He did not believe that it had flowed through the ravine below.

There were no signs that there had been a flood down there.

Little vines and plants were growing in chinks of the rocks close to the water.

And, moreover, had a vast deluge rushed out almost beneath the opening which lighted the cave, it must have been heard by some of the party.

He concluded, therefore, that the water had escaped through a subterranean channel below the rocks from which he looked down.
He climbed down the sides of the gorge, and walked along its bottom for two or three hundred yards, until around a jutting point of rock he saw that the sides of the defile separated for a considerable distance, and then, coming together again below, formed a sort of amphitheatre.