CHAP. iv. PRESENT STATE OF BELGIAN CAYES. 69 



best-preserved human skulls were found; and, after thus 

 gaining access to the first subterranean gallery, to creep on all 

 fours through a contracted passage leading to larger chambers, 

 there to superintend by torchlight, week after week and 

 year after year, the workmen who were breaking through 

 the stalagmitic crust as hard as marble, in order to remove 

 piece by piece the underlying bone-breccia nearly as hard ; 

 to stand for hours with one's feet in the mud, and with 

 water dripping from the roof on one's head, in order to mark 

 the position and guard against the loss of each single bone 

 of a skeleton ; and at length, after finding leisure, strength, 

 and courage for all these operations, to look forward, as the 

 fruits of one's labour, to the publication of unwelcome in 

 telligence, opposed to the prepossessions of the scientific 

 as well as. of the unscientific public; when these circum 

 stances are taken into account, we need scarcely wonder, not 

 only that a passing traveller failed to stop and scrutinise the 

 evidence, but that a quarter of a century should have elapsed 

 before even the neighbouring professors of the University 

 of Liege came forth to vindicate the truthfulness of their 

 indefatigable and clear-sighted countryman. 



In 1860, when I revisited Liege, twenty-six years after my 

 interview with Schmerling, I found that several of the 

 caverns described by him had in the interval been annihilated. 

 Not a vestige, for example, of the caves of Engis, Chokier, 

 and Groffontaine remained. The calcareous stone, in the 

 heart of which the cavities once existed, had been quarried 

 away, and removed bodily for building and lime-making. 

 Fortunately, a great part of the Engihoul cavern, situated on 

 the right bank of the Meuse, was still in the same state as 

 when Schmerling delved into it in 1831, and drew from it 

 the bones of three human skeletons. I determined, there 

 fore, to examine it, and was so fortunate as to obtain the as 

 sistance of a zealous naturalist of Liege, Professor Malaise, 



