Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/107

 THE SITUATION, SOIL AND CLIMATE OF THE ISLAND. 85 on which Soloi formerly stood. Of the two basins thus formed that of the Pediaios, now Pidias, which is from twelve to fifteen miles across at its widest, and about thirty-five miles long is by far the most important. This plain was called ^ f^axapia, the happy, by the ancients, and all who know it unite in lauding its fertility and the beauty of its vegetation. Both in colour and chemical composition the alluvial mud deposited by the floods of the Pediaios resembles that spread over Egypt by the Nile. In some places the layer of soil thus accumulated is as much as from twenty to thirty feet thick, while even at the foot of the hills it is deep enough for all agricultural purposes. But in order to make the best use of such a treasure both labour and foresight are necessary, and in modern times neither the one nor the other has been forth- coming. No attempt has been made to store the winter rain or to direct the course of the water, so that during one part of the year the fields suffer from the violent and capricious flow of the mountain torrents, and during another from the extremity of drought. This great plain with its lateral shoots occupies almost half of the island. The rest is covered by two mountain chains of very different appearance. That in the north is no more than a long ridge of Jurassic limestone, rising little above three thousand feet at its higher points. On its northern side, where it faces the snowy peaks of Cilicia, it is precipitous, often falling sheer into the sea. There are, however, a few havens where vessels of small tonnage, such as caiques and feluccas, may find a shelter. One of these is still known under its ancient name of Kerynia or Kerinioios. But even in antiquity, when the prosperity and population of the island were very different from what they have been under Turkish rule, the whole of this northern coast was without a single town of any importance ; Lapethus, Kerynia, Aphrodision, Carpasia, fishing towns which lived by the produce of the neighbouring seas, were all it could boast. And yet during the whole of the antique period there must have been a very active movement of passengers through the narrow sea dividing the island from Asia Minor; practically the shortest route to the Cyprian shrines lay through Tarsus and one of the ports on the straits of Cilicia. The second mountain chain is much more extensive, much loftier and much more complex in its arrangement than the first. Igneous rocks predominate in the upper parts and on its northern flanks, while the southern slopes are composed of tertiary lime-