THE LURLINE CAVE.
Seventy or eighty yards from the Underground Bridge is the Lurline Cave. The course is south-west, through a curved gallery with 53 steps in different flights, and two archways—one like loveliness when "adorned the most," and the other formed by an ornate mass of stalactites.
The Lurline Cave is justly regarded as one of the most charming chambers in the group. The coup d'œil is magnificent. It does not need any close examination to find that it has some distinctive features which show that, although there is no aqueous accommodation for the queen of the water nymphs, whose name it bears, the appellation of this portion of the Lucas Cave cannot, etymologically at least, be considered as a lucus a non lucendo. There are the "coral bowers" and cells to which Rudolph was transported; the "halls of liquid crystal, where the water lilies bloom;" there is the cool grot in which the Water Queen dwelt; there is the rock on which she sat "when all was silent save the murmur of the lone wave, and the nightingale that in sadness to the moon telleth her lovelorn tale;" there is Rhineberg's magic cave, with its "wedges of gold from the upper air;" there are the distant recesses to which Lurline sent the gnome while she restored to life her mortal affinity. With such surroundings it is easy to reproduce, link by link, the rosy chain which enthralled the German Count and "The Daughter of the Wave and Air."
Or, to take the more rollicking version by "Thomas Ingoldsby, Esq." Here is "a grand stalactite hall," like that which rose above and about the impecunious "Sir Rupert the Fearless," when he followed to the bottom of the Rhine the dame whose—
"Pretty pink silken hose cover'd ankles and toes;
In other respects she was scanty of clothes;
For so says tradition, both written and oral,
Her one garment was loop'd up with bunches of coral."
Where—-
"Scores of young women diving and swimming,
* * * *
All slightly accoutred in gauzes and lawns,
Came floating about him like so many prawns,"
and where their queen, Lurline, lost her heart and her plate, and, according to the same reverend author, her cajoler, whose disastrous fate inspired the moral—
"Don't fancy odd fishes! Don't prig silver dishes!
And to sum up the whole in the shortest phrase I know,
Beware of the Rhine, and take care of the Rhino!"
The floor is covered with hemispherical mounds or domes for the naiads to recline on. The outer wall is composed of formations ranged in festoons of stalactites—not smooth and transparent, but opaque white, and marked with all the wonderful elaboration which characterises zoophytic work in the coral reefs of the Southern seas. This cave contains several sub-caves, each of which has special charms, and the turning of some of the arches is marvellously graceful. One of the recesses is filled with stalactites which look like groups of seaweed. The coral is russet and cream colour and saffron, and there are honeycombed rocks varying in shade from vandyck brown to chrome yellow. Some of the stalactites in the interior sub-caves are transparent. Whichever way the eye is turned it encounters submarine grottoes of fantastic shape, decorated with imitations of algæ. If it were only at the bottom of the Rhine instead of thousands of feet above sea-level, it would seem natural as well as beautiful, but here its existence is simply a wonder, and the sensation produced is fairly described by the last word in the marriage service of the Church of England. Still, "when Mother Fancy rocks the wayward brain," it is easy to associate with it denizens of the deep, and people it with naiads, or with Undines, who were supposed to marry human beings, and, in certain conditions, become endowed with human souls. The cave is about 15 feet high, and from 15 to 20 feet broad. Some of the coralline ledges at the sides are remarkably handsome, and many of the stalactites are from six to eight inches in diameter. The cavern is elegant in its proportions, highly favoured in regard to stalactite growth, graceful in contour, and rich in colouring.