Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/109

 THE SITUATION, SOIL AND CLIMATE OF THE ISLAND. 87 of February, is very wet ; the rains sometimes fall as in the tropics, for several days at a time. After their cessation comes a season whose brilliance, freshness, and general charm have left a deep impression on all who have travelled over the Cyprian plains between the beginning of March and the middle of June. In June the rains finally cease and for four months there is sometimes not a single shower. The heat is then terrific, especially in the great central plain, whence the sea-breezes are excluded by the barrier of mountains. 1 This season is said to be hotter in central Cyprus than in lower Egypt, at Nicosia than at Cairo. The heat of the Nile valley is tempered by the abundant evapora- tion from the river and by the current of air which blows along its banks. Here there is nothing of the kind ; even the north wind is rendered dry and hot by its passage over the arid plateau of Asia Minor ; those from the south and east are still more completely deprived of moisture and freshness by their passage over the deserts of Syria and Africa. During these months therefore the whole country is like an oven ; no water flows in the river beds ; the springs are dried up ; except in a few narrow valleys all herbaceous plants are drooping and yellowed ; even the great trees hang their boughs and relax, their grasp on their reddened leaves. Men, vegetables, animals, every living thing dies of thirst ; all business is transacted in early morning and late even- ing. At high noon there is nothing but sleep ; all nature waits and pants for the first storms of autumn. In antiquity this insufferable heat was tempered by a higher cultivation and by the existence of vast forests. All ancient writers agree in saying that Cyprus was grandly wooded. 2 But now hardly anything is left of her wealth of trees. Here, as all over the East, man has miserably wasted this part of his capital. To make a little clearing he would burn a forest, and the destruc- tion begun by fire would be completed by the teeth of countless goats and by the clouds of locusts which settled periodically on the island. In ancient times the successive masters of Cyprus must have protected the forests ; they must have issued such orders as those of which traces were found by M. Renan in the Lebanon, in the districts of Akoura and Kartaba, edicts which reserved to the government the right to fell the four most valuable 1 MARTIAL speaks of " Infamem nimio calore Cyprum " (ix. 92). 2 STRABO, xvi. vi. 5. THEOPHRASTUS History of Plants, v. 8.