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PREFACE ΓΤ1ΗΕ papers collected and arranged in this volume, some of which were first printed between 1892 and 1895 as a supplement to the Chol, a newspaper published at Nicosia, comprise extracts and translations from books treating of Cyprus, travels, histories and others. Some of these are rare, others costly or cumbrous, and most of them are, in Cyrjrus at least, difficult of access. Of some too the language is not seldom a bar to comfortable and profitable study. I have tried to give translations which, while rigidly exact, will preserve something of the spirit and form of the original. The omissions are few, and generally indicated, but in no case has anything been excluded which directly concerns the island. The names of persons and places are left in the authors' spelling. To each extract is prefixed a brief note, giving a few particulars concerning the book and its writer, and the date of his visit to Cyprus. To have added notes in correction or supplement of statements found in the several texts would have been to re-write the history of Cyprus. More capable and younger hands than mine must undertake that task. But to this future historian these Excerpta will at least give in a single language and in one volume what eighty different writers have left in twelve tongues. For so much trouble saved I claim his thanks. " C'est la matière de l'histoire nue et infoime; chacun en peut faire son profit autant qu'il a d'entendement." MONTAIGNE M. 10. C. D. C. LARNACA, CYPRUS. March, 1908.

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