SIR EVELYN WOOD ON WOLSELEY. 345

forbear quoting the eloquent words of a distinguished officer, who has had the best opportunities of forming a judgment. Colonel Evelyn Wood* said of him, at a lecture delivered before a brilliant audience at the Royal United Service Institution : 'That the Ashantee Campaign did not end in failure, must be in part attributed to the spirit which animated the forces, and rendered them, like red-hot iron, fervent but pliable in the hands of the master-workman, and in part to the directing power of the master-workman, of whom may be said, as was said by Scott of Napoleon, "He was a sovereign among soldiers." His means were limited by time and circumstances; with a handful of men he was required to accomplish a hitherto unattainable feat. In six months he had to re-establish our reputation, lowered by successive humiliations and failures, and to read a lesson in letters of fire to the arrogant and bloodthirsty race who had defied us so long by their weapons of distance, disease, and treachery. It is true of Sir Garnet Wolseley, as was written of Pitt, "Few men made fewer mistakes, nor left so few advantages unimproved." To all his other great qualities he joined that fire, that spirit, that courage, which, giving vigour and direction to his soldiers, bore down all resistance. In fine, our success was due to the leader and his choice of able subordinates, who all acknowledged their chief's superior military genius, as they loyally supported him in everything; and he impressed on all his iron will and steadfast determination to take Coomassie.'

All who have once been on his Staff again offer their services when an opportunity presents itself, as witness the names of Butler, Brackenbury, Gifford, Greaves, Colley, Wood, Butler, Swaine, Stewart, Maurice, and Dormer. It must be no ordinary man who can thus bind to him some of the most distinguished officers of the service. One who knows him well, and has served with him in the field, an officer of * Now Major-General Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., G. C. B.

high rank, and a Knight of the Bath, writes to us thus: ‘I have had the best opportunities of judging of the man, and I say he is the most perfect character I have ever met; no one can see much of him without having for him a regard which becomes perfect affection; no one could be more unspoilt by his rise; I know no difference in him now from the time when he was a very young captain-no franker, more magnanimous, fearless man, morally and physically, I think, ever lived.'

Other letters we have received from his old comrades in arms, breathe the same feeling of affection and admiration. Of one trait of character, his generous recognition of merit in others, a brother officer of the 90th Regiment gives an instance of which he was a witness. On entering Lucknow,' he writes, I well remember everyone saying, "Wolseley has got the Victoria Cross!" They heard he had gained it by storming the Mess-house. He said, "No, I was not the first man in; Bugler was!" The poor wounded bugler

was forgotten by others, but not by his own Captain.'

In the prime of life, yet ripe with a military experience almost unrivalled in the British army; blessed with an equable temperament, and an iron constitution that seems proof alike against the assaults of a Crimean winter, or the torrid heats of the Gold Coast; gifted with sound judgment and a thorough mastery of the art of war, theoretically as culled from books, and practically as studied and illustrated in all climes and under varied conditions; possessing a chivalric courage that has extorted the admiration of witnesses, and a calm self-reliance, combined with that attribute which is an unerring indication of the presence of genius, a faculty for inspiring confidence in others-Sir Garnet Wolseley seems to be specially fitted to lead the armies of his country in a great national crisis, should any such unhappily arise.*

* This work, completed to this point in 1878, was published in that year.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF CYPRUS.

Occupation of Cyprus by the British Troops.-Condition of the Island and its Inhabitants.-The Reforms introduced by Sir Garnet Wolseley. -His Opinion of the Healthiness of Cyprus.-Sir Garnet Wolseley recasts the Administration of the Island.-Visit of some Members of the British Government to Cyprus.-Sir Garnet Wolseley and the War in Afghanistan.-Condition and prospects of Cyprus.—Šir Garnet Wolseley returns to England in May, 1879.

SIR GARNET WOLSELEY arrived in Cyprus in H. M. S. Himalaya, on the 22nd July, 1879, and took over charge of the island from Rear-Admiral Lord John Hay, who had received possession from the acting Turkish Mutasserif, or Governor, Bessim Pasha, and Samih Pasha, the bearer of the Sultan's firman, the Governor, Achmed Pasha, being under suspension for embezzlement. A force of some 10,000 men, including the Indian contingent brought to Malta by Lord Beaconsfield, as a warning to Russia, under Major-General Ross and Brigadier-Generals Macpherson, V.C., and Watson, V.C., was landed at the island under the superintendence of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, who officiated as Beachmaster.

Sir Garnet Wolseley, who took up his residence at Nicosia on the 30th July, held the supreme military as well as civil control. The military duties were never very arduous, and by the end of August the Indian troops had quitted the island for Bombay; but the civil and political work was responsible and pressing, for the condition of the island

disclosed a state of corruption and misrule only to be found in other provinces under the rule of the Sultan of Turkey.

In undertaking the practical annexation of Cyprus,* and wresting it from Turkish misgovernment, Lord Beaconsfield was inspired by no Quixotic motives of benevolence. The prime object was a military one. It was designed as a 'place of arms,' and to complete the chain in our Mediterranean fortresses, though to attain this object a vast sum would have to be expended in fortifications and harbours.

The occupation of the island by the British was received with very different feelings by the nationalities comprising its population. While the official Turks, as the ruling class, were discontented at the cessation of their privileges and power to oppress, the lower order of Turks were gratified that they would in future be exempted from the conscription, and that there would be no more doubling of taxes on the outbreak of war on the Continent .The Greeks, forming twothirds of the population, about 100,000 out of 144,000, hailed Sir Garnet Wolseley as a deliverer from the oppression of the Turks; and the British flag, after consecration at the convent of Nicosia, was hoisted in the presence of Sir Garnet Wolseley and of the Christian classes of the community with imposing ceremonial and amid hearty acclamations. But, with the greed of their race, the Greeks sought to make all the pecuniary gain possible out of their deliverers; and so exorbitant were the rents demanded for suitable residences

* Richard I. conquered Cyprus at the time of his expedition to Palestine, and when the Turks dispossessed the Venetians of the island in the war of 1570-73, Queen Elizabeth contested the usurpation, though her government took no military measures. It is also a curious circumstance that in the central shield on the frieze at the west end of Queen Elizabeth's tomb, in the north aisle of Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey, is the quartering of the arms of Cyprus, heraldically described as 'barry of ten, argent and azure, over all a lion rampant gules, crowned or.' In the drawings of the funeral procession of Elizabeth in the British Museum, made by William Camden, Clarencieux King-at-Arms, may be seen an heraldic banner containing the blazon of the arms of Cyprus, of which Elizabeth was titular Queen.

THE CONDITION OF CYPRUS.

349

for the headquarters staff, that the Chief Commissioner established his camp at the convent, about two miles distant from Nicosia.

The Turkish law-makers profess to be guided by that fine axiom enunciated in Aristotle's 'Politics,' that he who bids the law to rule, bids God and the mind to rule; but he who bids a man to rule, sets up a beast, for desires and passion turn the best men wrong, while law is mind purified of appetite.' But these fine professions, while loudly proclaimed, have no existence in the Sultan's dominions; and though, theoretically, the law is no respecter of persons, the evidence of a Christian has no weight as against the statement of a Mussulman. To remedy this cardinal defect, and make equally admissible the evidence of any credible witness and the establishment of proof on the evidence of one witness, and to make other necessary enactments, Sir Garnet Wolseley issued a proclamation, in thirty articles, defining the vast changes to be introduced in the laws of Cyprus.

To each of the six districts into which Cyprus is divided, Sir Garnet appointed a Commissioner and Assistant-Commissioner. The central district, which contains the capital Nicosia, was placed under Colonel R. Biddulph, R.A., now Chief Commissioner of the island; and Captain L. V. Swaine, Rifle Brigade, now Military Attaché at Berlin, was appointed Commissioner of the Famagousta district.

The natural resources of the island are great, and, in ancient times, the great desert-like plain of Messaria, forming two-thirds of Cyprus, in which Nicosia and Famagousta are situated, was the chief cereal-producing portion of the island. Water is to be had in abundance within a few feet of the surface, and the one thing required to make this arid plain renew its pristine fertility, is that the cattle-wheel and other means of raising water should be applied, as in the delta of Egypt. But three centuries of Turkish misrule