JOHN THOMSON

Scottish-born, John Thomson is regarded by many, as one of the greatest photographers of the 19th Century. He was indeed the first British photographer to travel and document life in the Far East, Asia and Cyprus.

John Thomson was born on the 14th of June in 1837, just two years before the invention of photography; the medium that would forever change his life and define his career. He came from a lower middle-class family who lived at Number 6 Brighton Street in the Old Town of Edinburgh’s South Side. He was one of nine children born to William Thomson (a tobacco spinner) and Isabella Newlands. Only John and two brothers, William and Thomas survived into adulthood.

In 1850, aged thirteen, Thomson became an apprentice to James Bryson, a maker of optical and scientific instruments. His apprenticeship would last seven years, in which time, he was able to gain a proficient understanding of optics and the scientific principles of photography. In the evenings, he studied natural philosophy, mathematics, chemistry, drawing, French and English at the Watt Institution and School of Arts in Edinburgh. He successfully completed his studies in 1858 and was award a ‘Life Diploma’.

In 1861, he became a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, a leading organisation concerned with the development of science and technology.

On the 29th April 1862, John Thomson decided to leave England to settle in the Far East. This experience set Thomson on a course that would change his life and greatly enhance the world’s understanding of Southeast Asia and China. The climate was the greatest threat to Thomson’s photographic process. In his book, Stephen White describes the challenges that Thomason faced at the time. ‘During the period of Thomson’s Far East travels the method of making photographs was the wet collodion process, or wet plate process, which was laborious and time-consuming. First the collodion syrup was applied evenly to a pre-cut piece of glass, and the coated plate was dipped in a mixture of chemicals to attract the light, then the negative was placed in a holder to be inserted into the camera. The entire operation had to be performed in total darkness. Once the plate had been exposed it was removed, again in darkness, and developed. It could then be stored for future printing. This method offered the photographer the advantage of knowing instantly whether he had achieved the image he wanted, but forced him to set up his entire paraphernalia, including his darkroom tent, every time he wanted to expose even a single negative. It also required him to travel with large quantities of spare equipment, as the loss of the simplest element in the process could result in long delays while a replacement was sent for.’

After a year in Penang, Thomson moved on to Singapore to join his older brother William in Singapore where together, they set up a business making chronometers, as well as optical and nautical instruments. With his brother’s help, Thomson also set up a photographic studio in Singapore (possibly the first) and established himself as a competent portrait photographer for merchants and high-class individuals. Thomson quickly discovered the most interesting subjects lay in the streets and countryside outside his studio. He travelled about, carrying with him a small stereoscopic camera, making two small (3 X 4 in) images at one time, as well as a variety of larger cameras. In Singapore, Thomson hired two Chinese assistants, Akum and Ahong, which would accompany him on all of his travels throughout Asia.

The business in Singapore enabled Thomson to earn enough money to finance photographic expeditions around Sumatra, the Malay Archipelago, India, Cambodia and Siam (Thailand). In all, he spent four years travelling around the Far East, often embarking on perilous journeys to lands and places previously unseen by Western eyes, and never before photographed. Thomson clearly had an adventurous spirit and most likely an enduring personality to win favour with the all classes of people he met on his travels.

Through Cambodia, Thomson was accompanied by H.G. Kennedy, a young employee of the British Embassy. For much of the trip they travelled by boat. “Every brush of our oars brought forth myriads of mosquitoes from the long grass growing within the banks,” writes Thomson in his journal. “During the night our bloodthirsty assailants kept torturing us; they even swarmed in our mosquito nets, under which we vainly endeavoured to sleep.”

At one point of the journey, their Muslim porter, Mohammed Ali, fell into the mud, and both Thomson and Kennedy became covered with leeches trying to rescue him. In fact, Thomson’s superstitious assistants tried to turn back several times, terrified by the violent jungle storms. At one point, their buffalo cart overturned in the rugged terrain, costing them much of their food supply. When Thomson came down with malaria, the party was forced to halt their adventure for three days.

I am in awe when I read about Thomson’s perilous trips into the unknown. Not only was he a brilliant master of his craft, but he also demonstrated sheer bravery even at great personal risk. In some places, people were easily spooked by the mere presence of a camera, so it is quite a remarkable achievement that Thomson was able to gain their trust. I can just imagine the suspicion or fear the natives must have felt to see this strange-looking man with piercing blue eyes crouching behind his weird contraption, and perhaps instructing them to stand perfectly still. It must have seemed like ‘black magic’ or ‘voodoo’ to them.

Thomson returned to Scotland in May or June of 1866, where he lectured, exhibited and published some of his photographs in Edinburgh and London. Amongst his exhibit were the first photographs ever taken of the Cambodian ruins. He was later elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Ethnological Society of London.

Sometime in 1867, Thomson met Isabel Petrie after she had attended one of lectures in Edinburgh and they formed a romantic relationship.

In late 1867, Thomson decided to return to Asia and he spent three months travelling around French-controlled Vietnam. Early in 1868, he moved his commercial portrait business from Singapore to Hong Kong. The newly-acquired colony was now a crucial trading station for British commercial interests in East Asia. Clearly, Thomson is thinking about his business prospects (making money) rather than just taking photographs for his personal satisfaction.

1868 was a significant year in Thomson’s life. His fiancé Isabel Petrie joined him in Hong Kong and on the 19th of November, they were married. A year later, on the 11th of November, 1869, John and Isabel Thomson welcomed the birth of their first child, William. When Isabel, became pregnant with their second child, Thomson realised that Hong Kong was not the best place for his young family to reside and so on the 23rd of June in 1870, he sent Isabel, and his infant son William, back to England.

Isabel was glad to return home. She found the Far East a difficult and frightening place to live. In her journal, she wrote. “The fact that I am stronger now makes the separation more bearable, and I feel that if l had stayed in Hong Kong, either my own or my baby’s life would have been sacrificed.”

With his wife and child safely back home, Thomson now had the freedom to move around as he pleased. In just over twelve months, he travelled all over China, from the southern trading ports of Hong Kong and Canton to the city of Peking and the Great Wall in the north, and from the island of Formosa (Taiwan) to the interior of China, 3,000 miles up the Yangzi River. His travelling party included three porters to transport the photographic equipment, two assistants named Akum and Ahong and a dog named Spot. His subject matter ranged from beggars and street people to Mandarins and Princes, and from Imperial Palaces to remote monasteries, and from rural villages to the grandeur of the Gorges. His captured more of the culture and people of China than had ever been seen by western audiences. Once again, Thomson placed himself in dangerous situations. His challenges were not only technical but he also had to overcome the fear and mistrust by the people he photographed.

Thomson left China and returned to England and his family in the summer of 1872. He brought with him around 1200 glass negatives. The rest remained in Hong Kong.

A true pioneer, Thomson took advantage of the new and emerging print technology by publishing a series of books that documented his travels and photographs. “A few years back this endeavour was so perishable, and so difficult to reproduce,” he writes. “But the art is now so far advanced, that we can multiply the copies with the same facility, and print them with the same materials as in the case of woodcuts or engravings.”

Throughout 1875, Thomson conducted a series of lectures on his travels receiving rave reviews. His photographs were regarded as real works of art and achieved universal admiration. Later that year, Thomson was awarded a second-class medal from the International Geographical Congress in Paris.

Now living in London, Thomson joined forces with writer Adolphe Smith to document the underbelly and street life of London. The result was one of the great classics of Victorian books and the best known of all Thomson’s works. He sympathetically exposed the daily drudgery of life experienced by the city’s poorest citizens, the beggars, and even the policemen on the beat. Thomson and Smith’s work featured in a monthly magazine appropriately titled, Street Life in London. Each instalment had three stories and a photograph to accompany each story.

By now, Thomson’s family had grown to include seven children (three daughters and four sons). Despite all his hard work, he still had no stable means of income and therefore, the economic pressures were constant. He occasionally sold photographs and submitted various articles to popular journals and newspapers and he continued to write and publish his own books and even experimented with 3D photography using stereoscope technology.

In June 1878, when Britain took control of Cyprus from the Ottoman Turks, Thomson leapt at the chance to become the first British photographer and writer to survey the Empire’s newest acquisition, especially given the island’s biblical, classical and medieval associations. This was to become Thomson’s last photographic overseas tour.

I don’t know if Thomson was formally invited by the British Government to go to Cyprus or if he invited himself. I do know however, that he travelled from London to Paris, then on to Marseilles and finally Alexandria, where he boarded a boat to Larnaca. Apparently, he arrived on the morning of the 7th of September in 1878 and made a note in his journal about the oppressive heat and intense sunlight that greeted him. According to a journal entry, the weather in Cyprus was terrible which resulted in many of his photographs being sub-standard and below the expected level of quality.

His journey around Cyprus was largely undertaken by mule, but I am sure he paid a few shillings to have porters and assistants accompany him. I know that in Kyrenia, he hired an Arabic Dragoman (translator) to accompany him to the monastery of Saint Panteleimon and other places on the island. He wrote in his journal that he often stayed overnight ‘in the mud huts of the natives’ which certainly allowed him to gain an intimate understanding of their customs and way of life. Meanwhile, back in England, Thomson’s wife Isabel gave birth to their eighth child while he was in Cyprus.

Thomson was impressed with Cyprus, especially with the sights in Nicosia and other towns such as Kyrenia, Morphou, Paphos, Limassol and Famagusta. He took time to note the typographical features, archaeological sites and the agricultural infrastructure along the way.

In his journal, Thomson states that he wanted to record the island in its dilapidated state so that in years to come, a comparison can be made to show the improvements made by the British administration. The two-volume book reveals the work of a seasoned photographic traveller, well used to the problems of photography in difficult, unfamiliar climates, and familiar with the hardships of travelling alone with only the support of the locals. Many of the photographs were carefully staged and choregraphed by Thompson (as he did so in Asia and the Far East), down to the visual arrangement of light and shadow and the placement of the figures.

It is rather remarkable and indeed fortunate that Thomson took time during his travels to make careful notes to accompany and explain his photographs. At times, he would add his own critical thoughts about how the local population treated their natural environment or perhaps offer a suggestion for improving the island. For example, when he visited Mount Troodos, he noted that the destruction of the woodland was at the hands of rough mountaineers who felled the noble trees in order to extract resin and pitch to sell at local markets. Regarding the port of Famagusta, Thomson states that an opportunity certainly exists to turn the great fortress there into a strategic military post in the Mediterranean.  John Thomson was one of the first European travellers to survey Cyprus in 1878 after control of the island shifted from Ottoman to British rule.

After Cyprus, John Thomson returned to Britain where he dedicated more time to his family.

In February, 1879, Thomson published and sold his two-volume survey of Cyprus titled ‘Through Cyprus with a Camera’ for five guineas (£5. 5s), which was very expensive at that time. The two-volume set contained 61 of his photographs from his travels around the island six months earlier.

Retiring from international travels, Thomson made a comfortable living in London photographing British high society. He set up a portrait studio on Buckingham Palace Road before relocating to Grosvenor Street in the fashionable Mayfair district of London. In 1881, he was appointed photographer to the British Royal Family by Queen Victoria herself. He took many photographs of the Royal Family (including the Queen) and other members of the aristocracy. In 1886, he became an Instructor in Photography for the Royal Geographical Society and was elected a Life Fellow in 1917. He kept up with advances in photographic processes and continued to publish in various journals including the British Journal of Photography.

John Thomson officially retired from commercial photography in 1910 at the age of 73 He spent much of his old age in Edinburgh with his wife Isabel and entertaining his young grandchildren with stories of his travels.  He became increasingly deaf as he got older, but remained active and involved until the end.

Thomson spent much of his last years of his life searching for someone to buy and preserve his beloved negatives. He contacted Henry Wellcome, an American who had gained great success in England with a pharmaceutical firm. Wellcome expressed an interest in buying Thomson’s photographic archive but they struggled to agree on a price. One late evening in early October, 1921, as Thomson was returning home from the Royal Geographical Society, he suffered a heart attack and died on the street, not far from his home. He was 84 years old. After his death, his son apparently sold 650 glass plates to Henry Wellcome for only £20. Perhaps this sale prevented the negatives from ending up in private collectors’ hands or worse, dumped into landfill. The precious negatives are now stored in the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London.

Thanks to his incredible foresight, Thomson has allowed us to travel back in time to witness life as it existed during the second half of the nineteenth century. More remarkable is the fact that he was able to finance these photographic expeditions himself, thanks largely to his studio work and his ability to sell photographic prints in the places that he visited. Whether photographing kings or beggars, Thomson afforded all his sitters the same dignity and respect. I am also pleased to see that he paid particular attention to women in countries where they were most likely regarded as not worthy of attention.

Author Stephen White writes a fitting tribute to John Thomson.

“Thomson accomplished something new in photography. He set out to record a people, what these people were, how they lived, and why they mattered. Everywhere, as Thomson photographed, he attempted to capture the individuality of each of his subjects, whatever their race or social class. His work with peasants is just as meticulous as his work with kings or princes. He clothed each individual in dignity.”

All I can say is thank God for bringing John Thomson to the island of Cyprus. We are blessed to have someone with his level of expertise and his breadth of photographic knowledge to document life as it was in 1878. In doing so, Thomson has given the first photographic images of Cypriots and their environment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

John Thomson (1837 – 1921) by Richard Ovenden (published 1997)

John Thomson: Life and Photographs by Stephen White (published 1986)

Through Cyprus with a Camera in the Autumn of 1878 – John Thomson (reprinted 1985)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: ABOUT THOMSON’S PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS

As a photographer in the Victorian age, Thomson used the wet collodion process which was invented by F Scott Archer in 1848. This required the glass plate to be coated, sensitised, exposed and developed within the span of about 15 minutes. In other words, Thomson had to ‘fix’ the image almost immediately to stop it from disappearing. Remember that Thomson travelled the world just two decades after the invention of photography. He was forced to carry crates full of equipment, fragile glass negatives, as well as highly flammable and poisonous chemicals. His cumbersome camera (made of wood) and other related heavy equipment required many porters and pack animals to transport.

Throughout his travels, Thomson would erect a three-sided tent to use as a portable darkroom. The tent was constructed of two thick layers of black cloth and propped-up by a tripod of long straight timbers. There was a small window on one side covered with yellow cloth to allow a small amount of light inside for ‘safe’ illumination that would not spoil the plates. A slight mistake in any step would spell disaster for the negative and the solution.

The wet collodion process, (or wet plate process) was laborious and time-consuming. First the collodion syrup was applied evenly to a pre-cut piece of glass, and the coated plate was dipped in a mixture of chemicals to attract the light, then the negative was placed in a holder to be inserted into the camera. The entire operation had to be performed in total darkness. Once the plate had been exposed it was removed, again in darkness, and developed. This method offered the photographer the advantage of knowing instantly whether he had achieved the image he wanted, but forced him to set up his entire paraphernalia, including his darkroom tent, every time he wanted to expose even a single negative. It also required him to travel with large quantities of spare equipment, as the loss of the simplest element in the process could result in long delays while a replacement was sent for. Each glass negative plate was carefully wrapped and stored in large crates and eventually shipped back to Britain for future printing.

I read somewhere that the marks and scratches on the glass negatives were caused by the constant handling of the plates by Thomson himself. Apparently, you can even see his thumbprints on some negatives where he gripped the glass plate to dip it into a chemical bath.

PHOTO GALLERY (Click photo to see enlargement and caption)

Photo of John Thomson aged 42. London. 1879. FRGS stands for Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

LARNACA MARINA – LOOKING NORTH

OX CART IN MESAORIA

Glass negative of Ox-cart in Mesaoria

Saint Lazarus Church – Larnaca

A MOUNTAIN PATH NEAR MOUNT TROODOS This road, like many other useful institutions in Cyprus, is a trifle out of repair; indeed, in some places it is so wrecked and interspersed by scattered blocks of stone, as to force one into believing that its conveniences as a quarry have been preferred to its advantages as a pathway. On the left is a bold cliff, falling towards the river, and mantled with a profusion of trees and shrubs that have rooted themselves in its fissures. The village on the distant hill-side is Modula [Moutoullasj, a settlement closely resembling Kalopanagiotissa in the pursuits of its inhabitants and the form of its houses. My dragoman, Habibi Kuri, a trader of Nicosia, figures on the path alongside of our faithful mules. Habib, who proved an honest and agreeable attendant, and spoke intelligible French, was a trader at heart; for, while he attended to my wants, he also rarely let slip an opportunity of advertising his macaroni, matches, and general store of foreign wares. It may here be mentioned that I paid him twelve shillings a day for his services, a sum which covered the expenses for his food and mule. With a good dragoman the tourist may make sure of spending a pleasant holiday in Cyprus. Good, plain food is to be obtained without difficulty everywhere, and after a hard day’s journey in the hot sun even rough lodging with a hearty welcome will appear luxurious quarters. True, the traveller may have to make his bed in a sleeping-room common to some of the male members of the family, but, as a rule, the couch will boast fresh linen of spotless purity; for it is a point of honour among these poor people not to appear inhospitable, and the best their houses can produce is therefore brought out for the entertainment of a stranger. The guest may or may not dine with his host, but under any circumstances the table will be spread with a clean cloth, and furnished with wholesome fare. In token of appreciation, it is customary to make a small present of money to the children, or, when the people are poor, to the mistress of the house. In some cases this present is expected, and is the recognized recompense for food and lodging, but in others it requires to be stealthily bestowed. Once or twice in my own experience the host so contrived as to render it impossible to observe this pleasant custom.

MOUNTAINEER Prodromos, the village near the summit of Olympus, stands at an altitude of about five thousand feet above the sea. ft is built on the side of a glen, and may be likened in general appearance to Modula or Kalopanagiotissa. The villagers are a robust race, as may he gathered from the two following photographs, the first of which represents one of the chief people of the place, a man who deserves to be rendered famous for the kind manner in which he welcomes the stranger that may enter within his gates. As soon as he learned that I had determined to make the ascent of Mount Olympus (Troodos) he volunteered to act as a guide; nor did he show the slightest token of wavering, although a storm was evidently brewing when we started. On the summit of Olympus, the storm burst upon us with great violence. Thunder shook the mountain, lightning flashed on every side, and torrents of rain and hail poured down; indeed, the turmoil sounded like a terrible protest against the sacrilege done in photographing for the first time the debris that is supposed to mark the site of an ancient shrine. Our honest guide bore the brunt of the storm with praiseworthy composure, and at last we descended, drenched but not disheartened, to sock shelter in his home.

Beaconsfield Lodge in Larnaca

On the ramparts in Nicosia

Famagusta Gate – Nicosia

Rock tomb in Paphos.

THE MAIN STREET, LIMASSOL The accompanying view is taken from the front of the Franciscan monastery, looking westward along the main street which runs parallel to the coast. The courts to the rear of the houses on the left face the sea; indeed, their outer walls rise out of the sand and shingle on the slope of the shore. Here and there, between the houses, are narrow alleys, breathing-spaces which divide the blocks of buildings and dip downwards to the open beach. These alleys have lately been cleaned, but, not long ago, the breeze which visited them must have been tainted with all the odours of decay peculiar to an Eastern town, and not unfamiliar even now to the quasi-British subjects of Cyprus. At the backs of the houses are pleasant fruit-gardens, where one may sample the grapes from which the wine of the province is made. The offices and shops on the ground floors are commodious, and in many of the latter we may see costly foreign wares exposed for sale. The street looks deserted, and is invested with a silence strangely at variance with the business-like aspect and architecture of the town. During the day-time, however, busy traders may be seen through their barred windows or open door-ways, bargaining in Oriental fashion, or counting up their gains; and in the cool of the evening, when they parade up and down before their stores, the gay costumes of the Greek ladies, and the fashionable attire of their lords, would not disgrace a Parisian boulevard.

KYRENIA HARBOUR Kyrenia, at one time the capital of a small kingdom, but at the present day little beyond a village, boasts the only harbour on the north of the island, and carries on an unimportant trade with the coast of Asia Minor. The depth of the port nowhere exceeds two fathoms, while its limited area only provides anchorage for the small class of vessels seen in the photograph. A reef of rocks outside the haven indicates the position of an ancient sea-wall. The importance attached to the town in olden times is seen in the massive fortifications that guard the entrance to the port. It is supposed to have been founded originally by Dorian colonists under Praxander and Cepheus, and, even at a late period in its history, it was jealously guarded and kept open for the reception of food supplies from the mainland to support the garrisons in the mountain forts of St. Hiilarion, Buffavento, and Cantara [Kantara]. The trade at this pigmy port is so insignificant that it has never been referred to in the consular commercial reports; a circumstance to be accounted for by the greater facilities offered for the anchorage of large vessels„ by the roadsteads of Larnaca, Limassol, and Paphos, to which places, indeed, part of the produce of the plains of Kyrenia finds its way across the island for shipment. There is great reason to doubt whether Kyrenia will ever regain its ancient commercial fame. The harbour might be deepened and enlarged, but only at a cost which would need many years of unprecedented prosperity for its reimbursement. The safe and commodious southern roadsteads arc certain to supply the wants of the trade of the island, until such time as Larnaca or Limassol become the chief ports of the Levant.

WOMEN AT A WELL. LEFKA

GROUP AT AVGORU Avgoru (Avgorou] is a small village half-way between Larnaca and Famagosta, and about five miles inland. It is built on stony ground and the people there support themselves by cultivating small patches of the alluvial soil found in the hollows of the rocks. The place stands on the outer edge of the plain of Niesorea, and is set down by Gaudry as barren land. Grain and cotton, however, as well as fruits, are grown there in sufficient quantities to support the small community with the necessaries of existence; their cotton being spun, dyed, and woven by the villagers themselves into strong fabrics for domestic use. Many of the articles so produced are as remarkable for the tasteful patterns they display as for their weight and durability. Among them we find closely-woven table-covers, towels, and bed-sheetings, as well as snow-white coverlets fringed and wrought in open work of most elegant design. The interiors of the dwellings at Avgoru arc poor, and their earthen floors are partly taken up in the storage of produce; nevertheless, their occupants are respectably clothed, and seem to turn their labour to good account, for there is an absence of that squalor and misery which we meet with among the poor in more highly-civilized communities. Fever of a mild type had invaded the little hamlet, but at the time of my visit the health of the people generally was exceedingly good, and they were busy gathering in the cotton crop. In some respects, Avgoru seems to be a model settlement; the natives are singularly graceful in manner, and courteous to strangers, and each individual earns a livelihood by his own labour.

GROUP AT AVGORU Avgoru (Avgorou] is a small village half-way between Larnaca and Famagosta, and about five miles inland. It is built on stony ground and the people there support themselves by cultivating small patches of the alluvial soil found in the hollows of the rocks. The place stands on the outer edge of the plain of Niesorea, and is set down by Gaudry as barren land. Grain and cotton, however, as well as fruits, are grown there in sufficient quantities to support the small community with the necessaries of existence; their cotton being spun, dyed, and woven by the villagers themselves into strong fabrics for domestic use. Many of the articles so produced are as remarkable for the tasteful patterns they display as for their weight and durability. Among them we find closely-woven table-covers, towels, and bed-sheetings, as well as snow-white coverlets fringed and wrought in open work of most elegant design. The interiors of the dwellings at Avgoru arc poor, and their earthen floors are partly taken up in the storage of produce; nevertheless, their occupants are respectably clothed, and seem to turn their labour to good account, for there is an absence of that squalor and misery which we meet with among the poor in more highly-civilized communities. Fever of a mild type had invaded the little hamlet, but at the time of my visit the health of the people generally was exceedingly good, and they were busy gathering in the cotton crop. In some respects, Avgoru seems to be a model settlement; the natives are singularly graceful in manner, and courteous to strangers, and each individual earns a livelihood by his own labour.

Glass negative for Group at Avgoru.

THE VILLAGE PRIEST, AVGORU At Avgoru, even the village priest provides his own subsistence by the work of his own hands, although he also enjoys a small, fluctuating stipend in the shape of offerings from his parishioners. These offerings are received in return for various services, ritualistic for the most part, or ceremonial, which only a priest can render; such arc benedictions, exorcisms, the granting of divorces, the celebration of marriages, attendance on the dying, burial of the dead, and a number of other practices, all more or less tinged with superstition, Everywhere within the chapels the Virgin Mary and the Saints arc pictured on the walls in glowing colours, and the worship bestowed upon these Holy Ones must be ardent indeed if it matches the brilliancy of the paints employed in their representations. Superstition has also endowed some of these effigies with marvellous attributes s with the power of healing the sick, of casting out evil spirits from those possessed, and the like. Not unfrequently in these sanctuaries a votive offering is to be seen suspended before a picture, either of the Virgin or Patron Saint — the rude wax model of a head perhaps, or of a hand or limb— placed there by some poor sufferer to remind the Being whose aid he seeks that the donor is still troubled with the headache, ague, or other malady which has localized itself in the part of the body that the model denotes. Touching the resources of a papa, or village priest, I was informed by a simple villager that the priest of his parish was a man of wealth, for his income would not fall far short of ten shillings a week. Even during our brief stay in the place we saw quite enough to satisfy us that the pastor represented in this illustration was held in high veneration among his flock, and, so far as we ourselves were concerned, the kindness and courtesy of his welcome left nothing to be desired.

MOUNTAINEER Another Highlander figures in this plate —a tall, bony man of a most obligingly good-natured disposition. He, however, looked a bold, determined character, whose massive hands and muscular frame would stand him in good stead in carrying out any resolve for good or evil.

MODERN FEMALE ATTIRE IN CYPRUS The Abbe Mariti, who visited Cyprus about 1764, was at great pains to describe the attire worn by the women of the island in his day, and, indeed, did ample justice to this subject. The details which he supplied prove that if the island has made no progress in other respects, some of its women at least have done their best to keep pace with the fashions of their more fortunate sisters in the West. When the Abbe wrote, the Cypriote dress was made up of an embroidered vest, breeches, and yellow boots or leggings secured at the ankles, and supplemented by sandals or slippers. A petticoat and robe of silk or velvet completed the costume; but the whole dress, at that time, was so disposed as to betoken immodesty in the wearer. Nowadays, the attire of Cypriote women is frequently so simple as to suggest its being designed for comfort and convenience rather than for aesthetic display. There could, for instance, be nothing more simple or modest than the costumes shown in the accompanying plate. The one worn by the figure in the background is probably a relic of some severe pre-Turkish period, while the other is purely European and singularly devoid of tawdry ornament. For all that, its design well befits the graceful figure of the young Cyprian maid, while its colour sets off her dark eyes and olive complexion. It does not always happen, however, that the Greek ladies of Cyprus are so simply attired. On festive occasions they are flounced and frilled, and laced up to the highest pitch of Parisian exquisiteness, but to the sacrifice of much of their own native grace and elegance. There arc still many of the Greek women of Nicosia and the inland towns who adhere to the more picturesque, ancient costume described by Mariti, and also noticed by Dr. Clarke in his travels through Cyprus.

A CYPRIOTE BOY The boy represented in this picture is the son of the priest of Avgoru. The higher dignitaries of the Greek Church are not permitted to marry; but the papa may he wedded, subject to the condition that the union was effected before his consecration, and that in the event of the death of his wife he shall not marry a second time.

Henry Wellcome. London. Year unknown.

The wooden box that Thomson used to carry his glass negative plates.