Some persons have attributed the cause of unhealthiness to the existence of the trenches made by the Turks during the siege in 1571, which are considered to emit malarious exhalations. I do not think so; all these low levels, surrounded by high banks which protect the crops from wind, are most carefully cultivated with beans, cereals, cotton, and garden produce, and I do not believe that successful gardens are malarious, but only those localities where water is allowed to become stagnant, in which case cultivation must be a failure. Many of these rich bottoms were at one time valuable as "madder" grounds, and Consul White states that in 1863 good madder-root land at Famagousta was worth 90 pounds per acre. It may not be generally known that the indelible dye called "Turkey red" was formerly produced from the madder-root, but that it has been entirely superseded by the chemical invention known as "alizarine," which, by reducing the price in a ruinous degree, has driven the vegetable substance out of the market, and the madder is no longer cultivated. This chemical discovery has lowered the rich, deep, sandy loams of Famagousta and of Morphu to a mere average agricultural value, and has completely destroyed an important local industry. The madder-root required three years before it arrived at maturity. From Consul Riddell's report in 1872, the amount of madder exported reached 330 tons, of which 250 tons were shipped for Great Britain. The same authority reports in 1873, "The falling-off, however, in the quantity sent to Great Britain is remarkable, being only 230 cwts. (11.5 tons)." This disappearance of a special agricultural industry has been an enormous loss to the proprietors of the madder-lands. The fruit-orchards and gardens of Famagousta are the finest in the island. The land is extremely rich, and of a bright chocolate colour, but the trees are, as usual in Cyprus, planted too close to each other, which interferes with the necessary light and circulation of air. These gardens commence just outside the walls, and, running parallel with the sea below the large village of Varoschia, extend for about two miles along the shore. Oranges, lemons, pomegranates, apricots, figs, prickly pears and mulberry-trees, are the chief products, and it was here that we obtained the largest and best oranges that I had tasted in the island; generally this fruit is much inferior to the varieties imported into England. The pomegranates of Cyprus are very celebrated, and are exported to Egypt, but it is a fruit that is not generally appreciated by Europeans. There are extensive gardens inland, but they do not convey the idea of "gardens" as understood by Englishmen, but are merely dense groves of various fruit-trees, irrigated by a cattle-wheel, and planted with an utter disregard of all taste or arrangement.