200 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. CHAP. Till. connected by narrow, and at times difficult, passages. Few of these chambers were of equal dimensions with the first, but most of them were lined and ornamented with stalactite formations of every imaginable shape, and in various stages of crystallisation or decomposition. In some places buttresses or pilasters, of most exquisite brightness and of elaborate combinations of form, reached down the sides of the wall from the roof to the floor. In others single pillars, or clusters of small pillars, like those in the interior of a cathedral, rose from the floor and spread out broader at the top, as if from thence arches were to spring. Sometimes the stalagmites seemed like glassy tapering cones fixed in the floor, and reaching nearly to the roof. The floors of the rooms and passages were uneven and slippery, generally covered with a whitish substance like slightly sullied snow. But it would have required, as indeed it would have amply repaid, a much longer time than I could then command to examine or note either the exact dimensions of the place, or the curious and strange crystallisations which crowded around me. As it was, I sometimes found myself left alone, by my companions, in consequence of having lingered to look on the inconceivably striking and attractive forms which surrounded, and ceiled, and floored some exquisite little grotto connected by a chasm or other aperture, with the main gallery or passage, like one of the beautiful little marble chapels which are seen in the side of some of the splendid churches of Italy. The silent and ceaseless process by which the interiors of these sublime temples of nature had been thus decorated and furnished was apparent, and formed not the least interesting amongst the many wonders of the place. A circle of crystals, on a part of the roof where drops of water hung suspended, marked in several places the commencement of one of those singular formations. At other places a broad based cone de scended several feet, while the moisture dripping from its