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fx.] FROM ΒΛΊΤΟ TO LIMASOI,. 261 I usually insane authority, who no doubt had passed a severe competitive examination, was exhibited in count-I less coal-boxes of cast iron ! These curious devices were about three feet six inches long by two feet and f a half deep, and the same in width. T o my ideas they were only suitable for gigantic foot-pans or hip-baths, or as an aquarium for a young seal ; but their real object was to contain coal for the supply of the various tents ! What is to become of our country, exclaims the British taxpayer, if this frightful waste is to continue ? What traveller or explorer ever carried with him a copper warming-pan and a gigantic coalbox, weighing nearly two hundred pounds ? And these useless abominations are to hamper the operations of our troops, and to wear out our sailors in the labour of the disembarkment of such disgraceful lumber ! Should we unhappily in some future political annexation send a military force to Spitzbergen, we shall probably omit the warming-pans and fuel, but supply a shipload of refrigerators and " Family Ice Machines. " A number of these cast-iron coal-boxes had been converted into cisterns by Sir Garnet Wolseley, which surrounded the wooden Government House at Lefkosia, and were kept full of water in case of fire. So practical a general would have been the first to condemn the palpable absurdity of coal-boxes, even had coals been required ; surely they could have been laid upon the bare ground by the tent side, instead of causing the inconvenience, labour, and -ridicule of importing such outrageous nonsense. When the famous military invasions of Cyprus took place in historical times there were certainly neither warming-pans nor coal-boxes, either with Richard Cceur

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