HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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MALLOCK W.
In an enchanted island
page 155

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course, was, ' Yes.' ' Very well,' said the Archbishop, in a tone of obstinate meekness, 'then you expect something of me that I am quite unable to do.' Asked what he meant, he replied, ' I mean simply this : that my lands are assessed at four times their actual value.' ' Indeed,' said the authorities. ' If that is the case we will have your lands revalued. But we have gone by the assessment left us by the late Government, to which it appears you have never taken exception. Can you kindly explain this to us? ' ' Heh ? ' said the Archbishop ; ' but that is explained easily.' The Turks, it appears, had assessed him at this really exorbitant figure, with his own consent, but on this distinct understanding : he was never to pay a penny. Then, when any of the Greek peasantry grumbled, the officials would be able to say, ' Look at your good Archbishop : what are your burdens to his? And yet he never makes a murmur.' If the Government, however, has trouble in getting the taxes out of the bishops, the bishops in their turn have trouble in getting their own dues out of their flocks. ' Ah,' said one of them one day to Mr. Matthews, ' dreadful, dreadful people in the village of Alitsópalo ! They will pay me nothing ! As soon as ever my collector goes to them all the Christians at once pretend to be Turks. The first cottage he enters, the owner, when asked his name, declares that he is Mohammed and his wife over there is Fatima ; whilst the collector knows, though 152 IN AN ENCHANTED ISLAND

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