As Cyprus was an island of only 140 miles in
length, there would be a limit to these boundless descriptions; but I
had already heard enough to assure me that the usual want of veracity
upon this subject was present in the accounts I had received. The
newspaper correspondents had just contributed ridiculous reports to
their several employers. Because the market of Larnaca was well supplied
with woodcocks, red-legged partridges, and hares, at low prices, these
overworked gentlemen of the pen rushed to a conclusion that the island
teemed with game: forgetful of the fact that every Cypriote has a gun,
and that numbers were shooting for the consumption of the few. Larnaca
was the common centre towards which all gravitated. As the rate of wages
was only one shilling a day, it may be imagined that sport afforded an
equally remunerative employment, and game was forwarded from all
distances to be hawked about the public thoroughfares. The fact is, that
game is very scarce throughout Cyprus, and the books that have been
written upon this country are certainly not the productions of
sportsmen.
I had read in no mean authority that "the surface of the ground was
covered with heather"--positively there is no such plant in Cyprus as
heath or heather. As we passed the outskirts of Larnaca, we were
introduced to the misery of the plain of Messaria; the so-called heather
is a low thorny bush about twelve inches high, which at a distance has
some resemblance to the plant in question.
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