e glen. The cave that disclosed the
animal bones is on the left bank of the glen, and was but recently
discovered in making a mill-race. It also contained about three hundred
old Roman coins, rude flint implements, and skeletons of a mammoth and
woolly rhinoceros. The larger cave, which is hung with fine stalactites,
can be explored for some distance. Near the entrance is a mass of rock
known as the Witch of Wookey, who was turned into stone there by a
timely prayer from a monk who opportunely arrived from Glastonbury. The
underground course of the Axe in and beyond this cave is traced for at
least two miles. The Mendips contain other pretty glens and gorges, and
from the summit of their cliffs can be seen the valley of the Axe
winding away southward, while to the westward the scene broadens into
the level plains that border the Bristol Channel, guarded on either side
by the hills of Exmoor and of Wales. Little villages cluster around the
bases of the hills, the most noted being Cheddar, famous for its cheese,
straggling about the entrance to a gorge in which caves are numerous,
each closed by a door, where an admission-fee is charged. Some of them
are lighted with gas and entered upon paved paths. Lead-and zinc-mines
are worked in the glens, and above Cheddar rises the Black Down to a
height of eleven hundred feet, the most elevated summit of the Mendips.

GLASTONBURY.

About six miles south-west of Wells is the ancient Isle of Avelon, where
St. Patrick is said to have spent the closing years of his life, and
where are the ruins of one of the earliest and most extensive religious
houses in England--Glastonbury Abbey. A sixpence is charged to visit the
ruins, which adjoin the chief street, but the remnants of the vast
church, that was nearly six hundred feet long, are scanty. Of the
attendant buildings there only remain the abbot's kitchen and an
adjoining gateway, now converted into an inn. This kitchen is about
thirty-four feet square within the walls and seventy-two feet high. The
church ruins include some of the walls and tower-foundations, with a
well-preserved and exceedingly rich chapel dedicated to St. Joseph. On
the High Street is the old George Inn, which was the hostelrie for the
pilgrims, built in the reign of Edward IV. and still used. It is fronted
by a splendid mass of panelling, and the central gateway has a
bay-window alongside rising the entire height of the house. The church
of St. John the Baptist