The eastern plain is the more important of the two.

It extends along the course of the Pediaeus from Leucosia, or Nicosia, the present capital, to Salamis, a distance of thirty-five miles, and is from five to twelve miles wide.

The fertility of the soil was reckoned in ancient times to equal that of Egypt.[55] The western plain, that of Morfou, is much smaller, and is watered by a less important river.

The whole island, when it first became known to the Phoenicians, was well wooded.[56] Lovely glens opened upon them, as they sailed along its southern coast, watered by clear streams from the southern mountain-range, and shaded by thick woods of pine and cedar, the latter of which are said to have in some cases attained a greater size even than those of the Lebanon.[57] The range was also prolific of valuable metals.[58] Gold and silver were found in places, but only in small quantities; iron was yielded in considerable abundance; but the chief supply was that of copper, which derived its name from that of the island.[59] Other products of the island were wheat of excellent quality; the rich Cyprian wine which retains its strength and flavour for well nigh a century, the _henna_ dye obtained from the plant called _copher_ or _cyprus_, the _Lawsonia alba_ of modern botany; valuable pigments of various kinds, red, yellow, green, and amber; hemp and flax; tar, boxwood,[510] and all the materials requisite for shipbuilding from the heavy timbers needed for the keel to the lightest spar and the flimsiest sail.[511] The earliest of the Phoenician settlements in Cyprus seem to have lain upon its southern coast.

Here were Citium, Amathus, Curium, and Paphus, the Palae-paphus of the geographers, which have all yielded abundant traces of a Phoenician occupation at a very distant period.