This is very natural and simple, though it is hardly what we should expect from a cultivated woman after visiting the memorials of Greek art and history, and the great and beautiful city of the "violet moon." A greater enthusiasm, a more living sympathy, might surely have been provoked by the sight of the blue sea where Themistocles repulsed the navies of Persia, and the glorious hill on whose crest St. Paul spake to the wondering Athenians, and the monuments of the genius of Praxiteles and Phidias. Lady Brassey, however, is not at her best when treating of the places and things which antiquity has hallowed: it is the aspects of the life of to-day and the picturesque scenes of savage lands that arrest her attention most firmly, and are reproduced by her most vividly. She is more at home in the Hawaiian market than among the ruined temples of Athens.
The reader may not be displeased to take a glance at Nikosia, the chief town of Cyprus—of that famous island which calls up such stirring memories of the old chivalrous days when Richard I. and his Crusaders landed here, and the lion-hearted king became enamoured of Berengaria, the daughter of the Cypriot prince.
"The town is disappointing inside," she says, "although there are some fine buildings still left. The old cathedral of St. Sophia, now used as a mosque, is superb in the richness of its design and tracery, and the purity of its Gothic architecture. Opposite the cathedral is the Church of St. Nicholas, now used as a granary. The three Gothic portals are among the finest I have ever seen. Every house in Nikosia possesses a luxuriant garden, and the bazaars are festooned with vines; but the whole place wears, notwithstanding, an air of desolation, ruin, and dirt. Government House is one of the last of the old Turkish residences.
"From the Turkish prison we passed through a narrow dirty street, with ruined houses and wasted gardens on either side, out into the open country again, when a sharp canter over the plain and through a small village brought us to the place where the new Government House is in course of erection. This spot is called Snake Hill, from two snakes having once been discovered and killed here, a fact which shows how idle are the rumours of the prevalence of poisonous reptiles in the island. It is a rare thing to meet with them, and I have seen one or two collectors who had abandoned in despair the idea of doing so. The site selected for Government House is a commanding one, looking over river, plain, town, mountain, and what were once forests....
"Leaving the walls of the city behind, we crossed a sandy, stony plain. For about two hours we saw no signs of fertility; but we then began to pass through vineyards, cotton-fields, and pomegranates, olive and orange tree plantations, till we reached the house of a rich Armenian, whose brother is one of the interpreters at the camp. His wife and daughters came out to receive us, and conducted us along a passage full of girls picking cotton, and through two floors stored with sesame, grain of various kinds, cotton, melons, gourds, &c., to a suite of spacious rooms on the upper floor, opening into one another, with windows looking over a valley. Oh! the delight of reposing on a Turkish divan, in a cut stone-built house, after that long ride in the burning heat! Truly, the sun of Cyprus is as a raging lion, even in this month of November. What, then, must it be in the height of summer! The officers all agree in saying that they have never felt anything like it, even in the hottest parts of India or the tropics....
"After that we mounted fresh mules, and rode up the valley, by the running water, to the point where it gushes from the hill, or rather mountain, side—a clear stream of considerable power. It rises suddenly from the limestone rock at the foot of Pentadactylon, nearly 3,000 feet high, in the northern range of mountains. No one knows whence it springs; but from the earliest times it has been celebrated, and some writers have asserted that it comes all the way, under the sea, from the mountains of Keramania, in Asia Minor. The effect produced is magical, trees and crops of all kinds flourishing luxuriantly under its fertilizing influence. The village of Kythræa itself nestles in fruit-trees and flowering shrubs, and every wall is covered with maiden-hair fern, the fronds of which are frequently four and five feet long. The current of the stream is used to turn many mills, some of the most primitive character, but all doing their work well, though the strong water-power is capable of much fuller development....
"It was nearly dark when we started to return; and it was with many a stumble, but never a tumble, that we galloped across the stony plain, and reached the camp about seven p.m. Here we found a silk merchant from Nikosia waiting to see us, with a collection of the soft silks of the country, celebrated since the days of Boccaccio. They look rather like poplin, but are really made entirely of silk, three-quarters of a yard in width, and costing about three shillings a yard, the piece being actually reckoned in piastres for price and pies for measurement. The prettiest, I think, are those which are undyed and retain the natural colour of the cocoon, from creamy-white to the darkest gold. Some prefer a sort of slaty grey, of which a great quantity is made, but I think it is very ugly."
In this easy, gossiping manner Lady Brassey ambles on, not telling one anything that is particularly new, but recording what really met her eye in the most unpretending fashion. As a writer she scarcely calls for criticism: she writes with fluency and accuracy, but never warms up into eloquence, and her reflections are not less commonplace than her style. As a traveller she deserves the distinction and popularity she has attained. It would seem that in her various cruises she has accomplished some 12,000 miles—in itself no inconsiderable feat for an English lady; but the feat becomes all the more noteworthy when we find that, instead of being, as we would naturally suppose, "at home on the sea," and wholly untouched by the suffering it inflicts on so many, she has always been a victim. Entering the harbour of Valetta on her homeward voyage, she writes:—"I think that at last the battle of eighteen years is accomplished, and that the bad weather we have so continually experienced since we left Constantinople, comprising five gales in eleven days, has ended by making me a good sailor. For the last two days I have really known what it is to feel absolutely well at sea, even when it is very rough, and have been able to eat my meals in comfort, and even to read and write, without feeling that my head belonged to somebody else."[37]
