1955

EPISKOPI LIMASSOL CYPRUS

June

26 May 195526 [handwritten: May] 1955

Dear Jack,

Thanks for your letter of May 5. I'm glad to know that you are still breathing. First, I shall deal with your columns and then some idle chatter related to time and space.

I got Sofros to clean up the columns a bit and was able to get rather more accurate measurements than was possible before, but complete excavation would be necessary for exactitude and that would be expensive. Demeter "B" may be the upper part of "A" but there is no special reason why it should be. The Basilica "C" item which looked like a column when mostly buried seems to be a pedestal now it is cleared. I took a photo of each and will send them if any good.

Since I last wrote to you we have had the Weinbergs' enjoyable visit and the Coons' not so delightful descent.

I expect that you will hear all in good time the results of the trial dig south of Bamboula so I won't shoot my neck out. Hassan [handwritten: (Sunshine)] Khaya was his usual helpful self and would have stopped us digging if he could have done so.

The Jackdaw expired about a month ago from what I think may have been mainly an emotional disturbance. I am glad that she was rather un-housetrained as it makes the loss more bearable. Chrysilios is still in Turkey. [handwritten: Christofis] is still adorns the landscape, emulating the lily (non-Solomon type). Last night I went with him and Londos to see Bob Hope as a Military Policeman [handwritten: (not bad)]. When we got back we heard the corn of one Yeorkos (the lean and sallow) had been fired on his threshing floor. (Last week we ran all the way into such a fire at Ypsonas). The Army fire tender came and dealt with the situation and just as we were thinking of retiring to our apartments the church bells pealed violently-meaning another fire. I sprang to the roof and indicated to Xilios the direction of the conflagration. He ran all the way to it with a shovel and pail (mine) thinking it was his father's stooks aflame but it turned out to be the earlier fire, resurgent but under control.

Michale the gardener has shown unexpected talent as a domestic. Herodotus has left me to better bothof us. I was in a mess for a bit and was on the point of going to Paphos to see if I could buy a gipsy when an Episkopi Turk produced his son aged (he says) 15. He is intelligent and irrepressibly cheerful. In a year or two when he has got the hang of things he will probably be quite good (and will, naturally, leave me). The other day Dikigoropolus arrived here and found me holding a whip which I had discovered in the store. He asked why the whip? As the boy was shocked so I said it was all right, he was only a Turk - but Diki thought that even so I shouldn't do it. I'm awaiting the outcome.

My compliments to Linda.

Handwritten: Salaam

Handwritten: signature