The caves were originally formed by a river, the waterline of which is distinctly visible, while in places the ground is marked with wave ripples like the sand of a beach. Then, again, many stones are round and polished, the result of constant rolling by water; and, still more wonderful, two rivers flow beneath them, probably through caves just as marvellous, which no man had then dared penetrate.
I believe we went through seven caverns, and our numerous lights barely made a flicker in the intense gloom—they were nothing in that vast space. Rockets were sent up. Rockets which were known to ascend two hundred and fifty feet, but which nowhere reached the roof; the height is probably somewhere between five and six hundred feet. Think of a stone roof at that altitude without any supports.
The size alone appalled, but the stalactites and stalagmites almost petrified one with amazement. Many of them have joined, making rude pillars a couple of hundred feet high and perhaps a hundred feet in diameter at the base. Others have formed grotesque shapes. A seal upon the ground is positively life-like: a couple of monster Indian idols: faces and forms innumerable; here an old woman bent nearly double, there a man with a basket on his head, thrones fit for kings, organs with every pipe visible, which, when tapped, send forth deep tones. It was all so great, so wonderful, so marvellous; I felt all the time as if I were in some strange cathedral, greater, grander, and more impressive than any I had ever entered. Its aspect of power and strength paralysed me, not with fear, but with admiration.
At times it was terribly stiff climbing and several of the party had nasty falls in the uncertain light; at others it was a case of sitting down and sliding, in order to get from one boulder to another; but it was worth it all to see such a sight, to realise the Power that made those caves, to bow before the Almighty Hand which had accomplished such work, even in millions of years. There hung those great stone roofs without support of any kind—what architect could have performed such a miracle? There stood those majestic pillars embedded in rocks above and below; there hung yards and yards of stalactites weighing tons, and yet no stay or girder kept them in place. It was a lesson, a chapter in religion, something solemn and soul-stirring, something never to be forgotten; one of the Creator’s great mysteries, where every few yards presented some fresh revelation.
My knees were trembling, every rag of clothing I wore was as wet as when first taken from the washerwoman’s tub, yet I struggled on, fascinated, bewildered, awed, by the sights which met me at every step. Think of it. Stumbling along for four and a half hours, even then not reaching the end, and, though we returned by the easiest and quickest way, it was two hours more before we found the exit.
In one of the caves the Governor proposed my health, and the party gave three cheers, which resounded again and again in that wonderful subterranean chamber, deep down in the bowels of the earth, with a mountain above and a couple of rivers below. The military band of Cacahuimilpa accompanied us, and the effect produced by their music was stupendous. No words can give any idea of the volume of sound, because the largest band in the world could not succeed in producing the same effect of resonance in the open air which ten performers caused in those vast silent chambers.
It is impossible to describe the immense grandeur of Cacahuimilpa.
Man is speechless in such majestic surroundings; but in this all-pervading silence surely the voice of God speaks.
Hot, tired, and overpowered we were plodding homewards, when a letter was handed to a member of the party by a mounted soldier, who, seeing our lights approaching the entrance, had dared to venture into the grottos to deliver his missive. We were all surprised at the man’s arrival, and more surprised to find he carried an envelope. It turned out to be a telegram which had followed our party from a village forty miles distant, and had been sent on by special horseman with instructions to overtake us at all speed. Was ever telegram delivered amid stranger surroundings, to a more cosmopolitan collection of humanity assembled in the bowels of the earth, far, far away from civilisation?
What news that telegram contained! It had travelled seven thousand miles across land and sea; it had arrived at a moment when we were all overawed by stupendous grandeur and thoroughly worn out with fatigue. At the first glance it seemed impossible to read. Men, accustomed to the vagaries of foreign telegraph clerks when dealing with the English language, found, however, no difficulty in deciphering its meaning.