Although I received every politeness from the inhabitants, who appeared to think I had some official mission, it was not difficult to trace a general tone of complaint and dissatisfaction, which was perfectly natural under the existing regime. Although nothing could exceed the pains taken by Sir Garnet Wolseley and all his officials to introduce reforms for the general welfare of the people, the task was simply impossible where various interests were conflicting, and no HYBRID government could at once destroy existing abuses and at the same time establish laws suitable to all classes. This general reform required an independent administration, untrammelled by mongrel relations with the Turk, and equally free from the vexatious labyrinths of English jurisprudence. I do not wish to catalogue the long list of grievances which have been entrusted to my unwilling ears, but there are some which are so utterly destructive to the interests of the country and the government, that I have no hesitation in describing them. The great trade of Limasol is wine, as the district exhibits the industry first encouraged by the Venetians; this, as the great money-producing cultivation, opposed to Mussulman prejudices, has been burdened with extortionate taxation and restrictions, which have not yet been relieved by the British administration. CHAPTER X. THE WINE DISTRICT OF LIMASOL. In the fifteenth century the Cyprian vines were selected for the now celebrated vineyards of Madeira; nothing can better exemplify the standard of industry and consequent prosperity than the vine, when we regard the identical plant in the hands of the Portuguese and in its original home in Cyprus under the Turkish administration. The first historical notice of the vine occurs when Noah, stranded upon Mount Ararat, took advantage, upon the first subsidence of the waters, to plant a vineyard; and, according to the curt biblical description, it grew, produced, and the wine intoxicated the proprietor, all within a few days. It may not have occurred to the wine trade that this biblical fact proves that the consumption of wine had been among the first assumed necessities of the human race; if Noah's first impulse upon landing suggested the cultivation of the vine, he was restoring to the world a plant that had been considered so absolutely important that he must have provided himself with either buds or cuttings in great quantities when he selected his animals for the Ark BEFORE the Deluge. If this is true, the use of wine must have been pre-historical, and its abuse historical; the two purposes having continued to the present day. It may therefore be acknowledged that no custom has been so universal and continuous as the drinking of wine from the earliest period of human existence. The vine is a mysterious plant; it is so peculiarly sensitive that, like a musical instrument which produces harmony or discord at the hands of different performers, the produce of the same variety is