They seemed originally to have been bubbles and blow-holes in volcanic rock, and to have been connected together by piercing the walls between them.

There was certainly no intelligible plan attached to their arrangement, for we went first up, then down, then sideways, losing all sense of elevation and direction.
But we passed through at least three score of those connected blow-holes, and the air in some of the higher ones was so foul that breathing it made you weak at the knees.

Nevertheless, in every single one there was an anchorite of some kind, engaged in painful meditation.
In each cave was an infinitesimal lamp made of baked clay and fed with vegetable oil that provided more smoke than flame, and the walls and ceiling were deep with the soot of centuries.
Following the Gray Mahatma's example King and I took handfuls of the soot and smeared it on our breasts, stomachs and faces, to mingle with the ashes in a mask of holiness.

By the time we had finished that there was not much chance of any one mistaking us for anything but two half-crazed aspirants for sanctity.
I could not possibly have drawn a tracing of our own course, for it was rank bewildering; but we emerged at last under the stars by the side of a great stone tank.

It might have been a bathing pool, for along each side steps disappeared into the water.