The village was disappointing, as the houses were of a low
order and much neglected; the lanes were occupied by the usual filth and
noisy dogs; but the agreeable view of bright green fields and real
thriving trees was a delightful change, and exhibited a picture of what
Cyprus might become when developed by capital and enterprise. While the
camp was being arranged I took my gun and strolled with the dogs into
the narrow valley below the mill. The waterwheel was at work, and the
people were engaged in cleaning cotton, as the machinery was adapted for
both purposes of grinding corn or of ginning cotton when required. There
were plenty of snipe in the marshes below the cotton-fields, for which
rushes, low bushes of tamarisk and other shrubs, afforded excellent
cover. I quickly bagged two couple and my first Francolin partridge, and
was just in time, before dark, to assist the dinner.
At sunrise on the following morning the view was interesting, as the sea
glittered brightly to the south, while the bold rocks and wall-like
sides of the Carpas mountains stood out in sharply-defined edges and
varying colours on the north. To the east we looked over the broadest
portion of a dead flat created by the deposit from inundations of the
eccentric river Pedias, which, although dry at the present time,
periodically floods the country and converts the valley into an
extensive lake.
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