54 CYPRUS. 
^^f^'- keep silk- worms ; and it is the business of the 
females to wind the silk, which is woven into 
shifts and shirts at Nicotia and Baffa. The 
harvest is generally ended before the beginning 
of June; and this circumstance enables us to 
estimate with tolerable accuracy the difference 
between the climate of England and that of 
Cyprus. In our country the harvest-home is 
rarely celebrated before the end oi August\ 
We left Larneca in the evening, and found 
a very good road to Nicotia; travelling prin- 
cipally over plains, by a gradual and almost 
imperceptible ascent, towards the north west. 
Mountains appeared in the distant scenery, on 
almost every side. The soil everywhere 
exhibited a white marly clay, said to be 
exceedingly rich in its nature, although neg- 
lected. The Greeks are so oppressed by their 
Turkish masters, that they dare not cultivate 
the land : the harvest would instantly be taken 
from them if they did. Their whole aim seems 
to be, to scrape together sufficient, in the 
course of the whole year, to pay their tax to 
the Governor. The omission of this is pu- 
nished by torture, or by death : and in cases of 
(l) When this Edition was printing in 1816, the harvest did not 
hegm near Cambridge until the first day of September. 
K 
