on cosmography written early in the twelfth century, we
read, "Paradise is the extreme eastern part of Asia, and is made
inaccessible by a wall of fire surrounding it and rising unto
heaven." At a later time the Canaries were thought to be the
ancient Elysium, and were accordingly named the Fortunate Isles.
Indeed, among the motives that animated

9 Macpherson, Introduction to the History of Great Britain and
Ireland, pp. 180-186.

10 Procopius, Gothica, lib. iv.

Columbus on his adventurous voyage no inferior place must be
assigned to the hope of finding the primeval seat of Paradise.11
The curious traveller, exploring these visionary spots one by one,
found them lying in the light of common day no nearer heaven than
his own natal home; and at last all faith in them died out when
the whole surface of the globe had been surveyed, no nook left
wherein romance and superstition might any longer play at hide and
seek.

Continuing our search after the local abode of the departed, we
now leave the surface of the earth and descend beneath it. The
first haunted region we reach is the realm of the Fairies, which,
as every one acquainted with the magic lore of old Germany or
England knows, was situated just under the external ground, and
was clothed with every charm poets could imagine or the heart
dream. There was supposed to be an entrance to this enchanted
domain at the Peak Cavern in Derbyshire, and at several other
places. Sir Walter Scott has collected some of the best legends
illustrative of this belief in his "History of Demonology." Sir
Gawaine, a famous knight of the Round Table, was once admitted to
dine, above ground, in the edge of the forest, with the King of
the Fairies:

"The banquet o'er, the royal Fay, intent
To do all honor to King Arthur's knight,
Smote with his rod the bank on which they leant,
And Fairy land flash'd glorious on the sight;
Flash'd, through a silvery, soft, translucent mist,
The opal shafts and domes of amethyst;
Flash'd founts in shells of pearl, which crystal walls
And phosphor lights of myriad hues redouble.
There, in the blissful subterranean halls,
When morning wakes the world of human trouble
Glide the gay race; each sound our discord knows,
Faint heard above, but lulls them to repose."

To this empire of moonlit swards and elfin dances, of jewelled
banks, lapsing streams, and enchanting visions, it was thought a
few favored mortals might now and then find their way. But