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According to this official statistical representation the cultivated land would be in proportion to the population about five donums, or two and a half acres, per individual.
The question of ownership of lands will eventually perplex the government to a greater extent than many persons would imagine, and the difficulty attending the verification of titles will increase with every year's delay.
Before the British occupation, land  was of little value, and an extreme   looseness existed in the description of boundaries and landmarks. In the absence  of   fences  the  Cypriote can  generally   encroach upon any land  adjoining  his limit, should it belong to the state.    Every season he can drive his plough a few paces further into his neighbour's holding, unless prevented, until by degrees he succeeds in acquiring a considerable accession. The state is  the sufferer to  an enormous extent by many years ofsystematic invasion:    Forest land has been felled and cleared by burning, and the original site is now occu­pied by vineyards. The bribery and corruption that pervaded all classes of officials prior to  the British occupation enabled an  individual to silence  the local authority, while he in many instances more than doubled his legal holding. The absence of defined boundaries has facilitated these  encroachments. According  to an official  report  this difficulty is dwelt upon   most  forcibly as requiring immediate investi­gation. The vague definition  in   title-deeds, which simply mentions the number of donums, affords no means of proving an unjust  extension; such terms are used as «the woods bounded by a hill»,  or «the woods  bounded by  uncultivated  land,»  and   this in­definite form of expression leaves a margin of frontier that is practically without limit, unless the invader may be stopped by arriving within a yard  of his  nearest neighbour. My informant, Colonel Warren, R.A.,chief commissioner of Limasol, assured me that some holders of land in his district, whose titles show an amount of ninety donums, lay claim to ten times the area. There is  hardly a proprietor who does not occupy a ridiculous surplus when compared with his title-deeds,  and the  encroachments  are even now proceeding.
This system of land-robbery was connived at by the officials for a «consideration»; old title-deeds were exchanged for new on the application of the holder, and the seals of the venal authorities rendered them valid, at the same time that hundreds of acres were fraudulently transferred from the state. When the intention of a British occupation was made public, a general rush was made for obtaining an excess over the amount defined in the title-deeds, by the swindling method; and the extent to which this plunder was extended may be imagined from the fact that 40,000 such documents were awaiting the necessary signatures when, by the arrival of the British officials, the Turkish authority, who could not sign the deeds with sufficient expedition, was dismissed, and the false titles were invalidated.
The monasteries and the vacouf (Turkish religious lands) lay claim to lands of vast and undefined extent, which are mystified by titles and gifts for charitable purposes, surrounded with clouds of obscure usages and ancient rules that will afford a boundless field for litigation. In fact, the existing government has arrived at the unpleasant position of being excluded from the land, nearly all of which is claimed either by individuals or religious institutions.
The arrangement of this most serious question will stir up a nest of hornets. The equitable adjustment would demand a minute survey of the various districts, and a comparison of the holdings with the title-deeds; but what then? It is already known that the holdings; are in excess, and where is the legal remedy that can be  practically applied? If the actual letter  of the law shall be enforced, and each proprietor shall be compelled to disgorge his prey, there will be endless complications. In England, twenty-one years uninterrupted possession, with occupation, constitutes a valid title. In Cyprus the extended holdings have in many instances been inherited, and have remained unquestioned as the acknowledged property of in­dividuals, while in other cases they have been more recently acquired. The question will comprise every possible difficulty, and can only be determined by a special commission officially appointed for a local Investigation throughout each separate district. This will be a labour of years, and the innumerable intricacies and entanglements will test the patience and honesty of interpreters in a country where bribery has always opened a golden road for an escape from difficulty, while our own authorities are entirely ignorant of the native language.  It is this lack of natural means of communication viva voce which increases the already awkward position of high officials: the power of speech belongs to the dragoman alone, and a great gulf exists between the English and the Cypriote, who represent the deaf and dumb in the absence of an interpreter. The old

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