There is no
portion of the island that presents a more deplorable picture of
wholesale destruction of forests, as every tree has been ruthlessly cut
down, and the present surface is a dense mass of shrubs and young
cypress, which if spared for fifteen years will again restore this
extremity of Cyprus to prosperity. I examined the entire promontory, and
ascended the rocky heights, about 500 feet above the sea upon the north
side. It was with extreme difficulty that I could break my way through
the dense underwood, which was about seven or eight feet high, as it was
in many places more than knee-deep in refuse boughs, which had been
lopped and abandoned when the larger trees had been felled. The largest
stumps of these departed stems were not more than from nine to twelve
inches in diameter: these were the dwarf-cypress, which would seldom
attain a greater height than twenty feet at maturity.
Fine caroubs had shared the fate of all others, and many of the old
stumps proved the large size of this valuable tree, which, as both
fruit-producing and shade-giving, should be sacred in the usually
parched island of Cyprus. At an elevation of about 350 feet above the
sea a spring of water issues from the ground and nourishes a small
valley of red soil, which slopes downwards towards the monastery, two
miles distant. The shrubs were vividly green, and formed so dense a
crest that several partridges which I shot remained sticking in the
bushes as they fell.
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