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CHAPTER XI. FROM LIMASOL TO THE MOUNTAINS. TH E barley harvest was in active operation, and the fields around our camp were crowded with men, women, and children, all hard at work, but producing small results compared with an equal expenditure of European labour. Their sickles were large and good, but a great proportion of the crops were either broken off by hand or were dragged out by the roots, and the earth that adhered was carelessly dusted off by a blow against the reaper's boots. In this dry climate there was no-necessity for piling the sheaves, but the small bundles were at once laden upon donkeys and also conveyed in the two-wheeled carts to the threshingground, upon which it would remain until valued for taxation by the government official. In the dry atmosphere of Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, &c , the straw breaks easily, and beneath the sharp flints of the ancient threshing-harrow in present use is quickly reduced to the coarse chaff known as " tibbin, " which forms the staple article of food for horses and all cattle. Taking advantage of the numbers of people congregated in the fields, some itinerant gipsies with a monkey and performing bears were camped beneath the caroub-trees, about half a mile from

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