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not of the texture of any earthly loom. They are of purest marble and alabaster, 

 tinted with solutions of the native ores of the hills. They droop from the rocks dicing 

 the results of slowly-dripping water they are never seen to project) from three indies 

 to six feet in length, and from an eighth to a half an inch in thickness. If the light 

 from the magnesium lamp be thrown behind them they are seen to be semi-transparent, 

 to be of varied and delicate tints, of such whites and pinks as wen; seen in the lost 

 terraces of New Zealand such pale yellow, such apricot tones as are seldom seen else- 

 where in the world ; and across them run bands of such deep orange, red and brown 

 as Persian dyers love. These clothe the chamber of the " Lucinda," whose main object 

 resembles a mighty altar-piece semi-transparent snowy columns rising from rich gray 

 bases of a substance resembling dull marble ; stalactites, drooping from a continuous 

 mass of glistening white, approaching them ; pendants innumerable of many delicate 

 tints; the dull and distant gray roof arched above, and all the floor bestrewn with crystals. 

 Such is the utterly inadequate and certainly unexaggerated description of one grotto of 

 the Caves one of a hundred already explored, one of thousands lying away east and 

 west beneath the grim outer garments of the far-extending hills. 



Beyond it lies " The Jewel Casket," a cavern of crystals and beautiful forms of 

 pinnacle, spire and pendant in miniature ; and in the extremity, at the end of a mile of 

 wonder-land, is "Katie's Bower," specially rich in "shawls" and most delicate furnishings. 

 It is a half-day's work to explore it, and no day of all the year could be better filled 

 than by traversing the right-hand branch which completes the " Imperial Cave." The 

 guides (chief and master of whom is Jeremiah Wilson, explorer and opener up of all 

 these caves) regard the right-hand branch of "The Imperial" as the richest treasure-house 

 of all their realm ; and it is indeed a scene, or a continuance of scenes, of bewildering 

 beauty a succession of treasure-stores, of palaces, of fairy playgrounds, of most beau- 

 tiful and sacred grottoes, of triumphs and trophies of fairy-work, hung upon the walls 

 or buried in little chambers of the rocks ; of vast distances and lofty-domed retreats, 

 where stand solitary snow-white columns, as if the builders and furnishers of the place 

 had turned themselves to stone, that so they might dwell with and watch over their 

 treasures for ever. Hard by the entrance to this Cave, and forty feet below its floor, 

 flows "The Hidden River," only to be reached by the somewhat perilous descent of an iron 

 ladder ; a little farther on is " The Crystal Rock," then another " shawl " cave, rich with 

 an infinite variety of these beautiful creations. "The Confectioner's Shop" is a lengthy 

 cavern, where stalactite and stalagmite, and encrustation on the walls, and crystallization 

 on the floor, seem the realizations of all those ideas which confectioners strive to work 

 out. This is indeed a homely illustration, and the " cates and comfits" of fairy-land must 

 he imagined if the charm of the place is in any degree to be understood. Next, 

 surrounded by shadow)- walls where projecting rock-masses seem to take shape as armed 

 knights ; where fragments above appear as eagles with spread wings, as Titanic hands 

 lifted in menace or in warning, as veiled figures, as cloaked arms pointing inward the 

 beautiful solitary stalagmite is reached which bears the name of " Lot's YA ife," a lonely 

 column, semi-transparent, whiter than any marble, upon a dark brown floor. 



"The Crystal Cities," down the next decline, would take many pages to describe, for 

 how in a few words can we set forth the beauties of a space fifty yards in length 



