Those who wish to pursue this interesting subject further will find an admirable account of it in the English translation of Schliemann's works and essays, with a full description of each exploration, and numerous illustrations of the buildings and articles found. For my present object I only refer to it as an illustration of the position that Egypt and Chaldæa do not stand alone in presenting proofs of high antiquity, but that other nations, such as the Chinese, the Hittites, the Minæans of Southern Arabia, the Mycenæans, Trojans, Lydians, Phrygians, Cretans, and doubtless many others, also existed as populous, powerful, and civilized states, at a time long antecedent to the dawn of classical history. If these ancient empires and civilization became so completely forgotten, or survived only in dim traditions of myths and poetical legends, the reason seems to be that they kept no written records, or at any rate none in the form of enduring inscriptions. We know ancient Egypt from its hieroglyphics, and from Manetho's history; Chaldæa and Assyria from the cuneiform writing on clay tablets; China, up to about 2500 B.C., from its written histories; but it is singular that the other ancient civilizations have left few or no inscriptions. This is the more remarkable in the case of the Mycenæan cities explored by Dr. Schliemann, for their date is not so very remote, their jewellery, vases, and signet-rings are profusely decorated, their dead interred in stately tombs with large quantities of gold and silver, and yet not a single instance has been found of anything resembling alphabetical or symbolical writing, or of any form of inscription. Atreus, Agamemnon, and a long line of kings lie in their stately tombs, with their gold masks and breastplates, and their arms and treasures about them, without a word or sign to distinguish father from son, ancestor from successor. Their queens are buried in their robes of cloth of gold, their tiaras, necklaces, bracelets, rings and jewels, equally without a word to say which was Clytemnestra and which Electra. How different is this from the Egyptian royal tombs and palaces, where pompous inscriptions record the genealogies of kings for fifty or more generations, and the first care of every Pharaoh is to carve the annals of his exploits on imperishable granite!