the bed of the river through which a vast volume of gas forced
its way from its volcanic home in the bowels of the earth towards

the upper air. How it first became ignited is, of course, impossible
to say -- probably, I should think, from some spontaneous explosion

of mephitic gases.
As soon as we had got some things together and shaken ourselves

together a little, we set to work to make out where we were now.
I have said that there was light above, and on examination we

found that it came from the sky. Our rive that was, Sir Henry
said, a literal realization of the wild vision of the poet

{Endnote 10}, was no longer underground, but was running on its
darksome way, not now through 'caverns measureless to man', but

between two frightful cliffs which cannot have been less than
two thousand feet high. So high were they, indeed, that though

the sky was above us, where we were was dense gloom -- not darkness
indeed, but the gloom of a room closely shuttered in the daytime.

Up on either side rose the great straight cliffs, grim and forbidding,
till the eye grew dizzy with trying to measure their sheer height.

The little space of sky that marked where they ended lay like
a thread of blue upon their soaring blackness, which was unrelieved

by any tree or creeper. Here and there, however, grew ghostly
patches of a long grey lichen, hangingmotionless to the rock

as the white beard to the chin of a dead man. It seemed as though
only the dregs or heavier part of the light had sunk to the bottom

of this awful place. No bright-winged sunbeam could fall so low:
they died far, far above our heads.

By the river's edge was a little shore formed of round fragments
of rock washed into this shape by the constant action of water,

and giving the place the appearance of being strewn with thousands
of fossilcannon balls. Evidently when the water of the underground

river is high there is no beach at all, or very little, between
the border of the stream and the precipitous cliffs; but now

there was a space of seven or eight yards. And here, on this
beach, we determined to land, in order to rest ourselves a little

after all that we had gone through and to stretch our limbs.
It was a dreadful place, but it would give an hour's respite

from the terrors of the river, and also allow of our repacking
and arranging the canoe. Accordingly we selected what looked

like a favourable spot, and with some little difficulty managed
to beach the canoe and scramble out on to the round, inhospitable

pebbles.
'My word,' called out Good, who was on shore the first, 'what

an awful place! It's enough to give one a fit.' And he laughed.
Instantly a thundering voice took up his words, magnifying them

a hundred times. 'Give one a fit -- Ho! ho! ho!' -- 'A fit,
Ho! ho! ho!' answered another voice in wild accents from far

up the cliff -- a fit! a fit! a fit! chimed in voice after voice
-- each flinging the words to and fro with shouts of awful laughter

to the invisible lips of the other till the whole place echoed
with the words and with shrieks of fiendish merriment, which

at last ceased as suddenly as they had begun.
'Oh, mon Dieu!' yelled Alphonse, startled quite out of such

self-command as he possessed.
'Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!' the Titanic echoes thundered,

shrieked, and wailed in every conceivable tone.
'Ah,' said Umslopogaas calmly, 'I clearly perceive that devils

live here. Well, the place looks like it.'
I tried to explain to him that the cause of all the hubbub was

a very remarkable and interesting echo, but he would not believe it.
'Ah,' he said, 'I know an echo when I hear one. There was one lived

opposite my kraal in Zululand, and the Intombis [maidens] used
to talk with it. But if what we hear is a full-grown echo, mine

at home can only have been a baby. No, no -- they are devils
up there. But I don't think much of them, though,' he added,

taking a pinch of snuff. 'They can copy what one says, but they
don't seem to be able to talk on their own account, and they

dare not show their faces,' and he relapsed into silence, and
apparently paid no further attention to such contemptible fiends.

After this we found it necessary to keep our conversation down
to a whisper -- for it was really unbearable to have every word

one uttered tossed to and fro like a tennis-ball, as precipice
called to precipice.

But even our whispers ran up the rocks in mysterious murmurs
till at last they died away in long-drawn sighs of sound. Echoes

are delightful and romantic things, but we had more than enough
of them in that dreadful gulf.

As soon as we had settled ourselves a little on the round stones,
we went on to wash and dress our burns as well as we could.

As we had but a little oil for the lantern, we could not spare
any for this purpose, so we skinned one of the swans, and used

the fat off its breast, which proved an excellent substitute.
Then we repacked the canoe, and finally began to take some food,

of which I need scarcely say we were in need, for our insensibility
had endured for many hours, and it was, as our watches showed,

midday. Accordingly we seated ourselves in a circle, and were
soon engaged in discussing our cold meat with such appetite as

we could muster, which, in my case at any rate, was not much,
as I felt sick and faint after my sufferings of the previous

night, and had besides a racking headache. It was a curious
meal. The gloom was so intense that we could scarcely see the

way to cut our food and convey it to our mouths. Still we got
on pretty well, till I happened to look behind me -- my attention

being attracted by a noise of something crawling over the stones,
and perceived sitting upon a rock in my immediate rear a huge

species of black freshwater crab, only it was five times the
size of any crab I ever saw. This hideous and loathsome-looking

animal had projecting eyes that seemed to glare at one, very
long and flexible antennae or feelers, and gigantic claws.

Nor was I especially favoured with its company. From every quarter
dozens of these horrid brutes were creeping up, drawn, I suppose,

by the smell of the food, from between the round stones and out
of holes in the precipice. Some were already quite close to

us. I stared quite fascinated by the unusual sight, and as I
did so I saw one of the beasts stretch out its huge claw and

give the unsuspecting Good such a nip behind that he jumped up
with a howl, and set the 'wild echoes flying' in sober earnest.

Just then, too, another, a very large one, got hold of Alphonse's
leg, and declined to part with it, and, as may be imagined, a

considerable115 scene ensued. Umslopogaas took his axe and cracked
the shell of one with the flat of it, whereon it set up a horrid

screaming which the echoes multiplied a thousandfold, and began
to foam at the mouth, a proceeding that drew hundreds more of

its friends out of unsuspected holes and corners. Those on the
spot perceiving that the animal was hurt fell upon it like creditors

on a bankrupt, and literally rent it limb from limb with their
huge pincers and devoured it, using their claws to convey the

fragments to their mouths. Seizing whatever weapons were handy,
such as stones or paddles, we commenced a war upon the monsters

-- whose numbers were increasing by leaps and bounds, and whose
stench was overpowering. So fast as we cracked their armour

others seized the injured ones and devoured them, foaming at
the mouth, and screaming as they did so. Nor did the brutes

stop at that. When they could they nipped hold of us -- and
awful nips they were -- or tried to steal the meat. One enormous

fellow got hold of the swan we had skinned and began to drag
it off. Instantly a score of others flung themselves upon the

prey, and then began a ghastly and disgusting scene. How the
monsters foamed and screamed, and rent the flesh, and each other!

It was a sickening and unnatural sight, and one that will haunt
all who saw it till their dying day -- enacted as it was in the

deep, oppressive gloom, and set to the unceasing music of the
many-toned nerve-shaking echoes. Strange as it may seem to say