At half past five o'clock next morning the carriage, which was innocent of paint, lined with a sort of basket work and without springs, but certainly strongly built, stood at the door. A boy of about eighteen years of age, who could speak German, went along as interpreter. The morning was dismal, and, every quarter of an hour or so, a shower of thick mist fell and gradually made us damp and uncomfortable. After about twenty minutes on a pretty bad road, we came to a place where there was a fork, and the driver turned to the left, over a track which consisted of two deep ruts through the fields. Soon after, we heard some shouting behind us, and a fierce-looking man, in a leather jacket and carrying a large axe, came up and abused the driver. He was not an agreeable person; however, presently he simmered down and began to smile. It turned out that he was a _wächter_, that is, a guardian of the fields, and that we were trespassing. The driver meekly promised to return by the other route, and we went on our way in peace. After awhile, we drove into some woods and then into a mountain gorge, with forest-covered slopes at the base and with limestone cliffs jutting out above. Here we came to the cottage of the _wächter_ or _förster_ of the surrounding woods, who also acted as guide to the cave, for the few tourists who came to see it; and when he heard of our destination, he at once slipped on a second ragged coat, took a woodman's axe and started on foot, going much faster than the carriage. This was not surprising, for the road resembled nothing but the bed of a mountain brook, a mass of boulders with ruts between them. This highway was made by the peasants driving their carts over the plain in the same place, and as the soil was cut away, the boulders appeared; and over and among these we went banging along, and we were jolted about and bumped into each other, until every bone in my body ached. [Illustration: ON THE ICE SLOPE, SCHAFLOCH.] At a quarter past seven o'clock we came to another house in a little glade, where the carriage stopped; and on asking the _förster_ for his name, he wrote down in my note book, in a clear well formed hand:--Misura, Franz. From the glade, ten minutes' walk on a mountain path, up an easy slope, took us to the entrance of Déményfálva. It is about two meters wide by three quarters of a meter high. We passed through and entered a large chamber, well lighted from the right by another opening, which is higher up and bigger than the entrance. The air in this chamber was at about the same temperature as that of the outside air, and, on our return from the nether world, it seemed positively balmy. In the floor at the end of the chamber, a small pit yawns open. It is perpendicular on three sides and set at a sharp angle on the fourth. A wooden staircase of some two hundred steps, many of which are sadly out of repair, leads nearly straight down this slope to the glacière.