into a small basin touching the sea, into which it discharges itself.

A boat will meet you at the Holy Well by order, for you can better judge of this wild and beautiful coast from the water than from the cliffs above. First, you pass a wild frontier pile of rocks, called the Candles; one candle got, however, blown over during last winter's heavy storms: then close by in the cliff's side you may distinguish the moulds in which they were cast, which said candle-moulds are of great extent, and run, as these holes always do, as far as Hammershuus. Ten strokes of the oar bring us to the entrance of the "Black Oven," a dark, cold, slimy, tumbledown sort of place. When once in, and after sliding and slipping you sit on a damp, cold rock, the view of the sea, Candles, and picturesque line of cliffs extending towards Allinge-well encadré by the black limestone does repay you for your trouble. Further on you pass the "White Oven," an oven not to be entered save in time of extreme cold, when the winter is at its full and the Baltic frozen around the island. Then towards Christmas-time, in the holy days, or rather nights, when the days are short and obscure"som stympede lys der have kun oyne og ender"-like the stump of a candle, only the beginning and the end— the peasant girls and boys come down in large parties with torches and lanterns to explore its wonders. They slide and they slip along, and the girls fall down on the ice-quite by accident, not at all for the pleasure of being picked up again-till they come to the place where, on raising their heads, they can see through an aperture the moon shining and myriads of stars blazing in the bright firmament of heaven; strange to say,

when above-ground no one has yet discovered where this aperture may lie-it is hid to mortal eyes. But they go no farther. No one would dare even this

journey save on holy nights, when the angels protect all innocent pleasures, for the White Oven bears a bad reputation, and is generally supposed to be a private entrance to a certain place, to which bad Danes as well as other folks are allowed free access without giving themselves the unnecessary trouble of crossing over by long sea from Copenhagen to Bornholm. Having visited the finest scenery of the cliffs, we clamber again up the bank's side: a mercy old grandfather, whom we passed cutting wood and who must be eighty at the very least, did not accompany us; down he may have got, but it would have required all the virtues of the Holy Well to have dragged him up again. We return to the farm-house. A carpenter is occupied putting in the double windows; of course, he asks whether we use them in England. "Seldom; they are not required in our mild climate; besides, in our old country houses the windows close hermetically; there is never any draught—none, with us, particularly on the northern aspects. Our windows never rattle, much less let in the air."

We are now under weigh again, pass by the church of Rø, on whose door you may still see the iron hinge formed out of the hook left by the Trolles,-iron smelted by themselves, no doubt, for Bornholm is said to abound in minerals, though they have been but little worked. In old books you read accounts of a gold-mine, such as existed once in Scotland and other localities. King Christian IV. caused ducats to be coined, but the foreign merchants would not allow the gold to be real; so the

king, when a second quantity was discovered, issued a series of whole, half, and quarter ducats, on which were represented a pair of spectacles, with the inscription, "Vide mira Domini," indicating that those who doubted the fact might be in want of them. Kings liked to coin medals from gold out of their own possessions. In the days of swords and knee-breeches, of powder, hoops, and shoe-buckles, when all men liked to be smart and glitter, Bornholm, like Alençon and Bristol, bore quite a reputation for diamonds. Somehow or other, tradition relates not how, these crystals were brought before the notice of our English princess the good Queen Louisa. From the day of her marriage she became Danoise pur sang, and loved, as much as was in her power, to promote the manufactures of her adopted country. She recollected, may be, the Bristol stones of her own native land, then in full vogue and fashion, and one fine night, at a Court reception, she wore in her head a "bæve naal" of glittering stones.*

The courtiers greatly admired the new ornament now first worn by the queen. It was beautiful! what taste! "A present lately sent from England?" "On the contrary," replied somebody; "it had arrived only that very morning by the courier from Vienna." Queen Louisa kept her counsel till late in the evening, and then informed her ladies and the courtiers that it was composed of Bornholm diamonds. "Bornholm diamonds! impossible!" The whole assembly was aghast, above all the dowagers of the old régime. Why,

* Bæve naal is a sort of pin mounted as a star, a flower, or a rosette, hung with dangles. Queen Louisa is represented with one in her portrait.

Bornholm was in Denmark! Was it prudent, was it politic, of her Majesty to encourage anything Danish? If it had only come from Germany,-they were certain Queen Madalena--" but Madalena was now only queen dowager, and, like most dowagers, out of fashion. The mode took, and the following year the jewellers of Copenhagen sold 1080 ornaments, shoebuckles, and headpins of the newly-introduced material.

But Bornholm diamonds, like Bristol stones and Alençon crystals, had their day, and died out together with knee-breeches, hoops, and powder; and in the present century ask a Copenhagener if he knows what a Bornholm diamond is, he will stare you in the face and look on you as demented.

The country is now intersected by a succession of ravines rugged and wild-one, termed the Devil's Creek. Our drive continues-more sylvan, more picturesque. We pass a second beacon, and, turning a few yards off the road, drive up to the little cemetery, wherein, shaded by an ancient gnarled ash, growth of centuries, stands the church of Øster Lars, largest of the round churches of Bornholm. Around the top of the building runs a line of pigeon-holes. The tower itself is supported by buttresses of immense strength; we mounted to its summit. A narrow gallery runs round within the outside walls, pierced by the above-mentioned pigeonholes. Then comes a second wall, stronger, if anything, than the first, with loopholes, like in the church of Ole; and within again a third wall, defended in a similar manner, though when once driven within for protection there could be no possible outlet. The same arrangement is found in the second story below. The earlier Christian inhabitants of the island, pirates and sea-robbers, lovers