35 6 
STALACTITES. 
count tends to confirm what Magni has said, and 
is, at the same time, the most circumstantial de- 
scription extant of this wonderful collection of sta- 
lactites, we shall avail ourselves of the opportunity 
to insert it. Speaking of the grotto, Mr. Saunders 
says: “ Its entrance lies in the side of a rock, about 
two miles from the sea-shore, and is a spacious and 
very large arch, formed of rough craggy stones, 
overhung with brambles and a great many climb- 
ing plants, that give it a gloominess that is very 
awful and agreeable. Our surgeon, myself, and 
four passengers, attended by six guides with lighted 
torches, entered this cavern about eight o’clock in 
the morning, in the middle of August last. We 
had not gone twenty yards in this cavity when we 
lost all sight of day-light ; but our guides going be- 
fore us with lights, we entered into a low narrow 
kind of alley, surrounded every way with stones all 
glittering like diamonds by the light of our torches; 
the whole being covered and lined throughout with 
small crystals, which gave a thousand various co- 
lours by their different reflections. This alley 
grows lower and narrower as one goes on, till at 
length one can scarce get along it. At the end of 
this passage we were each of us presented with a 
rope, to tie about our middles ; which when we 
had done, our guides led us to the brink of a most 
horrible precipice. The descent into this was quite 
steep, and the place all dark and gloomy. We 
could see nothing, in short, but some of our guides 
with torches in a miserable dark place, at a vast 
