I shall say more upon this important subject when we
arrive among the last remaining forests of the Troodos mountains.
We rode onwards, always through the same wilderness of old tree-stems
hacked, and young trees that would be hacked; at length we saw on a
cleared space in the distance what I imagined to be a long brown rock
lying upon the surface; but upon riding out of the path to examine this
object I found it was a splendid trunk of a pine-tree more that two feet
in diameter. Why this had been spared for so many years I cannot say,
but its size suggested reflections upon the original forests that must
have covered the surface and have ornamented the once beautiful island
of Cyprus; now denuded, and shorn of every natural attraction.
I again became angry; visions of the past primaeval forests appeared
before me, all of which had been destroyed: and as formerly we hung a
man in England for cutting an oak sapling, I thought that the same cure
for timber-destroying propensities might save the few remaining forests
in this island. While indulging in this strain of unphilanthropic
thought we overtook another throng of wood-laden donkeys and their
proprietors: again they smiled, courteously salaamed, and vacated the
path for us, little knowing what my inward thoughts had been. Of course
I smiled, salaamed as courteously in return, and forgave them at once;
and we proceeded on our way condemning Turkish rule, the impecuniosity
of our own government, the miserable conditions of our present
occupation, which rendered Cyprus neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and
thus by degrees I lashed myself into the worst possible frame of mind,
until .
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