History

11 Feb 1800

Lieut-Colonel W M Leake, a well-known student of Greek topography and antiquities, crossed from Kyrenia to Nicosia and Larnaca and back again

Lieut-Colonel W M Leake, a well-known student of Greek topography and antiquities, crossed from Kyrenia to Nicosia and Larnaca and back again:

We land this forenoon at Tzerina, called by the Italians Cerina and by the Turks Gherne. It is the ancient Ceryneia and is now a small town with a Venetian fortification, and bad port on the north eastern coast of Cyprus. It is reckoned by the Greek sailors eighty miles from Kelenderi, probably less than sixty English. The town is situated amidst plantations of oranges, lemons, olives, dates and other fruit trees, and all the uncultivated parts of the plains around are covered with bay, myrtle and mastic. On the west side of the town are extensive quarries, among which some catacombs are the only remains of the ancient Ceryneia. The harbour, bad and small as it is, must, upon a coast very deficient in maritime shelter, have always ensured to the position a certain degree of importance…