The size alone appalled, but the stalactites and stalagmites almost petrified one with amazement. Many of them have joined, making rude pillars a couple of hundred feet high and perhaps a hundred feet in diameter at the base. Others have formed grotesque shapes. A seal upon the ground is positively life-like: a couple of monster Indian idols: faces and forms innumerable; here an old woman bent nearly double, there a man with a basket on his head, thrones fit for kings, organs with every pipe visible, which, when tapped, send forth deep tones. It was all so great, so wonderful, so marvellous; I felt all the time as if I were in some strange cathedral, greater, grander, and more impressive than any I had ever entered. Its aspect of power and strength paralysed me, not with fear, but with admiration. At times it was terribly stiff climbing and several of the party had nasty falls in the uncertain light; at others it was a case of sitting down and sliding, in order to get from one boulder to another; but it was worth it all to see such a sight, to realise the Power that made those caves, to bow before the Almighty Hand which had accomplished such work, even in millions of years. There hung those great stone roofs without support of any kind—what architect could have performed such a miracle? There stood those majestic pillars embedded in rocks above and below; there hung yards and yards of stalactites weighing tons, and yet no stay or girder kept them in place. It was a lesson, a chapter in religion, something solemn and soul-stirring, something never to be forgotten; one of the Creator’s great mysteries, where every few yards presented some fresh revelation. My knees were trembling, every rag of clothing I wore was as wet as when first taken from the washerwoman’s tub, yet I struggled on, fascinated, bewildered, awed, by the sights which met me at every step. Think of it. Stumbling along for four and a half hours, even then not reaching the end, and, though we returned by the easiest and quickest way, it was two hours more before we found the exit. In one of the caves the Governor proposed my health, and the party gave three cheers, which resounded again and again in that wonderful subterranean chamber, deep down in the bowels of the earth, with a mountain above and a couple of rivers below. The military band of Cacahuimilpa accompanied us, and the effect produced by their music was stupendous. No words can give any idea of the volume of sound, because the largest band in the world could not succeed in producing the same effect of resonance in the open air which ten performers caused in those vast silent chambers. It is impossible to describe the immense grandeur of Cacahuimilpa. Man is speechless in such majestic surroundings; but in this all-pervading silence surely the voice of God speaks.