In the centre of a large cave stood an enormous mass of clear ice, smooth and polished as a mirror, and in the form of a gigantic beehive, with its dome-shaped top just touching the long icicles which depended from the jagged surface of the rock.  A small aperture led to the interior of this wonderful congelation, the walls of which were nearly two feet thick—­the floor, sides, and roof were smooth and slippery, and our figures were reflected from floor to ceiling and from side to side in endless repetition.  The inside of this chilly abode was divided into several compartments of every fantastic shape; in some the glittering icicles hung like curtains from the roof; in others the vault was smooth as glass.  Beautifully brilliant were the prismatic colours reflected from the varied surface of the ice, when the torches flashed suddenly upon them as we passed from cave to cave.  Around, above, beneath, every thing was of solid ice, and being unable to stand on account of its slippery nature, we slid or rather glided mysteriously along the glassy surface of this hall of spells.  In one of the largest compartments the icicles had reached the floor, and gave the idea of pillars supporting the roof.  Altogether the sight was to me as novel as it was magnificent, and I only regret that my powers of description are inadequate to do justice to what I saw.

After wandering for some time amongst these extraordinary chambers, we proceeded further to examine the nature of the caverns in which they were formed:  these seemed to branch out into innumerable galleries, which again intersected each other.  Sometimes they expanded into halls, the dimensions of which our feeble light prevented us from calculating, and anon they contracted into narrow passages, so low that we were obliged to creep along them on our hands and knees.  Our party had just emerged from one of these defiles and were standing together on a kind of sloping platform, at which point the declivity seemed to become more precipitous as it receded from our sight, when our attention was suddenly arrested by the reappearance of the mysterious naked footprints which I had before observed in the chamber of skeletons.  I examined them minutely, and am certain from the spread of the toes that they belonged to some one who was in the habit of going barefoot.  I took a torch, and determined to trace them as far as I could.  Had I met with these prints in the open air, I should have decided upon their being quite fresh, but the even temperature and stillness of atmosphere which reigned in these strange regions might account for the tracks retaining that sharpness of outline which denotes a recent impression.  The direction I took led me immediately down the slope I have just mentioned, and its increasing steepness caused me some misgivings as to how I should get back, when suddenly a large stone on which I had rested my foot gave way beneath my weight, and down I came, extinguishing my torch