At any rate the colonists of Back Cup are not reduced to catching the rain water that falls so abundantly upon the exterior of the mountain.
A few paces from the electric power house is a large cistern that, save in the matter of proportions, is the counterpart of those I visited in Bermuda.

In the latter place the cisterns have to supply the needs of over ten thousand people, this one of a hundred--what?
I am not sure yet what to call them.

That their chief had serious reasons for choosing the bowels of this island for his abiding place is obvious.

But what were those reasons?
I can understand monks shutting themselves behind their monastery walls with the intention of separating themselves from the world, but these subjects of the Count d'Artigas have nothing of the monk about them, and would not be mistaken for such by the most simple-minded of mortals.
I continue my way through the pillars to the extremity of the cavern.
No one has sought to stop me, no one has spoken to me, not a soul apparently has taken the very slightest notice of me.

This portion of Back Cup is extremely curious, and comparable to the most marvellous of the grottoes of Kentucky or the Balearics.