marks crossing each other in mid-air, in a novel
fashion.

When the guide was ready, each of us bought a taper, and the procession
set out through the iron grating, down a narrow, winding stair, from
which low, dark passages opened out at various angles. On each side of
these narrow passages, along which we were led, reposed the
"incorruptible" bodies of St. Antony and his comrades, in open coffins
lacquered or covered with sheets of silver. The bodies seemed very
small, and all of one size, and they were wrapped in hideous prints or
plaid silks. At the head of each saint flickered a tiny shrine-lamp,
before a holy picture (_ikona_) of the occupant of the coffin. It was a
surprise to find the giant Ilya of Murom, who figures as the chief of
the _bogatyri_ (heroes) in the Russian epic songs, ensconced here among
the saints, and no larger than they. Next to the silk-enveloped head of
St. John the Great Sufferer, which still projects as in life, when he
buried himself to the neck in the earth,--as though he were not
sufficiently underground already,--in order to preserve his purity,
the most gruesome sight which we beheld in those dim catacombs was a
group of chrism-exuding skulls of unknown saints, under glass bells.

On emerging from this gloomy retreat, we postponed meditating upon the
special pleasure which the Lord was supposed to have taken in seeing
beings made to live aboveground turning into troglodytes, and set out
for the Fedosy, or far catacombs, in the hope that they might assist us
in solving that problem.

We chose the most difficult way, descending into the intervening ravine
by innumerable steps to view the two sacred wells, only to have our
raging thirst and our curiosity effectually quenched by the sight of a
pilgrim thrusting his head, covered with long, matted hair, into one of
them. The ascent of more innumerable steps brought us to the cradle of
the monastery, Ilarion's caverns.

In the antechamber we found a phenomenally stupid monk presiding over
the sale of the indispensable tapers, and the offerings which the devout
are expected to deposit, on emerging, as a memento of their visit. These
offerings lay like mountains of copper before him. The guide had taken
himself off somewhere, and the monk ordered us, and the five Russians
who were also waiting, to go in alone and "call to the monk in the
cave." We flatly declined to take his word that there was any monk, or
to venture into the dangerous l