1833.] Miscellaneous. 639 



noxious vapour existed; we also took some fowls to see the effect procured on 

 them. After a fatiguing walk of three miles, up rocky steep ravines, we arrived 

 at the entrance of this singular cavern, the mouth of which was fifty feet wide and 

 thirty feet high, descending very rapidly to a depth of thirty feet. 



The guides set fire to some brushwood, and found the air much less noxious 

 than usual ; and it was only after a descent of 10 feet that we felt any inconveni- 

 ence. We were absolutely standing on the bones of some animals which had 

 perished there upon a former occasion ; we remarked a dog, a deer, and two 

 foxes : the head of a wolf lay at some distance. We, at the same time, put to 

 flight a great number of pigeons, who build in the roof of the cave. We found 

 that fire was extinguished at a few feet below where we stood, and the fowls died 

 in half a minute. The sides of the cave had many marks of sulphur in powder 

 amongst the soft sand and limestone, which were also strongly coloured with iron. 

 Though the fire made with dry brush-wood and thorns, even when sprinkled with 

 naphtha, was instantly extinguished, port tires and fuses burnt nearly the same 

 time as in the open air. I was, therefore, enabled to fire a quantity of gunpowder 

 at the very bottom. The quantity amounted to several pounds at the time, and 

 that repeated often, had the effect of so entirely filling the cave with smoke, that 

 we could no longer see any thing at the bottom. On again throwing in some 

 fowls, they soon made their escape, and fire burnt at the bottom. I would not, 

 however, allow any of the people to descend, which they appeared willing to do ; 

 a dog also ran in and returned in a few minutes. On a former occasion, when 

 this cave was visited by a party of the Mission, accompanied by Mr. Browne, the 

 celebrated African traveller, fire svould not burn two feet below the entrance, and 

 oppression was felt close at the mouth of the cave. Mr. Browne entered some 

 paces by holding his breath, but an English officer attached to the Mission had 

 nearly perished in attempting to follow him. He was instantly dragged out, and 

 recovered with some difficulty. In the winter (subsequently to my second visit), 

 after a strong gale, the wind from the N. W. had blown for some days directly in- 

 to the mouth of the cave : we were enabled to walk all over it, and only in a deep 

 hole, at the bottom, did there exist any noxious air. There a fowl died in two 

 minutes, and from its cries appeared to suffer much. After sixty feet, we found 

 the cave again ascended, and curved a little to the right : it then became exceed- 

 ingly narrow and very low, forming a kind of passage, which did not allow of 

 standing up; we could not see to the end of this even with a reflecting lamp, 

 and none of us felt inclined to prosecute the discovery. I have only mentioned 

 these circumstances to prove how much the extent and force of the vapour are 

 affected by the state of the atmosphere, and by particular circumstances. As the 

 ground slopes rapidiy from the mouth of the cavern, both to the ravine and 

 inwards, it might be cleared away with little difficulty, and the heavy noxious 

 gas thus allowed to pass off; but with the exception of forming a large winter 

 stable for sheep, no other good purpose could he answered by it ; there was 

 formerly a human skeleton, which has been removed ; it was that of an old man 

 in the village, who, tired of life, took this way of ending his misery; the peasants 

 considered the circumstances of the cave being accessible little short of a mira- 

 cle, but were much disappointed at not finding the treasure said to have been 

 deposited there by Alexander, from whom it derives its name. — Monteith's Tour. 

 Jour. Geog. Soc. iii. 6. 



