Rounding a corner by a narrow path, we step onto a covered portico
ninety-seven feet long, with an average width of ten feet. The floor is
smooth and level, as also is the ceiling, which is nine feet above,
supported by handsomely carved pillars and rising in a gray cliff
projecting from the slope of the hill above, out to the brink of the
more abrupt descent to the water's edge ninety feet below. Between the
pillars are three large door-ways into the cave. The comparison
suggested is an Egyptian temple, and the idea is continued within, where
there are no chambers as in other caves; but instead, the entire
interior is a labyrinth of passages winding about in every direction
among an uncounted number of low massive pillars, some supporting a low
ceiling and others connected by high arches, the highest point being
estimated at sixty feet, but appearing to be more, because the enclosed
space rising to a dome is so narrow that the point of view is
necessarily directly underneath.

All exposed surfaces of pillars and walls inside the cave are of clay or
a soft porous rock having the same appearance, and are covered with
curious little raised markings like the indescribable designs of mixed
nothing generally known as "Persian patterns." This is, of course,
easily explained; the clay being the residuum from disintegrated
limestone, the markings described are the harder portions of the rock
remaining after particles of clay had been carried out by flowing water
while the disintegrating process was yet incomplete.

The Drinking Fountain is considered the great attraction of the cave,
and appears to have been fashioned to suggest a model for the handsome
soda fountains belonging to a later period. The water bowl is a large
depression worn in the top of a rock which seems to have been built into
the wall. In front it is five feet high and nine feet across, with