ge gypsum blocks which they knew so
well how to handle and work. They were the wooden walls, the long
low black galleys with the vermilion bows, and the square sail,
and the creeping rows of oars, that lay moored or beached at the
mouth of the Kairatos River, or cruised around the island coast,
keeping the Minoan peace of the AEgean. So long as the war-fleet of
Minos was in being, Knossos needed no fortifications. No expedition
of any size could force a landing on the island. If the crew of a
chance pirate-galley, desperate with hunger, or tempted by reports
of the wealth of the great palace, succeeded in eluding the vigilance
of the Minoan cruisers, and made a swift rush up from the coast,
there was the bastion with its armed guard, enough to deal with
the handful of men who could be detached for such a dare-devil
enterprise. But in the fleet of Knossos was her fate; and if once
the fleet failed, she had no second line of defence on which to
rely against any serious attack. There is every evidence that the
fleet did fail at last. The manifest marks of a vast conflagration,
perhaps repeated more than once during the long history of the
palace, and the significant fact that vessels of metal are next
to unknown upon the site, while of gold there is scarcely a trace,
with the exception of scattered pieces of gold-foil, appear to
indicate either that the Minoan Sovereigns failed to maintain the
weapon which had made and guarded their Empire, or that the Minoan
sailors met at last with a stronger fleet, or more skilful mariners.
Sea-power was lost, and with it everything.

Near the main north entrance of the palace was found one of the
great artistic treasures of the season's work. This was a plaster
relief of a great bull's head, which had once formed part of a
complete figure. These figures of bulls, as we have already seen in
connection with the Palace of Tiryns, were among the most favourite
subjects of Mycenaean and Minoan art; but nothing so fine as the
Knossos relief had yet been discovered. 'It is life-sized, or somewhat
over, and modelled in high relief. The eye has an extraordinary
prominence, its pupil is yellow, and the iris a bright red, of
which narrower bands again appear encircling the white towards the
lower circumference of the ball. The horn is of greyish-blue, and
both this and the other parts of the relief are of exceptionally
hard plaster, answering to the Italian _gesso duro_.... Such as
it is, this