The passage, which at first scarcely admitted us, quickly grew narrower and lower; we were almost bent double; yet still we persisted in making our way through it.  At length we entered a wider space, and the low roof heightened; but, as we congratulated ourselves on this change, our torch was extinguished by a current of air, and we were left in utter darkness.  The guides bring with them materials for renewing the light, but we had none—­our only resource was to return as we came.  We groped round the widened space to find the entrance, and after a time fancied that we had succeeded.  This proved however to be a second passage, which evidently ascended.  It terminated like the former; though something approaching to a ray, we could not tell whence, shed a very doubtful twilight in the space.  By degrees, our eyes grew somewhat accustomed to this dimness, and we perceived that there was no direct passage leading us further; but that it was possible to climb one side of the cavern to a low arch at top, which promised a more easy path, from whence we now discovered that this light proceeded.  With considerable difficulty we scrambled up, and came to another passage with still more of illumination, and this led to another ascent like the former.

After a succession of these, which our resolution alone permitted us to surmount, we arrived at a wide cavern with an arched dome-like roof.  An aperture in the midst let in the light of heaven; but this was overgrown with brambles and underwood, which acted as a veil, obscuring the day, and giving a solemn religious hue to the apartment.  It was spacious, and nearly circular, with a raised seat of stone, about the size of a Grecian couch, at one end.  The only sign that life had been here, was the perfect snow-white skeleton of a goat, which had probably not perceived the opening as it grazed on the hill above, and had fallen headlong.  Ages perhaps had elapsed since this catastrophe; and the ruin it had made above, had been repaired by the growth of vegetation during many hundred summers.

The rest of the furniture of the cavern consisted of piles of leaves, fragments of bark, and a white filmy substance, resembling the inner part of the green hood which shelters the grain of the unripe Indian corn.  We were fatigued by our struggles to attain this point, and seated ourselves on the rocky couch, while the sounds of tinkling sheep-bells, and shout of shepherd-boy, reached us from above.

At length my friend, who had taken up some of the leaves strewed about, exclaimed, “This is the Sibyl’s cave; these are Sibylline leaves.”  On examination, we found that all the leaves, bark, and other substances, were traced with written characters.  What appeared to us more astonishing, was that these writings were expressed in various languages:  some unknown to my companion, ancient Chaldee, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, old as the Pyramids.  Stranger still, some were in modern dialects, English