Having Examined The Neighbourhood Thoroughly, I Changed The Position Of Our Camp And Halted A Mile And A Half Up The Aqueduct On The Higher Side Of The Village, At A Point Where The Water First Issued From Its Subterranean Channel Into The Conduit Of Masonry And Cement.

We thus secured a supply in its original purity, before it should be contaminated by any washing of clothes in passing through the village in an open channel, which from its convenience offered an irresistible invitation.

Such a tempting stream, running through a canal upon a broad wall of masonry open to all comers would, in any European country, have been the natural resort of boys, who would have revelled in the freedom of nakedness and the delight of bathing in forbidden waters; but in Cyprus I have never once seen a person washing himself in public. This is not from any sense of indecent exposure, but from their absolute dislike to the operation. I had subsequently in my service a remarkably fine man who was always carefully dressed, and in fact was quite a dandy in exterior, but during the hot weather when he on one occasion saw my Abyssinian Amarn swimming in the sea, he declared that, "rather than bathe, he would prefer to cut his throat."

I had arranged the camp close to a hawthorn-tree, which was already green in its first spring leaves, and had formed blossom-buds that would open in a few days. There were a considerable number of the same species scattered in the vicinity, but they had been defaced by the mutilations usual throughout Cyprus.

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