of Scone, and when Edward nearly conquered Scotland he brought it over to England, and presented it as a precious relic to the Abbey, to be fixed in the seat of the Coronation Chair, where it has since remained.

Among the names carved on the chair is that of Peter Abott, a Westminster boy, who once laid a wager that he would sleep all night in it. In those days the Abbey was less carefully guarded than it is now, and he succeeded in his object, leaving this inscription, "I, Peter Abott, slept in this chair, July 5th, 1800.❞

Edward the Confessor's chapel was built by Henry III., and the

body of the king was moved from before the

altar to its present position in 1269. Round his grave other royal tombs soon followed; a general feeling of reverence towards the founder of the Abbey leading to a wish, on

the part of his successors, to lie near him. From various causes the first seven kings of England were buried elsewhere, but on one side of the Confessor is the grave of his wife Edith, on the other that of the "Good Queen Maud," wife of Henry I.

Henry III. lies on the North Side, in a splendid tomb built by his son, Edward I., and covered with slabs of porphyry and marble, brought by him from the East.

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tried to deliver from the Saracens, and his bones carried at the head of the English army till Scotland should be conquered. The tomb was perhaps left in this plain state that the body might be taken out at the first opportunity, but this was never done, and the "pact" has remained unfulfilled.

On the other side of Henry III. is the tomb of Edward's wife, Eleanor of Castille, with a recumbent figure of the queen, lying calm and beautiful, her long hair waving from under her coronet. Edward's grief at her death expressed itself by the erection of a cross wherever her

"God may give me more sons, but not another father," exclaimed the latter, in an outburst of grief, when he heard of the death of Henry, soon after that of two of his own children.

Edward himself is buried to the right of Henry III. His tomb is perfectly plain, merely covered with slabs of grey marble, and on it is inscribed "Pactum Serva," "Keep the Pact." This alludes to Edward's dying commands to his son, that his heart should be carried to the Holy Land, which in his youth he had vainly

body rested between Lincoln and London, on its way to burial. Charing Cross marks the site of one of these memorials. He also ordered a hundred wax candles to be burnt at her tomb on every anniversary of her death.

Edward II. was buried at Gloucester, near to the place of his cruel murder, but Edward III. has his tomb in the Abbey. His effigy lies at the top, and the features are believed to be taken from a cast of his face after death. Poor king! his was a sad death-bed, deserted by his children, and his servants, who even robbed him of the rings off his fingers before they fled.

'Mighty victor, mighty lord,
Low on his funeral couch he lies;
No pitying heart, no eye afford

A tear to grace his obsequies." *

Notice that the shoes on his feet are made right and left," showing that this is not, as is generally supposed, a modern fashion of shoemaking. Inside the railings, by the Coronation. Chair, you can see the shield and huge sword, seven feet long, which were carried before Edward's army as he marched to conquer France.

Gray.

Next to Edward's monument is the small tomb of the infant princess Margaret, daughter of Henry IV., on which once stood a little silver cradle. Opposite is that of another baby princess, Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., who died at the age of three.

Edward's good and beloved wife, Philippa of Hainault, is buried next to him. Her monument is remarkable for the recumbent figure, which is the first attempt at a portrait in the Abbey, and which shows us the curious turret-shaped arrangement of the hair, common at that time.

The monument of Richard II. and his wife, Anne of Bohemia, is very interesting. Of all the kings, he has had the most connection with the Abbey, being married, crowned, and buried there, and in his brass effigy he is represented clasping the hand of his queen, whom he tenderly loved. Richard was a very handsome man, and his likeness on the tomb, with thick curling hair, delicate nose, and short beard, is supposed to be exact. He is clad in a long robe ornamented with designs of the broom-cods, the "planta genista," from which the Plantagenets took their name, and the sun breaking through the clouds at Crecy, which he took as his device. On the canopy above are half-obliterated paintings of the Virgin and our Saviour, with the two-headed eagle and the lion of Bohemia, arms of Queen Anne.

At the entrance of the chapel Henry V. is buried. His effigy on the tomb was once covered with silver plates, and had a solid silver head and gold teeth. These were robbed in the sixteenth century, and nothing now remains but an oaken block, a fit emblem of the "heart of oak," which beat so bravely for the English nation, whom he loved and wisely governed.

Above his tomb is the Chantry, which Henry built in the form of an H, and where he bade the priests sing masses for his soul. It contains the tomb of his wife Catherine-Catherine Tudor, as she was called from her second marriage with a Welsh squire, Owen Tudor. On her death she was buried in the Lady Chapel, but without any state. This may have been either on account of her marriage with a man so beneath her in rank, or by her own wish, to express her remorse at having disobeyed Henry's orders and gone to Windsor before the birth of her son Henry VI. When the Lady Chapel was destroyed to make room for Henry VII.'s chapel, her remains were placed by the tomb of Henry V. in such a badly constructed coffin that the body was exposed to view. A man named Pepys, writing his diary in 1668, boasts that he went to the Abbey on his birth

day, and there "did kiss a queene," meaning the body of the unfortunate Catherine. She was afterwards placed in one of the Abbey vaults, where she was found a few years ago by Dean Stanley, who caused her to be reverently removed and buried in her present worthy position, over her husband's tomb.

On the bar above the Chantry you can see the helmet, beaten thin by many a blow, with the shield and saddle of Henry V., which he used at the battle of Agincourt. From the Chantry we get a beautiful view down the Abbey of the nave and the 66 'high embowered roof With antique pillars, massy proof, And storied windows, richly dight, Casting a dim religious light." *

Caves.

BY F. GREGORY JONES.

T has always given me pleasure to hear tales about caves, and I fancy there may be many others who are like-minded.

When a boy I was delighted to read the stories in the Bible about them; and who is not interested in David's thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes from King Saul when hunted among the caves of Adullam and Engedi, where this gentle and forgiving David twice spared the life of that bloodthirsty king?

What could be more graphic than the description of those awful sights, witnessed by the prophet Elijah from the cave on Mount Horeb, when a great and strong wind rent the mountains and brake in pieces rocks, as the Lord passed by; and after the wind an earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, and then a still small voice which alone touched the heart of that wonderfully brave man and brought him humbled out of the cave, "his face wrapped in his mantle," to answer God's question, "What doest thou here, Elijah?

At Bethlehem a cavee-the cave of the Nativityis shown where, according to a very early tradition, Christ was born, and where the shepherds found the child, as the angels had told them, lying in a manger.

What touching memories are connected with caves! Abraham mourned for his dear old wife, and buried her in the cave of Machpelah, wherein he him

* Milton.

self was also laid thirty-eight years after. What a beautiful picture we have of our Saviour's sympathy as He went weeping from those sorrowing sisters at Bethany to the scene of our Lord's greatest miracle-the cave wherein "he whom He loved was buried. How soon after we read of that good rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, laying our Saviour Himself in a similar cave with the tenderest care! This, however, was not a natural cave, but one hewn out of the rock.

How often have caves been places of refuge in times of war and persecution! We read in Josephus of the terrible sufferings of the Jews who had taken refuge in caves after the destruction of Jerusalem, perhaps the very same caves in which Joshua captured the five Canaanite kings (including the King of Jerusalem), and into which he cast their bodies.

What tender interest is attached to those vast Catacombs of Rome, where so many Christians hid from the cruel persecutions of the Roman emperors!

Who can recount the numberless tales of caves, where hunters have had death struggles with wild beasts, rendered doubly ferocious as they fought in defence of their young ones; or of those caves where robbers had taken their ill-gotten booty, and smugglers concealed their contraband goods?

Then the caves of our own country bear interesting testimony to the enormous animals that lived in England before the Flood, and the different climate this country had at that period.

One Whitsuntide, I visited a deep coal mine in Staffordshire, an illuminated salt mine in Cheshire, and the Speedwell Mine in Derbyshire; but of all these the last interested me the most, especially the enormous cavern into which I stepped after a half mile sail under ground, the roof of which was higher than a rocket could reach, and with a bottomless pit into which the stream poured to be lost in unknown depths.

But the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky, which I visited during my recent tour in America, surpass all-in fact are the largest known caves in the world.

A drive of three hours through virgin forests, full of snakes, opossums, racoons, foxes, and all kinds of game, brought us to a large wooden hotel, in the grounds of which the entrance to these wonderful caves is situated. Being supplied with a candle lamp I followed my guide—who had been showing visitors daily through the caves for the past thirty years down a well-wooded dell to a small iron gate which closed the mouth of the cave; all around was thickly covered with bush. After carefully locking the gate, the guide ushered us into

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this enormous cave, where I wandered about for four hours, during which I traversed about eight miles. The ceiling of the cave, on which were thousands of bats in clusters, with their mouse-like heads hanging downwards, is low at the entrance, but quickly rises to 40 feet high while its width spreads out to 60 feet, which dimensions continue for four or five miles. Remains of saltpetre workings are to be seen just as they were left in 1812, when the Government of the United States worked them during the war with England. The marks of the oxen's feet made seventy years ago are clearly visible, while the hollow trunks of trees used at that time for pumping the liquid saltpetre are as hard and as sound as ever, being preserved by the salt. On the contrary, the ladders and bridges in the parts of the cave, where no traces of saltpetre are found, soon get rotten.

We soon came into a very large opening called the Rotunda, capable of holding several thousand people; then into another called the Chapel, where a clergyman in the season preaches to large congregations. Through a side passage we threaded our way along a winding labyrinth, then climbed up steep ladders, crossed wooden bridges over awful chasms, then down ladders to a mysterious chamber called Goron's Dome, which we cautiously inspected through a hole in the wall of rock. The Dome was illuminated by means of blue lights and lighted paper saturated with oil, and truly it is an awful place, 140 feet deep, and 50 feet wide, with a waterfall descending from far above us into the dark abyss below. We still descended till we reached the lowest point in the cave, 320 feet below the surface. Proceeding along Pensacola Avenue we came to the Traveller's Rest, the ceiling being beautified with white flower-like shapes composed of quirls of gypsum and sulphate of lime. we saw an immense cairn with an inscription in memory of "Garfield," the President of the United States. The Wild Hall is next reached, the entrance to which is called Snowball Archway, from the white balls of lime all around, the ceiling in many parts being covered with black oxide of iron.

Here

Here a cricket hopped across our path, and our guide informed us that the crickets were the only insects in the cave, and that the only other living things were bats and blind fish, the latter in Echo River. These fish are four inches long, like catfish without eyes; they are very difficult to catch, owing to their extreme sensitiveness; on the slightest movement of the water or a footstep on land causing vibration, they are off into crevices of the rock.

We now passed through the Record Room, with its many cairns. Each of these large heaps of stones represents a State either in Europe or America, and the one marked "England," I was proud to find the largest. Every traveller. is expected to add a stone to the heap representing his own State, so I added my mite, the biggest stone I could find, to England's cairn.

Our guide next brought us to Star Chamber, the lofty ceiling of which glitters with crystals set in black oxide of iron. It really required no great effort of imagination to make us think that we were looking at a starry sky on a dark night, the more so as one of the crystals takes the form of a comet with a long tail.

Presently the guide took our lamps and disappeared down a hole in the cave. The darkness was complete. We held white paper before our eyes, but could see nothing. In a few minutes a little glimmer of light was seen in the distance. It increased steadily as the man approached with the lamps in his hands, and strange shadows flitted about, suggesting to me the evil spirits fleeing before the Light of the world, to whom darkness is no darkness.

Had we proceeded eight miles further in this direction we should have come to the River Styx, 200 yards long, 15 feet wide, and 8 feet deep; and then to Lake Lethe, 100 yards long, by 23 feet wide, and 20 feet deep, from which the River Echo runs for half a mile.

The next large cavity we came to was called the Register Room, 60 feet wide, but with a low flat roof of 10 feet high, on which were hundreds of names written with the smoke of torches. Ascending a little we found ourselves in the Bridal Chamber, or Gothic Chapel, where massive stalactite columns hang from the roof, and in some cases are joined to their corresponding stalagmites rising up from the ground. Two of these are close together, and are called Pillars of Hercules, in front of which several romantic marriages have taken place. The first ceremony was performed to satisfy the scruples of a conscientious young lady who had promised her mother she would never marry any man on earth, but after her mother's death she was thus married under the earth. Two of these columns were so formed that they afforded a comfortable seat, which goes by the name of the Old Arm Chair.

Space fails me to tell of the Blacksmith's Shops and Rifle Pits, the clear water of Richardson's Spring, the winding narrow passages called Elbow Crevice and Fat Man's Misery, but I was amply repaid for my exertions in struggling through these

last by the sight at the end of a beautiful cascade, falling from a great height into a basin below, called the Devil's Cooling Tub. Returning by a different avenue past a curious black rock formation of sulphide of iron called the Cinder Pile, from its resemblance thereto, we came to a vast cavern called Napoleon's Dome, in which was a pretty little lake called Lake Purity, from its crystal waters.

It was now close upon midnight, and I had travelled for forty-two hours without intermission, yet the bracing air of the cave prevented me from feeling tired.

However, reluctantly declining the guide's invitation to go further, we came again into the dense forest, and proceeded to our hotel, the bats flying about us in thousands by the light of the moon, while myriads of stars twinkled above, countless glow-worms shone, and fire-flies flashed around us.