e of poisonous reptiles in the island.
It is a rare thing to meet with them, and I have seen one or two
collectors who had abandoned in despair the idea of doing so. The site
selected for Government House is a commanding one, looking over river,
plain, town, mountain, and what were once forests....

"Leaving the walls of the city behind, we crossed a sandy, stony plain.
For about two hours we saw no signs of fertility; but we then began to
pass through vineyards, cotton-fields, and pomegranates, olive and
orange tree plantations, till we reached the house of a rich Armenian,
whose brother is one of the interpreters at the camp. His wife and
daughters came out to receive us, and conducted us along a passage full
of girls picking cotton, and through two floors stored with sesame,
grain of various kinds, cotton, melons, gourds, &c., to a suite of
spacious rooms on the upper floor, opening into one another, with
windows looking over a valley. Oh! the delight of reposing on a Turkish
divan, in a cut stone-built house, after that long ride in the burning
heat! Truly, the sun of Cyprus is as a raging lion, even in this month
of November. What, then, must it be in the height of summer! The
officers all agree in saying that they have never felt anything like it,
even in the hottest parts of India or the tropics....

"After that we mounted fresh mules, and rode up the valley, by the
running water, to the point where it gushes from the hill, or rather
mountain, side--a clear stream of considerable power. It rises suddenly
from the limestone rock at the foot of Pentadactylon, nearly 3,000 feet
high, in the northern range of mountains. No one knows whence it
springs; but from the earliest times it has been celebrated, and some
writers have asserted that it comes all the way, under the sea, from the
mountains of Keramania, in Asia Minor. The effect produced is magical,
trees and crops of all kinds flourishing luxuriantly under its
fertilizing influence. The village of Kythraea itself nestles in
fruit-trees and flowering shrubs, and every wall is covered with
maiden-hair fern, the fronds of which are frequently four and five feet
long. The current of the stream is used to turn many mills, some of the
most primitive character, but all doing their work well, though the
strong water-power is capable of much fuller development....

"It was nearly dark when we started to return; and it was with many a
stumble, but never a tumble, that we