204 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



road. Dark though it was, we could not miss seeing 

 this famous fortress, which dates from the very earliest 

 days of Greece. " Wally Tiryns," Homer calls it ; 

 and "wally" indeed it is. It is a low mound, some 

 250 yards long by 50 broad, and not 100 feet in 

 height, surrounded by walls, whose makers might 

 well have passed for more than mortal among the men 

 of old. Huge uncut blocks, such as only a waggon 

 with a strong yoke of oxen could lift, are piled one 

 upon the other in a sort of rude order. Though no 

 tool has been used, and no mortar binds the blocks 

 together, the surface presented to outside view is yet 

 wonderfully regular and unbroken. This wall, which 

 is from 12 to 15 feet in height, and 25 feet thick, 

 runs right round the mound with hardly a break. 

 Clambering lip in one place where several blocks had 

 fallen, we gained the interior of the fortress, which 

 is mostly overgrown with nettles and other rough 

 herbage. On the north side access to the centre is 

 given by a curious subterraneous passage, its roof 

 arched with slabs leaning over against each other, and 

 pierced here and there with loop-holes. There are 

 other galleries of a like nature, though we saw only 

 this one. The weird grandeur of this giant's fortress, 

 whose characteristic features lost nothing by the dim 

 light in which we saw them, filled one with irrepres- 

 sible awe. "We puny mortals of to-day could but 

 vaguely wonder how, at a time when, as far as we 

 know, the crane and the pulley were unheard of, 



