_ 158 _ year, each bisante being worth half a tostão, and a further bisante for the salt which they use from the great saltings near the port of Salines. From these it gets its name. Each year the salt is put together in heaps near the sea to be ready for loading on to the carracks. The white Venetians since then have had no obligations, but their poverty makes them work harder than slaves. Item: The island is very plentiful in provisions, livestock, wine and oil, and is much famed for its large quantities of fine flax, from which Cyprus linen is made. There is a great deal of grain. There is also cotton, of which great loads are sent to Venice each year, much sugar; carob-beans; many pigs, from which are made the best hams I have ever seen; Indian figs; sonoris; cadilis; and many fruits, especially prickly pear. Item: In this city of Famagusta, there are three or four very large churches. The cathedral, which is in the square, has on its doorway many finely carved images, and inside there is a fine marble tomb, sculpted and tall, with the figure of a king who I was told was King Jacob, the last king of the island and the brother of the Duke of Savoy. Although the Seigniory is at peace with the Turk since it gave him Naples of Romagna and Malvasia, two cities in Morea, it still suffers a thousand problems inflicted by the Turkish
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