ravines that furrowed the bare crystalline peaks,
brown and gray and parched with the drought of three months. The Cretan
summer runs rainless from June to October; and the only relief to the
aridity of the landscape is formed by the olive-orchards, covering
nearly the whole expanse between the sea sands and the treeless ridge of
Malaxa with so luxuriant a green, that, accustomed to the olive of
Italy, I could scarcely believe these to be the same trees. This I at
first supposed to be owing to some peculiarity of the plain, but
subsequently found it to be characteristic of the Cretan olive; and I
remember hearing Captain Brine of the Racer express the same surprise I
myself felt on first seeing the olive here. The trees are like
river-side willows in early summer.

To get a clear comprehension of the position of Canea and the ancient
advantages of Cydonia, its local predecessor, and at the same time of
the whole northwestern district of Crete, one must ascend the hills of
the Akroteri,--at least the first ridge, from which the view is superb.
The Aspravouna towers higher: we look into the gorges of the Malaxa
ridge, and up the ravine of Theriso, to the mountains about Laki,--an
immemorial strong-hold of the Cretans, behind which, a sure and
impregnable refuge to brave men, is the great plain of Omalos. Farther
on are the hills of Selinos and Kisamos, sending off northward two long
parallel ridges of considerable altitude, the peninsula of Grabusa, the
ancient Corycus, the western land of Crete, and, from where we look,
visible in portions above the nearer ridge of Cape Spada, the Dictynnian
peninsula, which divides the plain of Cydonia from that of Kisamon and
Polyrrhenia, and, but for the glimpses of Corycus above it, shutting in
our view, as it bounds the territory dependent on the ancient city.

No site in Crete is more distinctly recognizable from the indications of
the ancient geographers than Cydonia. It had "a port with shoals
outside," and from this elevation one looks directly down the longer
fork of the harbor, and can see how the mole is built on a black reef,
whose detached masses extend from the lighthouse eastward to the corner
of the city wall, which is built out to meet it, and then descends to
the mole, with which it is continuous. Beyond the entrance of the
harbor, the reef again appears, gradually nearing the shore; and beyond
this, as far as the eye can reach, are no rocks,--no Other nook where a
ga