Читать книгу The Stranger's Handbook to Chester and Its Environs онлайн

38 страница из 41

The iron gate or portcullis opens at our approach, and we enter a spacious room, once bristling with hosts of armed men, but now filled with curiosities and natural productions from every quarter of the globe. A corkscrew staircase brings us to a similar room on the second story; while higher still, upon the leads of the Tower, where the stalwart warrior once paced his silent round, the observant visitor may feast his eyes on a varied scene of wood and dale, mountain and river, garden and field, of surpassing interest. To give anything like a detail of the curiosities and antiquities stored up in this Tower would fill an ordinary volume; let it suffice, then, to point out a few of the more prominent and striking. Here is a large and beautiful collection of shells, scientifically arranged, the gift of Captain T. L. Massie, R.N., and there a case of Australian birds, presented to the Museum by another worthy citizen. In yonder glass-case we have, at one view, specimens of almost every known variety of British birds, from the majestic bittern to the diminutive jenny wren. Here is the “old arm-chair” of Bishop Goodman, one of the worthiest prelates of our renowned Queen Bess. Here again are trophies of battle and victory from Inkermann and Alma; and there are glass cases of Greek, Roman, and British coins, from the penny bearing the “image and superscription of Cæsar,” to the chaste medallions of our own beloved Queen. There, too, is the skull of a soldier killed during the Civil War, in the neighbourhood of Beeston Castle, the deadly impress of two flattened bullets being still visible on the skull. Those blackened fragments you are now surveying are the hand and foot of an Egyptian mummy, the owner of which may possibly have been a contemporary of Pharaoh. Doubtless this mummy, when in life, was a confirmed old maid; for see, here is her favourite cat, embalmed like herself, and found by her side when she was exhumed. The cat was a sacred animal with the ancient Egyptians. We might linger here profitably a whole day, but having other fish to fry, we must bid farewell to the Water Tower and its obliging attendants, and remounting the lofty steps, find ourselves once more on the venerable Walls.