When you go in, and climb up the hill of the Acropolis, you find various other portions of Cyclopean walls which belonged to the old palace, in plan very similar to that of Tiryns. But the outer wall goes all round the hill where it is steepest, sometimes right along a precipice, and everywhere offering an almost insurmountable obstacle to an ancient assailant. On the east side, facing the steep mountain, which is separated from it by a deep gorge, is a postern gate, consisting merely of three stones, but these so massive, and so beautifully hewn and fitted, as to be a structure hardly less striking than the lion gate. At about half the depth of these huge blocks there is a regular groove cut down both sides and along the top, in order to hold the door. The whole summit of the great rock is now stony and bare, but not so bare that I could not gather scarlet anemones, which found scanty sustenance here and there in tiny patches of grass, and gladdened the gray color of the native rock and the primeval walls. The view from the summit, when first I saw it, was one of singular solitude and peace; not a stone seemed to have been disturbed for ages; not a human creature, or even a browsing goat, was visible, and the traveller might sketch or scrutinize any part of the fortress without fear of intrusion, far less of molestation. When I again reached the site, in the spring of 1877, a great change had taken place. Dr. Schliemann had attacked the ruins, and had made his world-renowned excavations inside and about the lion gate. To the gate itself this was a very great gain. All the encumbering earth and stones have been removed, so that we can now admire the full proportions of the mighty portal. He discovered a tiny porter’s lodge inside it. He denied the existence of the wheel-tracks which we and others fancied we had seen there on our former visit. [Illustration: Lion Gate, Mycenae] But proceeding from the gate to the lower side, where the hill slopes down rapidly, and where the great irregular Cyclopean wall trends away to the right, Dr. Schliemann found a deep accumulation of soil. This was, of course, the chief place on an otherwise bare rock where excavations promised large results. And the result was beyond the wildest anticipations. The whole account of what he has done is long before the public in his very splendid book, of which the illustrations are quite an epoch in the history of ornament, and in spite of their great antiquity will suggest to our modern jewellers many an exquisite pattern. The sum of what he found is this:—