CYPitrs. 



CYRE.VAtCA. 



rock-crytid, and various other minerals arc now known to exist, but no 

 mines are allowed to be worked. Salt a made on the sea-shore to 

 the amount of about 10,000 ton* annually. Game and fish are 

 plentiful. The island U infected with snakes, tarantulas, and venomous 

 spiders ; and sometime! almost every green herb and leaf U devoured 

 by clouds of locust* from the neighbouring continent. The climate 

 is cold in winter, owing to the winds that blow from the mountains 

 of Asia Minor and Syria. In the plains the heat of summer is 

 excessive, but it U moderated by the aea breezes ; rain is very rare in 

 summer, and as irrigation is neglected of course there is then very 

 little verdure. Some districts are unhealthy, from want of drainage, 

 and the consequent malaria. The total value of the exporta in 1841 

 was 56,5/., and of the import*, 25,327/. 



Cyprus appear* to have been colonised by the Phoenicians at an 



early period, and the island, or a portion of it, seems to have been 



subject to them even down to the time of Solomon. Their chief 



town Ct'i UM is supposed to have been the most ancient city in Cyprus, 



and to be the Chilli* mentioned in the Old Testament Its ruins are 



seen between Larnaka and its port Salines. Phoenician inscriptions 



have been found in the foundations of a fort, which defended a large 



basin or harbour now nearly filled up. Lieutenant Leycestor (' London 



Geographical Journal,' voL xxii.) found in Cyprus inscriptions of 



the earliest times Cuneiform and Phoenician. Ethiopians are also 



mentioned as forming part of the population, but it ia difficult to say 



exactly who are designated under this name. Greek colonies afterwards 



settled on the coast. According to Strabo it was divided among 



several petty tyrants, who were at times at war with and sometimes 



allied to the neighbouring powers of Asia Minor and Greece. Amasis, 



king of Egypt, invaded Cyprus and took Citiutn ('Herod.,' ii. 162), 



and it was probably he who introduced the Ethiopian or African 



settlers. The island became subject to the Persians (' Herod.,' v. 108), 



and afterwards submitted to Alexander the Great, upon whose death 



it fell with Egypt to the share of Ptolemy the son of Lagus. It 



continued under the Ptolemies, sometimes united with Egypt, and 



sometimes under a separate prince of the same dynasty. The last of 



these princes, brother to Ptolemy Auletes, king of Egypt, incurred 



the enmity of P. Clodius Pulcher, who being taken prisoner by the 



Cilician pirates, sent to the king of Cyprus for money to pay his 



ransom. The king sent a sum which was too little, Clodius having 



recovered his liberty by other means, when he became tribune of the 



people obtained a decree to be passed for reducing Cyprus to a Roman 



province. (Strabo, 684 ; and Dion, xxxviii. 30.) M. Cato was sent 



to take possession of it. The king on hearing of this design put 



himself to death before Cato's arrival. Cato seized upon the treasury, 



which was well filled, and sent a large booty to Rome. Cyprus thus 



became a Roman province. On the division of the empire it fell to 



the lot of the Byzantine emperors, and after several vicissitudes 



became a separate principality under a branch of the Comneni. Richard 



of England took it in 1191, and sold it to the Templars, whose 



oppression drove the people to revolt Richard resumed the 



sovereignty, and gave it to Guy of Lusignan, the expelled king of 



Jerusalem, in 1192. The Lusignans retained it for nearly three 



centuries, which was a flourishing period for Cyprus. John III. of 



Lusignan died in 1468, leaving the kingdom to Charlotte, his only 



legitimate child, who married her cousin Louis, count of Geneva, 



second son of the Duke of Savoy and of Anna of Cyprus. She was 



solemnly crowned at Lefkosia in 1460, but was soon after expelled by 



her natural brother James, assisted by the Mamelukes of Egypt 



James married Catharine Cornaro, the daughter of a Venetian 



merchant, who brought him a dowry of 100,000 gold ducats. On 



this occasion the Venetian senate adopted Catharine Cornaro as 



daughter of St Mark, and the marriage was celebrated in 1471. In 



1473 James died, and his wife soon after was delivered of a son, of 



whom the republic of Venice assumed the guardianship, and Venetian 



troops were sent to garrison the towns of the island. The child 



dying while an infant, the senate persuaded Catharine, in 1489, to 



abdicate the sovereignty in favour of the republic, and to retire to 



Asolo near Treviso, where she lived the rest of her days in a princely 



style on a liberal pension. Meantime Charlotte Lusignan had retired 



to Rome, when she died in 1487, bequeathing her claims to Charles, 



duke of Savoy, in consequence of which the sovereigns of that 



dynasty assume to this day the title of kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem. 



The Venetians kept possession of Cyprus till 1570, when Selim II. 



sot a powerful force to invade the island. The Turks took Lefkosia 



by storm, and massacred shout 20,000 people. They then laid siege 



to FamagosU, which was long and gallantly defended by the proveditor- 



pMral, Marcantomo Bragadino. At last, in August 1671, the 



Venetians were obliged to capitulate, on condition of being sent safely 



bom*. The pasha MosUpha signed the capitulation, but when 



Bragadino with the other Venetian officers repaired to his tout to 



deliver the keys, be had them all sailed and put to death, except 



Bragadino, whom after some days be caused to be led naked to the 



square of FamagosU, when ia the pasha's presence the executioner 



began to fUv him alive. Bragadino expired in the midst of the 



torment*, which he endured to the last with the greatest constancy. 



His kin was filled with straw and hung up to the yard-arm of the 



admiral's vessel, in which Mustapha returned to Constantinople. 



Venice raised a monument to the memory of Bragadino in the 



church of San Giovanni e Paolo, and his relatives after a time 

 ransomed his akin, which was placed in the monument From that 

 lime the Turks have remained in possession of Cyprus. Cyprus now 

 forms a paahalic in the Kyalet of the Djizairs, or islands which are 

 iverned by the Capitan Pasha. 



(Mariti.TVarrk; Paruta, Ifiitoire Vrnetiant ; Botta, Soria <f Italia ; 

 Macgregor, Commercial Statittict ; Dictionary of Greek and Human 

 (ieoyraphy.) 



CYR, ST., a village near Versailles, in France, celebrated for its 

 royal abbey, an institution founded by Louis XIV., at the desire of 

 Madame de Maintenon, for the education of young ladies of noble 

 birth. Previous to the foundation of this establishment, St Cyr was 

 composed only of some peasants' cottages, with the chateau of the 

 lord of the village. The institution was for 250 young ladies who. 

 could show a noble descent of four generations on the father's side : 

 they were received between the ages of seven and twelve years, and 

 maintained, instructed, and furnished with everything till they reached 

 the age of twenty. The girls were instructed by about forty nuns. 

 On quitting the establishment they received a dowry of a thousand 

 crowns. The buildings of the abbey were designed by Jules Hardouiu 

 Mansard, the architect of Louis XIV., and consisted of twelve 

 principal piles of building, forming five courts, with extensive gardens 

 attached. The buildings were commenced in 1685 and completed in 

 a year; 2500 workmen were engaged iu the work. Louis XIV. was in 

 the habit of visiting Madame de Haintenou in a pavilion in the garden ; 

 and in the buildings of the institution the young ladies used to perform 

 the 'Esther' of Racine, whose 'Athalie' was also written fur them, 

 though only performed by them twice, and that without dresses, and 

 not in their theatre. Madame de Maintenon passed the close of her 

 life at St Cyr, and dying there iu 1719, was buried in the choir of 

 the church, where a long epitaph, in French and Latin, was inscribed 

 to her praise. 



This establishment was suppressed at the Revolution, and the 

 buildings were at first devoted to the purpose of a military hospital, 

 subsidiary to the Hotel Royal of Paris. In 1 81 4 Napoleon transferred 

 hither the military school of Fontainebleau, and the restored Bourbons 

 sanctioned the change. The pupils, who are admitted after passing an 

 examination, amount to 350. They enter between the ages of sixteen 

 and twenty, and about 140 leave the institution every year, who aro 

 appointed to regiments as vacancies occur. 



CYRENA'ICA, a region of North Africa, comprehending the country 

 between the Great Syrtis and the Gulf of Platea, now Bomba. The 

 western limits between Cyrenalca and the Carthaginian dominions 

 were fixed at the PbiUenorum Ane at the bottom of the Great Syrtis, 

 and its eastern limits towards Egypt seem to have been about the 

 Catabathuius Major. Cyrene, Teuchiro, and Heaperis were the earliest 

 Greek colonies. Barca was a colony of Cyrene, mixed with Libyan 

 aborigines. Afterwards, under the Ptolemies, Teuchira took the 

 name of Arsinoe, Hesperia was called Berenice, and the port of Barca 

 became the city of Ptolcmai's, and drew to it most of the inhabitants 

 of Barca itself. The port of Cyrene, called Apollonia, became also an 

 important town. From these five cities, Cyrene, Apollonia, Ptolemals, 

 Arsinoc, and Berenice, the country was sometimes called Pentapolis. 

 The interior was peopled by Libyan tribes. There were also other 

 towns mentioned as having existed in this country in the Roman 

 period, such as Darnis, Hadriana, Ncapolis, Thintw, ic. ; but their 

 site is not well ascertained, except Darnis, which is believed to have 

 been where Dema U now. [BABCA.] 



As the traveller approaches Bengazi from the south, leaving Whind 

 the sandy tracts of the Syrtis, which continue to spread inland in an 

 eastern direction, he enters a new region of hills and plains fit fur 

 cultivation, and covered with vegetation. The coast stretches to the 

 north-east, forming a curvilinear projection which advances into the 

 Mediterranean, between the Great Syrtis to the west and the Gulf of 

 Bomba to the east The chord of this curve from Bengazi to Bomba 

 is about 160 miles, but the sweep of the coast is above 200 miles. A 

 ridge of mountains from 800 to 1 1 00 feet high begins to the south-east 

 of Bengazi, and extends to the north-east in a diagonal direction to 

 the shore, being distant from Bengazi about fourteen miles, from 

 Teuchira five miles, from Ptolometa about two miles, and then comes 

 close to the sea at Ras Sem, continuing along the coast to Apollonia, 

 and as far as Dema. Farther inland is another range, nearly 2000 feet 

 above the sea, which forms the plateau on which Cyreue stood, and 

 which declines gradually towards the east, and blends with the lower 

 one near Cape Bujebara. It then joins the mountains of Akabah el 

 Kebir, the CaUbathmus Major (Greater Acclivity) of the ancients, 

 which run through Marmarica in a south-east direction to the Oasis: 

 of Siwah. To the south and south-west the mountains of Cyrene 

 lope gradually to the level of the Libyan Desert and of the sandy 

 tract which borders the Great Syrtis. According to Pacho, the 

 greatest breadth of the hilly region from north to south is between 

 seventy and eighty miles. Towards the north both the higher and 

 lower ridges are frequently broken by deep wads, or chasms, through 

 which the winter torrents rush to the sea. In these chasms or valleys 

 grow a vast number of pine-trees, generally small, though some are 

 large enough for top-masts of a man-of-war. The largest of these 

 chasms is near Cape Has Sem, with a perennial stream running through 

 it, which is supplied from the fountain of Cyreue. Clusters of date- 



