Year: 1864

and when / had reached the point where
the light came in, / found it to be low,
narrow aperture, the wide passages I had
been following taking an abrupt turn to
the left, and leading away into utter
darkness! crawled out into this aper-
ture, and found that was upon sort Of
shelf, about half way up the wall of
wide chamber, and into this chamber the
light came from two directions-from
narrow fissure overhead, and from an
entrance on the floor nearly opposite
from where I was. I held my torch out
into the cave, and could see that the bot
tom was not far from twelve feet from
where was perched upon the shelf. And
/ saw more, too. But wait.


Slowly and carefully / made my way
to the edge of the shelf, and then having
found secure clutching places for my
hands 1 worked my way over and let my
body down, and in moment more I
reached the bottom of the cave in safety.
Of course my torch was eXtinguished,
but could see well enough without; and
almost the first thing upon which my
eyes fell was-my own portmanteau.


Of course l knew that was in the
robbers cave. 1t was a wide cavern,
with a rough, uneven floor, and upon
every hand were piled up heaps of booty.
There were many bales Of dry goods,
many casks, and in short every conceiy-
able thing that travellers could carry
across the mountains. Upon one side
saw huge chest, which tried to move,
but could not. 1t was firmly locked,
and l supposed h contained what Of
money and jewels the bandits had to store
away. / opened my portmanteau and
found my property untouched, only my
gold was missing.


But l waited not long here. I took
my portmanteau, and had resolved to
take it of, when the thought occurred to
me that if the villains should return and
find any thing missing they might take
alarm and make off with their most valu-
able booty, and furthermore, as my port
manteau was but little compared with
the gold had lost, l put it back where
1 had found it, and then taking my torch,
made my way to the place where the
light came upon the floor. found here
an aperture only about three feet high,
and six feet in width, and having crawled
through this I found myself in deep
ravine, and upon turning about / was
surprised to find that I could not see the
hole from whence l had come, But the
mystery was soon explained. In coming
out I had slid down gentle descent and
an oyerhanging shelf OF rock completely
concealed the entrance. should have
said before, but may as well say here,
that from the bottom of the cave the
aperture through which I had gained
access could not be seen, for the shelf
extended some two or three feet out from
the wall, and thus hid the place; SO T
doubt if the robbers ever discovered the
secret.


This ravine in which I found myself
after leaving the cavern long, narrow
and deep, with almost perpendicular
walls; but could see that near me was
the end of it, where the solid wall arose
upon three sides, and ] of course knew
that the outlet must be the other way.
So on / fastened. and at length came to
the place Of egress, which were very mar
row, and hidden among thick clump Of
trees. When I reached the confine Of
this stunted copse I found myself upon
the western side of the mountain! So
must have made my way entirely through
the giant rock.


1t was an easy matter to find the path
from here. With quick steps I started
for the other side. / remembered o pe-
culiar clump of trees that 1 had noticed
in the morning on the top of the noun
tains, and as | could see this now I had