The Venetian Fra Francesco Suriano visited Cyprus in 1424 on his way to Jaffa. He came in August and travelled under the hot sun!
This island of Cyprus has a circuit of 700 miles: it is a kingdom, and has six cities, Nichosia and Famagosta are well inhabited, Salamina, Lymiso and Bapho are in ruins. It has one strong fortress called Cerines, of old it had 8000 hamlets or villages, now only 800, and these are in bad condition except la Piscopia and Larnacha.
The island produces meat in plenty so that one may get twelve or fourteen sheep for a ducat. It is poor meat and unwholesome. The air is very bad, hence you never see a creature with a natural colour in his face, it is all art. Almost every year it is smitten with locusts, and the result is great barrenness and death. When the locusts do not come they harvest grain enough for four years. It produces plenty of sugar and good cotton, plenty of cheese, ladanum, honey, wool, the finest camlets known, and samite. The inhabitants are few and lazy.
In the summer season on account of the sun's great heat they work and travel by night. By day they lie idle in huts of reeds open at the ends. In the winter they dress in cloth, but in the summer in skins of polecats, foxes and sheep. If one exposes oneself to the cool air one falls at once into long and dangerous sickness. The horses are born amblers. The women are lewd. The country and climate of themselves incline to fleshly lust, and nearly every one lives in concubinage. In the days of king Jacques the women went about attired in a seductive manner like nymphs. Now they go decently dressed. To this island belonged S. Barnabas the Apostle, S. Catherine, virgin and martyr, daughter of king Costa, S. Epiphanies, a most eloquent man: Philanio, a most holy man and a martyr, was bishop of the island. And in it died S. Hylarion and S. John Monfore.
The 'What I saw...' series is made possible with the support of OPAP Cyprus and Active Citizens Fund.
