The cavern in which this marvellous mass of ice stood, branched off into numerous galleries, one of which led the party to a sloping platform of rapidly increasing steepness, where they were startled by the reappearance of the naked foot-prints, passing down the slope.  The toes were spread out in a manner which showed that they belonged to some one who had been in the habit of going barefoot, and Captain Burslem took a torch and determined to trace the steps:  a large stone, however, gave way under his weight; and this, sliding down at first, and then rolling and bounding on for ever, raised such a tumult of noise and echoes that the natives with one accord cried ‘Sheitan!  Sheitan!’ and fled precipitately, extinguishing all the lights in their fear; so that but for Sturt’s torch the whole party must have been lost in the darkness.  Shah Pursund Khan at once called a retreat, vowing that it was of no use to attempt to follow the footsteps, as it was well known that the cave extended to Cabul!  The guides had now lost their small allowance of pluck, and wandered about despairingly for a long time before they could find their way back to the ice-cave, and thence to the foot of the rock where the two men and the turban-ladders had been left.  As soon as they came in sight of this, their comrades above cried out to them that they must make all haste, for Sheitan himself had appeared an hour before, running along the ledge where they now were, and finally vanishing into the gloom beyond; an announcement which of course produced a stampede in the terrified party of natives.  Five or six rushed to the spot where the turbans hung, and only an opportune fall of stones from above prevented their destroying the apparatus in their blind hurry to escape.  The chief claimed the privilege of being drawn up first, and he and all his followers declared that nothing should ever tempt them to visit again the Cave of Yeermalik.[104]

The Surtshellir, in Iceland.

The first account of this lava-cavern is given by Olafsen,[105] who visited it in 1750 and 1753.  Ebenezer Henderson[106] explored it in 1815, and Captain Forbes gives some account of it in his recent book on Iceland.[107] It is mentioned in some of the Sagas,[108] and appears to have been a refuge for robbers in the tenth century, and Sturla Sigvatson, with a large band of followers, spent some time here.  The Landnama Saga derives the name Surtshellir from a huge giant called Surtur, who made his abode in the cave; but Olafsen believed that the name merely meant black hole, from surtur or svartur, and was due to the darkness of the cave and the colour of the lava:  in accordance with this view, it is called Hellerin Sortur, or black hole, in some of the earlier writings.  The common people are convinced that it is inhabited by ghosts; and Olafsen and his party were assured that they would be turned back by horrible noises, or else killed outright by the spirits of the cave:  at any rate, their informants declared they would no more reach the inner parts of the cavern than they had reached the traditional green valley of Aradal, isolated in the midst of glaciers, with its wild population of descendants of the giants, which they had endeavoured to find some time before.[109]