English, French and Italian archeologists rushed in and occupied spheres of activity. Since Schliemann's excavations at Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns, other excavations all over Greece and the islands of the Egæan had gone on revealing a brilliant civilization preceding the Hellenic bloom. This was called Mycænæan civilization, because for nearly a quarter of a century Mycenae furnished the most important objects representing it. But Schliemann and others had long felt that Crete might be found to be the cradle of this brilliant older civilization. And now an opportunity had come to put this hope to the test. The era of furtive and tentative digging was at an end. Two great centres of this older civilization in the island were taken in hand, Phæstos and Knossos, by Italians and English respectively. The prophecy of Schliemann that in Crete the "home and centre of Mycenaean civilization" was to be found has been already amply fulfilled.

In April, 1903, three of us, members of the American School at Athens, set out to see the results of four years of work, as well as to become acquainted with the glorious island itself. The voyage through the Egæan islands was in itself a rare treat, although the first part of the trip is made in the night. When the steamer has fairly left Melos and Thera behind, Crete begins to appear. What we first saw of it was a mass of snow looming above the clouds; and as we drew nearer the whole mass of Mt. Ida, just west of the middle of the island, unfolded itself from base to summit, seeming at that distance to rise directly out of the sea.

We soon landed at Candia, the principal town of the island, which was itself long called Candia. The old name Crete having been brought to life again, the town has been dubbed Heraclion because there was once a Heraclion

here or hereabouts.

It was the Greek Easter Sunday, and there was no work going on at Knossos, which is only about four miles distant. So we visited Mr. Arthur Evans, the excavator of Knossos, who was taking his rest-if working hard over drawings and classifyings can be called restingin one of the finest palaces of the town, the rent of which cost him less than the rent of a hovel in the neighborhood of New York. Evans gave us a fine luncheon, but we dined in the restaurant "Labyrinth." It was more difficult to find Halbherr, the Italian excavator, who was in town flitting about among his numerous friends; and we did not see him until ten days later.

We made a visit to the wonderful museum of Candia in the company of Mr. Evans. But we reserved the more thorough study of the contents of that museum until we had seen something of the island and the excavations. Through a Mohammedan dragoman we secured horses and a guide for the following morning at sunrise. Prompt to the minute appeared the guide, Hassan, a full-blooded Turk, with the horses, and in a coat of as many colors as Joseph's. As the sun was rising he led us out of the stupendous fortifications of Candia and the lines of British soldiers who formed the army of occupation in that part of the island. We struck straight across the island at the middle, bisecting it, as it were. We were following the line of least resistance from north to south.

A horse has been declared on good authority to be "a vain thing for safety." But when a man gets astride of a fine horse in a fine country and on a fine day he wants no other method of locomotion. There are no carriage roads in Crete except one about four miles long from Candia to Knossos, and another of about equal length from Suda Bay to Canea, the seat of government. The enthusiastic traveller is apt to be

thankful for this lack of roads; but with the march of improvement there will surely come a high road over the path that we were following, and in all probability a railroad, to make communication between Candia and the great fertile and populous southern plain of Messara. How our spirits rose as we wound our way up, turning around from time to time to look at the sea!

Not until the afternoon was well spent did we look down into the great plain studded with villages. At evening we came to the village of The Ten Saints (Agia Deka) on the site of ancient Gortyna. The "ten saints" are said to have suffered martyrdom under Diocletian; and there is a well kept enclosure in the heart of the village, sacred to their mem

ory.

We had been skirting Mt. Ida along its irregular base all day; and the glimpses that we got from time to time

of its mighty mass made amends for our slow progress. Even now we were at its base. We were in Halbherr's preserves now; everybody, even Hassan, was telling us of his fearless riding at a breakneck gallop from Gortyna to Candia in four hours.

We put up at the house of Manoli (a nickname for Emmanuel). What his surname was I never thought to ask. Nobody cares much for anything beyond the Christian name in these parts. Manoli keeps a guest book in which are all the names of foreigners who have appeared in this quarter of the island during the last fifty years. He has succeeded his father as a receiver of guests, and has inherited from him the old mill, the race of which contained on its wall the famous ancient law code of Gortyna which Halbherr discovered and read some twenty years ago. The wall on which this code was inscribed formed a

part of one side of the mill-race. Since it shows a decided convexity it was probably the wall of a circular or semicircular building, perhaps a theatre, or possibly a tribunal of justice. It is, I think, the longest Greek inscription known. There are twelve columns, of fifty-four and fifty-five lines to the column. The letters, some of which have peculiar shapes, are fully an inch high, and are carefully cut. It is most attractive to look at, a sort of work of art.

The code deals minutely with parentage, adoption, matrimony, divorce, adultery and almost every phase of civic life. The penalty for an offence against one who is not enrolled in one of the clans is only one-tenth as much as would have to be paid if the offence was committed against a "clansman." The minute gradation of fines imposed upon the master of the house for offences committed upon his female servants is one of the most interesting features of the inscription.

No persuasion or force could bring either father or son to allow archæologists to break up that mill-race and put it in a museum where it could be better kept and the inscription be more easily studied. They had influence with the powers that be. A poor man would have been less tenderly handled.

After depositing our luggage we walked by the mild light of the westering sun through the stupendous, largely medieval, ruins of Gortyna to the old mill-race; and after reading parts of the inscription, returned to our comfortable quarters. All around the yard, leaning against the high enclosing wall, were statues, reliefs, inscriptions, and architectural pieces.

The next morning Manoli, on a splendid black horse, quietly took us, Hassan and all, in charge, and we rode at a tearing pace about ten miles westward to St. Trinity (Agia Triada) by the sea, where Halbherr after excavating Phæstos was now uncovering a suburban villa, a sort of appanage to Phæstos, which lay on a high hill that we had passed on our left in coming to St. Trinity. The work here was suffering an interruption of two weeks because the Greeks like to celebrate their Easter week, and Halbherr, like a good Catholic, wished to celebrate his own Easter, which came in the following

week. Evans, who employed for the most part Mohammedans only, made no pause at all except on Sundays, and was distinctly scoring upon his rival. We missed the presence of Halbherr as a guide; but his foreman performed the function of a showman fairly well. It was here that I was sorely tempted to pick up a few clay molds for casting little Mycenæan women with flounced skirts, which the foreman spoke of as “broken bits." But I refrained partly from conscience and partly from fear, which is perhaps about the same thing.

The finest object found at St. Trinity was a vase of dark alabaster with a band of very animated figures encircling it. Halbherr took these figures in relief to be a band of warriors. But the objects held on the shoulders of the men do not lookso much like weapons as winnowing forks. It might be a harvest-home gambol. The sistrum, however, carried by one of the leading figures points to a religious procession, which is after all not entirely incompatible with the idea of a harvest celebration. But whatever the interpretation may be, the vase will remain one of the choicest treasures of the museum at Candia. It is so full of life that one almost refuses to believe that this is art of the second millennium B. C. and not of what we call the best period of classic art. But there is no doubt that it is prior to that period by a thousand years! Halbherr justly says of it: "The life and movement which the artist has succeeded in putting into this composition recall the palpitating scene described by the Homeric bard, wrought in metal at a stroke by the hand of Vulcan."

It may be said in passingthat the "suburban villa" was larger than Agamemnon's great palace at Mycena.

We retraced some of our steps, and then made a stiff climb in the heat up to Phæstos, where there stood on a high hill shut off from the sea, about four

miles distant, by a range of still higher hills, a palace most grand and imposing in its ruins. What must it have been in its entirety! Absolutely without fortification walls it must have belonged to a race of kings who dwelt here as securely as did King Minos at Knossos. This lack of walls points to an absolute lack of fear of invasion. In other words. the occupants of the palace controlled the sea. How different was the case with Troy, Tiryns and Mycena: Those cities were intrenched camps in the midst of enemies. Another inference may be made, and that is that Phæstos and Knossos were friends. There was probably an amicable division between them of their island home.

From the hill of Phæstos one enjoys an unobstructed view over the great plain of Messara stretching some fifty miles to the east between two mountain ranges. This fertile plain was once, we know not how long ago, a lake, which finally broke its way out into the sea by St. Trinity. Lake bottoms like this, of inexhaustible fertility, are found in many parts of Crete; but no other is so extensive as this. It seems reasonable to suppose that Gortyna was an upstart in this region, and that when it grew strong enough it overthrew the ancient and honorable Phæstos, much as Argos destroyed Mycena. Perhaps Gortyna was a Dorian settlement, for we know that there were Dorians in Crete in the time of Homer. At any rate a plain like Messara must ultimately be controlled by a single city. Before Phæstos lost this control it must have enjoyed more than a thousand years of prosperity. This is shown by its gradually developing pottery, one style passing over into another by slow degrees with no violent break until the most brilliant Mycenæan ware was produced.

The view from Phæstos to the east was not its only fine view. To the north