being that it ended just
beyond. It was an ugly place. The rock over which the water fell was
almost perpendicular, and the pool at the bottom was larger and deeper
than the others. Seen by the light of day, any schoolboy might have
scoffed at the difficulty of getting beyond it, but when you are
descending into the bowels of the earth, where the light of two
candles can only dissolve the darkness a few yards around you, every
form becomes fantastic and awful, and the effect of water of unknown
depth upon the imagination is peculiarly disturbing. But we made up
our minds to go on if it were possible. The passage was very narrow,
and the sides offered few salient points to which one could cling. We
moved along a very narrow ledge in a sitting posture, and then, when
we had gone as far as we could in this way, and there was nothing
beyond to sit upon, we made a spring. My companion, being the more
agile, nearly cleared the pool, but I went in with a great splash, as
I expected, and thought myself lucky in being only wetted to the
waist. The water was not very cold, the temperature of the cavern
being much higher than that of the outer air.

We reckoned that we had by this time travelled underground about half
a mile, and as we had been descending rapidly all the way, the
distance beneath the surface must have been considerable. My theory
with regard to this stream was that it was a tributary of the
subterranean Ouysse; but the fact that the cavern ran north-west made
me change my opinion, and conclude that this water-course took an
independent line towards the Dordogne.

A little beyond the last pool the running water suddenly vanished. We
looked around to see if it had taken any side passage; but no: it
simply disappeared into the earth, although no hole was perceptible in
its stony channel. It passed by infiltration into some lower gallery,
where the light of a candle had never shone, and is never likely to
shine. But we had not reached the end of the cavern, although the
passage became so low that we had now really to go down on all-fours
in order to proceed. We had not to keep this posture long, for again
the roof rose, although to no great height. We walked on about fifty
yards or more, and then came to the end. There was no opening anywhere
except by the way we entered. We were like flies that had crawled into
a bottle, and a very unpleasant bottle it might have proved to us. We
noticed--at first with some surpri