At the end of this hall is another passage leading on into another chamber.

Beyond this we did not go.

As it was, we must have walked between one and two miles into the cavern, but people have explored it to twice this distance, always finding a repetition of the same arrangement, great vaulted chambers alternating with long passages almost choked by fallen rocks.

In one of the passages, I think the last we came to, the roaring of the river in its subterranean bed was distinctly audible below us.
Excepting the great cave of Kentucky, I believe there is no stalactitic cavern known so vast and beautiful as this.

The appearance of the largest hall was wonderful 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.