"broken" men might find the outer cave a secure and not altogether unpleasant place of shelter to pass a night in where no better might be. As a place also to hide one's more valuable goods and chattels in an emergency, the cave may at times have had its value and use. It never, depend upon it, was inhabited for any length of time by any human being. A week of it would kill the stoutest, robustest savage that ever trod the Caledonian wilds. An additional proof, if additional proofs are wanting, that Samuel's Cave can never have been "inhabited" in any proper sense of that term, or even much frequented for any purpose whatever, is to be found in the fact that there is not a vestige of a path either from the river bank below or from the hill above leading towards it. Had it at any time been much in use for any purpose, there must have been a path leading to it either from above or from below, and some traces at least, however faint, of such a path, must still exist. We searched and searched, above and below, and round and round, and no trace or vestige at all of such a path could we find. Go, good reader, and see the cave by all means when you have the opportunity; it is a fair enough cave as caves go; but take our word for it that the attempt to invest the vast dark, damp, slimy antrum with any archæological interest is the greatest delusion in the world. CHAPTER LVIII. Showers in Harvest Time--Magnificent Sunset--Night sometimes seeming not to descend but to ascend--Death of M. Leverrier--The Discovery of Neptune--Pigeon cooing at Midnight--The Owl at Noon--Cage-Birds singing at Night.