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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 103 View PDF version of this page Oh, misery, misery ! happily unknown to those who stay at home. All this may be avoided in a counte where practicable routes exist by travelling with 1 gipsy-van. Of course you do not personally travel within your van : it simply forms a movable home thata accompanies you upon the march, and is always there when required, while you ride independently upon, your animal. W e live and learn ; and I have from; experience modified my ideas of a gipsy-van ; for M roadless country such as Cyprus practically is—I should have NO SPRINGS. If you are obliged to travel] bodily within your vehicle, there can be no doubt that springs relieve the spine, and various indescribable!! portions of your anatomy ; but if your simple " huf upon wheels " is to be dragged along, over, and througB all kinds of obstacles, there can be no use whatever in springs, which by their elasticity allow your vehicle to.; sway from side to side, and to seriously threaten the' centre of gravity, when in a dangerous place, by oscilla-' tion. The cap-waggon of South Africa will go anywhere. The two-wheeled cart of Cyprus is a wonderfully simple affair that may be dragged up or downi the side of a mountain by a couple of oxen ; the high wheels and light but strong body surmounting all obstacles ; these carts do not carry more than twelve or fourteen hundredweight, but in an expedition I should much prefer them to the heavy waggons of South Africa, which, with three thousand pounds, require ten or twelve oxen. The heavier weight in a difficulty of soft ground, or in crossing a river, would be serious, but if the vehicles are numerous, and the weight distributed accordingly, it stands to sense that an enormous advantage is secured by the presence of ten oxen in five light carts, all of which can be applied
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