202 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



Passing through the gateway, we came, on the 

 right hand, upon the scene of Dr Schliemann's labours. 

 The plot of ground excavated is about forty yards 

 long by twenty wide, surrounded on the three sides 

 which overlook the plain by the outer wall of the 

 citadel, while the fourth is bounded by the road, 

 beyond which rises the huge inner wall. The space 

 in which the principal tombs were found is shut in 

 by a double circle of upright slabs of stone. Their 

 contents, into the discussion of which I do not pro- 

 pose to enter here, have long ago been transferred to 

 Athens, so we saw nothing but the fragments of 

 pottery with which the ground was thickly strewn. 



A climb of about 150 feet brought us from this 

 point to the top of the hill on which Mycenae was 

 built. Its position is striking, whether from a mili- 

 tary or picturesque point of view. It is on a spur 

 running out from a steep range of barren hills lying 

 about N.W. and S.E. There is a break in the range 

 just behind the city, and it is to the northernmost of 

 the two ridges thus formed that the Mycenaean spur 

 belongs. Looking S.W. from the citadel the whole 

 plain of Argos lies spread before you. Indeed the 

 view from this point was even finer than that which 

 we had enjoyed in the morning from the theatre of 

 Argos. The sun, trying hard to force its way through 

 the heavy masses of cloud which hung above the 

 opposite range of Parthenium, shot gleams, alternated 

 with belts of dark shadow, across the plain at our 



