Thus we crept on our hands and feet, on the wet and muddy ground, through the opening in the rock, which was often scarcely large enough for us to get through with our bodies.
When at length we had got through this troublesome passage, I saw in the cavern a steep hill, which was so high that it seemed to lose itself as in a cloud, in the summit of the rock.
This hill was so wet and slippery, that as soon as I attempted to ascend, I fell down. My guide, however, took hold of my hand and told me I had only resolutely to follow him.
We now ascended such an amazing height, and there were such precipices on each side, that it makes me giddy even now when I think of it.
When we at length had gained the summit, where the hill seemed to lose itself in the rock, my guide placed me where I could stand firm, and told me to stay there quietly. In the meantime he himself went down the hill with his candle, and left me alone.
I lost sight of him for some moments, but at length I perceived, not him, indeed, but his candle, quite in the bottom, from whence it seemed to shine like a bright and twinkling star.
After I had enjoyed this indescribably beautiful sight for some time, my guide came back, and carried me safely down the hill again on his shoulders. And as I now stood below, he went up and let his candle shine again through an opening of the rock, while I covered mine with my hand; and it was now as if on a dark night a bright star shone down upon me, a sight which, in point of beauty, far surpassed all that I had ever seen.
Our journey was now ended, and we returned, not without trouble and difficulty, through the narrow passage. We again entered the temple we had a short time before left; again heard the pattering of the rain, which sounded as rain when we were near it, but which at a distance seemed a sonorous, dull, and melancholy hum; and now again we returned across the quiet streams through the capacious entrance of the cavern to the little door, where we had before taken our leave of daylight, which, after so long a darkness, we now again hailed with joy.
Before my guide opened the door, he told me I should now have a view of a sight that would surpass all the foregoing. I found that he was in the right, for when he had only half opened the door, it really seemed as if I was looking into Elysium.
The day seemed to be gradually breaking, and night and darkness to have vanished. At a distance you again just saw the smoke of the cottages, and then the cottages themselves; and as we ascended we saw the boys still playing around the hewn trunk, till at length the reddish purple stripes in the sky faintly appeared through the mouth of the hole; yet, just as we came out, the sun was setting in the west.