He was therefore obliged to satisfy the leaders of the Christian agitators by the concession of minor advantages in the local conflicts, oftener of Christian against Christian than of the same against the Turk, and finally he was obliged to resort to the inciting of feud and jealousy between the clans, villages, and provinces in the island, to keep them from uniting against him.

He found it convenient to employ me as a tub to the whale, and, having first excited the insular jealousy against archaeological intrusion by foreigners, and inducing his clique of subordinate intriguers to oppose my operations, though the Christian population in general were in favor of permitting me to excavate wherever I liked, he made them the concession of refusing me the permission I sought.

Therefore, while he promised me all things and urged me to go at once to select my locality, he wrote to the Porte advising the refusal of the firman, which had been applied for directly by the Institute, through the minister at Constantinople.
My assistant, Mr.Haynes, who had been sent by the Institute to take his first lessons in archaeology and photography, having arrived, we went to Candia to select our site.

We decided on attacking a ruin on the acropolis of Gnossus, already partially exposed by the searches of local diggers for antiques.

It had a curiously labyrinthine appearance, and on the stones I found and described the first discovered of the characters whose nature has since been made the subject of the researches of Mr.Evans.I made an agreement with the Turkish proprietor of the land, and prepared to set to work when the firman should arrive.