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that Cyprus possessed a written character peculiarly original, and that it was occupied by a people highly civilised according to the standard of the early world at so primitive an era, that all records have disappeared, and we are left in the darkness of conjecture. The changes in the importance of certain geographical positions, owing to the decline and fall of empires, which at one time governed the destinies of the Eastern world, have been strikingly exhibited on the shores of the Mediterranean ; Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Cyprus, had lost their significance upon modern charts, even before the New Worlds appeared, when America, Australia, and the Eastern Archipelago were introduced upon the globe. Th e progress of Western Europe eclipsed the Oriental Powers which hitherto represented the civilisation of mankind, and two points alone remained, which, shorn of their ancient glory, still maintained their original importance as geographical centres, that will renew those struggles for their possession which fill the bloody pages of their history—Egypt and Constantinople. No country had been more completely excluded from the beaten paths of British travellers than the island of Cyprus, and England was startled by the sudden revelation of a mystery connected with the Treaty of Berlin, that it was to become a strategical point for a British military occupation !

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