Cyprus: Our New Colony and What We Know About It, by Fred H. Fisher, Bibliolife, London, [2009].
This month’s selection brings us to a pivotal moment in the modern history of Cyprus, as seen through the eyes of British journalist and travel writer Frederic Henry Fisher. First published in 1878, the same year the island was formally placed under British administration, Cyprus: Our New Colony and What We Know About It was one of the first British attempts to introduce the island to a curious home audience.
Part guidebook, part political pamphlet, the book charts a brisk course through the island’s geography, people, and resources, all painted with the confident brushstrokes of colonial optimism. The book opens with a concise overview of Cyprus’s past, tracing its significance from antiquity to the Ottoman period, before turning its gaze to the contemporary challenges and prospects of British rule.
Fisher then turns to the island’s natural features, offering detailed descriptions of its physical contours: “The island of Cyprus is 145 miles in extreme length and 60 miles in extreme breadth” [….] “The most striking natural features of Cyprus are its mountains ranges, two of which traverse it from west to east.” […] “Messaria is the name given to a broad expanse of plain that lies between these two mountain ranges, and stretches right across the island from the Bay of Famagosta on the south-east, to that of Morphu on the north-west, having a length of 60 miles, and a varying breadth of from 10 to 20 miles.”
From the land, Fisher moves to the sky, noting the island’s shifting weather patterns: “The climate of Cyprus is on all hands admitted to have changed much for the worse in modern times […] The rains, which are variable everywhere else, fall in this island at stated periods; and on this account it is often without rain – as in other Eastern countries- for several months together.” […] “The intensity of summer heat is, however, modified after a time by a cooling wind which Mariti calls limbat.”
He continues with observations on local wildlife: “Game such as partridges, quails, woodcocks, and snipe abound in Cyprus; but there are no wild animals except foxes and hares. Serpents of various species, the asp among the rest, are numerous.”
In the heart of the island, Fisher surveys towns such as Nicosia, Larnaca, Kyrenia and Limassol, offering impressions of daily life and customs. His writing captures the rhythms and aesthetics of the local population, as seen through the eyes of a Victorian traveler: “The Cyprian ladies wear their hair in long flowing tresses which they dye a brown colour […]”
“The people clothe themselves here much in the same manner as the inhabitants of Constantinople […]”
From architecture to agriculture, no detail escapes his attention. Fisher’s brisk, sometimes romanticized style gives us more than just facts; it sketches a landscape alive with impressions of people, a place and a way of life observed at the threshold of colonial transformation.
While the book inevitably reflects the paternalistic views of its era, its value lies not so much in the accuracy of its facts, but in the way it reveals British attitudes toward empire, travel and “the East.” It stands not only as a document about Cyprus, but also as a reflection of the mindset of those who came to govern it.
In this sense, Fisher’s account is more than historical curiosity. It reminds us that every traveler, especially those arriving with power, leaves a mark that shapes how places are recorded, remembered and understood. For an island like Cyprus, so often interpreted through outside eyes, such accounts are part of its enduring story, even as it continues to assert its own identity.
You can find this book, and many more, in the Research Centre of the CVAR.
