But Mr. Verrall thinks that my explanations, or defences, of the alleged discrepancies "often seem hardly serious." He gives one example of my deplorable flippancy from _Iliad_, Book x. Now I readily grant to Mr. Verrall that I had no right to explain Agamemnon's view, from bed, in his hut, of the Trojan camp-fires beyond the wall of the Greek camp as merely the glow in the sky caused by these fires.[2] As Mr. Leaf puts it, "the poet does not seem to have a very vivid picture of the situation." In bed, in a hut (x. 11-14), Agamemnon could only see the Trojan fires on the rising ground beyond the wall, _and_ the Greek ships, "in his mind's eye." But Mr. Verrall proceeds to give a fine example of what I call "an imaginary discrepancy." "The wall is gone.... Nor is this a momentary inadvertence; for through the whole of Book x., though its story is such that the wall, if there, must be visible to the narrator (so to say) constantly, though the camp boundary is passed several times, never is there trace of anything but a ditch." This is merely an inadvertent misstatement of fact. Not only the new fosse round the Greek camp, but the gates of the new wall are mentioned. No wall, no gates! Let us examine the history of wall, gates, and ditch. "In Book ix. 69-87 the Greek camp has a wall." The nature of the wall is explained by Nestor in Book vii. 337-343. The wall-making is similarly described in 437-441. The wall has (1) towers, (2) gates (or one gate), "that through them (or it) may be a way for chariot-driving," and (3) there is "a deep foss hard by to be about it," with a palisade, to "hinder the horses and footmen" of the Trojans.[3] Now, even if only the fosse were mentioned in Book x., that fosse is part of the fortification first made and mentioned in Books vii. viii. and ix. 87, 88, where the advanced guard takes position "between the fosse and the wall." Precisely there, Agamemnon, in Book x. 126, 127, expects to find the advanced guard. The poet, in Book x., has certainly not forgotten the fortification of Books vii. viii. ix., for he does not merely, as Mr. Verrall declares, mention the fosse, though why does he do so, if he forgets the wall which was made at the same time? By a negative hallucination Mr. Verrall has failed to see that he also mentions the gate. "We will find the advanced guard _before the gate_," says Agamemnon (x. 126).