The cavern itself, originally a mere shallow depression or hollow in the side of the cliff, has been artificially closed by a rough wall of masonry, apparently of recent date; the plaster seemed to me fresh. In the cavern thus formed a rough floor of boards has been run across at a height of about four feet above the ground. Thus the grotto is divided into two compartments, the upper of which has been converted into a tiny chapel with an altar at the end and two holy pictures of Christ and John the Baptist. On one of the walls are some faded frescoes. Light enters the little cave by a small window in the wall beside the altar. At least half of the roof is artificial, being built of the same rough masonry as the wall. Close beside this tiny cavern, to the east of it, may be seen a still tinier grotto, separated from the former by a slight protuberance in the rock. The same ledge of rock gives access to both grottoes. What is called the Gully of the Virgin is a tunnel, some hundred yards long, formed of fallen rocks and earth, through which the Neda rushes in the ravine below the cavern. In winter the swollen stream flows over the roof of the tunnel, but in summer, when the river is low, you may walk through the tunnel and admire the stalactites which hang from its roof. LXX. THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO AT BASSAE.—This temple, by far the best preserved of all ancient temples in Peloponnese, stands in a strikingly wild and secluded situation at a height of nearly four thousand feet above the sea, with a wide prospect southward to the distant mountains of Messenia and Laconia. The ground on which the temple is built is a narrow platform on the southern side of a hill, the Mount Cotilius of the ancients. The rocky slopes of this hill, rising rapidly behind the temple, shut out all distant views on the north and north-east. But to the south the slope descends gradually towards the valley of the Neda. Due south, through a dip in the hills, is seen the apparently flat-topped summit of Ithome. To the south-east, through another gap, appears the range of Taygetus, with its beautiful outlines and sharp snowy peaks. In the nearer foreground, between Ithome and Taygetus, rises Mount Ira, the last stronghold of the Messenian race in its struggle for freedom with Sparta. To the east are bare rough hills, dotted with oak-trees, the western spurs of Mount Lycaeus, while farther to the south appears the high round-topped Tetrasi, perhaps the Nomian mountains of the ancients. The sea is not visible, but it may be seen by ascending the slope at the back of the temple. The bleak desolate mountains form a striking background to the solitary temple which, built of the same cold grey limestone which composes the surrounding rocks, tends to deepen rather than relieve the melancholy of the scene, the ruined fane witnessing silently to the transitoriness of human greatness and the vanity of human faith.