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unhealthiness of the air. The inhabitants have a kind of small house covered with earth ili which they put their wheat and live by day in summer, but at night they put their beds in the courts and gardens to cool themselves. These beds and tenta they leave always hanging on the branches of trees, for they have no fear of thieves, since the law is well observed and one sleeps in safety. There is another reason why they make their houses low and almost level with the soil, because there are often earthquakes, and if they made great buildings they would generally sway and totter. In this island there is much sugar and cinnamon, much silk which the worms make, many mulberries, trees which provide food for the silkworms : there is likewise a groat abundance of white salt. There is a port in the island which is ruined ; it is called the port of Lazarus, and near it is a village called La mach a, and this stretches along the valley near the shore of a great lake, where is a great quantity of saltpans containing nearly two miles of soft water. And this water looks as it were frozen and congealed, for the sun's heat dries it and makes it settle in this way. And this water yields salt which would sntfice for the whole world. One sees there more than thirty heaps of salt as large as mountains. Some persons ascribe it to a miracle of Lazarus, who one day passing there, and desirous for the great heat that raged to quench his thirst, begged a woman who was there to give him a bunch of grapes, or some liquor to appease his thirst, and the woman gave him some salt earth, on which account the spot and the country teems with salt, but less with vines. Description of the toivtis in the island of Cyprus. Cyprus is ennobled with four famous cities: the first is called Nicosia, which is the metropolis, Famagosta, Nimosso, Paphos, and several others. Nicosia the metropolis is ennobled with the body of Monsieur S. Jehan de Montfort, from whose tomb drops sweet manna. Paphos was of old a great and holy city, of which the earliest name was Cyprus, from which the whole island took its name; just as Candia is a town, city and island. So Paphos too is a city, and the country of Cyprus is called likewise Paphos, ami the whole island is called in Holy Writ Cethin. There used to be there a church belonging to the Friars Minor, which seems to have been formerly of great size, and to have had seven doors. It was of the time when Monsieur S. Paul preached, and his companion was Monsieur S. Barnabas. Some men say that the Maccabees were there martyred. There is in this island great abundance of silver and copper, and there is it said was discovered the use of copper; on all sides the island is gii't and surrounded by mountains, very high and difficult to climb. [Among them is the mountain of the Holy Cross,] thirty miles from Faina gosta, as much from Nicosia, sixteen miles from Salins. On the summit of the said mountain there is a little chapel entirely covered in front with silver, which a Frenchman caused to be made at his cost. It is seven feet long and five broad, and it is said that many miracles are wrought there. It is said that herein is the cress of Jesus Christ which was found to be too narrow; others say that it is a portion of the Cross of our Lord ; others say that it is the cross of the good thief. Whereof God knows, and Ho is judge of all. This island with its towns was altogether destroyed and demolished, and the king of Cyprus put to flight by a king of England, for that the king of Cyprus had done violence to the wife of the said king of England while making the voyage to Jerusalem, and this was the reason that since that time it has had no king of its own, but has ever been subject to strangers. Tuesday, June 18, the feast of SS. Marens and Marcelliauiis, towards night we embarked on the gripe of M. Constantino de Scio, captain, with whom we had made an agreement to take and carry the thirteen persons of onr company from the port of S. Lazarus as far as Jerusalem, and generally through all the Holy Laud and Holy Places: in return for which tì4 EXCERPTA CYPRIA.

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