BURIAL ROMANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 248, 18 October 1924, Page 55 (Supplement)

BURIAL ROMANCE.

THE GORDON-CCMMINGS DESCENT FROM CHARLEMAGNE. Cnder the wide and starry sky Dig tbe grave and let mc lie. Mies Constance Frederica G.»rdou-Cum-tning, traveller and autboress, whose dca'h In ber eighty-eighth year severs another lluk between several generations of one of the oldest of Scottish families, is not to fauve the banal desired by Gordon-Cummlngs of Altyre. "I desire tiat I may be burled witfco-Jt a coffin on the banks of the Flndhorn, near the Soldier's Hole, and that a cairn of phrase in recent years In more than one 'will. Miss Gordon dimming herself had eympathj with the romantic idea, for in a personal letter to a relative on tbe last occasion of such an interment she wrote: — •'Personally I have no feeling about consecrated ground—for we know that 'tbe earth 13 the Lord's,' and Hβ guards Hie people wherever their dost lies." For a thousand years tne Cummings, or Comyns (the family that figured notably in a. critical stage of Scottish history) have held Altyre, and they claim that their ancestor who came over with the Conqueror was descended from Charlemagne. Miss Gordon - Cummlng's books dealing with ber travels In Ceylon, India, China. Fiji, Hawaii and California, attained a large measure of popularity 60 years ago. For the last 45 years she has been closely associated with work among the blind in China.