In this hall they found hundreds of skeletons in
a perfectly undisturbed state, one, for instance, still holding the
skeletons of two infants in its bony arms, while some of the bodies had
been preserved, and lay shrivelled like those at the Great St. Bernard.
They were very much startled here by the discovery of the prints of a
naked human foot, and by its side the distinct mark of the pointed heel
of an Affghan boot,[102] precisely what had so thoroughly frightened the
Shah twelve years before. The prints retained all the sharpness of
outline which marks a recent impression, and led towards the farther
recesses of the cave; but the Englishmen were called away from their
investigation by the announcement that if they did not make haste, there
would not be oil enough for lighting them to the ice-caves.
Proceeding through several low arches and smaller caves, they reached at
length a vast hall, in the centre of which was[103] an enormous mass of
clear ice, smooth and polished as a mirror, and in the form of a
gigantic beehive, with its dome-shaped top just touching the long
icicles which depended from the jagged surface of the rock.
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