But it was not impossible for the Government. The value of the Elgin Marbles was set down at £35,000. The wonderful sculptures which many American millionaires to-day would pay anything to obtain were valued then at £35,000. The nation owes much to Lord Elgin for acquiring from the ruins of Athens these matchless relics of the time when Athens was the first city of the world and Greek art was blooming in all its beauty. Lord Elgin rescued the glories of Greece that were still visible, but Schliemann nearly three quarters of a century later had the extraordinary insight and genius to delve into the dim past before Greece was, before Troy was a nation, back to the misty beginnings of that ancient race whose writings even now we are unable to read. The puzzling characters inscribed on the pottery dug up by Schliemann gave him the clue where to look for the earliest traces of that race. With rare judgment, amounting to genius, he pointed to Knossos, in Crete, as the seat from which the Mediterranean civilization sprang. [Illustration: _By courtesy of the British School at Athens_ THE PICTURESQUE CAMP OF A DIGGER IN THE ISLAND OF CRETE] CHAPTER XV On the map of the world, Great Britain is small. That men should go forth from this little island and win their way in so many distant lands, that this island people should wield such power over the earth, that they should venture into the unknown places and bring vast areas under the dominion of England, seems incredible. If we were not aware that this is the literal truth, we should find it hard to believe, we might even feel inclined to doubt it. The fact that the mighty British Empire has all sprung from this little island in the North Sea is one of the most astounding things in the world. In olden times it was thought that all the world centred round the Mediterranean Sea, that the earth consisted only of those lands bordering the Mediterranean. In bygone days, long before the dawn of history, it is possible that Crete dominated the known world of that day just as the Island of Great Britain dominates the world of our own day. The British Empire is tangible proof of what one little island can do. There is no reason why Crete should not have done the same in the past, why that little island set in the vivid blue of the Mediterranean should not have influenced all the lands on the Mediterranean shore. We do not know. We cannot say. We have learned much, but more remains to be unravelled from the tangled skein that Time has woven in Crete.