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In this strange, quiet land we slept well, and went out next day over the pleasant undulating plain, watered by warm streams with their bordering of oleander and fern, and sheltered by olive and carob.

At last we came to a place where a grassy bank swept round us in a half circle. “Fourteen years ago,” said the guide “the shepherds feeding their flocks close by heard a great noise, and running hither saw the earth had fallen in,” and he pointed as he spoke to a crack in the side of the bank, just such a rent as a great tree makes when it falls, tearing its roots out of the ground. “Into that,” he said, “you must go.”

So we went towards it in faith, and found when we got there a man could easily pass in. As we descended into the hot twilight inside the ground a bat flew out. We went down-hill until the guide stopped us, where there seemed to lie at our feet a little blue dust over the stones, for this was the still blue water of a lake that stretched away into deep and deeper darkness. As we stood we heard out of the darkness the splash of oars, a light shone on the water, and round the sheer wall of rock on the right came a boat with a lantern at its prow.