The Experiences Of The Late British Consul, Mr. Hamilton Lang, Described In His Attractive Volume, Together With Those Of Von Loher, Doctors Unger And Kotschy, Have Afforded Me An Advantage In Following Upon Footsteps Through A Well-Examined Field Of Discovery.

Before I enter upon a description of my personal examination of the island, it will be advisable to trace

A brief outline of the geographical position of Cyprus, which caused its early importance in the history of the human race, and which has been accepted by the British government as sufficiently unchanged to warrant a military occupation in 1878, as a strategical point that dominates the eastern portion of the Mediterranean, and supplies the missing link in the chain of fortified ports from England to the shores of Egypt.

In the world's infancy oceans were unknown seas upon which the vessels of the ancients rarely ventured beyond the sight of land; without the compass the interminable blue water was a terrible wilderness full of awe and wonder. The Phoenicians, who first circumnavigated Africa by passing through the then existing canal between Suez and the Nile, coasted the whole voyage, as did in later years the famous Portuguese, Vasco di Gama, and stations were formed along the shores at convenient intervals. Hanno the Carthaginian coasted to an uncertain and contested point upon the western shores of Africa, but no ocean commercial port was known to have existed in the early days of maritime adventure. The Mediterranean offered peculiar advantages of physical geography; its great length and comparatively narrow width embraced a vast area, at the same time that it afforded special facilities for commerce in the numerous ports and islands that would form a refuge in stress of weather.

The countries which surrounded this great inland sea were rich; the climate throughout its course combined the temperate with almost tropical, according to the changes of seasons; accordingly, the productions of the earth varying upon the northern and southern coasts, were all that could be required for the necessities of the human race. In this happily situated position commerce was first cradled, and by the interchange of ideas and natural productions, artificial wants were mutually created among the various countries around the great sea margin; the supply of these new requirements and exchange of commodities established trade. With the development of commerce, wealth and prosperity increased; nations became important through the possession of superior harbours and geographical positions, and the entire maritime strength and commercial activity of the ancient world was represented by the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon were the English of to-day; the Egyptians and the Greeks were followed as the world grew older by the Venetians and Genoese, and throughout the world's history no point possessed a more constant and unchangeable attraction from its geographical position and natural advantages than the island of Cyprus, which in turn was occupied by Phoenicians, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Byzantine rulers, Saracens, Byzantine rulers again, English, Lusignans, Venetians, Turks, and once more English in 1878.

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