In the early Norman work extending for two bays from the west we see circular shafts, with rough, convex, cushion capitals, and the lower corners chamfered. The plain rubble cross-vaults here have no ribs but the groins are pinched down to make them more prominent. The rest of the crypt is Early English, with circular and octagonal columns both occurring and having quadripartite vaulting. The clever way in which the architects overcame the difficulty caused by differences of span is worthy of attention. On the vaults, traces of painting, of floral diapers, etc., can still be seen, and in "The New British Traveller" (1819) we have a description of a subject medallion then to be seen beneath St. William's Chapel. "In a circle is a representation of a vessel sailing, with a large fish in the water in front, and on one side the upper part of a monk, with his hands uplifted as in prayer," apparently an illustration of the story of Jonah. In the crypt are preserved many interesting fragments, including the pieces of polychrome sculpture found with Bishop John de Sheppey's monument. The most important is a statue of Moses, who bears his name on the tablet of stone that he holds. CHAPTER IV. THE DIOCESE AND BISHOPS. According to a curious legend,[15] widely circulated in the Middle Ages, the men of Rochester did not accord a patient hearing to St. Augustine when he first came thither to preach the Gospel. They, instead, used him rudely, and in mockery threw at him and hung on his dress a lot of fish-tails. In anger the saint prayed to God to avenge him on his persecutors and "the Lord smote them _in posteriora_ to their everlasting ignominy, so that not only on their own but on their successors' persons similar tails grew ever after." A way of escape was, however, according to the fourteenth century prose version of the "Brut," soon provided, for "whenne the kyng herde and wiste of this vengeance that was falle thurghe saynt Austines powere he lette make one howse in honour of God ... at the brugges end," children born in which would not be afflicted with the dreaded appendage. Other versions of the story give Dorchester as the place where the saint was thus ill-used and his assailants were thus punished, but both Kent and Dorset have been zealous to repudiate any concern with it, and Lambarde in his "Perambulation" has written an indignant diatribe in defence of the former county. [15] This account of it is chiefly taken from a paper by G. Neilson, first published in "Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society," 1896.