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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



rookeries and allow the voyagers to pho- 

 tograph the animals. It may be chron 7 

 icled that a new and valuable ally to sci- 

 ence education has been established in 



California in the boat with a glass bottom, 

 through which naturalist or layman may 

 observe animals in their habitat and note 

 their habits unconstrained. 



EXPLORATIONS IN CRETE 



By Edith H. Hall 



SINCE the island of Crete passed 

 out of the control of Turkey, now 

 nearly a decade ago, it has offered 

 a field of exploration unparalleled for 

 richness even in /Egean lands, where 

 ancient remains abound. Under the 

 Turkish regime a thorough-going explo- 

 ration of the island was impossible, but 

 since the flags of the Powers first waved 

 above the Venetian walls at Canea ; since 

 the Italian gendarmes came to train the 

 now efficient Cretan police, and since the 

 power to grant permissions to excavate 

 passed into the hands of courteous and 

 enlightened officials, Crete has been the 

 scene of a remarkable series of discov- 

 eries. 



To the traveler arriving from Greece 

 the island of Crete presents aspects that 

 are exotic and foreign. The heavy 

 Venetian walls, it is true, which greet 

 the eye as one approaches the harbor of 

 Candia differ only in extent and splendid 

 preservation from the Venetian walls at 

 Nauplia or Corfu. But the costumes 

 of the boatmen who row the visitors 

 ashore are Turkish ; among the loiterers 

 on the quay are Bedouins and negroes ; 

 and the first glance up the narrow, twist- 

 ing, and roughly paved streets of a Cre- 

 tan town will discover a Turkish balcony 

 or a minaret and mosque. Even so, in 

 the third and second millenniums B. C, 

 the island must have seemed strange and 

 foreign to a traveler from the north, for 

 in that remote epoch also Crete was in 

 close communication with Phoenicia and 

 Egypt, and absorbed more elements of 

 these civilizations than did the mainland ; 

 but of this later. 



The archaeologist who excavates in 



Crete enjoys a brilliant background for 

 his work. When he sees for the first 

 time the picturesque Turkish sailboats, 

 with their flame-colored sails, rocking; 

 beneath the Venetian mole ; or the colors 

 of the market-place, where the venders 

 wash their green stuff in the old foun- 

 tain ; or the fields bright, now with pink 

 and purple anemones, now with yellow 

 oxalis and scarlet poppies, he exclaims, 

 ''Why do the artists forever paint Capri 

 and Sorrento and never paint this?" 

 But when he has lived in the island some 

 time, either renting for a trifle a house 

 in Candia with a pebbled court and gar- 

 den all his own, or living in some coun- 

 try village, where he learns to marvel at 

 the unspoiled refinement and courtesy of 

 the islanders, he is likely to offer a 

 prayer of thanksgiving that Crete is as 

 yet unknown to the tourist throng — that 

 it still remains a rare prize enjoyed by 

 occasional travelers and a handful of 

 archaeologists. 



It is not an exaggeration to say that 

 one cannot turn the soil of Crete without 

 bringing to light potsherds — relics of the 

 prehistoric, the Greek, the Roman, the 

 Byzantine, or the .Venetian civilizations 

 which have flourished successively on 

 Cretan soil. But generally these frag- 

 ments of pottery are coarse, undec- 

 orated, and badly broken, and are sepa- 

 rate from house walls. To find good 

 specimens of well-finished decorated pot- 

 tery, together with the remains of 

 buildings, is the aim of the archaeologist, 

 and to find such remains dating from the 

 prehistoric period is today his highest 

 ambition, for scholars bent on solving 

 the problems of early TEgean civiliza- 



