Cyprus

an Asiatic island in the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Its area is about 3,560 square miles. Its population is about 300,000, equal to that of Minneapolis. The island is mountainous. The central peak is 6,400 feet high. The streams or short mountain torrents go dry in midsummer. Roads, telegraphs, over 300 schools, post offices, and cables reaching Egypt and the Syrian coast, insure the intellectual development of the people. The raising of sheep and goats, of cotton, silk, raisins, wool, figs, olives, oranges, and tobacco, the making of cheese and wine, and the management of forests and sponge fishing engage the inhabitants. There are valuable quarries of building stone and ancient mines of copper. In fact, the English word, copper, is a corruption of cypress--c having the sound of k. By the ancients Cyprus was considered the halfway house between Asia and Greece. The island has been under the rule of Tyre, Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Turks and, since the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8, of Great Britain, under whose rule life and property are finally secure. About one-fourth of the inhabitants are Mohammedan, the rest are chiefly members of the Greek Church. In mythology Cyprus was sacred to Venus. Recent excavations on the sites of former temples have brought forth many treasures of art.