We are at the seat of another of the famed cathedrals, having arrived in just an hour's ride from Norwich; so on this remarkably fine day as it is proving to be,--at home in Boston, America, we should call it a first-class middle-of-May one,--valises deposited at the railroad station, our stay not to be long, we are soon walking about the city. This is a small rural place, situated on the River Ouse, and with a population of 8,000. It is exceedingly rural in aspect, and has but little look of business or manufactures. Half embowered with trees, the octagonal tower of the cathedral is looming up in the distance, a half-mile away. The place has one principal street, and but few others of more than ordinary importance, and while clean to a fault, it has many old buildings, and little that is new; and, as before intimated, gardens and lawns are common, and the entire place has a charmingly rural character. The churches of St. Mary and of Holy Trinity are remarkable for their age and an ancient splendor. There was a convent founded here about 673, by Etheldreda, wife of Egfrid, King of Northumberland, and she was its first abbess. It was destroyed by the Danes in 870, and one hundred years later was rebuilt by Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, who placed in it monks instead of nuns. The city is on an island, and is said to have received its name from the great quantity of eels that used to be taken here. It has some manufactures of earthen-ware, and tobacco-pipes, and there are also flax and hemp-seed oil-mills, and lime-kilns; but the principal source of income for the laboring people is agriculture, and it has very extensive gardens for the cultivation of market vegetables, the produce of which is mainly sent to Cambridge, sixteen miles away, for use at the colleges. The monastery and former abbey being established here, made it at an early day one of the celebrated religious centres of England; and, as often the case, the church of the institution was important, and in time became a cathedral. The See was established in 1107. In 1066 Thurston was abbot, and he defended the Isle of Ely seven years against William the Conqueror. In 1081 Simeon, a prior of Winchester, was abbot, and laid the foundation of the present cathedral. In 1107, as before stated, the See was established, and Hervey, who had been Bishop of Bangor,--and, it is said for good reasons, had been driven away,--was elected Abbot of Ely; that is, he was head of the monastery. He made an effort to have this a seat of the bishop, and, succeeding, was himself made its first bishop. Simeon, who laid the cathedral foundation, lived only long enough to finish the choir and one transept, and of his work this transept only now remains.