in the island, to keep them from uniting against him.  He found it convenient to employ me as a tub to the whale, and, having first excited the insular jealousy against archaeological intrusion by foreigners, and inducing his clique of subordinate intriguers to oppose my operations, though the Christian population in general were in favor of permitting me to excavate wherever I liked, he made them the concession of refusing me the permission I sought.  Therefore, while he promised me all things and urged me to go at once to select my locality, he wrote to the Porte advising the refusal of the firman, which had been applied for directly by the Institute, through the minister at Constantinople.

My assistant, Mr. Haynes, who had been sent by the Institute to take his first lessons in archaeology and photography, having arrived, we went to Candia to select our site.  We decided on attacking a ruin on the acropolis of Gnossus, already partially exposed by the searches of local diggers for antiques.  It had a curiously labyrinthine appearance, and on the stones I found and described the first discovered of the characters whose nature has since been made the subject of the researches of Mr. Evans.  I made an agreement with the Turkish proprietor of the land, and prepared to set to work when the firman should arrive.  After more than one letter from Photiades, assuring me in unqualified terms that I might confidently count on the reception of the firman, I received a communication from the minister at Constantinople, that on the advice of Photiades Pasha the firman was refused.  I had selected as the alternative locality the cave known as the burial-place of Zeus, on the summit of Mount Yuctas, not far from Gnossus, in the excavation of which I am convinced that archaeology will one day receive great light on early Cretan myth.  The importance of the locality in the prehistoric research in which Crete is one of the most important sections of our field of study, will, I am convinced, one day justify my anxiety to attack it; and the subsequent discoveries, so important, made by Halbherr in the companion cave on Mount Ida, where Zeus was believed to have been hidden and nursed, confirm my conviction of the value of the evidence still hidden on Yuctas.

Debarred from carrying out the purpose of my expedition, I contented myself with making such a survey of that part of the island as should serve the Institute for another attempt when the artificial obstacles should be removed; and I was on the point of visiting Gortyna when troubles broke out, initiated by the murder of two Mussulmans at Gortyna, revenged by the murder of Christians at Candia, and there was nothing to be done but to get back to civilization.  From the Mussulmans of the island I had less hostility to endure than from the more influential of the Christian Cretans, with whom the dominant passion of life seemed to be that of intrigue, and with whose mendacity and unscrupulousness I could not contend.