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APPROACH TO CYPRUS 87 strange relics of antiquity. It was still the merest dream to me except as regards one point, that I should have, as soon as I landed, to drive some thirty miles to it. The situation, as I gradually thought it over, caused me, I confess, a certain sinking of the heart ; and presently, feeling chilly, I sought relief in my cabin, where, pulling a rug over me, I dropped off into a doze. When I awoke and emerged again things had quite a different aspect. The air was mild, the sky was a full-blown blue, and the coasts of Cyprus, hardly three miles away from us, met the eye like the canvas of a moving diorama. So far as I could see they were utterly bare and treeless, and they glit-tered from every facet with a pale dazzling brilliance, in some places colourless, in others suffused with pink, so that now and again one might have fancied them half transparent, as if with all their crags they had been formed out of solid amethyst. I looked long in vain for any sign of a human occupation, and was wondering for how many hours the process of coasting would con-tinue, when, taking a turn forwards, I saw that right ahead of us, shining like snow, and apparently standing in the water, was a row of houses, with a cupola, a Campanile, and a minaret, and at one side of it a dot of intensest green—the green of a grove of palm trees. This I knew must be Larnaca, the port of landing. We were now nearing it rapidly. Detail after detail began to grow more distinct. Hollow arches and quaint balconies were discernible ; the light of the

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