If we are asked what is the political condition of Cyprus, we can only say that it is busied with small matters, in important affairs it is all baseness and subserviency. No one can deny to the modern Greeks the possession of political cunning. Nevertheless, in the great and necessary virtue of obedience, they are altogether wanting, and officers and soldiers will discuss and quarrel over political questions, forgetting that it is the duty of the one to command and of the other to obey. No sooner is an important proclamation issued, than it becomes the subject of criticism, and mockery, but no one thinks of obeying it. The modern Greek is one of the slyest, most active, and most persevering of rascals, but his efforts are all for the purpose of over-reaching his antagonist, and cheating the State. In like manner, barefaced simony is practised throughout the Eastern churches. The whole country is full of combinations and parties, not employed in establishing principles, but merely in endeavouring to obtain power in order to reward their partisans with places and emoluments. These evils cast so deep a shadow over the modern Greek that the few bright points remaining—hospitality, public spirit, courage, and patriotism—almost disappear in the general gloom. In ancient times the effeminacy and luxury of the Cypriotes had passed into a proverb. The worship of Venus assumed the character of unbridled sensuality, and the young of both sexes, brought up in the midst of these luxurious festivals, soon learnt to look upon pleasure as the end and aim of their existence. Clearcus de Soli gives the following account of the effeminate manners of the Cyprian kings: He says, “There were women attached to the household of the ladies of the royal family who were called ‘Flatterers;’ at a later date their name was changed to ‘Clemacides,’ because they were in the habit of curving their backs into a sort of step for the use of the ladies as they got into, and came down from, their litters.” Clearcus speaks angrily of this abject and despicable practice, which tended to increase the indolence and luxuriousness of the princesses who kept these women. “But,” he adds, “these ‘Clemacides,’ after having spent the early part of their lives in the midst of luxury and refinement, are left to an old age of misery. Decency will not allow me to relate to what degree of libertinism these women brought the princesses and ladies of the court. I will only add that practising upon themselves and upon others all sorts of abominable witchcraft, they offered by their shameful conduct a spectacle of the most repulsive vice.”