here was neither rain nor snow fall,
neither midday heat nor dew of night, beneath that stony cope, roofs
also were useless; so that the structures were only cells that strongly
reminded one of sepulchres. I can conceive of nothing more melancholy
than the existence of the seven or eight consumptives, who I am told
occupied these _ante mortem_ tombs at one time about fifteen years ago.
Three died there, and every one of the others who had resided in the
cave for a period of two months died within two or three weeks after
coming out.

Near to these monuments of ignorance and despair, I noticed a monument
of another sort, and of later date,--a tribute to one of the most
gallant and genial of men, in whom it was fully demonstrated that "the
bravest are the tenderest." It was a pyramidal pile, about eight feet
high, of carefully selected stones, laid without mortar, but with
mathematical precision; and on one stone near the top was scratched a
name dear to every soldier's heart,--"McPherson."

The cells where the living died, and this pile which tells how the
memory of the dead yet lives, are the last objects on our route that
have any association with the things of this outer world; these are the
pillars that mark the beginning of a realm devoid of human
association,--its Pillars of Hercules, beyond which is a silent waste
whose darkness breeds the wildest mysteries.

Walking continuously through the gloom, one loses to some extent the
idea of progression. Here he can get no look ahead, no backward view. He
is the centre of a little circle of light, beyond which is immeasurable
darkness, whence objects seem to come to him like apparitions, changing
form as the first and last rays of light fall upon them, as though the
shape in which they appear under the full light of the lamp were only
some disguise of assumed innocence, which they cast off as they glide
silently into the dark again, to take on some semblance too awful for
mortal eyes. Farther and farther we went along these arched, crypt-like
ways; passing frequently through lofty chambers where the roof could not
be discovered, each with some fanciful and often inappropriate name
assigned to it, until we came at length to what looked like a window in
the side wall of the cave. Peering through this, and holding my lamp
high over my head, I could see neither roof nor sides nor bottom,--only
the wall in which was the window through which I looked. Upward it was
lost in