valley into two basins similar to those of Syria, the larger of the two lying opposite to the Phoenician coast. The soil consists of black mould, as rich as that of Egypt, and renewed yearly by the overflowing of the Pediaeos and its affluents. Thick forests occupied the interior, promising inexhaustible resources to any naval power. Even under the Koman emperors the Cypriotes boasted that they could build and fit out a ship from the keel to the masthead without looking to resources beyond those of their own island. The ash, pine, cypress, and oak flourished on the sides of the range of Aous, while cedars grew there to a greater height and girth than even on the Lebanon. Wheat, barley, olive trees, vines, sweet-smelling woods for burning on the altar, medicinal plants such as the poppy and the _ladanum_, henna for staining with a deep orange colour the lips, eyelids, palm, nails, and fingertips of the women, all found here a congenial habitat; while a profusion everywhere of sweet-smelling flowers, which saturated the air with their penetrating odours--spring violets, many-coloured anemones, the lily, hyacinth, crocus, narcissus, and wild rose--led the Greeks to bestow upon the island the designation of "the balmy Cyprus." Mines also contributed their share to the riches of which the island could boast. Iron in small quantities, alum, asbestos, agate and other precious stones, are still to be found there, and in ancient times the neighbourhood of Tamassos yielded copper in such quantities that the Romans were accustomed to designate this metal by the name "Cyprium," and the word passed from them into all the languages of Europe. It is not easy to determine the race to which the first inhabitants of the island belonged, if we are not to see in them a branch of the Kefatiu, who frequented the Asiatic shores of the Mediterranean from a very remote period. In the time of Egyptian supremacy they called their country Asi, and this name inclines one to connect the people with the AEgeans.* An examination of the objects found in the most ancient tombs of the island seems to confirm this opinion. These consist, for the most part, of weapons and implements of stone--knives, hatchets, hammers, and arrow-heads; and mingled with these rude objects a score of different kinds of pottery, chiefly hand-made and of coarse design--pitchers with contorted bowls, shallow buckets, especially of the milk-pail variety, provided with spouts and with pairs of rudimentary handles. * "Asi," "Asii," was at first sought for on the Asiatic continent--at Is on the Euphrates, or in Palestine: the discovery of the Canopic decree allows us to identify it with Cyprus, and this has now been generally done. The reading "Asebi" is still maintained by some. [Illustration: 294.jpg Map of Cyprus]