Pensico Avenue averages about fifty feet in width, with a height of about thirty feet; and is said to be two miles long. It unites in an eminent degree the truly beautiful with the sublime, and is highly interesting throughout its entire extent. For a quarter of a mile from the entrance, the roof is beautifully arched, about twelve feet high and sixty wide, and formerly was encrusted with rosettes and other formations, nearly all of which have been taken away or demolished, leaving this section of the Cave quite denuded. The walking here is excellent; a dozen persons might run abreast for a quarter of a mile to Bunyan's Way, a branch of the avenue, leading on to the river. At this point the avenue changes its features of beauty and regularity, for those of wild grandeur and sublimity, which it preserves to the end. The way, no longer smooth and level, is frequently interrupted and turned aside by huge rocks, which lie tumbled around, in all imaginable disorder. The roof now becomes very lofty and imposingly magnificent; its long, pointed or lancet arches, forcibly reminding you of the rich and gorgeous ceilings of the old Gothic Cathedrals, at the same time solemnly impressing you with the conviction that this is a "building not made with hands." No one, not dead to all the more refined sensibilities of our nature, but must exclaim, in beholding the sublime scenes which here present themselves, this is not the work of man! No one can be here without being reminded of the all pervading presence of the great "Father of all."
"What, but God, pervades, adjusts and agitates the whole!"
Not far from the point at which the avenue assumes the rugged features, which now characterize it, we separated from our guide, he continuing his straight-forward course, and we descending gradually a few feet and entering a tunnel of fifteen feet wide on our left, the ceiling twelve or fourteen feet high, perfectly arched and beautifully covered with white incrustations, very soon reached the Great Crossings. Here the guide jumped down some six or eight feet from the avenue which we had left, into the tunnel where we were standing, and crossing it, climbed up into the avenue, which he pursued for a short distance or until it united with the tunnel, where he again joined us. In separating from, then crossing, and again uniting with the avenue, it describes with it something like the figure 8. The name, Great Crossings, is not unapt. It was however, not given, as our intelligent guide veritably assured us, in honor of the Great Crossings where the man lives who killed Tecumseh, but because two great caves cross here; and moreover said he, "the valiant Colonel ought to change the name of his place, as no two places in a State should bear the same name, and this being the great place ought to have the preference."
Not very far from this point, we ascended a hill on our left, and walking a short distance over our shoe-tops in dry nitrous earth, in a direction somewhat at a right angle with the avenue below, we arrived at the Pine Apple Bush, a large column, composed of a white, soft, crumbling material, with bifurcations extending from the floor to the ceiling. At a short distance, either to the right or left, you have a fine view of the avenue some twenty feet below, both up and down. Why this crumbling stalactite is called the Pine Apple Bush, I cannot divine. It stands however in a charming, secluded spot, inviting to repose; and we luxuriated in inhaling the all-inspiring air, while reclining on the clean, soft and dry salt petre earth.
All lovers of romantic scenery ought to visit this avenue, and all dyspeptic hypochondriacs and love-sick despondents should do likewise, for there is something wonderfully exhilarating in the air of Pensico. Our friend B. remarked while rolling on the salt petre earth at the Pine Apple Bush, that he felt "especially happy," and whether from sympathy, air or what not, we all partook of the same feeling. The guide seeing the position of our fat friend, and hearing his remark, said, laughing most immoderately, "these sort of feelings would come over one, now and then in the Cave, but wait till you get in the Winding Way and see how you feel then."
Having descended into the avenue we had left, we passed a number of stalactites and stalagmites, bearing a remarkable resemblance to coral, and a hundred or more paces beyond, arrived at a recess on the left, lined with innumerable crystals of dog-tooth spar, shining most brilliantly, called Angelica's Grotto. One would think it almost sacrilege to deface a spot like this; yet, did a Clergyman (the back of the guide being turned,) deliberately demolish a number of beautiful crystals to inscribe the initials of his name.
Returning to the head of Pensico Avenue, we turned to our right, and entered the narrow pass which leads to the river, pursuing which, for a few hundred yards, descending all the while, at one or two places down a ladder or stone steps, we came to a path cut through a high and broad embankment of sand, which very soon conducted us to the much talked of and anxiously looked for Winding Way. The Winding Way, has, in the opinion of many, been channeled in the rock by the gradual attrition of water. If this be so, and appearances seem to support such belief, at what early age of the world did the work commence? Was it not when "the earth was without form and void," thousands of years perhaps, before the date of the Mosaic account of the Creation? The Winding Way is one hundred and five feet long, eighteen inches wide, and from three to seven feet deep, widening out above, sufficiently to admit the free use of one's arms. It is throughout tortuous, a perfect zig-zag, the terror of the Falstaffs and the ladies of "fat, fair and forty," who have an instinctive dread of the trials to come, and are well aware of the merriment that their efforts to force a passage will excite among their companions of less length of girdle. Into this winding way, we entered in Indian file, and turning our right side, then our left, twisting this way, then that, had nearly made good the passage, when our fat friend, who was puffing and blowing behind us like a high pressure engine, cried out, "Halt, ahead there! I am stuck as tight as a wedge in a log!" Halt we did, when the guide, looking at our friend, who was in truth "wedg'd in the rocky way and sticking fast," cried out, "I told you, when you said at the Pine Apple Bush, that you felt especially happy, to wait till you got to the Winding Way, to see how you would feel then!" The imprisoned gentleman soon burst his bonds, not, however, without damage to his indispensables; and at length forcing his way into Relief Hall, he cried out, in the joy of his heart, while stretching himself and wiping the perspiration from his jolly, rubicund face, "never was a name more appropriate given to any place—Relief. I feel already the expansive faculty of the atmosphere, I can now breathe again."
Relief Hall, which you enter from the Winding Way, at a right-angle, is very wide and lofty but not long; turning to the right, we reached its termination at River Hall, a distance of perhaps, one hundred yards. Here two routes present themselves; the one to the left conducts to the Dead Sea and the Rivers, and that to the right, to the Bacon Chamber, the Bandit's Hall, the Mammoth Dome and an infinity of other caves, domes, etc. We will speak of the Bacon Chamber; but before doing so, let us take our lunch. The air or exercise, or probably both, acted as powerful appetizers, and we soon gave proof that we needed not Stoughton's bitters to provoke an appetite. Having discussed a few glasses of excellent Hock, we left the Bacon Chamber, which is a pretty fair representation of a low ceiling, thickly hung with canvassed hams and shoulders; and proceeded to the Bandit's Hall, up a steep ascent of twenty or thirty feet, rendered very difficult, by the huge rocks which obstructed the way and over which we were forced to clamber. The name is indicative of the spot. It is a vast and lofty chamber, the floor covered with a mountainous heap of rocks rising amphitheatrically almost to the ceiling, and so disposed as to furnish at different elevations, galleries or platforms, reaching immediately around the chamber itself or leading off into some of its hidden recesses. The guide is presently seen standing at a fearful height above, and suddenly a Bengal light, blazes up, "when the rugged roof, the frowning cliffs and the whole chaos of rocks are refulgent in the brilliant glare." The sublimity of the scene is beyond the powers of the imagination.
Mammoth Dome— First Discoverers— Little Dome— Tale of a Lamp— Return.