THE FAIRIES' RETREAT.
It is about 40 yards north-east from the Gem of the West to the Fairies' Retreat. The passage is from 8 to 20 feet high and from 6 to 14 feet wide, and rather damp. The visitor ascends a short ladder to a rocky ledge, where there is a small opening and a narrow passage, along which he has to wriggle his way in a recumbent posture and with his feet foremost. Long before he has reached the immediate entrance to the Retreat he begins to think Puck has led him a "pretty dance," and he has gained some idea of the least pleasant sensations incident to cave exploration. When he has completed the journey in a doubled-up posture, and is placed in an attitude scarcely less uncomfortable, curved like a boomerang, he feels as though he would give the world to be able to stretch himself. But a slight pressure upwards reminds him of the superincumbent mountain, and so he feels like a prisoner with billions of tons above him and the rocky base below. He begins to grow hot, and would give anything to be in a place capacious enough to enable him to expand and breathe freely. However, the lamp is turned on, and for a moment or two he is lost in admiration of the scene. He might fancy himself Sindbad in the Diamond Valley, or think that the cave-keeper possessed the lamp of Aladdin, or that he had come upon enchanted land. This Retreat extends S.E. about 20 yards. Its entrance is about 2 feet by 20 inches at the embouchure, and it widens a little towards the end. It is about four feet wide and three feet high, and is filled with glittering cave gems and alabaster flowers, and myriads of figures which sparkle with brilliants. But what are the brightest jewels and the choicest flowers to ease of body and mental serenity? Many of the fair sex have visited this Retreat, carefully tutored and assisted by the curator. It may be appropriately and pleasantly inspected by agile sylphs and dapper little men who affect a contempt for muscular development and insist upon being gauged by Dr. Watts's standard, but ladies who are massive and gentlemen who are portly and plethoric will, when making their exit, caterpillar fashion, think it very absurd that so splendid a spectacle should have so mean and inconvenient an approach.