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under the influence of surrounding associations, it seemed to become insensibly part of the romance itself. If it suggested our newspapers it suggested them only as a certain bank of clouds, which came floating over the mountains, suggested to my eye a phalanx of Irish members. For a moment I thought I saw the features of Dr. Tanner, about to provoke the censure of some unseen Speaker in the firma-ment ; but just as he seemed on the point of calling the stars ' liars ' the noiseless air transformed him into a dignified, silent Turk, whilst the body of his sup-porters, all prepared to cheer him, softly melted together into a single monstrous griffin. Then up from behind the mountains, closely following after them, came a giraffe and a camel, with necks as tall as steeples and heads like cotton-wool, dipped in the light of evening ; and the whole aerial medley slowly floated and vanished into the darkening depths of the sky, at the edge of which the sunset was burning. And thus the politicians of contem-porary Cyprus, instead of breaking the charm or disturbing the associations of their ancient Oriental island, merely added to them a new element of unreality. Their antics and tricks seemed to me, as I heard of them, to harmonise completely with the dream-like evening that then surrounded me. I remember its aspect still. The dome of the sky above was a transparent Prussian blue ; lower down in the east it was clear like alabaster. One by one the golden points of the stars began to show themselves 158 IN AN ENCHANTED ISLAND

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