CYPRUS.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 57, 2 November 1878, Page 2

CYPRUS.

It may be interesting to your readers to have an account nf the first stages of our occupation of Cyprus. Un the I lth of July Mr. Walter Baring having been conveyed with Samih Pasha, the bearer of the firman to Lamaca in Her Majesty's ship Salamis, proceeded with Samih Pasha to Nicosia, Samih Pasha having at once repaired to the " Konak," or Govornment-house, and there communicated to the principal Mussulmans and Christians tho Sultan's firman. Soon after Mr. Baring attended the meeting and was informed that tho firman had been read and that the cession of the island was viewed with satisfaction by the people. Next day Lord John Hay, having sent forward a detachment of marines, himself accompanied by another body of them, travelled to NicosiaArriving near the town, which is walled and entered by gates, at 10 o'clock, he was received while yet some distance away by a mounted escort. Tho reception of the marines by the Turkish soldiers is described as" most quaint and touching. Neither body could understand a word spoken by the other, but the Turks would sull'er the British soldiers to do no labour i they could relievo them of. They almost i forcibly insisted on carrying their bag- , gage from tho carts into the barracks ; • they fetched them water; and they spared no trouble to give them every as- ' sistance and comfort after the long and trying march they had endured. The , day was Friday and the Mussulman reli- . gion required that no work should be . done through tho day. It was not, there fore, till late in t'h'< day that the Ad- . mind proceeded to the Konak to hoist | the British Hag. As the detachment of , marines detailed for duty to protect, the , Hag marched down the street, the inul- . titude cheered them several times. The gate of tho town had now become the marine barracks, and there the Hag was to fly. A large gathering of people had , assembled, and Captain Rawson, R. N., Commandant of Nicosia, hoisted the Union Jack and the marines saluted it. Admiral Lord John Hay then made a formal announcement that he had taken over the Government of tho island of Cyprus in the name of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. The Turks seemed to understand not a single term until, at tho word Victoria, which evidently struck them with intelligence, they cheered again and again with immense enthusiasm.

Admiral Lord John Hay, shortly after his landing in the island, determined to despatch to Nicosia, the capital, a body of 50 Marines. Nicosia is 25 miles distant from Larnaca, and it was arranged that the men should start at 2 o’clock in the morning upon mules, the calculation being that they would thus arrive at Nicosia before the "heat of the day. Unfortunately, and uncomfortably for their riders, the mules were sent oft' without drivers,anda tragedy,both humourous and serious, was the result. The mules, after a time, refused obedience, and distributed themselves, some still ridden, some riderless, over various parts of the country. Most of them turned for their homes in Larnaca, and were abandoned The men, who were compelled to continue their march on foot, were provided with no better protection against the sun than their (ilengarry caps, and, not being able to reach Larnaca before, four in the afternoon, no less than 10 of them—lo (jut of a body 50—were knocked down by sunstroke. Their exhaustion is described as extreme. The road to Nicosia, though not a good road for vehicles, is passable, and is not unusually trying to travellers on foot. Two companies of Marines have since made the journey, and by starting earlier in the night have marched through safely and withoutsuffering.

You have already been informed of the arrival of the Himalaya in the bay of Larnaca, in the waters of Cyprus. The town of Larnaca, facing south, is set back iu a deep bay, sheltered from tho westward by a spur of land jutting far out into tho sea, and it lies like a curved white fringe for about a mile upon tho blue ocean. The streets, tortuous, deep in dust, and ill-paved, run back from the shore but a little length; three or four mountain peaks appear iu the back-ground, and trend away to the east iu rugged, broken, and barren hills of chalky limestone. Within view of a ship in the roadstead there is hardly a vestige of green vegetation beyond a few dozen cocoanut palms at the western end of tho town. Tho waves.curlingovera beach of pure shingle, without sand or mud, have eaten away at places the quay of rude stones which runs along the length of Larnaca. The place had one landing-stage alone of a flimsy toxture until tho arrival of the L)uko of Edinburgh as Beach-Master, who has already constructed piers of sufficient strength and number for the landing of troops and heavy stores. Tho disembarkation was most picturetqup. The brilliance of an unclouded sky, tie' pd" blue calm waters, the long white aspect of Larnaca, and the painfully bleak and white stretches of mountain, hill, and shorn around, threw into vivid outline the scarlet tunics ami coloured kilts of the Highlanders as they streamed down lie 1 ship's lido and crowded the caiques

bind (or their treneport. Swarthy Creeks ami Tmks swarmed, worked,and vociferated with untiring energy. Upon than camels wara the principal moans of transport, and gradually,as thomenwew landed upon the pebbly beach, thete patient ungainly animals, undisturbed by u!! the excited movement around them, took their burdens and struggled to their feet, awaiting almost motionless for bouts the word to march. Meanwhile the Scotchmen were making friends with the Turkish Guard, who had been sent, perhaps, to amuse themselves, or, perchance, to aid in maintaining order; and while snow from the mountains was being supplied on ono side by an aged Turk amid a dense crowd of compatriots to cool lemonade for a dry Highland throat, on the other side a Highlander was comparing his ritle, through explanatory Signs and gestures, with tho old muzzle-loading percussion musket he lias come to supplant. At 6 o'clock this evening Sir Garnet Wolseley accompanied by his private secretary and military staff in full uniform, proceeded from" the Himalaya in a barge towed by a steam pinnace to the fort of the Kaimakan, the chief official of the town, to tako oaths of allegiance and oilico, and to assume the government of Cyprus. Tho Fort is new occupied by British Marines. A large crowd, never such a one, it is said, lias been known for many years, was assembled at the landingsteps. On ono side stood the stately, .spectral figures of Turkish women, clothed in pure white, their faces shrouded, and nothing human showing but dark, unfathomable eyes; on the other side (the passage was kept clear by a Guard of Honour of Marines) jostled and peered a motley crowd, men, women, and children —some half naked, others decked fully in the fanciful colours and dresses which are dear to the East. As Sir Garnet Wolseley stepped ashore the band of the Marines, which was drawn up beneath the chamber wherein the ceremony was to bo enacted, played a bar of " Clod Save the Queen." Admiral Lord John Hay ami the Duke of Edinburgh hero received .Sir Garnet Wolseley. and ushered him up a Might of stairs and through passages lined with tiles of the Guard to a room in which, upon a crimson carpet, was set a chair covered with crimson. When Sir I iarnet Wolseley had seated himself in this chair. Lord John Hay standing upon his right, tho Duke of Edinburgh upon his left, and the stall' being grouped around and closely packed through the pressure of the crowd —for the room, by no means a large one, was tilled with an

eager audience, Turk and Creek —Colonel Cleaves, C.8., the Chief of the Staff, road in a clear voice Her Majesty's Commission appointing SirGarnot Joseph Wolseley to 1«: High Commissioner in and for the Island of Cyprus. The High Commissioner (Lord High Commissioner by courtesy) tlwn, having had a Biblo placed in his hand, took .successively the oath of allegiance and the oath of office. This formality concluded Colonel Greaves read in English the Lord High Commissioner's proclamation; next, the proclamation was read in Greek, and again and again the periods of it were interrupted with hursts of the enthusiastic

" Zito." The reader was the Professor of the. Greek College in Larnaca, and a Greek Ecelesiastie, a fine man, with aquiline features, dark hair, hardly touched by age, and restless black eyes. He was intensely nervous, and his hand trembled and his voice shook SO that ho could barely gather the words from the paper and speak them continuously. At the conclusion, l, Zito" after "Zito" re-echoed, and tho reader, appearing to he fairly carried away with excitement, turned again to the audience and addressed them a rapid sentence —congratulatory words of \ii> own, ] imagine—the precise purport of which I failed to understand. Then the proclamation was read again, this time in Turkish, the Greek ecclesiastic repeating the Greek version line by lino, while a Turk, the cashier of the Ottoman Bank here, acting as interpreter, reproduced it in his own'languago. Turksare not prone, like Greeks, to excited utterance and they received the proclamation staidly, the Greeks, however, who seemed to understand this version also, maintaining the vivacity of the proceedings by the interposition of their expression of approval. The moment the proclamation had been thus triply delivered, the band from outside played " God Save the Queen." Then stepped forward the Greek Bishop of Laruaca, and on behalf of the Greek population of tho island read an English translation of a Greek address to his Excellency. A spokesman eamo forward for the Moslems also, and, being apparently unprepared with a written address, spoke in extempore language, which was interpreted bit by bit as the speech proceeded. The Moslems were understood to express their contentment and welcome, Sir Garnet Wolseley informed both representatives that he would reply to them 111 writing, and the proceedings being thus concluded, his Excellency returned with his stair on board the Himalaya. The camp of the English regiments at Chevlok Patha, when are encamped also the Native Cavalry ami the battery of Artillery, has boon found, as it promisod, to bo most healthy. The whole of tho remaining force is encamped in or near Larnaca. (Inn or two men havo died through sunstroke, but with thOM few oxpoctions there has been no causo for apprehension of trouble from the climate. The heat is certainly very great, and may be oalled tropical, more especially between 8 and 1 1 in the morning, before any bnoM has arisen, and it sceuis intensified through the total absence of shade. Tbcroisteidoubttli.il lb, temperature during the two hottest months here—

July an I August- 4s W« UUil maeli exposure to tin' midday sun would provo ,!.!.,'■■; is to Knglidi troops. Attfaewma tuna, tlif amount of hard and continuous work which has bean don» by the Bluejackets is astonishing. The whole of the dtttge of tlic> landtag arrangements has beou intrusted, as I liavo already informed you, to the Duke of Edinburgh, to whom is due unqualified praise both for the method and the unremitting rigour of his arrangements, Ho has been himself to be seun about the beach or upon one of the six landing-stages constructed under his direction from half-past 3 or ♦ o'clock in the morning, with few intervals of rest, until 7 or later at night, at which hour, with hardly less activity (for in evening the little breeze dies away, the sea becomes as smooth as glass, and the heat in the saloons on shipboard increases almost to suffocation,) his lloyal Highness has generally made his way to flic Himalaya,, thereto meet the Lord High Commissioner and his staff at dinner! All day horse-heats, Bteam-launches, and lighters loden with men and storeshave been going and coming from the .-hips, and the cheery exertions of thn sailors upon the jetties under the burning sun have been immense. The beach is one great stack of cases, bags, and boxes, with guards and sentries from the native regiments dotted here and there among the stores.

Sir Garnet Wolsnlcy is rapidly providing for tlio despatch *of tho Civil Commissioners and the troops to each district. At their arrival all oppression, it any such there really is, must immediately terminatp, and upon the basis of their report will lie arranged whatever scheme of taxation seoms equitable. Tin' following arrangement has linen made for the five Provinces:—Limasol —Civil Commissioner, Geuoral MacphorBon; garrison, 31 (Punjab Native Infantry. Famagousta—Captain Sovoire ; garrison, 2Cth, Bombay Native Infantry. Kcrinia—■ Lieutenant Holbeck ; garrison, 2"ith Madras Infantry. Paphos—Lieutenant Panehope ; garrison, 13th Bongal Native Infantry. Larnaca—Ooneral Watson; garrison, Bombay Native Infantry. —Correspondents London Times.