--before you, vast
and grand as the firmament at midnight. No one, who has never seen this
cave, can imagine the excitement, and awe, with which the traveller
keeps his eye fixed on the rocky ceiling, which, gradually revealed in
the passing light, continually exhibits some new and unexpected feature
of sublimity or beauty.

One of the most picturesque sights in the world, is to see a file of men
and women passing along these wild and craggy paths--slowly,
slowly--that their lamps may have time to illuminate the sky-like
ceiling, and gigantic walls; disappearing behind the high cliffs,
sinking into ravines, their lights shining upward through fissures in
the rocks; then suddenly emerging from some abrupt angle, standing in
the bright gleam of their lamps, relieved against the towering black
masses around them. He who could paint the infinite variety of creation,
can alone give an adequate description of this marvellous region. At one
side of River Hall is a steep precipice, over which you can look down,
by aid of blazing missiles, upon a broad, black sheet of water, eighty
feet below, called the Dead Sea. This is an awfully impressive place,
the sights and sounds of which do not easily pass from memory. He who
has seen it will have it vividly brought before him by Alfieri's
description of Filippo: "Only a transient word or act gives us a short
and dubious glimmer, that reveals to us the abysses of his being; dark,
lurid, and terrific, as the throat of the infernal pool." As you pass
along, you hear the roar of invisible waterfalls, and at the foot of the
slope, the River Styx lies before you, deep and black, overarched with
rock. The first glimpse of it brings to mind the descent of Ulysses into
hell.

"Where the dark rock o'erhangs the infernal lake,
And mingling screams eternal murmurs make."

Across these unearthly waters, the guide can convey but two passengers
at once; and these sit motionless in the canoe, with feet turned apart,
so as not to disturb the balance. Three lamps are fastened to the prow,
the images of which are reflected in the dismal pool.

If you are impatient of delay, or eager for new adventures, you can
leave your companions lingering about the shore, and cross the Styx by a
dangerous bridge of precipices overhead. In order to do this, you must
ascend a steep cliff and enter a cave above, from an egress of which you
find yourself on the bank of the river, eighty feet above its surface