giving a solemn religious hue to the apartment. It was spacious, and nearly

circular, with a raised seat of stone, about the size of a Grecian couch,

at one end. The only sign that life had been here, was the perfect

snow-white skeleton of a goat, which had probably not perceived the opening

as it grazed on the hill above, and had fallen headlong. Ages perhaps had

elapsed since this catastrophe; and the ruin it had made above, had been

repaired by the growth of vegetation during many hundred summers.

The rest of the furniture of the cavern consisted of piles of leaves,

fragments of bark, and a white filmy substance, resembling the inner part

of the green hood which shelters the grain of the unripe Indian corn. We

were fatigued by our struggles to attain this point, and seated ourselves

on the rocky couch, while the sounds of tinkling sheep-bells, and shout of

shepherd-boy, reached us from above.

At length my friend, who had taken up some of the leaves strewed about,

exclaimed, "This is the Sibyl's cave; these are Sibylline leaves." On

examination, we found that all the leaves, bark, and other substances, were

traced with written characters. What appeared to us more astonishing, was

that these writings were expressed in various languages: some unknown to my

companion, ancient Chaldee, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, old as the

Pyramids. Stranger still, some were in modern dialects, English and

Italian. We could make out little by the dim light, but they seemed to

contain prophecies, detailed relations of events but lately passed; names,

now well known, but of modern date; and often exclamations of exultation or

woe, of victory or defeat, were traced on their thin scant pages. This was

The Last Man