Good-by." Let all disappointed prospectors
learn philosophy from me. I said it without regret. I was on the whole
relieved--for now I was free to devote myself to those pleasures of
imagination which the life and the scenes around me had already begun to
stimulate.

Before long each page of my life in Cyprus was like a page from an
illuminated missal. I climbed to the mountain castle of St. Hilarion,
once occupied by Richard the First. Through the traceries of its windows
and from its towers I looked at the snowy summits of Cilicia across
sixty miles of sea. I explored its stables, hewn out of the solid
rock--stables not for horses, but camels. I examined its cisterns,
hanging on the brinks of precipices. While on this expedition, I stayed
with one of the judges in a lodge on the mountain side, and spent a
night with him looking out on a garden of spices, and comparing the
Septuagint version of the Song of Solomon with the English. On another
occasion I came in a seaward valley to a beautiful monastery, whose
refectory still was perfect, though there was no life in its silence
but the life of oleanders peering in at the windows and half hiding from
view the foam from which Venus sprang. Often in the early morning, on
one expedition or another, I saw groups of peasants moving across dewy
plains, their coats as bright as Joseph's, who, with their ass or camel,
suggested the Flight into Egypt. When I journeyed for any distance by
road my equipage was some old landau, drawn by five horses, and
accompanied by three servants, one of these being my own, who spoke very
fair English, and who had been born on the slopes of Lebanon. It was in
this manner that, when I was staying with Sir Henry, I went from Nicosia
to Famaugusta, a distance of fifty miles, which it took ten hours to
accomplish. This was how Englishmen traveled in the days of William and
Mary. Among the remains of Famaugusta I wandered for several days, its
huge walls being still very nearly perfect, though they now inclose
little but the huts of some Turkish shepherds, about fifty deserted
churches, bright inside with frescoes, and a cathedral so profusely
carved that it looks like a hill of flowers.

Within the limits of a day's expedition from Famaugusta were the
remains--I was taken to visit them--not entirely ruinous, of the country
residence of one of the crusading nobles. I found my way into
monasteries still peopled by devotees, and saw in the eyes of many