FROM ROSETTA IN EGYPT TO LA RN EC A IN CYPRUS. 189 
middle of the day, few animals are seen in motion, except the 
lizard, seeming to sport with greatest pleasure where the sun is 
most powerful, and a species of long black serpents, abounding 
in Cyprus: one of these we killed, four feet three inches in 
length. Sometimes, also, a train of camels may be noticed, 
grazing among dusty thistles and bitter herbs, while their 
drivers seek shelter from the burning noon. 
We found at anchor, in this bay, the Iphigenia, Captain 
Stackpole, from the fleet, with several transport ships, waiting 
for supplies of cattle and water. On the following morning, 
June the seventh, about ten o’clock, we landed, and carried 
our letters of recommendation to the different consuls residing 
at Larneca, about a mile from Salines, toward the north. Here 
the principal families reside, although almost all commercial 
transactions are carried on at Salines. We dined in Larneca, 
with our own consul: collecting, during our walk to and from 
his house, beneath the shelter of umbrellas, the few plants that 
occurred in our way. In our subsequent visits, we soon found 
that the mal aria we had witnessed from the deck of the Ceres, 
veiling all the harbour with its fearful mist, could not be ap» 
pro ached with impunity. Our lamented friend, and exemplary 
commander, captain Russel, w r as the first to experience its bane¬ 
ful influence; being seized with a fever, from which he never 
aftenvard recovered.* Indeed, the fevers of Cyprus, unlike 
those caught upon other shores of the Mediterranean, rarely 
intermit; they are almost always malignant.f The strictest at¬ 
tention is therefore paid by the inhabitants to their diet. For¬ 
tunately for them, they had no butter on the island; and in hot 
weather they deem it fatal to eat fat meat, or indeed flesh of 
any kind, unless boiled to a jelly. They likewise carefully 
abstain from every sort of pastry ; from eggs, cream and milk* 
The island produces abundance of delicious apricots, from 
standard trees, having a much higher flavour than those of Ro¬ 
setta, but equally dangerous to foreigners, and speedily causing 
fever, if they be not sparingly used. Those of Famagosta are 
the most celebrated. They are sent, as acceptable presents to 
The salt lakes in the neighbourhood of Salines contribute much to the insalubrity 
©f the bay, and of the surrounding territory. For an account of them, see Drum¬ 
mond's Travels, p. 141. Travellers should be particularly cautioned to avoid all 
places where salt is made in the Levant; these are generally called lagunes. 
f “ Some authors,” says the Abbe Mariti, voL i. p. 6. “ tell us that the air of this 
island is bad and unhealthful. This prejudice prevents many strangers from remain¬ 
ing in it long enough to make the experiment themselves. But people who have 
lived here a year, have been convinced of the wholesomeness of the air, and of the 
error of the ancient writers With similar effrontery Tournefort maintained, “ Qiloh 
fu'en aient dii ancims, lc$ la mer noir n'a run de noir 
