em, framed by the azure
sea. Right in front, a dark brown fortress girdles white mosques and
minarets. Rich and green, our mountain capes here join to form a
setting for the town, in whose dark walls--still darker--open a dozen
high-arched caves in which the huge Venetian galleys used to lie in
wait. High above all, higher and higher yet, up into the firmament,
range after range of blue and snow-capped mountains. I was bewildered
and amazed, having heard nothing of this great beauty. The town when
entered is quite Eastern. The streets are formed of open stalls under
the first story, in which squat tailors, cooks, sherbet-vendors and
the like, busy at their work or smoking narghilehs. Cloths stretched
from house to house keep out the sun. Mules rattle through the crowd;
curs yelp between your legs; negroes are as hideous and bright clothed
as usual; grave Turks with long chibouques continue to march solemnly
without breaking them; a little Arab in one dirty rag pokes fun at two
splendid little Turks with brilliant fezzes; wiry mountaineers in
dirty, full, white kilts, shouldering long guns and one hand on their
pistols, stalk untamed past a dozen Turkish soldiers, who look
sheepish and brutal in worn cloth jacket and cotton trousers. A
headless, wingless lion of St. Mark still stands upon a gate, and has
left the mark of his strong clutch. Of ancient times when Crete was
Crete not a trace remains; save perhaps in the full, well-cut nostril
and firm tread of that mountaineer, and I suspect that even his sires
were Albanians, mere outer barbarians.

"_May 17._

"I spent the day at the little station where the cable was landed,
which has apparently been first a Venetian monastery and then a
Turkish mosque. At any rate the big dome is very cool, and the little
ones hold [our electric] batteries capitally. A handsome young
Bashi-bazouk guards it, and a still handsomer mountaineer is the
servant; so I draw them and the monastery and the hill, till I'm black
in the face with heat, and come on board to hear the Canea cable is
still bad.

"_May 23._

"We arrived in the morning at the east end of Candia, and had a
glorious scramble over the mountains, which seem built of adamant.
Time has worn away the softer portions of the rock, only leaving sharp
jagged edges of steel. Sea-eagles soaring above our heads; old tanks,
ruins and desolation at o