CYPRUS. 



231 



of the most prominent persons of his time. 

 Churches, hospitals, convents, orphanages, and 

 asylums, besides the diocesan College of Clon- 

 cliffe, of which he was always so proud, the 

 Catholic University, and the Mater Misericor- 

 dise Hospital, are memorials of his energy and 

 zeal. He felt the deepest interest in the ques- 

 tion of Irish education, and cordially approved 

 all measures which had its care for their object. 

 Notwithstanding popular clamor, and at the 

 risk of personal odium, he rendered the British 

 Government great service in extinguishing the 

 flames of insurrection during the Fenian ex- 

 citement, when his great influence was thrown 

 heartily in favor of the Government. He was 

 also a stanch advocate of every measure likely 

 to decrease intemperance in Ireland. 



CYPRUS, an island in the Mediterranean 

 Sea, forming a part of the Turkish Empire. 

 Area, 3,708 square miles; population, about 

 135,000. Under the Anglo-Turkish agreement 

 of June 4, 1878, the administration of the island 

 is provisionally given to the British Government. 



The history of the island of Cyprus reaches 

 back to a very remote antiquity. Its earliest 

 settlement is ascribed to Kittim, a grandson 

 of Japheth. It first appears historically as a 

 colony of the Phoenicians, who made it a place 

 of considerable commercial importance. The 

 Phoenicians were succeeded by the Greeks, 

 and they became, and are still, the predomi- 

 nant race among its inhabitants. Its political 

 relations have been of a diversified character. 

 Its position made its possession a matter of 

 commercial and political importance to the 

 neighboring nations, so that it has always 

 been an object of contention between the dif- 

 ferent powers which have aspired to control 

 the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia. 

 About 720 B. o. it became divided into a num- 

 ber of petty kingdoms, which appear at one 

 time to have paid tribute to the Assyrians, and 

 were afterward (550 B. o.) overcome by Ama- 

 sis, King of Egypt. During the next two hun- 

 dred years it fell into the hands successively of 

 the Persians and the Greeks, enjoyed a short 

 independence under Evagoras, was given to 

 the Persians again, and was surrendered to 

 Alexander the Great in 333 B. o. After Alex- 

 ander's death it was governed by the Ptolemies 

 till 57 B. o., when it was reduced to a Roman 

 province by Cato of Utica. On the division of 

 the Roman Empire, A. D. 365, it was given to 

 the Eastern Emperors, and remained in their 

 possession till the Saracens seized it in 648. 

 They held it, except for about sixty years 

 (A. D. 746 to 805), until 964, when Nicephorus 

 III. regained it for the Eastern Roman Empire. 

 In 1182 Isaac Comnenus, its Byzantine gov- 

 ernor, declared himself the independent Em- 

 peror of the island, and maintained his posi- 

 tion till 1191, when he was overthrown by 

 Richard I. of England. About a year later 

 Richard gave it in exchange for the kingdom 

 of Jerusalem to Guy of Lusignan, who became 

 the founder of the dynasty of the Lusignans, 



under whom Cyprus continued as an inde- 

 pendent kingdom for three hundred years. 

 Charlotte of Lusignan, having married Louis, 

 Count of Genoa, was crowned Queen in 1460, 

 but was soon afterward expelled by her natu- 

 ral brother James, assisted by the Mamelukes 

 of Egypt. She died at Rome in 1487, be- 

 queathing her claims to the Dukes of Savoy. 

 James, who expelled Charlotte, married Cath- 

 erine Cornaro, the daughter of a Venetian 

 merchant, who, having been adopted by the 

 Venetian Republic as a daughter of St. Mark, 

 abdicated in 1475 in favor of that state. The 

 Venetians held Cyprus for nearly one hundred 

 years, till they were driven out by the Turks 

 under Sultan Selim II., who, invading the isl- 

 and in 1570, took Nicosia by storm, and put 

 twenty thousand of the inhabitants to death. 

 He then attacked Famagusta, which capitulated 

 in August, 1571, after a siege of several months. 

 Honorable terms were granted to the garrison 

 and people of the place, but a misunderstand- 

 ing arose between Bragadino, the Venetian, 

 and Mustapha Pasha, the Turkish commander, 

 and the terms were broken; Bragadino was 

 murdered, and his body was subjected to in- 

 dignities. 



The island of Cyprus is about one hundred 

 and forty miles long, and varies in breadth 

 from ten to sixty miles. It is crossed near its 

 center by the thirty -fifth parallel of latitude. 

 Its position, in the angle between the coasts of 

 Asia Minor and Syria, overlooking both at a 

 convenient distance, has been regarded in all 

 ages as of great strategical and political impor- 

 tance. It is considered of particular value to 

 the British Empire in view of the relations of 

 Great Britain to Russia, and of its proximity 

 to the mouth of the Orontes River, whence, it 

 is agreed, the contemplated Euphrates Valley 

 Railroad, which is to form a part of the shorter 

 overland route to India, is to start. The isl- 

 and is skirted on its northern coast by a range 

 of mountains from two to three thousand feet 

 high, which, continuing for several miles east 

 of the mainland of the island, forms the back- 

 bone of the Carpasian Peninsula. Another 

 and higher range, rising in Mount Troados, or 

 Olympus, to an elevation of more than six 

 thousand feet, occupies the southwestern part 

 of the island. Between the two ranges lies 

 the plain of Messaria, extending from a con- 

 siderable distance west of the center to the 

 eastern coast, which has been celebrated in all 

 ages for its fertility. The country is watered 

 by several streams, of which the principal is 

 the Pedia, running in an eastwardly direction 

 through the plain of Messaria. It overflows 

 in the spring, leaving a deposit in the valley 

 similar in character and properties to those 

 of the mud of the Nile, but is nearly dry in 

 the summer. All the other rivers likewise 

 fail either wholly or partly during the dry 

 season. The temperature and climate of Cy- 

 prus are much like those of the neighboring 

 countries. It is exposed to the great heat of 



