There were three of us, besides our guide, with lighted torches, and our loins girded, now ready to descend into the cave. We took our torches in our left hands and entered. The mouth was so small that we could descend only by creeping, one after another. A descent of almost twenty yards brought us into the first room. The cave was exceedingly cold, dark, and silent, like the chambers of death. In this manner we proceeded, now descending thirty or forty feet--now ascending as high--now creeping on our hands and knees, and now walking in large rooms--the habitations of solitude. The mountain seems to be composed almost wholly of limestone, and by this means the cave is lined throughout with the most beautiful incrustations and stalactites of carbonated lime, which are formed by the continual dripping of the water through the roof. These stalactites are of various and elegant shapes and colours, often bearing a striking resemblance to animated nature. At one place we saw over our heads what appeared to be a _waterfall_ of the most beautiful kind. Nor could the imagination be easily persuaded that it was not a reality. You could see the water boiling and dashing down,--see its white spray and foam--but it was all solid limestone. Thus we passed onward in this world of solitude--now stopping to admire the beauties of a single stalactite--now wondering at the magnificence of a large room--now creeping through narrow passages, hardly wide enough to admit the body of a man,--and now walking in superb galleries, until we came to the largest room, called WASHINGTON HALL. This is certainly the most elegant room I ever saw. It is about two hundred and seventy feet in length, about thirty-five in width, and between thirty and forty feet high. The roof and sides are very beautifully adorned by the tinsels which Nature has bestowed in the greatest profusion, and which sparkle like the diamond, while surveyed by the light of torches. The floor is flat, and smooth, and solid. I was foremost of our little party in entering the room, and was not a little startled as I approached the centre, to see a figure, as it were, rising up before me out of the solid rock. It was not far from seven feet high, and corresponded in every respect to the common idea of a ghost. It was very white, and resembled a tall man clothed in a shroud. I went up to it sideways, though I could not really expect to meet a ghost in a place like this. On examination I found it was a very beautiful piece of the carbonate of lime, very transparent, and very much in the shape of a man. This is called WASHINGTON'S STATUE--as if Nature would do for this hero what his delivered country has not done--rear a statue to his memory.