would be covered for a distance of many feet with a smooth coat of ice, and then it was indeed dangerous.  After moving on in this way for some minutes, the road gradually widened till we found ourselves on the damp and dripping flooring of a chamber of unknown dimensions; the torch light was not strong enough to enable us to conceive the size of this subterraneous hall, but all around us lay scattered melancholy proofs that there was some sad foundation for the moollah’s story.  Hundreds of human skeletons were strewed around; as far as the eye could penetrate these mournful relics presented themselves; they were very perfect, and had evidently not been disturbed since death; some had more the appearance of the shrivelled-up remains which we find in the Morgue on the road to the Grand St. Bernard, and lay about us in all the varied positions induced by their miserable fate.  Here, it seemed that a group had, while sufficient strength yet remained, huddled themselves together, as if to keep up the vital warmth of which death so slowly and yet so surely was depriving them; a little farther on was a figure in a sitting posture, with two infants still clasped in its bony arms; and then again the eye would fall upon some solitary figure with outstretched limbs, as if courting that death which on the instant responded to the call.  Involuntarily my thoughts recurred to Dante’s beautiful description of the Comte Ugolino’s children and their piteous end in the Torre della Fame—­but here, a sickening sense of the dreadful reality of the horrors, which it was evident from these mute memorials of man’s cruelty to his fellow had been endured, quite oppressed me, and I wished I had never visited the spot.  I felt myself so much harrowed by this sad scene, that I endeavoured to distract my attention; but what was my astonishment when my eye fell upon the print of a human naked foot, and beside it the distinct mark of the pointed heel of the Affgh[=a]n boot!—­I hope my reader will give me credit for truth—­I can assure him that it was some time before I could believe my own eyes, though I considered that the result of our explorations would explain in part the sight, which appeared to me so extraordinary, and which tallied so strangely with the footprints which had frightened Shah Pursund Khan twelve years ago.  I was still absorbed in reflections of no very gay colour, when one of the attendants warned me that if I staid all day amongst the “dead people,” there would not be sufficient oil to feed the torches, and we should be unable to visit the Ice Caves.  I was immediately roused, and proceeded onwards with the party through several low arches and smaller caves,—­suddenly a strange glare spread itself about me, and after a few more steps a magnificent spectacle presented itself.

[Illustration:  Drawn by Mr Gempertz Pelham Richardson Litho

View of the Ice Caves in the Cavern of Yeermallik.]