cave, a small
inconspicuous archway, mossy around the edges and shaped like the door
of a water-ouzel's nest, with no appreciable hint or advertisement of
the grandeur of the many crystal chambers within. Lighting our candles,
which seemed to have no illuminating power in the thick darkness, we
groped our way onward as best we could along narrow lanes and alleys,
from chamber to chamber, around rustic columns and heaps of fallen
rocks, stopping to rest now and then in particularly beautiful
places--fairy alcoves furnished with admirable variety of shelves and
tables, and round bossy stools covered with sparkling crystals. Some of
the corridors were muddy, and in plodding along these we seemed to be in
the streets of some prairie village in spring-time. Then we would come
to handsome marble stairways conducting right and left into upper
chambers ranged above one another three or four stories high, floors,
ceilings, and walls lavishly decorated with innumerable crystalline
forms. After thus wandering exploringly, and alone for a mile or so,
fairly enchanted, a murmur of voices and a gleam of light betrayed the
approach of the guide and his party, from whom, when they came up, we
received a most hearty and natural stare, as we stood half concealed in
a side recess among stalagmites. I ventured to ask the dripping,
crouching company how they had enjoyed their saunter, anxious to learn
how the strange sunless scenery of the underworld had impressed them.
"Ah, it's nice! It's splendid!" they all replied and echoed. "The Bridal
Chamber back here is just glorious! This morning we came down from the
Calaveras Big Tree Grove, and the trees are nothing to it." After making
this curious comparison they hastened sunward, the guide promising to
join us shortly on the bank of a deep pool, where we were to wait for
him. This is a charming little lakelet of unknown depth, never yet
stirred by a breeze, and its eternal calm excites the imagination even
more profoundly than the silvery lakes of the glaciers rimmed with
meadows and snow and reflecting sublime mountains.

Our guide, a jolly, rollicking Italian, led us into the heart of the
hill, up and down, right and left, from chamber to chamber more and more
magnificent, all a-glitter like a glacier cave with icicle-like
stalactites and stalagmites combined in forms of indescribable beauty.
We were shown one large room that was occasionally used as a
dancing-hall; another that was used a