It is supposed that Idalium is one of the largest and richest treasuries of the dead in Cyprus. For several centuries the tombs had been excavated and pillaged in the hopes of discovering objects of value. The first robbers were those who were simply influenced by the gold and other precious ornaments which were accompaniments of the corpse; the modern despoilers were resurrectionists who worked with the object of supplying any museums that would purchase the funeral spoil. It is a curious contradiction in our ideas of propriety, which are measured apparently by uncertain intervals of time, that we regard as felonious a man who disinters a body and steals a ring from the fingers of the corpse a few days after burial in an English churchyard, but we honour and admire an individual who upon a wholesale scale digs up old cemeteries and scatters the bones of ancient kings and queens, princes, priests, and warriors, and having collected the jewellery, arms, and objects of vanity that were buried with them, neglects the once honoured bones, but sells the gold and pottery to the highest bidder. Sentiment is measured and weighed by periods, and as grief is mitigated by time, so also is our respect for the dead, even until we barter their ashes for gold as an honourable transaction. The most important object of antiquity that has been recently discovered by excavations at Dali is the statue of Sargon, king of Assyria, 707 B.C., to whom the Cypriote kings paid tribute. This was sent to the Berlin Museum by Mr. Hamilton Lang, and is described in his interesting work upon Cyprus during the term of several years' consulship. The ruins of ancient cities offer no attraction to the traveller in this island, as nothing is to be seen upon the surface except disjointed stones and a few fallen columns of the commonest description. The destruction has been complete, and if we wish to make discoveries, it is necessary to excavate to a considerable depth; but as all such explorations are prohibited, the subject remains fruitless. General di Cesnola, whose work upon the antiquities of Cyprus must remain unrivalled, describes the tombs as from forty to fifty-five feet beneath the present surface, and even those great depths had not secured them from disturbance, as many that he opened had already been ransacked by former explorers. On the 7th of February the thermometer at eight A.M. was only 40 degrees. The oxen were put into their yokes, and after a discussion concerning the best route to Lefkosia, it was agreed that Georgi should be the responsible guide, as he was a native of the country.