I cannot refrain from giving my readers the very Grecian names of my kind entertainers. My host was called Gavril, one of the sons-in-law was Kleobulas Christophagu Gavrilidis, and the other Socrates. The schoolmaster was Michel Ivanidas, and the four daughters respectively Minerva, Terpsichore, Penelope, and Zoisa; another maiden present was called Evanthia. How can we account for such classic names, if I am not correct in asserting that these people are the direct descendants of the early Greeks?
Next morning I was astir at about four o’clock, and walked out into the fresh and balmy air. A gentle wind was wandering about the mountains, stirring the waving foliage of the trees, and rippling the bright water of the streams as it passed. Thrushes and nightingales poured forth their sweetest melody on all sides, and a delicious perfume was wafted around from innumerable flowers, and the hedges of myrtle by which the fields are surrounded. Only one thing was wanting to the scene—where was the rustling sound of trees on the declivities of the mountains? As I looked up, the first glance told me the soil was in the highest degree fitted for their culture, and yet the eye could only discover a variety of shrubs and mountain plants interspersed with a few blackened stumps.
When I returned to the village I found the whole population again at their devotions. In the Eastern Church the worshippers do not attend to hear sermons and pour out their own prayers and thanksgivings; it would appear as though even the most earnest worshippers considered that their mere presence and genuflections during the masses said and sung by their priest, was all that could be required of them. For more than a thousand years, no change whatever has taken place in the creed and liturgy of the Christian Church in the East, and it may, therefore, be regarded as more closely allied to the Primitive Church than is the Catholic Church of Rome. With the exception of its bishops, Cyprus has no active and learned priesthood, and nothing can be simpler than the life and theology of its country curés. Books they have none, and for their livelihood have to depend upon the bounty of their flocks. Under British rule new life will be given to the Christian Church in Cyprus, and to the education and training of her people.