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A VILLAGE OF IDYLS 87 as is usual, the bare ground strewn with berries, but grass greener and richer than any growing in Jersey, with lazy cattle standing knee-deep in it. The first glimpse of the village itself surprised me. The road took us into a small triangular place sur-rounded by a farm-yard, and by two or three quaint houses, which were several stories in height, and looked Spanish rather than Oriental. Thus far our way had been perfectly unambiguous, but now began a succession of minor troubles. Passing out of the place by an alley between low buildings, we found ourselves brought up sharp by a stone wall five feet high. Wè tried another turn, and a lane bordered with brambles brought us to a conduit running between two gardens. Our third attempt carried us somewhat farther ; but our course was at last checked, and that by a garden also, where an old woman was washing some petticoats in a drain. Kythrea, in fact, though the largest village in Cyprus —it cannot be much under three miles in length— seemed nothing but a tangle of private paths and water-courses, and it struck us that its houses, which were most of them hidden in foliage, could have no connection with each other, except by a succession of trespasses. We were well repaid, however, for our slow progress through it, by the series of charming pictures its gardens and groves revealed to us. At the doors of the embowered houses we saw, through the green shade, family groups sitting and talking in

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