he enters into a large and spacious
hall, studded with stalactites of a very yellowish colour, and there
a dense crowd of bats, frightened by the light of the torches, fly
out with great noise and precipitation. For about a hundred paces,
in advancing towards the interior, the vault continues to be very
lofty, and the gallery is spacious; but suddenly the former declines
immensely, and the latter becomes so narrow that it scarce admits
of a passage for one man, who is obliged to crawl on his hands and
knees to pass through, and continue in this painful position for
about a hundred yards. And now the gallery becomes wide again, and
the vault rises several feet high. But here, again, a new difficulty
soon presents itself, and which must be overcome; a sort of wall,
three or four yards high, must be climbed over, and immediately behind
which lies a most dangerous subterraneous place, where two enormous
precipices, with open mouths on a level with the ground, seem ready
to swallow up the imprudent traveller, who, although he have his
torch lighted, would not walk, step by step, and with the greatest
precaution, through this gloomy labyrinth. A few stones thrown into
these gulfs attest, by the hollow noise produced by their falling
to the bottom, that they are several hundred feet deep. Then the
gallery, which is still wide and spacious, runs on without presenting
anything remarkable till the visitor arrives on the spot where the
last researches stopped at. Here it seems to terminate by a sort of
rotunda, surrounded by stalactites of divers forms, and which, in one
part, represents a real dome supported by columns. This dome looks
over a small lake, out of which a murmuring stream flows continually
into the precipices already described. It was here that we began our
serious investigations, desirous of ascertaining if it were possible
to prolong this subterraneous peregrination. We dived several times
into the lake without discovering anything favourable to our desires;
we then directed our steps to the right, examining all the while, by
the light of our torches, the smallest gaps to be seen in the sides
of the gallery, when at last, after many unsuccessful attempts, we
discovered a hole through which a man's arm could scarcely pass. By
introducing a torch into it, how great was our surprise to see within
it an immense space, studded with rock-crystal. I need not add that
such a discovery inspired us with the greatest desire