Such was the aspect of Tiryns when I visited it in the years 1875 and in 1877. In 1884 I went there again with Dr. Schliemann, who was uncovering the palace on the height. The results of his discoveries are so important that I shall review them in another chapter. We rode down from Mycenæ to Argos late in the evening, along the broad and limpid stream of the river Inachus, which made us wonder at the old epic epithet, _very thirsty_, given to this celebrated plain.(163) Though the night was getting dark, we could see and smell great fields of wild rose-red oleander, blooming along the river banks, very like the rhododendrons of our demesnes. And, though not a bird was to be heard, the tettix, so dear to the old Greeks, and so often the theme of their poets, was making the land echo with its myriad chirping. Aristophanes speaks of it as crying out with mad love of the noonday sun.(164) We found it no less eager and busy in late twilight, and far into the night. I can quite understand how the old Greek, who hated silence, and hated solitude still more, loved this little creature, which kept him company even in the time of sleep, and gave him all the feelings of cheerfulness and homeliness which we northerns, in our wretched climate, must seek from the cricket at the fireside. At ten o’clock we rode into the curious dark streets of Argos, and, after some difficulty, were shown to the residence of M. Papalexopoulos, who volunteered to be our host—a medical man of education and ability, who, in spite of a very recent family bereavement, opened his house to the stranger, and entertained us with what may well be called in that country real splendor. I may notice that he alone, of all the country residents whom we met, gave us wine not drenched with resin—a very choice and remarkable red wine, for which the plain of Argos is justly celebrated. In this comfortable house we slept, I may say, in solitary grandeur, and awoke in high spirits, without loss or damage, to visit the wonders of this old centre of legend and of history.