New-York tribune., 1909-05-15
CYPRUS OLD AND NEW.
Il Study of Its antiquities and It's
Present Problems.

MY EN- EAPktiIENGE III OF CYPRUS; Being an Ac-
ties. Antiquities and History of the Island OF
Present Economic and Political Problems
which affect the Island Dependency of the
British Empire BY Basil Stewart. Illustrated.
l2mo. PIP xii. 26S. Il. P. Dutton Co.
When Lord Beaconsfeld emerged from the
Congress of Berlin with the scalp of Cyprus
hanging to mis- belt he appealed to the galleries
for appreciation and received a cordial hand.
He brought back something where nothing was
expected. The master magician made II appear
that England had won a great diplomatic tri-
umph, and even the judicious were led to sup
pose that the island had some mysterious
strategic value by way of safeguarding the gate
way 70 India. and that another nail had been
driven into the coffin of Russias ambition A
whole generation has gone by and little has been
done to show that Cyprus has any strategic
value whatever. To be sure the status of
Egypt has changed in the mean while, but so far
from the island being a strategic point of count
less worth the average observer finds IT, in
plain language gold brick, what another
writer anent Cyprus once called patchwork of
unrelated parts Mr.. Stewards readable little
volume is not particularly concerned with the
political aspects of the island. but rather with
it's historical and archaeological associations;
the tribulations of travel among medieval folk
afford him abundant source of amused COM
ment, and he has the satisfaction of writing a
book about region rich in tradition yet little
known and less frequented. The climate of
Cyprus is pestilential in summer and irving and
enervating in winter. Mosquitoes and malaria
are prevalent, and IT is pronounced indubitabIy
the most unhealthy place in the Mediterranean
Among its specialties locusts and drouth a
species of affiiction against which 1t is almost
useless to contend AS for the provision of COM
fort for tourists. matters seem to be at a dead
lock; hotels are poor because travellers are few.
and travellers remain away because the hotels
are so poor. Even the ubiquitous Cook, whose
oyster is the world, has not thought 1t worth
while to open Cyprus
The population is described as composed of
Turks and Greeks The Turks are descended
from the invading conquerors of three centuries
ago, and without energy or capacity for
labor. They are, happily, diminishing The
Greeks have little in common with latter-dav
Greeks many generations of residence on the
island having made them a separate race or
the levantine Greeks, such found all over
the levant as merchants, middlemen and CATS
proprietors. the author speaks with contempt
They are boastful and unreliable, drunkards and
gamblers, and it is they who are promoting an
agitation for annexation to Greece The real
Cvprists are kindly, industrious and deserving
though hopelessy antiquated in their agrI
culture BY the terms of the lease England ia
to pay TO Turkey the annual sum of
nearly 100000 for the privilege of governing
Cyprus. and the extracting of this amount from
its poverty ty-strcken population. together with
the costs of administration and certain i'm