It was, perhaps, some such incident as this which gave to Mr. Haggard the idea as to how the Kukuana people from time immemorial preserved their royal dead. He first of all described Twala, the last of the Kukuana kings, as in a limestone cave, with his head perched upon his knees and his vertebræ projecting a full inch above the shrunken flesh of the neck. "Then," he says, "the whole surface of the body was covered by a thin glassy film caused by the dripping of lime-water. The body was being transformed into a stalactite." The antecedent kings were ranged around a table in this wonderful cave, and the author continues:—"A look at the white forms seated on the stone bench that ran around that ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human forms indeed, or rather had been human forms; now they were stalactites [stalagmites?]. This was the way in which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial preserved their royal dead. They petrified them. What the exact system was, if there was any, beyond placing them for a long period of years under the drip, I never discovered; but there they sat, iced over and preserved for ever by the silicious fluid. Anything more awe-inspiring than the spectacle of this long line of departed royalties, wrapped in a shroud of ice-like spar, through which the features could be dimly made out (there were 27 of them, the last being Ignosi's father), and seated round that inhospitable board, with Death himself for a host, it is impossible to imagine. That the practice of thus preserving their kings must have been an ancient one is evident from the number, which, allowing for an average reign of 15 years, would, supposing that every king who reigned was placed here—an improbable thing, as some are sure to have perished in battle far from home—fix the date of its commencement at four and a quarter centuries back. But the colossal Death who sits at the head of the board is far older than that, and, unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to the same artist who designed the three colossi. He was hewn out of a single stalactite [stalagmite?], and, looked at as a work of art, was most admirably conceived and executed." There is nothing suggestive of anything so hideous as this in the Jenolan Caves. "Lot's wife," as she appears there, is as straight down as a "Shaker," without the slightest suspicion of artificial "improvement." Nor does the pillar correspond with the result of more recent discovery made by an American expedition to the Dead Sea, and in reference to which Dr. Kitto says:—"The course of their survey could hardly fail to bring under notice every marked object upon either shore, and one they did find, an obviously natural formation, which—or others in former times like it—might readily be taken by persons unaccustomed to weigh circumstances with the precision we are now accustomed to exact, for the pillar of Lot's wife. Among the salt mountains of Usdum (an apparent transposition of Sodom), on the west side of the kind of bay which forms the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, the party beheld, to their great astonishment, while beating along the shore, a lofty round pillar, standing, apparently detached from the general mass, the head of a deep, narrow, and abrupt chasm. They landed, and proceeded towards this object over a beach of soft slimy mud, encrusted with salt, and at a short distance from the water, covered with saline fragments and flakes of bitumen. The pillar was found to be of solid salt, capped with carbonate of lime, cylindrical in front and pyramidal behind." The italics are the Doctor's. It is not novel to say that history repeats itself; but it is questionable whether among the fashionable inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain in the days of Lot the modern crinolette was a feminine artifice of that Worthless time. According to the Koran, Lot's wife, Waila, was in confederacy with the men of Sodom, and used to give them notice when any strangers came to lodge with him "by a sign of smoke by day and of fire by night." In this regard the pillar at Jenolan may be regarded as a warning, and not as suggestive of anything, except, perhaps, the lesson conveyed by the Apocrypha, in the Book of Wisdom x. 7, where there is a reference to Lot's wife, "Of whose wickedness even to this day the west land that smoketh is a testimony, and plants bearing fruits that never come to ripeness; and the standing pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul." Is it not a pity that so beautiful a column in the most wonderful caves ever made by Nature should have been associated with so much that is off-colour? True, it is itself a little crooked and irregular, but these characteristics are accounted for by its peculiar formation. It has not been produced in the ordinary way by drippings from one stalactite, but, contrary to rule, owes its origin and development to two small stalactites in the roof. Consequently, its growth has been continually warped. It is, however, a beautiful feature of the Imperial Cave, and may teach many useful lessons to persons of observation and nous.
THE CRYSTAL CITY.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
THE CRYSTAL CITIES—THE SHOW-ROOM AND THE GRAND STALACTITES.
From "Lot's Wife" to "The Crystal Cities" is about 20 yards north, through a hall from 9 to 15 feet high. On the right-hand side is a concrete wall, which rises about 12 inches from the floor, to protect the "Cities" from dust raised by the tramping of feet. At the end of this concrete wall is a descent of two steps, which brings visitors in full view of the exquisitely beautiful cave, in which there is a group of dazzling Lilliputian cities, whose buildings are of crystallized lime. The streets appear to be thronged with minute figures