1946

After a delicious meal we sat out on deck and it seemed much like old times when "Samothrace" was here the first Spring that we came to the island. The skipper then told me he had instructions to place the schooner at my disposal. As I didn't have any immediate use for her I didn't know how to respond to this, so I asked him what he thought the new owner would like to have from Cyprus which he could take back with him to Egypt as a small token of my esteem. He answered: "An antiquity". Not being able to present him anything from our collection, of course, I bought a beautiful Hellenistic lamp in bronze from a collector in Limassol. I then requested an export license from Dikaios. This he was good enough to grant in view of the unusual circumstances, although he might well have been justified in refusing, as it was a rare piece. The island, however, should be better off for the incident, as the lamp is almost certain to have remained unknown or to have appeared somewhere abroad without anyone's knowing just where it came from. Now, at least, we have drawings and photos of it, and I think that we can take the collector's word for it that it came from Marion-Arsenoe. It was intended for a stand as is apparent from the square socket in the base. The two arms of the verticle handle sweep upward from either side of the lamp where they spring from ram heads in relief and meet at the apex where they are united in a female head. It would be interesting to know wether any others like it have been published. I'll send you a photo or drawing under separate cover. With the lamp I sent a note wishing that the Genius of the lamp might prove a happy one for his new master.

I have invited Joe Last who, you'll remember was our Architect in 1939, to join the expedition, and he has very generously accepted on a volonteer basis as before in return for food and lodging and is at present working on the maps of Curium begun by Lands. He was a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army and is still on the British equivalent of terminal leave. I wonder whether you've had any new of Lands since the war. He was such a nice fellow.

Both Christo and Savvi are very well and much pleased you should have thought of them and wish to be remembered to you. Christo has had a terrible time with his eye. A splinter shot up into his eye while he was pruning a tree. It didn't stick in the eye but left a slight bruize which, he says, didn't hurt very much at first. Unfortunately it became infected soon afterwards, and Christo went to a civilian Greek (Cypriot) doctor in Limassol, who was at this stage that he wrote me. I immediately wrote the Ottoman Bank to see to it that he obtained the best medical attention available in the island, or to send him to Egypt if this seemed advisable, and I wrote my cousin there asking him to look after him if he turned up. I also wrote Ray Arther, the Commissioner at Limassol, and suggested he might he might find an Army doctor in the island who could have a look at Christo's eye. An Army eye specialist was found at Nicosia, and Christo went up there to see him. An immediate operation, he said, was the only hope of saving his eye. The Limassol doctor, apparantly, hadn't done a thing. The operation proved a partial success; the damaged eye can see, but not too well, and it isn't a pleasure to look at. It has, however, been getting steadily better. This doctor is now at Limassol, and Christo goes in to see him there.