Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, stands in the centre of the island, on the Plain of the Mesorea, four hundred feet above the sea. It is connected with Larnaca by a carriage-road, which has recently been repaired and rendered available for an omnibus that piles daily between the fort and the capital. This road runs direct to the Channel Squadron Gate (so named by British blue-jackets when they took possession). The wall and gates are strongly built of stone, and are in good preservation, although traces of neglect and decay are to be met with everywhere around. The moslems, as a military people, have made languid and fitful attempts to keep the ramparts in repair, while within the walls they appear to have left nothing worth the cost of a siege. The air was tainted close to the gateway, for animals were being slaughtered in an enclosed space hard by. The poor, make-shift abodes in the immediate neighborhood are strangely at variance with relics of the ancient magnificence of Nicosia; and the motley crowd that now-a-days passes to and fro through the massive archway, would form a striking contrast to the chivalrous bands that followed in the train of the Lusignan Princes when the town became a royal residence. A writer of the fourteenth century states that the nobility of Cyprus were, at that time, the richest in the world. But they have passed away, and their wealth and fame are almost forgotten. What of their descendants? The writer heard a poor muleteer (a man of the fine physique and courtly bearing) boast that he was a descendant of one of the most noble families of Cyprus. Merja sent me this nice maxi card.
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