when some twenty of our Indian guides
stationed themselves on pinnacles of stalagmite, each one holding up a
blazing torch, while two more climbed upon a great mass at one end
called the altar, and burnt Bengal lights there; the rest stood at the
other extremity of the cave sending up rockets in rapid succession into
the vaulted roof, and making the millions of grotesque incrustations
glitter as if they had been masses of diamonds: All the quaint shapes
that are found in such caverns were to be seen here on the grandest
scale, columns, arched roof, organ-pipes, trees, altars, and squatting
monsters ranged in long lines like idols in a temple. There may very
well be some truth in the notion that the origin of Gothic architecture
was in stalactites of a limestone cavern, so numerous and perfect are
the long slender columns crowned with pointed Gothic arches.

Our procession through the cave was a picturesque one. We carried long
wax altar-candles and our guides huge torches made of threads of
aloe-fibre soaked in resin and wrapped round with cloth, in appearance
and texture exactly like the legs and arms of mummies. As we went, the
Indians sang Mexican songs to strange, monotonous, plaintive tunes, or
raced about into dark corners shouting with laughter. They talked about
adventures in the cave, to them of course the great phenomenon of the
whole world; but it did not seem, as far as we could hear, that they
associated with it any recollections of the old Aztec divinities and
the mystic rites performed in their honour.

No fossil bones have been found in the cavern, nor human remains except
in one of the passages far within, where a little wooden cross still
marks the spot where the skeleton of an Indian was found. Whether he
went alone for mere curiosity to explore the cave, or, what is more
likely, with an idea of finding treasure, is not known; nothing is
certain but that his candle was burnt out while he was still far from
the entrance, and that he died there. I said no fossil remains had been
found, but the level floors of the great halls are continually being
raised by fresh layers of stalagmite from the water dropping from the
roof, and no one knows what may lie under them. These floors are in
many places covered with little loose concretions like marbles, and
these concretions in the course of time are imbedded in the horizontal
layers of the same material.

As we left the entrance hall and began to ascend the