Cyprus, as I Saw It in 1879Baker, Samuel White, Sir
History
Cyprus, as I Saw It in 1879
Baker, Samuel White, Sir
Cyprus -- Description and travel
was handsome at forty, with a pair of eyes that in youth might have been
more attractive than the mysterious light in the hermit's cave. It is
one of the blessings of fine eyes that they are almost certain to
descend to the children. Property may vanish, litigation may destroy the
substance of an inheritance; but the eyes, large, soft, and gentle,
which can occasionally startle you by their power and subdue you by a
tear, are the children's entail that nothing can disestablish. Even when
time has trampled upon complexion, the eyes of beauty last till death.
The children of this Linobambaki and his handsome wife were seven--two
boys of about nineteen and seventeen, and five girls from fourteen to
one and a half--all of whom had the eyes of the mother developed most
favourably. I cannot well describe every individual of a family: there
were the two handsome shepherd youths who would have made level ground
of mountain steeps, through their power and activity.
"Right up Ben Lomond could he press,
And not a sob his toil confess."
These young fellows matched the goats in clambering up the rocks and
following their wayward flocks throughout the summits of the Troodos
range; and their sisters the little shepherdesses were in their way
equally surprising, in hunting runaway goats from the deepest chasm to
the sharpest mountain-peak.
I hardly know who was our greatest favourite. There was "Katterina"
(about fourteen) too old to make a pet of, but a gentle-charactered
girl, always willing to please and never out of temper, and even in the
big, hateful, beauty-destroying, high hob-nailed boots she could run up
the mountain soil and clamber like a monkey. Then came, I believe, our
best favourite, the bright, large-eyed, sparkling child "Vathoo," who
was the real beauty of the family, about ten years old; she was full of
life and vigour, a perfect goat upon the mountains, with a most lovely
face that would have charmed Murillo as a subject, with an extreme
perfection of features, a bronzed complexion, but hardly the soft
expression required for a sacred picture; in fact Vathoo was a perfect
little gipsy beauty, with perhaps more devil than angel in her impulsive
character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account