Every season he can
drive his plough a few paces further into his neighbour's holding,
unless prevented, until by degrees he succeeds in acquiring a
considerable accession. The state is the sufferer to an enormous extent
by many years of systematic invasion. Forest land has been felled and
cleared by burning, and the original site is now occupied by vineyards.
The bribery and corruption that pervaded all classes of officials prior
to the British occupation enabled an individual to silence the local
authority, while he in many instances more than doubled his legal
holding. The absence of defined boundaries has facilitated these
encroachments. According to an official report this difficulty is dwelt
upon most forcibly as requiring immediate investigation. The vague
definition in title-deeds, which simply mentions the number of donums,
affords no means of proving an unjust extension; such terms are used as
"the woods bounded by a hill," or "the woods bounded by uncultivated
land," and this indefinite form of expression leaves a margin of
frontier that is practically without limit, unless the invader may be
stopped by arriving within a yard of his nearest neighbour. My
informant, Colonel Warren, R. A., chief commissioner of Limasol, assured
me that some holders of land in his district, whose titles show an
amount of ninety donums, lay claim to ten times the area.
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