d plans, serve to
give to the ruin a large share of its labyrinthine character. It seems
to be agreed now that these were the storerooms of the palace, and in
them may still be seen the huge earthen jars which once served to
contain the palace supplies. Long rows of them stand in the ancient
hallways and in the narrow cells that lead off them, each jar large
enough to hold a fair-sized man, and in number sufficient to have
accommodated Ali Baba and the immortal forty thieves. In the center of
the palace little remains; but in the southeastern corner, where the
land begins to slope abruptly to the valley below, there are to be seen
several stories of the ancient building. Here one comes upon the rooms
marked with the so-called "distaff" pattern, supposed to indicate that
they were the women's quarters.

The restorer has been busy here, but not offensively so. Much of the
ancient wall is intact, and in one place is a bathroom with a very
diminutive bathtub still in place. Along the eastern side is also shown
the oil press, where olives were once made to yield their coveted
juices, and from the press proper a stone gutter conducted the fluid
down to the point where jars were placed to receive it. This discovery
of oil presses in ancient buildings, by the way, has served in more than
one case to arouse speculation as to the antiquity of oil lamps such as
were once supposed to belong only to a much later epoch. Whether in the
Minoan days they had such lamps or not, it is known that they had at
least an oil press and a good one. In the side of the hill below the
main palace of Minos has been unearthed a smaller structure, which they
now call the "villa," and in which several terraces, have been uncovered
rather similar to the larger building above. Here is another throne
room, cunningly contrived to be lighted by a long shaft of light from
above falling on the seat of justice itself, while the rest of the room
is in obscurity.

It may be that it requires a stretch of the imagination to compare the
palace of Cnossos with Troy, but nevertheless there are one or two
features that seem not unlike the discoveries made by Dr. Schliemann on
that famous site. Notably so, it seems to me, are the traces of the
final fire, which are to be seen at Cnossos as at Troy, and the huge
jars, which may be compared with the receptacles the Trojan excavators
unearthed, and found still to contain dried peas and other things that
the Trojans left