358 
STALACTITES. 
verns, like so many monstrous wells, ready, if a foot 
should slip, to swallow them up for ever. We 
stood on the edge, to see these people with their 
lights descend before us ; and were amazed and 
terrified to see them continue descending till they 
seemed at a monstrous and most frightful depth. 
When they were at the bottom, however, they hal- 
looed to us ; and we, trembling and quaking, be- 
gan to descend after them. We had not gone 
thirty feet down, when we caiue to a pl^ce where 
the rock was perfectly perpendicular ; and a vast 
cavern seemed to open its mouth to swallow us up 
on one side, while a wall of rugged rock threatened 
to tear us to pieces on the other. I was quite dis- 
heartened at this terrible prospect, and declared I 
would go back ; but our guides assured us there was 
no danger ; and the rest of the company resolving 
to see the bottom now they were come so far, I 
would not leave them : so on we went to a corner, 
where there was placed an old slippery and rotten 
ladder, which hung down close to the rock ; and 
down this, one after another, we at length all de- 
scended. When we had got to the bottom of this 
we found ourselves at the entrance of another pas- 
sage, which was terrible enough indeed, but in this 
there was not wanting something of beauty. This 
was a wide and gradual descent ; at the entrance of 
which one of our guides seated himself on his 
breech, and began to slide down, telling us we 
must do the same. We could discover, by the 
light of his torch, that this passage was one of the 
