of a telegraph line accepting and being paid for messages which it has neither the intention nor the means of delivering. I am informed, however, that it does not do so because such action might raise "a political question" and give offence to the Turks. If I were in a position of authority I think that I should take the risk of that offence and of the use of a little plain language.

Still notwithstanding these and other drawbacks, unavoidable perhaps in a country soaked with oriental traditions, Cyprus is in many ways a most delightful spot, and it is remarkable that more English people do not live there, at least for the winter season. Actual residence in the island to all but those inured to heat, involves a three months' stay in summer under canvas or in huts on the mountain heights of Trooidos, whither the officials move annually from Nicosia. This is a sojourn that must become monotonous in spite of the delightful air and scenery of the pine forests, since lawn-tennis parties and picnics, where the guests are continually the same, will pall at last on all except the youngest and most enthusiastic. For the other nine months of the year, or most of them, the climate is pleasant and healthy.

I know that in the last respect, it has a different reputation; arising I believe from the fact, that when it was first acquired from the Turks, some regiments of debilitated troops were sent from Egypt to recover health in Cyprus. Those in authority proceeded to secure this object through the great heats of summer by setting them down in overcrowded tents upon an undrained marsh, where they sickened and died in considerable numbers. Also in old days the island's reputation for wholesomeness was of the most evil.

I have discovered many references to this in the course of my reading, but lack the time to search them out now; also to do so would be to overburden these pages. Here are one or two extracts, however, upon which I am

able to lay hands, that will suffice to prove the point. They are taken, for the most part, from Excerpta Cypria. Felix Fabri writing in the fifteenth century says that on returning from a certain expedition inland in Cyprus—

"When we reached the sea in our galley we found that two pilgrims were dead, one of whom was a priest of the Minorite order, a brave and learned man, and the other was a tailor from Picardy, an honest and good man. Several others were in the death agony. We, too, who had come from Nicosia, cast ourselves down on our beds very sick; and the number of the sick became so great, that there was now no one to wait upon them and furnish them with necessaries."

He goes on to tell how they put out to sea and met with sad adventures:

:

During this time one of the knights ended his days most piteously. We wound a sheet about him, weighted his body with stones, and with weeping cast him into the sea. On the third day from this another knight, who had gone out of his mind, expired in great pain and with terrible screams," and so forth.

Again Egidius van Egmont, and John Heyman, whose work was translated from the Dutch in London in 1759, say:

"It is known by experience that the inhabitants of this island seldom attain to any great age, owing possibly to the badness of the air; malignant fevers being common here, especially towards the end of summer, and during our stay in the island, though it was in the spring, a contagious distemper swept away great numbers at Nicosia. But the air is most noxious at Famagusta and Lernaca owing to the vapours rising from the fens and saltpans in the neighbourhood. And at Lernaca the air is most unhealthy when the sun is above the horizon."

Also Richard Pococke, whose well-known work was published in London in 1743, writes:

"These mountains and the shallow soil, which is mostly on a white free-stone, make it excessively hot in summer and the

H

island is very unhealthy especially to strangers, who often get fevers here, which either carry them off, or at least continue for a considerable time, the disorder lurking in the blood and occasioning frequent relapses."

To come to quite recent times Monsieur Delaroiére, whose book, Voyage en Orient, was published in 1836, talking of Larnaca says:—

"We went out to this shrine, which is charmingly situated near a great lake and wooded hills, but the air is very unwholeIn a visit we paid to the sheik we saw the insalubrity of the place stamped on every face; the pale and leaden complexions testified to habitual fever."

some.

These short quotations, which could be easily supplemented by others of like tenor, suffice to show that the healthiness of Cyprus has always been in bad repute. Why this is so I cannot say, for, given the most ordinary precautions, among warm countries it is certainly the most wholesome that I have visited. I have scarcely heard of a death that could in any way be attributed to climate among the European officials, and children of northern blood seem to flourish there. Probably its reputation may be set down to the lack of those ordinary precautions and the insanitary condition of the place in the past. Few people whose reading has not been more or less extensive know the extent of the mortality throughout all lands in bygone generations. A great proportion of the death rate everywhere was, I am convinced, due to typhoid which nobody knew how to treat or how to avoid. It had not even any specific name except the generic term of "feaver." For proof of this such works as the Verney Memoirs may be consulted. It is probable that a traveller from Cyprus visiting London about the year 1600 might have returned and described the city as most unwholesome.

Living in Cyprus is extraordinarily cheap. A family can flourish there and have many comforts, such as