HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 89

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of the innumerable gorges between the conical mounds of marls and alluvium that had been washed from a hio-her level and worn into heaps by the action of rain upon the unstable surface. About a mile beyond all villages we skirted the stream along a steep bank, from which point we looked down upon the roofs of houses more than a hundred feet below, and we at length halted and dismounted at a rocky termination of the gorge, from whence issued suddenly the celebrated spring of Kythrea. The mountains rose abruptly upon either side, and a dry ravine above the rocks upon which we stood exhibited the natural channel by which in heavy rains the surface-water would be conducted to the lower stream-bed. A rough arch of masonry and a tunnel in the rock for about forty feet formed the embouchure, from which the water issued into a carefully constructed stone aqueduct, which led directly to the first mill of the Kythrea series, about a hundred and twenty yards distant. The temperature was considerably warmer than the air, but I had no thermometer to mark the difference. The aqueduct would have carried at least one-third more than the present volume, which was about twentysix inches deep, and three feet in width. The water was beautifully clear and the current rapid, but I had no means of measuring the velocity. The stone-work of the aqueduct, always moist from the percolation, must form a charming exhibition of maidenhair ferns during summer-time, as the crevices were all occupied by plants, whose leaves, even at this season (February), were several inches in length. W e strolled up the dry ravine above the spring, and ascended the hill to an extensive plateau, upon which grew two or three caroub-trees ; here was a sudden I

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