I confess that hitherto I had treated the moollah's account as an idle tale; my unbelief, however, was quickly removed, for just as we entered the narrow passage the light of the torches was for an instant thrown upon a group of human skeletons. I saw them but for an instant, and the sight was quite sufficient to raise my drooping curiosity to its former pitch. CHAPTER XI. We proceeded down the sloping shaft, occasionally bruising ourselves against its jagged sides, until our leader suddenly came to a dead halt. I was next to him, and coming up as close as I could, I found that one step further would have precipitated the adventurous guide into an abyss, the bottom and sides of which were undistinguishable; after gazing for a moment into this apparently insurmountable obstacle to our further progress, I could just perceive a narrow ledge about sixteen feet below me, that the eye could trace for a few yards only, beyond which it was lost in the deep gloom surrounding us. Our conductor had already made up his mind what to do: he proceeded to unwind his long narrow turban composed of cotton cloth, and called to his comrades to do the same; by joining these together they formed a kind of rope by means of which we gradually lowered each other, till at last a party ten in number were safely landed on the ledge. We left a couple of men to haul us up on our return, and proceeded on our way, groping along the brink of the yawning chasm. Every now and then loose stones set in motion by our feet would slip into this bottomless pit, and we could hear them bounding down from ledge to ledge, smashing themselves into a thousand fragments, till the echoes so often repeated were like the independent file-firing of a battalion of infantry. Sometimes the narrow path 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;