along the line of the Central Court, access
was given by a row of four steps to an ante-chamber, which opened
upon another room, of no great size in itself, but of surpassing
interest from the character of its appointments. 'Already, a few
inches below the surface, freshly preserved fresco began to appear.
Walls were shortly uncovered, decorated with flowering plants and
running water, while on each side of the doorway of a small inner
room, stood guardian griffins with peacock's plumes in the same
flowery landscape. Round the walls ran low stone benches, and between
these, on the north side, separated by a small interval, and raised on
a stone base, rose a gypsum throne with a high back, and originally
covered with decorative designs. Its lower part was adorned with
a curiously carved arch, with crocketed mouldings, showing an
extraordinary anticipation of some most characteristic features
of Gothic architecture. Opposite the throne was a finely wrought
tank of gypsum slabs--a feature borrowed perhaps from an Egyptian
palace--approached by a descending flight of steps, and originally
surmounted by cypress-wood columns, supporting a kind of _impluvium_.
Here truly was the council chamber of a Mycenaean King or Sovereign
Lady.'[*] The discovery of the very throne of Minos, for such we may
fairly term it, was surely the most dramatic and fitting recompense
for the explorer's patience and persistence. No more ancient throne
exists in Europe, or probably in the world, and none whose associations
are anything like so full of interest (Plate I.).

[Footnote *: _Monthly Review_, March, 1901, pp. 123, 124.]

The Throne Room still preserved among its debris many relics of
former splendour. Fragments of blue and green porcelain, of gold-foil,
and lapis lazuli and crystal, were scattered on the floor, and
several crystal plaques with painting on the back, among them an
exceedingly fine miniature of a galloping bull on an azure ground;
while an agate plaque, bearing a relief of a dagger laid upon a
folded belt, almost equalled cameo-work in the style and delicacy
of its execution. In a small room on the north side of the Central
Court was found a curiously quaint and delicate specimen of early
fresco painting--the figure of a Little Boy Blue--more thoroughly
deserving of the title than Gainsborough's famous picture, for,
strangely enough, he is blue in his flesh-tints, picking and placing
in a vase the white crocuses that still d