| 232 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
elevated range, is a large hole or natural opening in
the rock, and during the whole of the rainy season
a torrent of water collects into a channel, pours
down this street, and empties into this hole. As
we were told, the body of water is so great that fo
r a week or ten days after the last rains the stream
continues to run ; and at the time of our visit it was
eighteen inches in diameter. The water in the
wells is always at the same level with that in the
hole. They rise and fall together ; and there is an-
other conclusive proof of direct connexion, for, as we
were told, a small dog that had been swept into
the hole appeared some days afterward dead in one
of the most distant wells.
Doctor Cabot and I descended into one of the
wells, and found it a rude, irregular cavern, about
twenty-five feet in diameter; the roof had some de-
gree of regularity, and perhaps, to a certain extent,
was artificial. Directly under the mouth the water
was not more than eighteen inches deep, but the bot-
tom was uneven, and a step or two beyond the wa-
ter was so deep that we could not examine it thor-
oughly. By the light of a candle we could see no
channel of communication with the other wells, but
on one side the water ran deep under a shelving of
the rock, and here there were probably some crevices
through which it passed ; indeed, this must have
been the case,. for this was the well in which the
dog had come to light.
When we emerged from this well other business
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