WHAT SOME OF US HAD BETTER DO. 
27o 
outside. Our informant also stated that a heavy swell 
rolled into it, that its rocky mouth was whitened by a 
sulphurous vapour, and that, from the current which set 
into it, there was evidently another outlet: should this 
other outlet prove to be a whirlpool, or even an ordinarv 
waterfall, a boat-load of human beings, without light and 
utterly ignorant of the locality, would find themselves 
most unpleasantly situated. We consequently armeci 
ourselves with lanterns, matches, lines, knives, hammer 
and nails, &c. before leaving the ship, and, as the crew 
liad been worked hard lately, took the dingy and her two 
boys to puli us to the scene of action. 
The party consisted of nine, all told, — quite enough to 
crowd into a small boat that was going to feel her way. 
through a darkness like that of night, to the bottom or 
an unknown cave. Six of us were officers of the ship, a 
seventh was the German supercargo of the Greta, and 
the remaining two were the dingy-boys, — the same two 
dangerously-encased juveniles who had landed Mahomet^ 
Bridleman, and myself so successfully at Si-mo-da upon 
the occasion of the former persuading the mountain to 
“move off” in a southerly direction. 
Our German friend was quite talkative at first, indulg- 
ing us with vivid descriptions of various European caves 
■which he had explored in early life, and enlarging upon 
the feelings of intense interest which such enterprises 
were calculated to create in the inquiring mind. As we 
drew near to the cave, however, he became rather taciturn 
than otherwise, and, as we reached its mouth and tbo 
order was given to “hold water” wdth the oars while 
the plan of procedure was being determined upon, be 
