FIRST DAYS IN CYPRUS.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3033, 4 November 1878, Page 1

FIRST DAYS IN CYPRUS.

Sir Garnett Wolseley's first work in. Cyprus somewhat resembles the cleansing of an infected house. Politically, he has to deal with the effects of centuries of misgovernment, which hare waited and well nigh destroyed the resources of the island. Physically, he has had to contend with fevers and other evils naturalised on the soil. The health of the troops is improving. The contradictory statements made on this subject have been set at rest by a definite telegram from the correspondent of the Daily News, the wellknown Archibald Forbes, whose word is above the suspicion of partisanship. He re-asserts that at one,time 25 per cent, of the European troops were unfit for duty. Colonel Stanley, in the House of Commons, had. minimised the numbers sick, and likened their ailments in mildness of character, to colds and cut fingers; but Mr Forbes describes his visit to the hospital marquees at the Pasha Chiflik camp, where he saw ," tentful after tentful of sick men in utter prostration, many with their heads or temples shaved and blisters applied, some delirious." The correspondent appeals to the official returns in confirmation. , Once more the Government has been badly served with information, or the facts have been disguised by too timid or too sanguine reporters. On one occasion a detachment of sappers went into the interior on an exploring expedidion. Nothing being heard of them for some time, patrols were sent in search. The detachment was found lying helpless in a farmhouset every man delirious with fever. The extreme heat of the season at which the first landing was effected has aggravated this evil. The apparently slight account taken by officials of these attacks may be explained by the statement of The Times' correspondent, who describes the disease as "sunfever of a light kind," though in many cases turning into ague. Tn&SXstt tents are condemned on all hands as intolerably and dangerously hot The causes ot-disease are certainly not difficult to trace. The water supply .is almost everywhere recklessly defiled! In the three principal towns—Nicosia, Famagosta, and Lanarckr-;the people are said to " dwell on the ordure of ages," and these and other towns are " so many congeries of cesspools." Sir Garnett Wolseley did not long remain in Nicosia. He abandoned " the palace," as it was called, and-pitched his camp bear the walls of the monastery, a mile outside the town. A plateau upon Mount Olympus, 4,000 ft. above the sea, and an easy distance from the capital, has since been selected as the site of a cantonment for the soldiers. All accounts agree that these first difficulties may be surmounted by energy, but not without considerable expenditure.