Having Lightened The Loads By Leaving All That Was Not Absolutely Necessary Safely Locked Within The Vans, We Started On 1st March With Camels, In Addition To Two Native Carts, Taking The Route Direct East, Across The Extensive Flat Which At This Time Was Dry And Hard.

There was nothing of interest in the day's march; the travelling was easy along the hardened level surface; we

Had a clear view of the cathedral and higher forts of Famagousta, and we passed near the ruins of Salamis, easily distinguishing the solitary pillars that had supported the ancient aqueduct which led the water from distant Kythrea.

Although everything was thoroughly dried up, it was easy to imagine the effect of an inundation of the Pedias river, which had formed this delta of alluvium, precisely as the Nile on a more extensive scale has produced the Delta of Egypt. There were a few wretched villages upon the flat, which were necessarily on the poorest scale, as they existed at the mercy of a sudden inundation. The unhealthiness of this locality must be extreme during wet weather, as it is only suitable to the constitutions of frogs and ducks. Upon arrival at higher ground on the opposite side of the plain I looked back upon the agueish area over which we had passed, and I had little doubt of the great engineering necessity that must be the first step to a sanitary reform in this pestilential neighbourhood.

As the river Pedias is a mere wayward torrent that NEVER flows as a permanent stream, but only comes down in impulsive rushes from the mountains during heavy rains, it has no power to cleanse its original bed, such as would result from a constant and clear current; but, on the contrary, the heavy floods from the upper country, being the result of a sudden rainfall, are surcharged with earth washed down from the higher ground and thickly held in solution.

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