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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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MALLOCK W.
In an enchanted island
page 212

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THE NATURAL GOODNESS OF MAN 209 thinking of them, so I did not let them trouble me, and I had forborne purposely asking my guide any questions about them. This visit to a prison was, I said to myself, very different to the one which had darkened for me a whole day at Nicosia. Care, however, in one form had been dogging my footsteps even here, and the form it took was doubt as to this delicate question—Was my guide a person who would expect what is vulgarly called a ' tip ' ? Or was his position so high, that even to offer it would be an insult ? Having been troubled with this problem for some considerable time, I at last determined to solve it in the following way. I intended, if possible, though this intention was not fulfilled, to pay another visit to the castle ; so I told my guide to expect me again shortly, meaning meanwhile to enquire how I should treat him. ' I hope,' I said to him at parting, ' I shall find you here on my return.' In his melancholy refined eyes I saw the dawn of a smile. ' Certainly, sir,' he said, ' you are sure to find me. I am a prisoner.' Mr. St. John, whom I asked about this gentleman afterwards, told me that he was the nephew of a rich Greek merchant in Liverpool ; that he had been in his uncle's office, who had privately dismissed him for embezzlement ; that he had then run off with the wife of one of his friends ; that then he had come to Cyprus, where he had got himself employed by the Government ; that presently he took to embezzling money again ; and that the Government, not deterred Ρ

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