"On one side was the splendid Parthenon, on the other the Erechtheum, with the Porch of Caryatides, called Beautiful, and right well it deserves its name. Six noble columns are still standing. We strolled about for a long time, took some photographs, admired the lovely panoramic view from the top--over the town of Athens to Eleusis, Salamis, and Corinth on one side, and from Mount Pentelicus and Mount Hymettus to the Elysian Fields, till our eyes wandered round by the ancient harbours of Phalisum and Piraeus; back again by the Street of Tombs to Athens, looking more dusty and more grey than ever as we gazed down on its grey-tiled roofs. Even the gardens and palm-trees hardly relieved it. It was nearly three o'clock before we could tear ourselves away." 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.