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represented, but still there must generally be some-thing to misrepresent. The most definite something in this case was, so I learnt, taxation. It is the only political question which the people at large ap-preciate, and a reduction of taxes is the cry that most quickly appeals to them. That this should be so is certainly not surprising. They are most of them very poor, and they feel the slightest burden. It would, however, by no means suit the Radicals to make the existing taxes their only or even their principal grievance, for if these taxes were reduced the business of the Radicals would be gone. They are obliged, therefore, to supplement this one definite grievance with a number of others which are at once indefinite and imaginary, which being in-definite cannot be disproved, and which, as they do not exist, cannot be taken away. Their success in this line is remarkable. I found, from what I was told, that they almost equalled the Irish leaders in what may be called the patriot's vision—that peculiar faculty by which benefits are seen under the aspect of injuries—and also in that faculty, peculiar to the professional patriot also, of frenzied indignation at events that have never happened at all. Thus I asked what the Radicals said about this fact : that the English had conferred on them one blessing at all events, by extirpating the locusts which once ravaged the island. 'Yes,' I was answered, 'that is a blessing un-doubtedly, but the Cyprian patriots have been quite 146 IN AN ENCHANTED ISLAND

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