Mary rested her head against the lady's shoulder. Her brother, who should have been by her side — where was he? The clock struck eleven while they sat there, and still he came not.
CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
CYPRUS: ITS ANCIENT CITIES, TOMBS AND TEMPLES — BY GEN.
LOUIS BALMA DICESNOLA.
Archaeology has now become a science, and must be studied, like natural history, from disinterred specimens, as geology is illustrated by fossils. Indeed, there is a striking analogy between the physical history of the globe and the moral history of its inhabitants. The age of this
"Huge rotundity we tread upon"
is determined by the remains of animals embedded in its rocky tablets. So the duration of man upon its surface, and the progress of civilization, is learned from the works of art buried in the ruins of ancient cities. It is passing strange that the larger part of human history should be found in tombs and temples of past ages, found many feet beneath the surface of the earth. These records are absolutely essential to the knowledge of former ages. Within the present century great progress has been made in paleontology. The deciphering of the Rosetta stone by Champollion, the interpretation of the cuneiform characters by Col. Rawlinson, the excavations made at Hassarlic and Mycaenae by Dr. Schliemann, and the unearthing of Cypriote antiquities by Gen. Cesnola, have changed all our former notions of ancient history, and greatly increased our knowledge of "the buried past." Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Troy, Mycaenae, Olympia and Cyprus have all uttered their voices and unveiled the mysteries of by-gone ages by their oracular revelations. The two most interesting works now before the public, relating to ancient art and history, are those of Dr. Schliemann and Gen. Cesnola. The discoveries made at Hassarlic and Mycaenae are certainly very old, very valuable and very instructive. Whether they are as ancient as the fall of Troy and antedate the age of Homer is not yet decided. Five spacious tombs, within the circuit of the cyclopean walls of the Acropolis at Mycaenae, buried twenty-five feet below the present surface of the soil, were opened by Dr. Schliemann. These tombs were cut in the solid rock. Some of them contained three bodies, supposed to be those of kings. From them were taken seven hundred works of art, of gold, silver, bronze and terra cotta, valued at twenty-five thousand dollars! The intrinsic value of the articles amply repays the expense of the excavation made for them. These have a pecuniary and historic value which we cannot fully estimate, but the discoveries of Gen. Cesnola at Cyprus surpass those of all other antiquarians of this century. They give us the missing links in the history of art, going back of historic times, and presenting in one grand panorama the products of Persian, Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek and Roman skill. Phoenicia occupies an important place in these discoveries. In the time of Thotmes III., fifteen hundred years before Christ, there were found, in an old Theban tomb, pictures of four nations bringing tribute to that Egyptian king. One of them represented a people of Cyprus. They brought works of art precisely like those found in that island by Gen. Cesnola, to wit.: vases of gold and silver, and works in stone and iron. In the time of Solomon, one thousand years before Christ, the Phoenicians were the great carriers of the Mediterranean trade, and were strong enough to protect their factories and commerce. They gave to Greece her alphabet, but probably copied their arts from Egypt.
General Cesnola was a brave and gallant officer in the war of the rebellion. He gained noble laurels as an officer, but far nobler as a discoverer. President Lincoln never made a more judicious appointment than when he made
