But the chief attraction of Smoky Mountain is a singular cliff known throughout this region as the Alum Cave. In reaching this spot, which is on the Tennessee side, you have to leave your horses on the top of the mountain, and perform a pedestrian pilgrimage of about six miles up and down, very far up and ever so far down, and over every thing in the way of rocks and ruined vegetation which Nature could possibly devise, until you come to a mountain side, which is only two miles from your starting place at the peak. Roaring along at the base of the mountainside alluded to is a small stream, from the margin of which you have to climb a precipice, in a zigzag way, which is at least two thousand feet high, when you find yourself on a level spot of pulverized stone, with a rocky roof extending over your head a distance of fifty or sixty feet. The length of this hollow in the mountain, or “cave,” as it is called, is near four hundred feet, and from the brow of the butting precipice to the level below the distance is perhaps one hundred and fifty feet. The top of the cliff is covered with a variety of rare and curious plants, and directly over its centre trickles a little stream of water, which forms a tiny pool, like a fountain in front of a spacious piazza. The principal ingredients of the rock composing this whitish cliff are alum, epsom salts, saltpetre, magnesia, and copperas, and the water which oozes therefrom is distinguished for its strong medicinal qualities. This strange and almost inaccessible, but unquestionably very valuable cave, belongs to a company of neighboring Carolinians, who have already made some money out of the alum, but have not yet accomplished much in the way of purifying and exporting the various products in which it abounds.
The scenery upon which this cave looks down, however, interested me quite as much as the cave itself. From the most comprehensive point of view two mountains descend abruptly into a kind of amphitheatre, where the one on the right terminates in a very narrow and ragged ridge, which is without a particle of vegetation, while far beyond, directly in front of the cave, rises a lofty and pointed mountain, backed by some three or four of inferior magnitude. The ridge which I have mentioned is itself very high, but yet the cave looks down upon it, and it is so fantastic in its appearance that from different points of view you may discover holes leading like windows entirely through it, while from other places you might fancy that you looked upon a ruined castle, a decayed battlement, or the shattered tower of an old cathedral. To gaze upon this prospect at the sunset hour, when the mountains were tinged with a rosy hue, and the immense hollow before me was filled with a purple atmosphere, and I could see the rocky ledge basking in the sunlight like a huge monster on the placid bosom of a lake, was to me one of the most remarkable and impressive scenes that I ever witnessed; and then remember, too, that I looked upon this wonderful prospect from a framework of solid rock, composed of the stooping cliff. It was a glorious picture, indeed, and would have amply repaid one for a pilgrimage from the remotest corner of the earth.
The ordinary time required to visit the Alum Cave is two days; but, owing to bad weather, my friend and myself occupied the most of four days in performing the same trip. To give a minute account of all that we met with would occupy too much time, and I will therefore only record in this place the incidents which made the deepest impression on my own mind.
Our first night from home we spent in the cabin of a man who treated us with the utmost kindness, and would not receive a penny for his pains. So much for mountain hospitality. And now, to prove that our friend was an intelligent man, it may be mentioned that he is an adept in the following professions and trades, viz. those of medicine, the law, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the hunter, the shoemaker, the watchmaker, the farmer, and he also seemed to possess an inkling of some half dozen sciences. Now, I do not exactly mean to assert that the gentleman is a master practitioner in all these departments of human learning and industry; but if you were to judge of his ability by his use of technical words, you would not for a moment imagine he could have a competitor. But so it is in this wild region, one man has to perform the intellectual labor of a whole district; and, what is really a hard case, the knowledge which is thus brought to so good a market is nearly always the fruit of a chance education, and not of a systematic one.
Among those who spent the night with us under the roof of the above accomplished man, was one of the idle vagabonds of the country. This individual, it appears, had met with a singular accident on the day previous, and amused us by relating it. I regret that I cannot remember all the singular epithets that he employed, but I will do my best to report him faithfully:
“Now, the way the thing happened was this, and I reckon you never heard sich like afore. A lot of us fellers was out in ‘Squire Jones’s millpond a washing ourselves and swimming. Now, I allow this pond, in a common way, is nigh on to half a mile long; but at this time they were draining the pond, and it warnt so very large. Wall, there was one spot, well nigh the middle—no, not exactly; I reckon it was a little to the left—where the water poured out into a rale catarock. The fellers I was with got the devil in ’em, and offered to bet the tobaccer that I couldn’t swim near the big hole in the dam without going through. I agreed, for I always counted myself a powerful swimmer. I made one try, and just touched the outside of the whirlpool. The fellers laughed at me and said I couldn’t come it. I knew they said what was not so, and I got mad. I tried it again, and went a bit nearer, when they yelled out again and said it was no go. By this time I was considerable perplexed, but I swore to myself I would have the tobaccer, and I made one more try. But this time I got into the whirlpool, and couldn’t get out; and, in less than no time, the water wheeled my head round to the hole, and in I went quick as a streak. I went through the hole, ’bout four or six feet long—no, I allow ’twas seven feet—and fell into the surge below, and, in five minutes or so—perhaps six—I was on dry land, sound as a button. The joke was on the fellers then, and when I told ’em to hand over my plunder, they said they would, and told me I looked like a big frog when I come out of the hole into the pool below the dam.”
On the following morning we travelled to the foot of Smoky Mountain, and having obtained a guide, who happened to be one of the proprietors of Alum Cave, we resumed our journey. In the immediate vicinity of the cave we came across an Indian camp, where were two Indians who were out bear-hunting. We were admitted under their bark roof, and with them spent the night, sleeping upon the ground. We remained a sufficient length of time to enjoy one supper and one breakfast; the first was composed of corn bread and bear meat, and the second of trout (caught in a neighboring stream) and a corn cake fried in the fat of a bear.
On questioning our Indian landlords, as we sat around our watch fire, with regard to the Alum Cave, I could only gather the fact that it was originally discovered by the famous chief Yo-na-gus-ka, who happened in his youth to track a bear to one of its corners, where he had a den. Disappointed on this score, I then turned to our guide to see what he could tell me about the cave that was not connected with its minerals, and the substance of his narrative was as follows:
I hav’n’t much to say about the cave that I knows of, excepting one or two little circumstances about myself and another man. The first time I come here it was with my brother and two Indians. The sight of this strange gash in the mountain and the beautiful scenery all around made me very excited, and I was for climbing on top, and no mistake. The Indians and my brother started with me up the ledge at the north end of the cave, but when we got up about half way, just opposite to an eagle’s nest, where the creatures were screaming at a fearful rate, they all three of ’em backed down, and said I must not keep on. I told ’em I was determined to see the top, and I would. I did get on top, and, after looking round a while and laughing at the fellows below, I began to think of going down again. And then it was that I felt a good deal skeered. I found I couldn’t get down the way I got up, so I turned about for a new place. It was now near sundown, and I hadn’t yet found a place that suited me, and I was afraid I’d have to sleep out alone and without any fire. And the only way I ever got down was to find a pine tree that stood pretty close to a low part of the ledge, some three hundred yards from the cave, when I got into its top, and so came down among my friends, who said it was a wonder I hadn’t been killed.
“I generally have had to pilot all strangers to the cave since that time, and I remember one circumstance that happened to a Tennessee lawyer, who caused us a good deal of fun; for there was a party of young gentlemen there at the time. We had a camp right under the cave, where it’s always dry, and about midnight the lawyer I mentioned suddenly jumped up as we were all asleep, and began to yell in the most awful manner, as if something dreadful had happened. He jumped about as if in the greatest agony, and called on God to have mercy on him, for he knew he would die. O, he did carry on at a most awful rate, and we thought he must have been bitten by some snake or was crazy, so we tore off his clothes to see what was the matter; and what do you suppose we found? Nothing but a harmless little lizard, that had run up the poor man’s legs, all the way up to his arm-pits, thinking, I suppose, that his clothes was the bark of a dead tree. After the trouble was all over, the way we laughed at the fellow was curious.”