irrigation of 42,000 acres, and the reclamation of 10,000. These works were completed respectively in 1899 and 1901.
The rearing of live stock is of no little importance. A committee exists “for the improvement of the breeds of Cyprus stock”; stallions of Arab blood have been imported, and prizes are offered for the best donkeys. Cattle, sheep, mules and donkeys are sent in large numbers to Egypt. Cyprus mules have found favour in war in the Crimea, India, Uganda, Eritrea and Egypt. The sea fisheries are not important, with the exception of the sponge fishery, which is under the protection of the administration. The manufactures of the island are insignificant.
Minerals.—Next to its forests, which long supplied the Greek monarchs of Egypt with timber for their fleets, Cyprus was celebrated among the ancients for its mineral wealth, especially for its mines of copper, which were worked from a very early period, and continued to enjoy such reputation among both Greeks and Romans that the modern name for the metal is derived from the term of Aes Cyprium or Cuprium by which it was known to the latter. According to Strabo the most valuable mines were worked at a place called Tamasus, in the centre of the island, on the northern slopes of Mount Olympus, but their exact site has not been identified. An attempt to work copper towards the close of the 19th century was a failure, but some prospecting was subsequently carried on. Besides copper, according to Strabo, the island produced considerable quantities of silver; and Pliny records it as producing various kinds of precious stones, among which he mentions diamonds and emeralds, but these were doubtless nothing more than rock crystal and beryl. Salt, which was in ancient times one of the productions for which the island was noted, is still made in large quantities, and there are extensive salt works in the neighbourhood of Larnaca and Limasol, where there are practically inexhaustible salt lakes. Rock crystal and asbestos are still found in the district of Paphos. Gypsum is exported unburnt from the Carpas, and as plaster of Paris from Limasol and Larnaca. Statuary marble has been found on the slopes of Buffavento in the northern range. Excellent building stone exists throughout the island.
Commerce.—A disability against the trade of Cyprus has been the want of natural harbours, the ports possessing only open roadsteads; though early in the 20th century the construction of a satisfactory commercial harbour was undertaken at Famagusta, and there is a small harbour at Kyrenia. Trade is carried on principally from the ports already indicated among the chief towns. The various agricultural products, cattle and mules, cheese, wines and spirits, silk cocoons and gypsum make up the bulk of the exports. Barley and wheat, carobs and raisins may be specially indicated among the agricultural exports. The annual value of exports and of imports (which are of a general character) may be set down as about £300,000 each. Good roads are maintained connecting the more important towns, and when the harbour at Famagusta was undertaken the construction of a railway from that port to Nicosia was also put in hand. The Eastern Telegraph Co. maintains a cable from Alexandria (Egypt) to Larnaca, and the greater part of the lines on the island. The Imperial Ottoman Telegraph Co. has also some lines. The British sovereign is the current gold coin, the unit of the bronze and silver coinage being the piastre (113 penny). Turkish weights and measures are used. The oke, equalling 2.8 ℔ avoirdupois, and the donum, about 14 of an acre, are the chief units.
Constitution and Government.—Under a convention signed at Constantinople on the 4th of June 1878, Great Britain engaged to join the sultan of Turkey in defending his Asiatic possessions (in certain contingencies) against Russia, and the sultan, “in order to enable England to make necessary provision for executing her engagement,” consented to assign the island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England. The British flag was hoisted on the 12th of June, and the conditions of the occupation were explained in an annex to the convention, dated the 1st of July. An order in council of the 14th of September, modified so far as related to legislation by another of the 30th of November, regulated the government of the island. The administration was placed in the hands of a high commissioner with the usual powers of a colonial governor. Executive and legislative councils were established; and in each of the six districts into which, for administrative and legal purposes, the island was divided, a commissioner was appointed to represent the government. The executive council consists of the high commissioner, the chief secretary, the king’s advocate, the senior officer in charge of the troops, and the receiver-general, with, as “additional” members, two Christians and one Mussulman. The legislative council consists of six non-elected members, being office-holders, and twelve elected members, three being chosen by the Moslems and nine by the non-Moslem inhabitants. British subjects and foreigners, who have resided five years in Cyprus, can exercise the franchise as well as Ottoman subjects. The qualification otherwise is the payment of any of the taxes classed as Vergi Taxes (see below). The courts in existence at the time of the occupation were superseded by the following, constituted by an order in council dated the 30th of November 1882:—(1) a supreme court of criminal and civil appeal; (2) six assize courts; (3) six district courts; (4) six magistrates’ courts; and (5) village courts. Actions are divided, according to the nationality of the defendant, into “Ottoman” and “Foreign”; in the latter, the president of the court alone exercises jurisdiction as a rule, so also in criminal cases against foreigners. The law administered is that contained in the Ottoman codes, modified by ordinances passed by the legislative council.
Finance.—The principal sources of revenue are:—
(1) Vergi taxes, or taxes on house and land property, and trade profits and incomes (not including salaries); (2) military exemption tax, payable by Moslems and Christians alike, but not by foreigners, of 2s. 6d. a head on males between 18 and 60 years of age; (3) tithes. All tithes have been abolished, except those on cereals, carobs, silk cocoons, and, in the form of 10% ad valorem export duties, those on cotton, linseed, aniseed and raisins (all other export duties and a fishing tax have been abolished); (4) sheep, goat, and pig tax; (5) an excise on wine, spirits and tobacco; (6) import duties; (7) stamps, court fees, royalties, licenses, &c.; (8) salt monopoly. Foreigners are liable to all the above taxes except the military exemption tax. The annual sum of £92,800, payable to Turkey as the average excess (according to the years 1873–1878) of revenue over expenditure, but really appropriated to the interest on the British guaranteed loan of 1855, is a heavy burden. But if not lightened, taxation is at least better apportioned than formerly.
Instruction.—A general system of grants in aid of elementary schools was established in 1882. There are some 300 connected with the Greek Orthodox Church, and 160 elementary Moslem schools. Aid is also given to a few Armenian and Maronite schools. Among other schools are a Moslem high school (maintained entirely by government), a training college at Nicosia for teachers in the Orthodox Church schools, Greek high schools at Larnaca and Limasol, an English school for boys and a girls’ school at Nicosia. By a law of 1895 separate boards of education for Moslem and Greek Christian schools were established, and in each district there are separate committees, presided over by the commissioner. An institution worthy of special notice is the home and farm for lepers near Nicosia, accommodating over a hundred inmates.
History and Archaeology down to the Roman Occupation
The Stone Age has left but few traces in Cyprus; no sites have been found and even single implements are very rare. The “megalithic” monuments of Agia Phaneromeni[1] and Halá Sultán Teké near Larnaca may perhaps be early, like the Palestinian cromlechs; but the vaulted chamber of Agia Katrína near Enkomi seems to be Mycenaean or later; and the perforated monoliths at Ktima seem to belong to oil presses of uncertain but probably not prehistoric date.
The Bronze Age, on the other hand, is of peculiar importance in an area which, like Cyprus, was one of the chief early sources of copper. Its remains have been carefully studied both on
- ↑ M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Arch. Zeitung (1881), p. 311, pl. xviii. The principal publications respecting this and all sites and phases of culture mentioned in this section are collected in Myres and Ohnefalsch-Richter, Cyprus Museum Catalogue (Oxford, 1899), pp. 1-35.
