owing to the drainage below, and for a long time it was choked with rubbish; but some five-and-thirty or forty years ago it was cleared out to the very bottom, when the only treasures discovered were an old spade and a fox’s head. We peer into the darksome vault, but the gloom is impervious; then the janitor produces a frame with a few lighted candles upon it, which he lets down by a rope and pulley. As it slowly descends the light gradually diminishes until it becomes a mere speck, and we are enabled to form some idea of the amazing depth to which the rock has been excavated. Having done this, he will, if it will add to your pleasure and you are ready to listen, give you his version of Beeston’s history—lead you where nobles and high-born dames have held their banquets; show you the iron rings to which, in bygone days, the troopers fastened their horses; and then relate with circumstantial detail the legend of the lost treasure, and tell you how, long, long ago, a trusty servitor was let down to the bottom of the well in the hope of recovering it, and that when he was wound up again he was speechless, and died before he could reveal the mysteries he had seen. For the boldness and beauty of its situation Beeston may be fairly said to be unrivalled, and from the wide extent of country it commands it must, in the days of watch and ward, have been admirably adapted either for the purposes of offence or defence. From the summit of the glorious old relic we can sweep the whole arch of the horizon, from the pale blue hills of Wales on the one hand, to the brown heathy wastes that once formed part of the great forest of Macclesfield on the other. The palatinate which boasts itself the Vale Royal of England is usually reckoned a flat county, and this is in a great measure true, for league upon league of broad, flat, fertile meadows spread before us, but the eye as it ranges into the distance passes over a rich variety of undulating country. Above the round-topped woods of Delamere we catch sight of the eminence on which the Saxon city of Eddisbury once stood, and the bold promontories of Frodsham and Halton guarding the shores of the Mersey; eastwards are seen the umbraged heights of Alderley, and further to the right the range of hills that form the barrier of the county, and separate it from the Peak district of Derbyshire; while more to the south, where a cloud of smoke hangs lazily upon the landscape, is Crewe, the great central point of railway enterprise and railway industry. Gleaming in the warm sunshine upon the left we note the stately tower of Chester Cathedral rising proudly above the humbler structures that, like vassals, gather round, and we recall the stormy times when from its walls, on that sad September day, the ill-fated Charles the First, after a fitful gleam of prosperity, saw his gallant cavaliers borne down by the stern soldiers of Cromwell’s army on Rowton Moor, a disaster that turned the fortunes of the King and sealed the