Larnaka

Larnaka (ancient Citium), the chief port of Cyprus, 27½ miles S. of Nicosia. A small fort built by the Turks in 1625 is now used as the district gaol, and the English have built a convenient courthouse, custom-house, and other public offices on the sea front, as well as two iron piers accessible at all times by small boats. Sea-going vessels are obliged to lie 1½ mile from the shore owing to the shallow water. The Greek church of St Lazarus, an ancient Byzantine building, is in good preservation, and there is an English burial-ground attached to it with monumental inscriptions as old as 1685. Even if Citium be not the Chittim of the Old Testament, it is certain that the king of Citium paid tribute to the Assyrian Sargon in 707 B.C. as appears from a cuneiform inscription on a bas-relief dug up at Larnaka in 1846, and now in the museum at Berlin. Carobs, or locust-beans, cotton, and grain are exported; and goods of western manufacture of all kinds are imported, chiefly from Germany. A most interesting fair called kataklusmos, 'the deluge,' and held every year fifty days after the Greek Easter, is traditionally supposed to be the anniversary of the birth of Aphrodite, and is attended by Orthodox Christian Cypriots from all parts of the island in immense numbers (cf. Herodotus, i. 199). Pop. 7833.