost
extinct species called ” chat d’Espagne.” It is also of interest to
find that the Knights of Bhodes are credited with having intro-
duced into that island a breed of cats for this very purpose of
exterminating reptiles, and it is but probable that they carried
them over from Cyprus when the Order removed its headquarters
from one island to the other in 1310. When M. de Villamont
visited Cyprus in 1588 the Abbey remained almost whole, ” having
received no injury from the Turks when they took Cyprus from

the Venetians in 1570 the cats are dead for want of food, but

their memory lives in the name Capo delle Gatte.” At the present
day the monastery of St. Nicholas of the Cats is a ruin of which
only the church and one arcade of the cloister survive in a condi-
tion to shew the original design. Around these fragments are
heaps of debris from buildings of earlier ages.

The church, like most of the monastic chapels of Cyprus, was
a simple monotholos of small size, its only architectural features
being the doorways on the west, north and south sides. These
are of some interest, for although of small size, they possess the

LIMASSOL TO PAPBOS. 373

mouldings and some carving of genuine mediaeval style. The
doorway on the north side is remarkable for a sculptured lintel,
supporting the tympanum of the pointed and moulded arch, and
for two dripstone terminations in the form of capitals of foliage
on which appear the rudely sculptured miniature figures of SS.
Peter and Paid. The lintel is carved with a cross in the centre
and on either side two shields of arms. The coats of arms on the
church door lintel of Akrotiri are singular and at present without
explanation. Counting from left to right : — (1) On a shield, a
pigeoncote or perhaps a ciborium. (2) On a shield a lion rampant
of the usual Lusignan variety. (3) On a shield a cross potencee.
(4) On a shield a cross, in the four angles of which are four keys
erect, the wards outwards (reminiscent of the episcopal arms of
Laon). In addition to the cross sculptured between the shields
already referred to, are the letters of the Greek alphabet — B.I.K.A.
The coats of arms JSTos. (1) and (4) are doubtless personal ones,
the other two shields probably represent the free rendering of the
Lusignan royal badge which not uncommonly occurs on Orthodox
buildings of the middle ages. The ruins of this convent are full
of fragments which have evidently been brought from the classic
sites in the neighbourhood.

Akrotiri. — A hamlet which accommodates the few peasants
inhabiting the peninsula of the same name. It possesses two small
rustic churches dedicated respectively to St. Cross and St. George.
To the south of Akrotiri is a site called Kurias which has been
surveyed by Hogarth and others but does not seem to be more
than an ancient village in ruins of no importance.*

ZakaM, with a modern church of St. Barbara ; TraJchoni, with
two small rustic chapels of St. Mamas and the B.V.M. ; and
Asomatos with a modern church of St. Michael, are all small
hamlets without any particular interest.

Between Limassol and Kolossi is a small village called Ypsona,
apparently of modern origin with a new church. It seems to be
one of the ” summer villages ” inhabited chiefly at the time of
harvest.

Colossi. — The Castle of Colossi, a square block of fine masonry,
all built at one time, reminds one of similar towers in Europe.
Its architectural style seems somewhat older than the XVth
century. It is about 75ft. high, and has walls 9ft. thick, in
which are numerous small square windows, with stone seats,
vis-a-vis, in mediaeval fashion. Three vaulted storeys divide its
height, and on the upper floors are two long chambers each fur-
nished with a finely designed chimney-piece. In the south-east
corner is a spacious circular staircase communicating between the

• This ancient town or settlement may have presented more important vestiges
  in the days of Stefano Lusi^nano who speaks of the columns found on the site and
  of the intentions of the Venetian Signory to restore the city and create a strongly
  fortified poit out cf the large salt lake on the north side of the site, the only objec-
  tion to the scheme being the absence of any drinkable water in the vicinity.

3″?4 MONUMENTS OF CYPRUS.

ground floor and the roof, but the basement is only approached by a
trap-door. A water cistern or well exists beneath the basement.
The entrance was formerly approached by an inclined way and
drawbridge under a machicoulis. There is also an external entrance
into the basement, but probably of a later date. The ruined
chiftlik buildings on the south side are mostly modern, although
some traces of old doors and windows seem to survive. On the
north side are the remains of an outer curtain wall protecting
the base of the tower, but the external defences of the building
have evidently been removed without leaving much trace behind
them.

The Order of St. John of Jerusalem was established in Cyprus
by the Grand Master Geoffrey Lerat towards the end of the Xllth
century, to assist in maintaining the newly instituted Latin
authority in the island whilst the first Lusignan King Amaury
was in Palestine fighting the Saracens. Innocent III. published
a bull, authorising the Hospitallers to assist in this manner, on
20th November, 1198 ; and, in September, 1210, the Lusignan
King, Hugh L, conferred the property of Colossi upon the Order.
(Vide Paoli’s ” Codice Dip.” 1733).

Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples

“Cyprus : Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples: A Narrative of Researches and Excavations …”

The guide I took from
Acrotiri insisted that this
place is called Curi, and
that a few years ago a
French ” Milordo ” came
expressly from Limassol
to visit it, and employed
several of his fellow towns-
men of Acrotiri to dig at Th.« c-uchcd st.iMi.n wkh Amui=i.
this place ; in fact the “”””^ “”=■’ “””^
ground bears evident traces of having been but recently
disturbed.

I alighted from my mule, and had some tombs
examined, and from the pottery
extracted I am sure that they
are coeval with the tombs at
Curium.

Passing the Cape, my mule
was startled by the sudden flight
from a bush, of what appeared
to me to be a cat; and the guide
assured me, that both at the
Cape, and near to Acrotiri, there
are wild cats, which hunt and ‘”p'”‘”‘”‘ ‘”■” ‘ ” “
destroy the asps abounding there. I recollected to
have read somewhere, perhaps in Dapper, that the
” Caloyers ” of the convent of Acrotiri raised and
trained a peculiar breed of cats, which they imported

348 CYPRUS. [Chap. XI.

from Constantinople, to kill the asps in their neigh-
bourhood, and that at the tolling of a particular
bell in the convent, these cats would come in to be fed
twice a day, and then return to their work of destruction.
I suppose that it is in reference to these cats that the
ancient promontory of Curias is now known as Cape
Gatto, or Delle Gatte.

Our Home in Cyprus (Google Books)

EN ROUTE FOR THE MOUNTAINS.

A charming ride-Kolossi-A natural scene-Episkopi-An orange bower-Ancient

Curium–Cesnola’s treasures-Desirability of further search-A possible harbourCape Gatto lighthouse — Convent of St. Nicolas-Cats and serpents ; a curious education, if true-Decide to cross the mountains—Road-making under British rule–Kilani –Cyprus vineyards – Monagria- The mountain speaks–KourkaTake our own line-Pereides ; Ireland in the East- The domesticated pig-Mandria-A wet ride-Platrus-Its evil name proves too true-Starvation for man and beast-Stern measures, and their result-A torchlight scene – The plaint of poverty disproved-Rare inhospitality-A find, and a good night of it.

I THOEVER visits Limassol should not fail to see the

lovely villages Kolossi and Episkopi; the latter alone is worth the ride from Larnaca. The road to Kolossi may be galloped the whole way. There is a delightful sense of freedom in riding over a park-like sward, with asphodel growing like bracken cleared at every stride, without hedges to trammel one, or fear of trespass before one’s eyes. Yet one thing must be guarded against : the olives and carobs cast a pleasant shade, but as the peasants cut the branches to permit the passage of a mule or donkey only, on horseback it is necessary to stoop low to escape the jagged points shrouded by the leaves.

An hour’s fast riding and Kolossi is reached. This village, once famous as the chief hospital in the island, belonging to

228 EPISKOPI—AN ORANGE BOWER.

the Knights of St. John, possesses a ruined tower of the time of the Templars, which is now a rude farmhouse, the property of Mr. James Apostolides. An ancient aqueduct attached to it, is strikingly picturesque. It leaks of course, as all of them do in Cyprus; and the overgrowth of ferns and trailing creepers, with the little basin into which the water flows, with its border of reeds and purple and white irises, makes one of those oases which tell what the island must once have been, and what it might become again, if only the water were carefully hoarded and distributed.

On our road to Episkopi, we had to cross a large river,—a real river this time, some four feet deep and flowing fast. It is called the Lycos or Wolf River, and has its source in the Troados Mountains beyond Monagria.

Episkopi is a large village with a stream running through it, the houses built on each side, only allowing a narrow pathway for pedestrians. It is a perfect bower of verdure, the trees meeting overhead and forming a succession of green arches. The houses are surrounded by gardens filled with fruit-trees, the finest of which is the sweet lemon, a delicious fruit. The egg-oranges here are far finer than those in Malta,—double the size. In fact, I think the oranges of Cyprus the best I have ever eaten, they are so exceedingly juicy, and grow to such an enormous size. It is enough to say this village was the private property of the Cornaros to know that it is rich and fertile. Indeed, they raised round it immense plantations of sugar-canes which, however, have all disappeared.

The perfume of the orange blossoms was quite overpowering.

As we rode through, a villager presented me with a large bunch, and filLed the gentlemen’s pockets with the fruit. Strangely, we heard later that the villagers are drowned in debt, their property in the hands of usurers. Strangely, for outwardly the people looked as happy as the soil seemed prolific.

Twenty minutes ride through corn-fields brought us in sight of the ruins of Curium.

We halted at a small shrine dedicated to St. Ermogeni, remarkable as the oldest ruin extant of the earliest Christian village in Cyprus. Tying our horses to some trees, we began the ascent on foot. The town of Curium was built on the top of a rock, with a precipice on one side hanging directly over the sea. On all the other sides it is surrounded by a steep ascent, and I should say that the city must have been quite impregnable. It was originally an Argive colony, famous for its worship of Apollo, in whose honour a magnificent temple was built on the top of a neighbouring promontory, about a stone’s throw from Curium. This was called the Temple of Apollo Hylates, and those who touched the altar with their hands, were hurled from the rock into the sea below. It is now a ruin. It is but a pile of stones, which, indeed, may be said of Curium itself. The debris extends over a larger surface than at Amathus, and Cesnola tells us that he discovered a theatre, a hippodrome, two watch-towers, sets of stairs, and the foundations of many buildings; but his excavations have so defaced the surface, it requires an effort to imagine that once a large town stood here..

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A POSSIBLE HARBOUR.

It was here, amongst the tombs, that Cesnola got his richest treasures, amongst them the jewellery so beautiful in design, of which his book gives engravings. Every ancient Phoenician or Greek city had its necropolis; and perforated with excavations though the ground is, both round Curium and Amathus, I yet believe that if Government would systematically undertake the work, a rich harvest would be brought to light from thousands of tombs yet unexplored.

On our way back to Limassol, we passed near the Great Salt Lake. There were large salt works here, which have since been abandoned. I believe Colonel Warren is of opinion that this lake could be opened out at either end, and would then form one of the finest harbours in the world. There is no doubt that it was once an estuary of the sea, since closed by a sand-bank, ever increasing, which has joined the promontory of Curium or Akrotiri to the mainland. The difficulty would be, supposing this bar once removed, the expense necessary to prevent its formation. But, if practicable, the idea is a fine one, and might altogether change the future of Cyprus. The swamps round the lake would be drained, fever disappear, and the whole district become one of the richest of the smaller English colonies.

On Cape Gatto a lighthouse has been erected by the “Compagnie des Phares,” which has the monopoly of all the lighthouses in the Turkish empire. It stands on a point one hundred and ninety feet above the level of the sea, and can be seen at a distance of fifteen miles off. This is a favourite resort for picnics from Limassol. On the promontory is a small ROAD-MAKING UNDER BRITISH RULE.

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monastery, called the Convent of St. Nicolas, where the monks are said to train a breed of cats to kill the serpents that infest the district. All I can say is that the existence of “wild cats” in Cyprus I do not doubt; as to their killing snakes—well, it is possible.

We settled not to return from Limassol to Kyrenia by the way we had come, but to cross the mountains; rather a serious undertaking in April, as it is supposed the snow does not melt sufficiently to make the pass open until the end of May. However, we determined to make the attempt to cross the southern range, of which Troados or Mount Olympus is the highest point. It rises to the height of six thousand five hundred and ninety feet above sea-level, and in appearance greatly resembles Ben Nevis.

We were advised to make Platrus our first halting-place, and there to procure a guide to take us over the mountain. As this entailed a ride of thirty-two miles, and we did not want to press the horses, we left Limassol early in the morning, shaping due north, by the new road undertaken by the Government, from the coast to the mountain.

We met gangs at work,— men, women, and boys, who are paid a shilling, ninepence, and sixpence a day each, respectively. There are over one thousand employed on the road, every batch of a hundred having an overseer, who, when they lagged, cried out, and threatened their backs with a light whip. We went by a gradual ascent, following the course of a torrent rushing through the bottom ol a ravine nearly all the way to Zegoh, where there was an encampment of the 232

CYPRUS VINEYARDS—MONAGRIA.

Twentieth Regiment, the tents, pitched on the grassy slopes of a hill, reaching down to the bed of the River Lycos. The site was reached by an old stone bridge, with the arms of one of the Lusignan princes engraved upon it.

Here the Government road ends, although it is to be continued several miles farther. From this spot we got into quite different scenery,—into the little Kilani district, famous for its wine, as might easily be imagined, from the hills cut into terraces, one above another, and vineyards all round us. Slippery rocks and loose stones made the road very trying to the horses; but the scenery made up for the discomfort. Encircled by hills towering one above the other, every accessible spot was planted with the vine; dwarf holly, hawthorn, laburnum, and syringa took the place of the other trees we had been accustomed to see, whilst we found the climate gradually getting colder and more bracing.

We scrambled over boulders and crags in the most alarming manner, till we got down into the Valley of Monagria, where we found an encampment of Engineers engaged in superintending the road-making. The road re-commenced here, but for a mile or two only, rendering it necessary to get a guide to show us the way to Mandria. We went straight to the monastery, a very poor place, merely, in fact, a rough farmhouse, with a church in the centre. The old priest was very civil, and brought us chairs and water, and put up our horses for us.