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of two tails at Famagusta and Larnaca; bnt seventy years ago the inhabitants wrote to Constantinople that tho island every day became poorer, and that tlie expense of these Pashas' establishment was too heavy on it : the Porto attended to their complaint, and gave the island as an appendage to tlie dignity of Captain Pasini, who keeps a Mnscllim in it to govern in his name. Tlie peasants of Cyprus work only for themselves, there being superabundance of land for the population in the island since its decline. Those who cultivate the Sultan's farms have no other pay than their food, and exemption from the miri or land tax.) The Hnsellim farms it, and of course squeezes it more than it can bear. He resides iu Nicosia (called by tlie Greeks Λακωσύ), but coines annually to Larnaca to receive the visit of the consuls, when it is the custom of them to present him with gifts to tlie amount of 500 piastres, in return for whicli he gives an-old hemish (outer robe) to tho dragoman, and an embroidered handkerchief of Constantinople, valued at 20 piastres, to the consul. His administration is very strict, and keeps in good order tho Turks who, as they drink very hard, would otherwise be very disorderly ; bnt Signor V. very earnestly absolved them from the charge of being so bad as the Candiotes, which 1 had heanl. The Greeks are better than the Turks, and the latter have no greater privileges than the former, at which they are constantly expiOssing great discontent. The cheapness of living in Cyprus is extraordinary, considering the declining state of the island. Mr Vondiziano, with all the expenses of the nousulntc, a wife and five children, a large house, six servants, two janizaries, a carriage, horse and mule, spends only 5000 piastres a year. Servants' wages (men-servants the dearest) a few years ago were only from fifty to sixty piastres a year; but now they are generally ten, and sometimes even twenty, piastres a month. In the morning I went with Signor Vondiziano (who put himself in grand state, with a large cocked hat which he always wears, even in tlie house, a gold-headed cane, and preceded by a janizary) to visit the Austrian consul, who lived in a good house near ns. He has lately married a young lady of the country, who was tolerably pretty. He was now much frightened by α report brought two or three days ago by a ship from Constantinople, that Austria, in conjunction with Russia, had declared war against the Porte; from which fear I delivered him. I afterwards walked to the Marina, where I bought two or three little trifles of which I stood in need, as almost all the magazines and bazaars are there. Being caught here in a most furious storm of hail and rain, I ran for shelter to the house of Mr How, bnt it lasted BO long that I staid and dined with him (the consul's hour being past) on some salt, fish, and some delicious small artichokes; for as it was the Greek Lent no meat conld easily be had. As I saw there was no chance of the storm ceasing, I was forced to walk to Larnaca in the middle of it, and went to call on Dupont, whose house, after a long search, I found : he was not at home, but I was very civilly received by his mother and sister, the latter of whom I thought very pretty, perhaps because she was like an English woman, having light hair and blue eyes. Both of them were ill with tho fever, from which they said they had never been totally free for four years past. Indeed I cannot wonder at it, for besides the marshes and the mud in the streets, which is so deep, and smells so offensively, that it is hardly possible to pass, the room where they sat, as is tlie case in all the houses here, was paved with stones about four feet long, and two and a half broad, through some of whose crevices water was coming up. In the evening, the rain being moderated, 1 returned to Signor V.'s house. March 18. (Thermometer 61.) The traveller certainly sees in Cyprus that he is in TURNER. 427

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