History

04 Ιούλ 1779

From the description of Larnaka by an anonymous author of a journal printed at Horsham in 1784, which was kept on a journey from Basra to Bagdad, over the small desert to Aleppo, Cyprus, Rhodes, Zante, Corfu and Otranto in Italy in the year 1779...

From the description of Larnaka by an anonymous author of a journal printed at Horsham in 1784, which was kept on a journey from Basra to Bagdad, over the small desert to Aleppo, Cyprus, Rhodes, Zante, Corfu and Otranto in Italy in the year 1779, we collect information on the multiculturism of the island, the climate, the products of the island and the locals’ professions:

We set apart this day to view the town, which consists of regular streets and fine houses, belonging to the Consuls and merchants of different nations, and to the principal Greeks. Few of the Turks live in the town. It is by no means healthily situated, being surrounded by low lands and salt marshes, which considerably infect the air; these added to the heat of the climate in the summer season subject the inhabitants to continual fevers that carry numbers of them off. Most parts of the inhabitants of the island are Greeks, the lower class of whom are generally employed in tilling land, and dressing the vineyards. The island produces great quantities of grapes from which excellent wine is made and sent to all parts of Europe. Great quantities of cotton are likewise cultivated here, which appears of a much finer quality than any I have ever seen in India. In short, the soil is exceedingly luxuriant, and the farmers would be immensely rich but for the heavy taxes levied by the Porte, and the rapaciousness of the Turkish governors, who are continually plundering them till they have reduced them to a state of wretched poverty. Our time, for about ten days, was spent in one continued scene of gaiety and amusement at the different villas of the European gentlemen.