Edward Ives, a surgeon working in the East Indies, passed through Cyprus and spent the month of October on the island. He had read Alexander Drummond’s travelogue and used it as a guide while visiting the country:
We went also to the marine town and saw the church of St Lazarus. The papas told us, it is now 1722 years since he was buried here. This saint is he whom our Saviour raised from the dead. They showed us the end of his coffin underground and desired us to take notice of some scraps of rags and ends of thread brought hither by those who have been favoured by the assistance of the saint. The end of what they call the coffin, has been pitched or besmeared with some bitumenous substance, designed to impose upon the ignorant and credulous, as moisture issuing from ths saint's body. The church belongs to the Greeks; but the Romans, on St Lazarus day, never fail to perform divine service at one of the altars.