William Turner Esquire was His Majesty’s servant in Constantinople and came to Cyprus in March 1815. He spent some time on the island and wrote about it in his journals.
In the morning I went with Signer Vondiziano (who put himself in grand state, with a large cocked hat which he always wears, even in the house, a gold-headed cane, and preceded by a janizary) to visit the Austrian consul, who lived in a good house near us. He has lately married a young lady of the country, who was tolerably pretty. He was now much frightened by a report brought two or three days ago by a ship from Constantinople, that Austria, in conjunction with Russia, had declared war against the Porte; from which fear I delivered him. I afterwards walked to the Marina, where I bought two or three little trifles of which I stood in need, as almost all the magazines and bazaars are there. Being caught here in a most furious storm of hail and rain, I ran for shelter to the house of Mr How, but it lasted so long that I staid and dined with him (the consul's hour being past) on some salt, fish, and some delicious small artichokes; for as it was the Greek Lent no meat could easily be had. As I saw there was no chance of the storm ceasing, I was forced to walk to Larnaca in the middle of it, and went to call on Dupont, whose house, after a long search, I found: he was not at home, but I was very civilly received by his mother and sister, the latter of whom I thought very pretty, perhaps because she was like an English woman, having light hair and blue eyes. Both of them were ill with the fever, from which they said they had never been totally free for four years past. Indeed I cannot wonder at it, for besides the marshes and the mud in the streets, which is so deep, and smells so offensively, that it is hardly possible to pass, the room where they sat, as is the case in all the houses here, was paved with stones about four feet long, and two and a half broad, through some of whose crevices water was coming up. In the evening, the rain being moderated, I returned to Signor V.'s house.
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