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1(>2 EXCERPTA C'YPRIA. many (if them put on the caps and clothes of Christians, many fled to the fortress of Nicosia j because Famagosta was in ruins, and they determined to surrender without a struggle. The Governor of the island and the Commandant of Famagosta sent three chawushes to thç Grand Signor, to lay before him the peril and need of Cypvns. The panic spread througb Constantinople, and it was said that in all Cyprus the garrison consisted of only two thousand soldiers and eight hundred horses, so that with all speed five hundred Janissaries were sent overland, and by sea five galleys and five horseboats, to transport men and horses froiii Ciucia. A similar reinforcement was despatched to Rhodes, and orders for the Bey of Rhodes to return at once to that island, who left with four galleys. The Grand Signo* feared greatly that he would lose both islands with their dependencies. May Christ our Lord make their ways dark and slippery, and the angel of the Lord, pursuing them. There then Reverend Father, my kind reader, you have all that happeuol in the two cities of Nicosia and Famagosta, set down with all exactness and truth. May Christ our Lord hear it of His Grace to the profit of Christians, and to the praise of H s Divine Majesty: and that right soon, so that we poor wretches may see with our own ey^s our unhappy country restored to the Catholic and Orthodox Faith, under the true Chi3f Shepherd and His vicar upon earth. Let us pray then that His Divine Majesty may graifc us this in His loving kindness and mercy, that we may be able to ascribe glory, laud a\d honour to God Almighty for ever and ever. Amen. THE END. PORCACCHI. Tommaso Poreaeclii was born at Castiglione, near Arezzo, removed to Venice in 1559, and, iindiir a home with the Counts of Savorgnano, dieci there in 1585. He was an extremely voluminous wrijr; a scholar, who provider! the famous Gioliti press with editions of many elassical Greek authors, jjd notes, corrections and illustrations for others: a poet, antiquarian, genealogist, geographer: and the editar of a collection of remarkable Sermons, lint lie is probably best known by his descriptions ofthe most famous islands of the world, which were collected, illustrated with maps, and published in 157tDy Girolamo Porro, a Paduan. Of this work, entitled L'I/toìe più /amane del mondo, four editions were iss^d in forty-live years. Our translation is made from the second, printed at Venice, in quarto, lgo, pp. 144—153. Poreaeclii tells us (that his accounts were corrected by those given bim orally by mariners nd travellers, and they probably represent the best information available in his day. DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OP CYPRUS. Cyprus, an island in the Cnrphatinn Sea, has on the north, at no great distance, he bay of Issus, called also gulf of Laiazzo : on the south the Egyptian Sea, on the west Rhoeg and on the east Syria. Its western coast is less than a hundred miles from Syria, a nigt's sail. The southern side is three hundred from Alexandria in Egypt, four days' sail : nj the same or less from Rhodes. But the northern shore is sixty miles from Caramania. it lies just inside the fourth climatic zone, in the ninth parallel, like Candia. From old t,ies down to the present day it has had various names; it was called Cethin or Cethiua fron its first inhabitant of the same name. Then Cerastin or the horned, from the horned asp w'(C]i

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