liar to this island, is Kantara, from whose walls you survey the Karpass to the east, the Mesaoria and the Bay of Famagusta to the south; and to the north, beyond the intervening sea, the snow-capped mountains of Asia Minor. Farther westward, beyond Homerically named Pentedactylos, the "fivefingered peak," comes impregnable Buffavento, rearing its turrets in defiance of the winds on the very summit of the ridge. Still farther to the west is S. Hilarion or Dieu d'Amour, also known in common with Buffavento and Kantara to the Turkish peasantry as yüz bir ev, a hundred and one houses, and to the Orthodox by its Greek equivalent of ἑκατὸν σπίτια. But before saying more of S. Hilarion, I would gladly halt for a moment at Khalevga, which is best reached from the village of Kythraea, fortunate possessor of a bountiful and perennial spring. From Kythraea it is a ride of two hours along a mountain track to this delicious forest bower. First you pass the little plateau of Phylleri, rich in secular olive-trees and hidden from the view of the plain in a fold of the slopes of Pentedactylos. You then enter a narrow defile and emerge into a thickly-wooded glade of surpassing beauty, set astride the saddle of the ridge. This is Khalevga, beloved of the chosen few who know it as a place of pure delight, an enchanted nook well worthy of the "Enchanted Island." To the south lies spread below you the full expanse of the Mesaoria, with Troodos in the background, and in the foreground the white road winding its way into Nicosia, encompassed in its greenery. All this is pleasant enough; but to the north the view beggars description. On either hand the fantastic curves and precipitous slopes of the Kyrenia Mountains, capped with medieval castles, delightfully wooded, infinitely varied, deeply indented by valleys red with oleander. Below them a narrow strip of fertile land, well covered with olive and caroub trees and dotted with prosperous villages glistening in the sunlight. Then forty miles of amaranthine sea, and finally the long line of the Karamanian Taurus, snow-clad and majestic. And what of Khalevga itself, whence all this may be seen! A green paradise, cool and redolent of pine and cypress and wild myrtle and a hundred fragrant woodland shrubs, nestling against the peak of Qartal Dagh, the home, as its name implies in Turkish, of innumerable eagles. Around you, all covered with boscage, are lesser crags, where the wood-pigeons have their haunt; at your feet a carpet of ranunculus and anemones, wild hyacinth and violets and sweet-scented cyclamen. It is a place of quiet, undisturbed by human habitation other than the forest hut that gives you shelter. Faintly in the distance you may hear the there are busy except the bees, who make the honey for which the place is famous. The grey walls of this ancient retreat, pierced by narrow Gothic windows, are truly in keeping with the Kyrenia Mountains, that perfect blend of sylvan beauties and medieval art. A delicious place in spring, I am not sure that Khalevga is not yet more enthralling in winter. In spring there are the flowers and the young green, rosy-fingered dawn and nacreous twilight; but in winter there is something about these mountains that appeals, to me at least, even more forcibly than vernal charms. Snow falls but rarely on the Kyrenia Mountains, but, even 80, the cold exhilarating winter weather makes it a joy to be alive; and you can see as much snow as you want on Troodos and on the mountains of Karamania across the strait. In the afternoon Scotch mists climb slowly along the chain of mountain-tops, and as they gather round Qartal Dagh and his fellows, cloak them in a shroud of mystery. And in the evening, after a long day's tramp over the hills to the village of Khartja, or to the crumbling monastery of Antiphonétissa, you return to a roaring fire of olive wood and pine-cones on the stoep of the forest-hut, and, well content, sip a glass of the fragrant liqueur brewed by the monks of Kykko. Of the three castles on the summit of the range, it is difficult to say which is the most beautiful. In site as in architecture all three are fantastic, improbable, unreal, too ethereal, too fairy-like, to seem anything but the castles of dreamland or of a mirage. Buffavento, whose very name is pure romance, has the most challenging position, but is the least well preserved. Kantara, best seen from the north, where its turrets tower two thousand feet above the coast, has the noblest views, with the sea to the north and south of it; to the west the semicircle of the Kyrenia range sweeping with its line of jagged mountain-tops into the dim blue distance of Cape Kormakiti; to the east its saw-like ridge dropping with graceful diminuendo towards Cape Andreas. On the whole, perhaps, S. Hilarion is the most picturesque, for it was not only, like the other two, a stronghold intended as a place of refuge in times of stress, but was also the summer retreat, the Windsor, of the Kings and Queens of the House The tilting of Lusignan. ground, where the nobles jousted on their scarlet-tailed chargers, is easily discernible in the hollow below the barbican; and from the mullioned windows of the "Queen's Lodging you may still look past Karmi village upon one of the fairest landscapes in the world. Nay more, S. Hilarion is connected with the oldest of Cyprian myths. The early history of Cyprus is lost in the mists of antiquity; but there is reason to believe that Aphrodite, by all accounts a goddess of discernment, rose from the sea on the drifts of white foam which to this day are borne by the breeze on to the rocky shore of Paphos; and that, having chosen this delectable island for her realm, she further selected the castle of Dieu d'Amour in which to give birth to her son Eros. It is true that the antiquary will find little in the existing buildings to confirm this belief; and there are pedants callous enough to maintain that Dieu d'Amour is a Frankish corruption of Didymos, which, they say, was the ancient name of the twin crests now occupied by the castle. If we grant, however, that Eros was born somewhere, then, clearly, S. Hilarion, or Dieu d'Amour, or Didymos (let us not quarrel with the pedants), must have been the place. And as Cyprus is a land of bees, here, probably, was the scene of the disaster of which Anacreon sings in the ode beginning Ερως ποτ' ἐν ῥόδοισιν κοιμωμένην μέλιτταν οὐκ εἶδεν· ἀλλ' ἐτρώθη τὸν δάκτυλον. are S. Hilarion overlooks, in the strip of land at the foot of the northern slope of the mountains, one of the most charming regions of Cyprus. Here the olive and caroub trees ampler than elsewhere, the verdure richer; elsewhere the cyclamen "never blows so red.” It has been well said that, while there is a certain austerity about the rest of Cyprus, the Kyrenia coast recalls the richness of Italy. True, this narrow strip of country between the mountains and the sea resembles Italy, but that Italy which is half Greece both in name and speech and scene Magna Græcia; even more does it resemble certain regions of Sicily. Here, as at Girgenti and in the parts about Táranto, sea and sky are of a sharp clear blue, olives silvery, cypresses of the deepest green. Anemone and cyclamen carpet the ground, gladiolus and wild iris mingle with the growing corn, rosemary and thyme and cistus perfume the air. Beneath a stone-pine the neatherd plays the pan-pipe to his flock plays doleful strains in the Dorian mode; from the myrtlescented hillside is heard, as if in echo, the cadence of the peasant's mélopée ἐκεῖ χάριτες, ἐκεῖ δὲ πόθος. Here might Theocritus have sought inspiration for his idylls no less than in his Syracusan groves and in his mossy glades beside the Anapus; here, by a spring half-veiled with fern, have sung of Daphnis and Menalcas and rustic loves. Below Hilarion lies the pretty seaport of Kyrenia, in whose massive castle the daughter of the only Emperor of Cyprus sought refuge from Richard Cœur de Lion, and Queen Charlotte, the last legitimate sovereign of the House of Lusignan, held out for four years against her bastard brother James. Three miles to the east is the Abbey of Bella Paise, in all likelihood the most important as well as the most beautiful monument of the Latin East; to the west, Lapethos with its monastery of Acheiropoietos, dedicated to the image of Christ "not wrought by the hand of man. A little beyond Lapethos, tucked away in the northwest corner of the island, are the four villages inhabited for centuries by colonies of Maronites from the Lebanon; above them lies the monastery of Myrtou, at one time the seat of the Bishops of Kyrenia. Of the beauties of Bella Paise it is beyond my powers to give an adequate description: paints and not phrases are the medium for the purpose. In a delightful paper on "Some Aspects of Cyprus," Sir Anton Bertram has compared Bella Paise with Tintern; but with what can Tintern match the sweeping curve of mountains, the blue sea and distant Asian ranges, the groves of oranges and lemons, and the stone-work tinged with gold ? Of a different kind are the attractions of the mountains which occupy most of the southwestern part of the island. Their summits, higher but less abrupt than those of the Kyrenia Mountains, are covered with fragrant pine forests, not with castles; no Gothic abbeys lurk in their deep and rugged valleys. In the Kyrenia Mountains nature and art compete with the happiest results; in the others, only a humble Byzantine mountain church, with its peculiar timber roof, seconds, here and there, the efforts of nature. The culmination of this mountainous region-it can hardly be called a range is one of the Olympi of antiquity— Πιερία μουσειος ἕδρα, σεμνὰ κλιτὺς Ὀλύμπου, now Mount Troodos, the summer station of the Cyprus Government and the troops. Troodos, to quote Sir Anton Bertram, is all "pine - trees, bracken, and red earth, and beneath you, wherever you look, is an undescribable view, to which distance lends the proverbial quality of enchantment." Over to the northwest you look towards the wild and densely-wooded region of Tylliria, last refuge of the sect of Linobambakoi (Flax-cottons or Linsey-woolseys), who compromise between Christianity and Islam by keeping the names and ceremonies of both faiths. Towards the south, where the salt-lake of Limasol his lady and return with her glimmers in the distance six thousand feet below, you overlook mountains and foothills covered with vineyards; for Cyprus produces much wine, and some of its vintages have become famous. Of these is the dessert wine known as Comanderia, because produced from vineyards which once were part of the Grand Commandery of the Knights of S. John in Cyprus. An old French belief ascribes to this same region the origin of champagne; and as the story is little known, I may perhaps be allowed to tell it here. In the thirteenth century Thibaut IV., Count of Champagne, returning from a Crusade, stopped in the island on his homeward journey to visit his cousin, Queen Alice of Cyprus. During his sojourn in the island a young noble of the King's Court was condemned to death for having stolen by night into the apartments of the Queen's Ladies, among whom was his betrothed. Count Thibaut, as befitted a Troubadour prince, looked indulgently on offences of this kind, and begged that the life of the guilty one might be spared. His request was granted on the condition that he took the offender with him to Champagne; and in due course Thibaut, accompanied by his protégé, arrived at his castle of Troyes. But soon the young swain fell ill of pining for his sweetheart, and the tenderhearted Count sent him back to Cyprus, bidding him marry to Champagne. More than a year elapsed, and the Count began to think that his friend had forgotten him, when a young man and woman were announced at the castle gate, seeking admittance. They were the knight and his lady, now happily wedded, and bringing from Cyprus gifts in token of their gratitude to the Count. The damsel's offering was a rose-bush, which has produced the sweet-smelling rose of Provins; that of the young man was a bunch of cuttings from the best vines of Olympus, which, as they multiplied on the chalky cliffs of the Marne, gave the wine of champagne to France. A sunset from Troodos over Panagia Hill and Paphos is a spectacle not to be forgotten. As seen from the white rock of Asprókremnos, it is for all the world like the sunset of a Japanese print. The Laricio pines, their tops stunted and deformed by the masses of snow under which they are weighted throughout the winter, have assumed dwarfed and fantastic shapes which, together with their deep green deeper than that of the Aleppo pine of the lower levels,-contrasted with the equally deep crimson of the rapidly sinking sun, produce effects in colouring and design such as are seen in the works of Hiroshige. The wild valleys that run down to the south-west, Stavros and Ayià, are the haunts of the vanishing and elusive mouffion, far |