84 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
•WAS 
carried on in a most primitive manner, and tire 
wine is manufactured in the rudest way, the 
bunches of grapes being squeezed under planks, 
and obtaining a rough acrid taste from the stalks 
and grape-stones which are squeezed with them. 
The amount of wine made every year in ( y is 
is about 1,600,000 gallons, of which about four- 
fifths is exported, chiefly to France, Egypt, and 
Turkey. 
The agricultural prosperity of Cyprus is a 
matter of the gravest interest to the Government, 
for on that prosperity the revenue entirely 
depends. There are hardly any large properties in 
Cyprus, and still fewer instances of land worked 
on the tenant former system. It is emphatically 
a land of peasant proprietors, with the result that 
there are no wealthy persons and no beggars. , 
Property is universally divided amongst the j 
children, and again subdivided, so that one hears 
of a man owning the sixteenth part of a hovel 
that is not worth as many shillings. To such an 
extent is the subdivision carried out, that there 
are no less than 600,000 registered holdings o! 
real property, i= e. more than three for each inha- 
bitant. On each holding there is a land tax of 
of four per 1000 of its registered value, and the 
collection of such small sums from s:> many 
owners causes much labour and difficulty. The 
chief tax on land is, however, the tithe, which is, 
under Turkish law, the actual tenth part of the 
• produce. It is not quite right to speak of it as 
a tax, it is really a reserved rent. In Mahometan 
countries all the land belongs to the State, i. e. 
the Crown. As each country was conquered the 
Sultan granted the lands, reserving one-teutli of 
the produce as rent, and the land passes subject 1 
to that reservation. Nor can it be said to be a a 
excessive rent. In India we find one-sixth, one- 
fourth, and even one-third reserved. Joseph 
reserved one-fifth in the land of Egypt In En- 
gland the landlord is supposed to get one-third, 
leaving two-thirds for the tenant occupier. 
At might be expected, in a country which is 
almost wholly occupied by peasants, the houses 
are poor, and exhibit little architectural skill or 
beauty. They are mostly built of sun-dried 
bricks; the* villages usually contain from twenty 
to eighty houses, and there are but few consi- 
derable towns. The principal of these are : the 
capital, Nicosia, situated in the centre of the 
island, and having 12,000 inhabitants; Larnaca, the 
chief seaport, with about 7000 inhabitants; and Li- 
massol, also on the south coast, with about 6000 
inhabitants These two ports divide between them 
nearly the whole of the sea-borne trade, Larnaca 
taking nearly half the exports and three-quarters 
of the imports, and Limassol the rest of the imports 
and about half the exports. There is also a small 
export trade from the ports of Famagusta, Papho, 
and Lefka, and a moderate trade at Ivyrenia, 
chiefly carried on with the opposite coast of Ka- 
ramania. To facilitate trade good iron piers have 
been built at Larnaca and Limassol; and a break 
water at Kyrenia, where the small country vessels 
suffered much in winter from northerly gales. 
The town of Nicosia presents a pleasing and 
picturesque appearance to the traveller approach- 
ing it from the south. It lies compactly situated 
within a line of old fortification, which describe a 
regular circle round the town. As there is no 
suburb outside the wall, the ramparts neatly finish 
off the houses, whose roofs appear above them in 
in pleasing irregularity. The area enclosed by the 
fortifications is less than a square mile, but at 
least half of it is occupied by gardens, as nearly 
every house has a garden attached to it; and 
viewed from the heights above, the houses are 
are mixed with palm-trees, and orange-trees, the 
latter in great abundance, and scenting the air 
of the streets quite heavily when in blossom. 
Rising above all the surrounding buildings is 
the old Latin cathedral, now a mosque, with two 
handsome minarets built on to it. This is kept 
in very good repair, and underneath the carpets 
which cover the floor may be seen the old grave- 
stones with the names and effigies of knights and 
ladies with Latin or old French inscriptions. 
Before the Turkish conquest in 1570, Nicosia 
occupied a much larger area than it does at pre- 
sent; but in anticipation of the Turkish attack, 
and probably in order to facilitate the defence, 
the old fortifications were thrown down, and the 
present ramparts constructed to enclose a much 
smaller area. All the houses outside the new line 
of defences were destroyed, and the old ramparts 
may still be easily traced although they are an- 
nually ploughed over. 
