‘Cyprus.’ [‎33v] (66/184)

60
CYPRUS.
Distances in
miles.
Places on the
Road.
5
a
3
o
DESCRIPTION OF THE ROAD.
Famagvtta ..
4 364
Nicosia to Famagusta— continued.
Before entering Famagusta several large potteries and
extensive gardens are passed.
The road enters the town by a gate at the south-west
corner of the fortifications crossing the ditch by means
of a drawbridge.
There appears to be no difficulty in transforming
this route into a good carriage road, as it traverses
almost level ground through the whole distance;
hitherto it has been but little used, as the traffic
between Nicosia and Famagusta is very small compared
to that between Nicosia and Larnaca.
5. LAENACA TO L1MASOL.
Larnaca
Arpera
Mazoto
Maroni
n
5
9
74
124
214
This road, on leaving Larnaca, takes for a short
distance a direction nearly west; it skirts the northern
extremity of the salt lakes, and then turns south-west;
the cultivation is very partial, and between the plots of
tilled ground, occur large wastes of heath, thistles and
thorny bushes.
The springs of Arpera, and the aqueduct leading
thence to Larnaca, have already been mentioned.
The village is small and unimportant; there is a mill
driven by the water. At short intervals the road now
crosses mountain torrents rising in the slopes of Monte
S. Croce, along the stony beds of which a considerable
volume of water flows during the rainy season, but in
summer they are generally dry. The names of the
largest of these streams are the Tetios, the Deresi and
the Pentaskhino. Near the left bank of the latter
stream, and about one-and-a-half miles from the shore
is the village of Mazoto, which is better built than the
majority of the villages along this coast; the inhabitants
are entirely Greeks; part of the country in this
neighbourhood is cultivated. The road now turns
more to the westward, and is parallel to the shore, and
generally at a distance of about a mile from it; on the
slopes of the mountains to the north are large quantities
of carob and olive trees, many of which are wild, and
require grafting.
Maroni stands on the left bank of the stream of the
same name which flows from Mount Makhera; it is an
Moni
Amathut
.. 10
.. 6
unimportant village.
The road is not passable by carriages, and there is
often difficulty in crossing the streams and ravines on
horseback, as there are scarcely any bridges. A great
314 deal of the land between Maroni and Amathus is waste,
the villages of Pentakomo, Moni, and others equally
insignificant are passed. The spurs from Mount
Makhera here extend nearly to the shore. ,
364 At Amathus are the ruins of an ancient town, which
bears evident traces of having originally been a
Phoenician settlement; Tacitus and other authors speak
of Amathus as the oldest city in Cyprus. General di