364 
STALACTITES. 
of its beauties. The roof, which is a fine vaulted 
arch, is hung all over with icicles of white shining 
marble, some of them ten feet long, and as thick as 
one’s middle at the root ; and among these there 
hang a thousand festoons of leaves and flowers of 
the same substance, but so very glittering that 
there is no bearing to look up at them. The sides 
of the arch are planted with seeming trees of the 
same white marble, rising in rows one above an- 
other, and often enclosing the points of the icicles. 
From these trees there are also hung festoons, tied 
as it were from one to another in vast quantities ; 
and in some places among them there seem rivers 
of marble winding through them in a thousand 
meanders. All these things are only made, in a 
long course of years, from the dropping of water, 
but really look like trees and brooks turned to 
marble. The floor we trod upon was rough and 
uneven, with crystals of all colours growing irre- 
gularly out of it, red, blue, green, and some of a 
pale yellow. These were all shaped like pieces 
of saltpetre, but so hard that they cut our shoes : 
among these, here and there, are placed icicles of 
the same white shining marble with those above, 
and seeming to have fallen down from the roof, and 
fixed there; only the big end of these is to the floor. 
To all these our guides tied torches, two or three to 
a pillar, and kept continually beating them to make 
them burn bright. You may guess what a glare of 
splendor and beauty must be the effect of this illu- 
mination, among such rocks and columns of mar- 
