Thus, as the natives did not purchase, and all
Europeans were sellers without buyers, there was no alternative but to
shut the shutters. This was a species of commercial suicide which made
Larnaca a place of departed spirits; in which unhappy state it remains
to the present hour. Even the club was closed.
CHAPTER II.
THE GIPSY-VANS ENCOUNTER DIFFICULTIES.
My gipsy-van was not of doubtful character. I had purchased it direct
from the gipsies in England, and it had been specially arranged for the
Cyprus journey by Messrs. Glover Bros. of Dean Street, Soho, London. It
had been painted and varnished with many coats both inside and out, and
nobody, unless an experienced gipsy, would have known that it was not
newly born from the maker's yard. Originally it had been constructed for
shafts, as one horse was considered sufficient upon the roads of
England, but when it arrived in Cyprus it appeared to have grown during
the voyage about two sizes larger than when it was last seen. As the
small animals of Larnaca passed by, where my lovely van blocked up the
entire street, and forced the little creatures upon the footpath, they
looked in comparison as though they had just been disembarked upon Mount
Ararat from the original Noah's ark, represented by the gipsy-van! The
Cypriotes are polite, therefore I heard no rude remarks. The Cypriote
boys are like all other boys, therefore they climbed to the top of the
van, and endeavoured by escalade to enter the windows.
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