Tale of the Doomed Maltese

This is the story of a small band of Maltese farmers who came to Cyprus over a century ago and settled in the swamplands of Kuklia, near Famagusta.

They were to grow cotton and cereals and they brought their wives and children with them: 41 persons in all.

They were to be pioneers of what the British government in Malta and the new British government in Cyprus thought would be a quickly expanding colony of Maltese immigrants to the island. Ultimately, it was to have involved the clearing and cultivation by new farmers of thousands of donums of Cyprus wasteland, referred to at the time as acres.

In addition to land reclamation, another objective equally important, was to relieve the Maltese homeland of part of its own redundant labour force by encouraging emigration. Hundreds of new settlers would surely set sail for Cyprus when word reached home of successful harvests and new-found prosperity once the swamps were drained.

Although not unduly excited about the prospect of more farmers in mainly agricultural Cyprus, with its already severe water shortage and reconstruction problems, the government here had found Malta’s request difficult to refuse.

Months of polite haggling followed over terms of stay and the actual areas to be occupied. Several regions had been suggested but finally rejected for various reasons, including prior Cypriot claims in areas such as the Akamas near Polis tis Chryssochou, Pissouri or Kouklia (Paphos district), Anchornges and good soil for cereals and cotton were available there, as well as pasturage for mules and horses.

Unfortunately for the new settlers, one of the unhealthiest places in the island was finally chosen for the pilot settlement. It was in Kouklia, near Kalopsida in the Famagusta district, an area infamous then for strange summer fevers. The site was known as “Daoud Chiftlik”, a steaming coastal swampland rife with “miasmas” and vague illness and where Cypriots refused to stay.

A total of 500 dönüms of land had been alloted to the Maltese, with each family to be given eight for cotton and corn, according to the Famagusta Commissioner at the time, Mr James Inglis.

The first settlers arrived at a Cyprus port aboard the “Hidma” in March, 1880, almost two years after Ottoman Turkey had handed over the occupation and administration of the island to Britain.

Their arrival and terms of stay had been organised by Mr Vincent Fenech, an enterprising civil servant in the Maltese government’s Land Revenue and Public Works department who had been given a two-year leave of absence for the project. It was regarded by both governments as a private venture “at his own risk and expense”, but carried out with their approval.

Passage for the 41 new arrivals had cost 16 shillings each, their food during the voyage another 16 shillings eight pence, and the cost of transporting cattle, farm implements and seed was £2/10 shillings and included food for the beasts. All expenses were covered by Mr Fenech, who was to be reimbursed after the first harvest.

The first Maltese died three months later after doctors diagnosed “hard drinking and eating a quantity of unripe fruit”.

He left a widow and two children who had been housed in one of several cottages at Kouklia along with the rest of the group and where the new colonists had begun cultivation.

Soon after, other Maltese reported suffering from “a kind of local fever”, according to Mr Inglis who visited them with a medical officer. Within the next two months, almost the entire community became ill and were finally found in four rooms of a Larnaca poorhouse, lying on the floor in their own excreta and too weak to move. Several were dying or near death from what was finally diagnosed as malaria or typhoid fever.

Although almost destitute, the pitiful little group had paid their own fare from Kouklia to Larnaca. Now they wished only to return to Malta. The project which might have been the foundation of a sizeable Maltese community in Cyprus today, had collapsed in only six months.

Perhaps the most graphic account of those last days was included in the 1880 report of the new High Commissioner, Major General Biddulph, who had succeeded Sir Garnet Wolseley. In it, Mr Inglis himself tells the drab, tragic story of how hopeful new immigrants in a strange land who knew no language except their own and lived on fat pork and fruit went from good to bad to destitute in six short, work-filled months.

After the first death in June, the report says, Mr Fenech had begun issuing the settlers with quinine. In the meantime he was also constructing water wheels where - there was water only 15 feet below the surface in some places - and was making plans for new houses and a church for 100 people. Only 40 dönüms had been ploughed and sown until June, and locusts had destroyed the vegetable crop.

There were plans to sow again in October.

The families were to stay eight years with an option to stay another eight. Each family of five received £2/10 shillings annually, as well as a pair of oxen, a mule, and a cart. This was debited to their accounts and would be paid off after the harvest. Mr Fenech also provided implements and seed in return for half the crop. “All seem contented,” Mr Inglis reports, “but all seem to catch the local fever.” He added that Mr Fenech lived in Kondea village and that the Maltese farmers had written to friends in the homeland to come to Cyprus.

Medical officers, he went on, could not seem to find true malaria.

“Rather it is an ague. There is no malarious cachexis, no enlargement of the abdomen and no real reports of shivering and fever except when the patients are closely questioned.” A partial list of patients included Michael Grech and his wife Anna, fever and bronchitis, and Philipo Magra and his wife, Eleanor, four boys and one girl, the wife weak with fever and a boy with dyspepsia.

At this point, the Maltese government suspended further aid to Mr Fenech pending final reports of the enterprise. There had been other accounts reaching Malta that some of the emigrants were ill, improvished and wanted to return home.

Finally, on August 17, 1880, the Cyprus High Commissioner wrote the Governor of Malta: “... I regret to say that they (the colonists) were suffering from fever and were removed to Larnaca. I regret that this colony was placed in such a spot which, though fertile, is one of the unhealthiest in the island. The colonists lived on a very spare diet and weakened.” The Larnaca Commissioner, Mr C. D. Cobham, “had found them in a most pitiable state”, he added.

Reported Cobham: “Everyone was stricken with fever and they lay on the floor. Eleven were carried to Larnaca hospital, I sent for Mr Fenech because they knew only Maltese. One person died and three others, including two children, were still very ill. All were weak and helpless.”

“They refused to work anywhere in Cyprus and want to go home. They have been paid up to last Saturday, Fenech is paying their hospital stay but he expects them back to work. The emigrants refuse.”

Thirty seven people were ill, he continues. “I found Carmen Abella dying while still in her village. She died before she left. Her husband is also very ill.

“Part of the land was snipe marsh which the Maltese were turning up for cotton. There was an excess use of fruit and a low diet. Their systems weakened...

“Fenech had told them that to go to Larnaca meant breaking their contract and that he would not be responsible for them... The colonists at Kouklia were horribly dirty. I told Fenech that he should have brought them clothes and made them keep themselves clean.

“He had furnished them with mutton, he says, but they dislike it and prefer fat pork from Larnaca in which they delighted. Some also drank too much.” In another letter to the governor of Malta, the High Commissioner of Cyprus writes “It was a private enterprise, which neither asked nor received advice from the (Cyprus) government.”

Eventually the government of Malta paid the costs of bringing what was left of the emigrants back home, less than seven months after the little colony had arrived. It was the beginning, and the end, of what official records refer to “the Maltese Colonisation of Cyprus.”