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AN EXPEDITION 88 the statement when I had occasion to doubt it. As he was about to mount, his mule gave a harmless frisk, and feather-bed and stirrups together came floundering off into the dust. They were soon, how-ever, again in their places, with Mr. Adam on top of them, and I too a moment later was in a similar proud position. We had not been long in motion before I made two curious discoveries. One of them was that the use of a Cjq>rian mule's reins is simply to stop it, and that the whole business of guiding is accomplished by hitting it on one cheek or the other. My other discovery was that if I wished to quicken its paces, it was, owing to the extraordinary covering which I sat upon, as invulnerable to blows as the ghost of Hamlet's father ; or if—as I have reason to believe, for I could not turn round to see—my stick did occasionally reach some undefended quarter, the only result was not a trot but a kick. However, with the aid of the muleteer, we were soon progress-ing satisfactorily, and our sixteen hoofs were pattering along the silent streets of Nicosia. We passed the Avails of long mysterious gardens with doorways at rare intervals ; Ave turned round endless corners. Sometimes a bough of oranges or a spray of milk-white blossoms cut the sky overhead, with dew on them glittering in the sunlight. We emerged from these narrow ways into a broader road that ran at the foot of the circling grass-grown ramparts. Here we came on a few moving figures—a shepherd drivm

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