Page:Troja by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/308

Having heard that the proprietor of the tumulus, a Turk in Seddul Bahr, was in prison for the theft of a horse, and feeling sure that I could easily settle the indemnity Image missingNo. 134.—Hammer and Axe of Diorite, with perforation. Size about 1:3: found on the sur face of the tumulus of Protesilaus. later on by the intervention of the kind civil governor of the Dardanelles, Hamid Pasha; being moreover afraid that the ever suspicious and envious military governor of the Dardanelles, Djemal Pasha, might throw obstacles in my way;—I did not lose a moment of my precious time, and, having brought with me pickaxes, shovels, baskets, etc., I at once ordered the four workmen to sink, just in the middle of the summit, a shaft three mètres in length and breadth. I had done exceedingly well to hurry on the work, for the commandant of the fortress of Seddul Bahr reported my doings to the military governor of the Dardanelles, who, not being able to conceive how a man could waste his time in excavating a lonely hillock, suspected that I was merely using the excavation of the Protesilaus-tomb as a pretext for making plans of the fortress of Seddul Bahr, and investigating the lines of torpedoes recently sunk in the Hellespont; and so he issued an order to suspend the excavation. But happily this order arrived only on the evening of the second day. I at once telegraphed and wrote to the German Embassy in Constantinople to seek redress, but all the endeavours of the excellent first dragoman, Baron von Testa, were of no avail. I then proposed that the excavation of the tumulus should be continued at my expense by the commandant of Seddul Bahr, with his own men and one of my Turkish gendarmes; I promised neither to visit the tumulus myself nor to send thither either of my architects; but even this proposal was rejected with disdain. But, happily, in those two days my four workmen had dug down to a depth of