The ancient prosperity of Cyprus must have been due to artificial irrigation, which ensured a maximum of production, similar to the inundated lands of Egypt. In the latter country the Nile is a "Salvator Mundi," without which Egypt would be a simple prolongation of the Nubian and Libyan deserts, in the absence of a seasonable rainfall. The difference between the great cereal-producing portion of Cyprus and the Delta of Egypt is, that, although the plain of Messaria has been formed chiefly through the action of the Pedias river and other periodical mountain streams, which have deposited a rich stratum of soil during inundations, the rivers are merely torrents, or simple conduits, which carry off the waters of heavy storms, or intervals of rain, and act as drains in conveying the surplus waters during floods; while at other times they are absolutely dry. If the Nile were controlled by a series of weirs or dams, with sluices to divert the high waters of the period into natural depressions within the desert, to form reservoirs at high levels for the supply of Egypt in seasons of scarcity, the command of the water-supply would be far preferable to the chances of rain in the most favoured country. Water, like fire, should be the slave of man, to whom it is the first necessity; therefore his first effort in his struggle with the elements should reduce this power to vassalage. There must be no question of supremacy; water must serve mankind. Many years ago I published, in the Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, my ideas for the control of the Nile and the submersion of the cataracts by a series of weirs, with water-gates for the facility of navigation; which with certain modifications will some day assuredly be carried out, and will render Egypt the most favoured country of the world, as absolute mistress of the river which is now at the same time a tyrant and a slave. The Pedias of Cyprus may during some terrific rainfall assume proportions that would convey a most erroneous impression to the mind of a stranger, who, upon regarding the boiling torrent overspreading a valley of some miles in width in its impetuous course towards ancient Salamis, might conclude that it was a river of the first importance. The fact is that no RIVER exists in Cyprus: what should be rivers are mere channels, watercourses, brooks, torrents, or any of the multifarious names for stream-beds that may be discovered in an English dictionary. At the same time that the natural channels are dry during the summer months, through the want of power in the water-head to overcome the absorption of the porous soil throughout its course, it must not be forgotten that a certain supply exists at the fountain head, within practicable distance, which might be stored and led from the mountains to the lower lands for the purposes of irrigation. When we reflect that in the proverbially wet climate of England there is a considerable difficulty in assuring a supply of wholesome water, and