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l'OCOCKE. DRUMMONl). 2-1 DBUMMOND. Alexander Drammone!, Esquire, His Majesty's Consul at Aleppo, published in London, in folio, In 1754, under the title of Travels through different cities of Germany, Italy, Greece and several parts of Asia, a series of familiar letters addressed to his brother and other friends. He started from London May 11, 1744, and reached Larnaca March β, 1746, leaving Cyprus again on May 15 for Alcxandretta and Aleppo. He returned to make a second short tour in the island in April, 1750. In transcribing from Letters VI.. VII., Vili, and XIII. I have excised somewhat freely paragraphs which interrupted the now of the writer's narrative, and otherwise seemed prolix and dull. Generally indeed his industry is more noteworthy than bis taste. The piastre of 1750 may be taken as an eighth of the pound sterling. We sailed from Tripuli ou the fourth of March, in the evening ; aud though we kept α sharp look-out for the French, against whom our minds were embittered with resentment, we reaped no advantage from our vigilance ; and, without having met with any adventure or accident in the passage, we arrived in Salines road on the sixth, before noon, when I went np to the town of Lamica, to dine with Mr Consul Wakeman. It is by many supposed that this island was a peninsula, joined to Syria, somewhere between Antioch and Alexandret-ta ; and that it was separated from the continent, when the Euxine forced ite way through the Thracian Bosphorus, overflowed the Archipelago, and made dreadful havock on the circumjacent coasts. This, however, is a doubtful fact, which the geographers mnst settle among themselves : at present, I am sure it is an island ; and if ever it was otherwise, it must have been a violent flood indeed, that could sweep away from twenty-five to thirty leagues of land : for the north-east point of Cyprus, nearest to Syria, is at that distance from the continent, and there is an immense depth of water between them. Upon the west, north, east, and south of this island, are the Mediterranean, Syrian and ./Egyptian seas; the length of it is from sixty to seventy leagues, the breadth about eighteen to twenty leagues, at a medium; but, as above one third of the length to the north-east from hence, is no more than a tongue of land, if I may be allowed the expression, the circumference of the whole will not amount to one hundred and sixty leagues, unless the bays are surrounded, for the figure of it is conical. Though the natives were always remarkably effeminate and lazy, certain it is, they cultivated the island so as to be enriched by ite produce : indeed much industry and labour Avas not required (though water is greatly wanted) for the soil in general is incomparably fertile ; not a chalk, as I was formerly made to believe, but an excellent clay, which hardens in summer; yet by the wretched culture which it now receives from the miserable inhabitants, the earth, where any moisture is left, produces everything that is sown ; and, though there is not (properly speaking) α river in the whole island, I am fully persuaded, that, if it were in the hands of the English, or Dutch, they would make such advantageous use of the springs, rivulets, and winter rains, that it would in a little time, become the gardeu of the east, and exhibit beautiful plantations for the shelter of the cattle and ground. Cyprus, we are told, was for a considerable time divided into nine districts, and governed by as many princes; then it fell under the Egyptian yoke, and continued subject to the sovereigns of that country, until Publius Clodius, famous for his amour with Caesar's wife, as well as for his enmity to Cicero, and his profligate life, conceived a grudge against

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