We fired our shotguns and the loosened dirt and rocks and the thunder of thousands of bats' wings were enough to terrify the senses.
There is no telling how many centuries or ages these caverns have stood as they stand to-day.

Doubtless the wild tribes of the mountain have occupied them for thousands of years, and doubtless a thousand years from now the descendants of these tribes of people and bats will still be there in the cisternlike caverns with the broad fan of sparkling water spreading like a beautiful curtain across the great archway of an entrance.
That night, after hours of climbing through great forests and across grassy slopes gay with countless varieties of beautiful and strange flowers, we pitched our camp on a wind-swept height eleven thousand feet up.

The peaks of the mountain rose high above us only a mile or so farther on.
When the night fell the cold was intense, and we huddled about the camp-fire for warmth.

Around each of the porters' camp-fires the humped-up natives crouched and dreamed of the warm valleys far below in the darkness.

I suppose the cold made them irritable, for just as we were preparing to turn in there suddenly came a succession of screams from one of the groups--screams of a boy in mortal terror.