746 ME. C. V. BELLAMY ON THE [NOV. I9OO, 



Kitium, and its other names at the present day are Scala and 

 Marina. 



About a mile or more to the south-west lie the salt-lakes or 

 salines which form the subject of this paper. 



(1) Topography of the Salt-Lake. (See PL XXXIX.) 



The coast-line is generally low-lying or undulating, and in the 

 neighbourhood of the salt-lake is but slightly diversified. On the 

 eastern or south-eastern side, between the lake and the sea-shore, 

 a stretch of nearly level country occurs for a width of 1 to 1^ miles : 

 this belt is covered with low brushwood, interspersed with patches 

 of bare ground. 



During the winter these bare spots are covered to a depth of a 

 few inches with water, in some cases fresh, in others brackish, and in 

 others again of a saltness nearly equal to that of the lake itself. 

 Southward they extend to form a number of backwaters of con- 

 siderable area, fed by streams which only flow immediately after 

 heavy rains, and have no existence for the remainder of the year. 

 These shallow lakes, although they now have no direct communi- 

 cation with the sea except during periods of abnormal rainfall, may 

 lead us to the conclusion that they, in common with what is now 

 the salt-lake, formed, at some remote period of prehistoric time, 

 a somewhat extensive arm of the sea ; but they now dry up as the 

 summer approaches. 



Farther south the land gradually rises till the sea-shore is en- 

 countered in the neighbourhood of Cape Kiti, the. ancient Dades, 

 near which stands a mediaeval watch-tower, on the site probably of a 

 much older Pyrgos or land-mark for mariners. On the south- 

 west lie the fertile gardens of Perivolia, Kiti, and adjoining villages. 

 Westward the land rises in gradual undulations to the water- 

 shed, situated at distances varying from 1 to 6 miles from the coast, 

 where the soil is arable and mostly given to the cultivation of wheat 

 and barley ; and northward a low -lying littoral stretches away some 

 distance beyond the town of Larnaca, occasionally diversified with 

 marshes and swamps. On the south-western shore of the lake stands 

 the Moslem monastery known as the Ummal Haram Tekke, 

 where lies buried the Prophet's aunt ; it is for the Moslems a place 

 of pilgrimage, and a most holy spot. The soil around the lake is of 

 a calcareous, sandy nature, containing, and, in fact, largely composed 

 of, fragments of marine shells. Between the lake and the sea the 

 ground is so salt as to preclude cultivation, and nothing but coarse 

 brushwood ekes out an existence in it, but on the other sides the 

 soil is of average fertility. 



The configuration of the country comprising the watershed of 

 the lake is of the nature of an irregularly-shaped basin, having its 

 eastern side cut away to form a kind of lip ; in the lowest part of this 

 hollow the salt-lake has accumulated. Down the sides of the basin 

 flow streams, the two most important of which descend the valleys 

 in which the village of Kalokhorio is situated on the one hand, and 



