The
moollah told them that there was a large number of skeletons in the
cave, the remains of 700 men who took refuge there during the invasion
of Genghis Khan, with their wives and families, and defended
themselves so stoutly, that, after trying in vain the means by which
the M'Leods were destroyed in barbarous times, and the opponents of
French progress in Algeria in times less remote, the invader built
them in with huge natural blocks of stone, and left them to die of
hunger.
The entrance is half-way up a hill, and is 50 feet high, with about the
same breadth. Not far from the entrance they found a passage between two
jagged rocks, possibly the remains of Genghis Khan's fatal wall, so
narrow that they had some difficulty in squeezing through; and then,
before long, came to a drop of 16 feet, down which they were lowered by
ropes made from the cotton turbans of the Shah and his attendants. Here
they left two men to haul them up on their return, and bade farewell to
the light of day. The narrow path led by the edge of a black abyss,
sometimes over a flooring of smooth ice for a few feet, and widened
gradually till they reached a damp and dripping hall, of dimensions so
vast that the light of their torches did not enable them to form a
conception of its size.
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