The entrance is half-way up a hill, and is 50 feet high, with about the same breadth.  Not far from the entrance they found a passage between two jagged rocks, possibly the remains of Genghis Khan’s fatal wall, so narrow that they had some difficulty in squeezing through; and then, before long, came to a drop of 16 feet, down which they were lowered by ropes made from the cotton turbans of the Shah and his attendants.  Here they left two men to haul them up on their return, and bade farewell to the light of day.  The narrow path led by the edge of a black abyss, sometimes over a flooring of smooth ice for a few feet, and widened gradually till they reached a damp and dripping hall, of dimensions so vast that the light of their torches did not enable them to form a conception of its size.  In this hall they found hundreds of skeletons in a perfectly undisturbed state, one, for instance, still holding the skeletons of two infants in its bony arms, while some of the bodies had been preserved, and lay shrivelled like those at the Great St. Bernard.  They were very much startled here by the discovery of the prints of a naked human foot, and by its side the distinct mark of the pointed heel of an Affghan boot,[102] precisely what had so thoroughly frightened the Shah twelve years before.  The prints retained all the sharpness of outline which marks a recent impression, and led towards the farther recesses of the cave; but the Englishmen were called away from their investigation by the announcement that if they did not make haste, there would not be oil enough for lighting them to the ice-caves.

Proceeding through several low arches and smaller caves, they reached at length a vast hall, in the centre of which was[103] 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 2 feet thick; the floor, sides, and roof were smooth and slippery, and their 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 they passed from cave to cave.  Around, above, beneath, everything was of solid ice, and being unable to stand on account of its slippery nature, they 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.