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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 254 View PDF version of this page dogs, who attacked our British spaniels, keeping up a
running fight throughout the way, until we emerged
upon open country beyond the outskirts.
W e were now once more upon a flat table-top, about a hundred feet above the plain between us and the sea, a mile and a half distant. The edge of the table-land formed a cliff, choked from its base with huge fallen blocks of sedimentary limestone, from the crevices of which trees grew in great profusion, reminding one of hanging coverts upon hill-sides in England. Descending a steep but well-trodden path between these cottage-like masses of disjointed rock, we arrived at the prettiest camping-ground that I had seen in Cyprus. This had formed the camp of the Indian troops when the occupation had taken place in July,
1878, and unfortunately in this charming spot they
had suffered severely from fever.
The sea and the town and port of Baffo lay before lus, but immediately in front of the rocky and treecovered heights that we had descended were great numbers of park-like trees which I had never before met with. These were of large size, many exceeding fourteen feet in girth, with a beautiful foliage that threw a dense shade beneath. The name of this tree is Tremithia, and it bears a small fruit in clusters of berries which produce oil : this is used by the inhabitants for the same purposes as that obtained from olives. I had met with the bush in a wild state for the first time at Lapithus, and had been attracted by the aromatic scent of the young leaves, but I was not aware that it grew to the size of a forest-tree. Springs of pure water issued from the rocks in the cliff-side within a few yards of our position ; these were caught in large reservoirs of masonry from twenty to thirty
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