John Wilson

“ As we go along, although we are fifty or sixty feet above the river, marks of its recent rise are visible, for the sand is very wet, and our road very slippery. The avenue in which we now are must have been filled with water to the very ceiling, and our path is an awfully wild one, strewed with immense rocks that have fallen from above, and the ceiling is like a dark midnight sky. The walls are beautifully ornamented with rosettes, &c., of stalactite in great profusion. ”

“ Stephen must give us another Bengal. Again we gaze in astonishment at this unparalleled wonder, and see beauties we did not see before. The light fades and dies, and again deep impenetrable gloom holds its sway. We ascend the ladder to our old ledge of rock at the mouth of the hole by which we must return, and feel thankful when we find ourselves safely at the top of it, take one last look at the dome, and then retrace our steps. When this dome was discovered in 1842, a lamp was found at the bottom of it, which puzzled the finders not a little as to how it could have got there. ”

“ As we go along gazing in wonder at everything, the eye suddenly rests on a nice little niche in the wall, just like the niche that is at the door of a Roman Catholic Cathedral for holding the holy water. ”

“ By kindling a fire in this apartment, or putting all the lamps together so as to create a tolerable heat, the salt 11 comes down in flakes like a fall of fleecy snow. As we trudge along the Main Cave (so called because all the other avenues branch off from it) , the mind cannot but be filled with awe while contemplating the wonders of this immense tunnel. It is as if we were walking through the bed of a river, and the ceiling, generally about sixty feet high, looks something like a cloudy sky ”

“ I am really quite at a loss how to begin to give you the least idea of the place, for it is almost beyond description; at all events I feel quite sure that any kind of description given in writing, by any mortal man, cannot afford to a stranger the smallest notion of the wondrousness, the sublimity, the awfulness of this cave—this stupendous work of Nature. ”

“ It fills the mind with thoughts something deeper than amusement. No accident of a serious nature has ever happened in the cave, for the guides are very careful, and every precaution is taken to prevent accidents. Very soon after the river was discovered two young gentlemen, accompanied by two young ladies, went to cross it. They were full of spirits and too full of fun, for despite the guide’s warning that the boat was very crazy, they, in getting into it, upset it. Their lamps were all extinguished, and their matches lost. ”

“ The stalactite formations are still going on in the grotto, for the water is constantly oozing through, and many a crystal drop may be seen hanging from the end of the bunch of beauties already formed. There are some thick massy pillars, some stalactites and stalagmites not yet met—the stalagmite is the formation on the ground caused by the dropping of the water from the stalactite, which hangs as it were from the roof; many of them are beautifully and fantastically shaped, and the effect of the light shining through them is rich in the extreme. ”

“ It was no very delightful situation for solitary helpless individuals to be left alone in a boat in the middle of a river so far under the face of the earth, and with no sound of anything near us save the trickling of invisible waterfalls, and nothing with any sign of life but gnats that fluttered about our lamps, and now and then a large cricket with immense long legs, but there was no “hearth” for it to be on, nor did it chirp. In this river are the eyeless fish ”

“ There is a singular-looking place in it called The Hanging Rocks, which are immense blocks of stone rent from the roof, and hanging as it were in air, ready to annihilate any half-hundred people that may venture under them, but fortunately they don’t. We leave the Pass, and enter Spring-side, when we ascend a ladder about fifteen feet into a place called Mary’s Vineyard, one of the most extraordinary freaks in the whole cave. ”

“ Once on this side the river, we trudged on nimbly through the Fat Man’s Misery and the Valley of Humility, and getting into the Main Cave from behind the Giant’s Coffin again, we were not long in seeing the light of day. I nearly forgot to mention, that as we were sailing up 18 the Echo River on our way home, Alfred, the guide, caught two of the eyeless fish. They are small, about a finger’s length, one of them like a minnow, and the other something like a shrimp. There is not the slightest appearance of eyes about them. ”

“ We soon came to the Bottomless Pit, and our new-named St Paul’s Dome, and passing on entered the Valley of Humility, so called from the visitor being obliged to stoop very much while walking through it, for it is only about four feet high; a short avenue takes us to the Winding Way, otherwise called the Fat Man’s Misery, a most extraordinary freak of nature. ”

“ We journey on through avenues till we reach the River Styx, which we cross in a boat, then we walk a little farther till we get to Lethe. We sail along it in our frail bark till the water becomes so shallow that we can go no farther. Echo River is the great one we have to cross, and as the guides are uncertain about the state of it, they leave us till they ascertain by what means we are to get to the other side. ”

“ In a very short time we come to a wall that had been built by the miners, and in which there is a door-way, inside 5 of which we are fairly in the cave. The temperature of the cave is always at sixty, and when the temperature out of doors is higher, the air rushes out at this doorway, so as to blow out the lamps, if the command of the guide is not obeyed to keep your lamps before you. At first one cannot see very well—the eyes are not yet accustomed to penetrate the darkness—the lamps only tended to make the darkness more visible. ”

“ The lamps are placed in the pillars and other parts of the grotto, in the same way as at the Gothic Chapel, and the effect is very fine. The stalactites were once whiter than they are now, for the smoke of the lamps has darkened them not a little. While admiring the endless variety of stalactite beauties before us, one cannot help feeling sorry that visitors should be so barbarous as to break them off, for they but rarely can get a rosette or anything else whole; they therefore spoil the beauty of the grotto, without being able to carry away a satisfactory trophy of their destructive deeds. ”

“ Soon, however, our ceiling becomes very low, and our road very rough; we are compelled to crawl a considerable way on our hands and knees, and are not at all displeased when we reach the Banquet Hall, for here there is plenty of room to stand up, the ceiling being 40 feet high, and the width of the apartment about 700 feet. We were very glad to sit down too, and Stephen went to a distance and lighted one of his Bengal lights, which showed us the glories of this immense apartment. While we were resting here Stephen sang some negro songs very well—a merry fellow is Stephen, and has a good voice. ”

“ It was first discovered by the whites in 1802, and during the last war with England immense quantities of saltpetre were made in it, the remains of the utensils for the manufacture of which are still to be seen at a short distance from the entrance, and even the marks of the hoofs of the oxen the miners used can be traced in the ground. It is only about ten years since the curious began to visit the cave, and every year the visitors increase in number, and they must continue to do so as the wonders of the place become more talked of. ”

“ Now we retrace our steps to the “Main Cave,” where at almost every step we take some new wonder is opened up to us. We are in an apartment called the “Ball Room,” for it is frequently used as such by the visitors during the season. The floor is smooth and level, and continues so for several hundred feet, so that there is plenty of room for a large party. There are spacious galleries above, too, formed by the ledging rocks ”

“ It is said there are rats in this part of the cave, though it is difficult to imagine what they can support themselves and their families upon, for they cannot exist on the beautiful ornaments by which they are surrounded any more than the California miner can live on the gold he finds; but sometimes they get a chance for food. It is not long since two young men came from New York with the determination of exploring the cave. ”

“ In a corner of the garden, under a quiet tree, you will see a neat tombstone, which will tell you that there the old man’s son lies, and two of that son’s children, and perhaps he may tell you himself that he is conducting the house and farm for the benefit of that son’s widow and surviving child, whom he wishes to see comfortably provided for before he be laid in the quiet corner beside his son. ”

“ There is no danger if the parties keep together and with the guide, but to attempt to find the way oneself were a useless task. [2] We left the Mammoth Cave Hotel at six in the evening, and had a 19 pleasant ride to Bell’s, at eight miles distance. The road is through the woods and very rough, but will be smoother by and by, when there is more traffic on it. Mr Bell has improved it very much this spring, at his own expense, for he has the conveying of all the visitors from the house to the cave, and very reasonably he does it. ”

“ About the end of June is the time for crowds coming, and there is ample accommodation for more than two hundred people in a very comfortable hotel, with an obliging and intelligent host, named Mosher. There is no other visitor here at present but ourselves. ”

“ It has been doubtful for some days whether we should be able to cross the river, for, like all the rivers for a considerable time past, it has been so high that there has not been sufficient room for a boat to pass between the river and the rocky ceiling above. ”

“ They took provisions with them to last for three days, and had Stephen for their guide. They had their blankets with them, and after one day’s exploration, they fixed on Cleveland’s Cabinet for their sleeping chamber. When they got up in the morning, and went for their basket to breakfast before setting out on their travels, they found every particle of food gone, and they had a trudge of eight miles to the mouth of the cave for a breakfast. The rats are different from the usual species, they leap something like a rabbit, and are very seldom seen. ”

“ It widens about three feet from the ground, so that one has play for his arms; but it keeps constantly winding, there being not more than two or three feet straight at a stretch, and must perplex very much any tolerably stout person who finds himself winding through it. Although it is called the Fat Man’s Misery, yet it has sometimes proved the fat woman’s misery too, for a very stout lady, if there is such a thing in the world, got into it once, and stuck fairly. ”

“ As I before mentioned, he is an obliging and attentive old man, Mr Bell, and if you get into his good graces, he will not be sparing of his peach brandy and honey, though he very wisely takes none of it himself ”