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we were bound to give and pay him the sum of forty-five golden ducats of Venice fresh from the mint, viz. the half in cash and the rest of the sum on our return. And to this end a bond was drawn up on board the vessel of Paul Blanc, before the chancellor of Monsieur the Proveditore of Cyprus, the magnifico Estienne Stempiilo, and we paid the said captain the sum of twenty-four dneats for which he gave ns a receipt. Thursday, June 20, morning, we determined to return to Larnaca, seeing that the wind was contrary. Nevertheless there came a puff of favourable breeze, we took np the anchors and shook ont our sails, and began to advance towards Nimesson, bnt onr luck lasted no long while, the wind veered round nnd again we were compelled to anchor. However the captain told us he wished to land, and in fact he did land with a few of the passengers and went to visit a little church of S. George, veiy fair and built in the Greek style. Thence we went on fur a mile and rested at a village where we found many sheep with tails as big as their bellies. One of them hod four great horns, two straight and long and two others twisted. There were goats of which the males were as big and stout as stout donkeys. The good flies (bees) are inside the houses of the said village, and on the outside of the Avails of the houses they have little holes to go in and out, and the wax and honey are thus inside the houses. This is the fashion throughout the kingdom of Cyprus. Near the said place there was a fair spring of cold water, which we saw with great interest. It is very necessary in this place on account of the heat which would be unbearable but for the winds which ore nearly always blowing there. There too we saw some very fine French mulberry trees, which had many ripe mulberries, of which we ate freely. There are also white mulberry trees with white fruit, but it is not good, for it is too sweet. But the leaves of this kind are very suitable food for the worms which make silk. There are many fields where cotton in grown, and it is to be noted that when the wheat harvest is done this cotton is sown at once, and what is left of the seed is used to fatten oxen. From this seed is produced a plant two feet high, with a leaf rather like that of the rose, and a flower like a poppy, except that it is yellow. From this flower is produced a pod, like α nnt, from which cotton is extracted. And because the seed is mixed with the staple of the cotton they have certain tools of wood and iron to get ont that seed. And this is repeated every year in February, and so in all parte of Cyprus. And because it scarcely rains at all in snminer in Cyprus we observed α wonderful way of watering the fields, and cotton particularly, as we shall tell. There was a great spring, abounding in water, like a deep cistern of four fathoms, long and narrow, built of cut stones, in which was a large wheel, and ropes thirty fathoms long, on which thirty large and stout pots were fastened by chains. And when the said wheel turned with its chains or ropes all the pots below filled themselves with water, and when they came up and went down again they poured their water into a large trough, which spread this water over the adjoining fields on whichever side they wanted it to run, guided by channels and drains. This wheel is turned by another wheel which they cause to be moved by a horse or ass which has its eyes blindfolded ; and in an hour they draw enough to water copiously two acres of land. Hard by is another fountain of cool and living water from which we drank as we went by. We saw there several kinds of trees the like whereof we had never seen. In the same place is a little Greek chureh where there are figures painted more than three hundred years ago, which were carried off from Nimesson when the Turks destroyed that place. At even we returned to the vessel, a fair wind sprang np, onr anchors were raised and our sails spread, and we sailed all night making progress towards Nimesson. Saturday, June 22, we passed on onr left close to the island of Capo della Gatta, in which there is a fine Greek POSSOT. 05

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