View PDF version of this page

by the inhabitants, and the name given by them tu the ruins on this hill, arc great evidence in favour of ite identity. Signor Andrea told me that he had counted above 150 of these columns, bnt the hill and its environs being cultivated, most of them arc now buried under-ground. The subterraneous passage is immediately under the hill. The entrance to it is a square of about four feet : the passage below was so choked with stones and dirt, that though I worked hard to remove them, I found it impossible to penetrate above eight feet : of these eight feet the descent was rapid, and the roof formed like the under part of a staircase: possibly if the ground above were cleared away, a staircase might be found from above to the chambers below. This is all that remains of the splendour of Paphos. Signor A. told me tha.t twenty years ago a Turk, who had murdered another, and was hotly pursued, took refuge in these subterraneous chambers, to which despair made him find the passage, not then entirely choked up; after wandering>three days under ground in utter darkness he came out at Afrikee, about a quarter of a mile distant from the li ill of the temple; his report was that he had passed through chambers full of stones, with some skulls and other boites. Having money he escaped, by distributing it, the punishment of his crime; and he is the only man, as I was told by several, ever known to have entered. The whole neighbourhood of Baffo and the metropolis and Ieros Kypos is fnil of large masses of rock, hewn into caves, like those I have described, probably all eominnnioating subterraneously with each other. The villages in the vicinity of Paphos, in sight of leros Kypos, are Peyia, Marathouiita, Anavarkos, Eba, Konia, Anno, Mesoe, and Phlyraka. The Pons Amorosa is one day's journey to the north of Baffo, in a village called S. Nicolas, too distant for the scope of our excursion. At two we returned to 1 eros Kypos. This village is built on a rocky hill ; in the valley below it, to the south, are gardens watered by a stream gushing from the rock, and this stream is said to have been the baths of Venus. About half a mile east of Ieros Kypos, towards the termination of the gardens in the valley, is a spot in the gardens called Sazonsa, on which, said Signor Andrea, were killed many children hy the ancient. Greeks. What he meant by this I could not discover, except it was some memorial of the cruelties practised in the ancient temples standing formerly here, one instance of which may have been handed down by tradition. At half past four we took leave of our host, and quitted leros Kypos. All onr ride this afternoon lay along a fine plain on the banks of the sea, mostly uncultivated bnt containing a few fields of corn, cotton and tobacco. Considerable quantities of this latter are prepared in Baffo, and by many thought superior to that of Latakia. To the left of our road, which lay eas.t, was a line of low earth mountains covered with bromi verdure. Our last hour was surrounded by gardens and trees, and we passed a large mountain-stream, over which lay a handsome Venetian bridge, yet entire. We passed three or four of these bridges in the valleys near Kikkos, but all in ruins. The villages which we passed in four hours of this afternoon's ride were CoIona, Akhelia, Timee, and ÄTanthria. At seven we stopped at the village of Conkklia, which is built on the site of Old Paphos, and found good accommodations in a large ruined house, of which the master, an intelligent Greek, received us very hospitably. He told us that Coukklia, with six other villages, was a farm of the Sultar of which he was the manager, and which yielded twenty purses a year. Coukklia was formerly a considerable town under the Venetians, but is now nothing but a mass of ruined churches and houses, of which latter about thirty are inhabited, half by Turks and half by Greeks. Tho inhabitants however of this, and indeed of almost all the villages we have seen since leaving Nicosia, are happier than those of Larnaca and of the capital, in having good stone houses over their heads, whereas those of the three chief towns of the island are only of mud, and require yearly reparation to resist the periodical rains. TURNER.

View PDF version of this page