Not far from hence is Elden Hole, a cavity or pit, or hole in the earth, of such a monstrous depth, that if you throw in a pebble stone, and lay your ear to the edge of the hole, you hear it falling for a long time.
As soon as it comes to the bottom it emits a sound as if some one were uttering a loud sigh. The first noise it makes on its being first parted with affects the ear like a subterranean thunder. This rumbling or thundering noise continues for some time, and then decreases as the stone falls against first one hard rock and then another at a greater and a greater depth, and at length, when it has for some time been falling, the noise stops with a kind of whizzing or a hissing murmur. The people have also a world of superstitious stories relating to this place, one of which is that some person once threw into it a goose, which appeared again at two miles’ distance in the great cavern I have already mentioned, quite stripped of its feathers. But I will not stuff my letters with many of these fabulous histories.
They reckon that they have in Derbyshire seven wonders of nature, of which this Elden Hole, the hill of Mam Tor, and the great cavern I have been at are the principal.
The remaining four wonders are Pool’s Hole, which has some resemblance to this that I have seen, as I am told, for I did not see it; next St. Anne’s Well, where there are two springs which rise close to each other, the one of which is boiling hot, the other as cold as ice; the next is Tide’s Well, not far from the town of that name through which I passed. It is a spring or well, which in general flows or runs underground imperceptibly, and then all at once rushes forth with a mighty rumbling or subterranean noise, which is said to have something musical in it, and overflows its banks; lastly Chatsworth, a palace or seat belonging to the Dukes of Devonshire, at the foot of a mountain whose summit is covered with eternal snow, and therefore always gives one the idea of winter, at the same time that the most delightful spring blooms at its foot. I can give you no further description of these latter wonders, as I only know them by the account given me by others. They were the subjects with which my guide, the shoemaker, entertained me during our walk.
While this man was showing me everything within his knowledge that he thought most interesting, he often expressed his admiration on thinking how much of the world I had already seen; and the idea excited in him so lively a desire to travel, that I had much to do to reason him out of it. He could not help talking of it the whole evening, and again and again protested that, had he not got a wife and child, he would set off in the morning at daybreak along with me; for here in Castleton there is but little to be earned by the hardest labour or even genius. Provisions are not cheap, and in short, there is no scope for exertion. This honest man was not yet thirty.
As we returned, he wished yet to show me the lead mines, but it was too late. Yet, late as it was, he mended my shoes the same evening, and I must do him the justice to add in a very masterly manner.
But I am sorry to tell you I have brought a cough from the cavern that does not at all please me; indeed, it occasions me no little pain, which makes me suppose that one must needs breathe a very unwholesome damp air in this cavern. But then, were that the case, I do not comprehend how my friend Charon should have held it out so long and so well as he has.
This morning I was up very early in order to view the ruins, and to climb a high hill alongside of them. The ruins are directly over the mouth of the hole on the hill, which extends itself some distance over the cavern beyond the ruins, and always widens, though here in front it is so narrow that the building takes up the whole.
From the ruins all around there is nothing but steep rock, so that there is no access to it but from the town, where a crooked path from the foot of the hill is hewn in the rock, but is also prodigiously steep.
The spot on which the ruins stand is now all overgrown with nettles and thistles. Formerly, it is said, there was a bridge from this mountain to the opposite one, of which one may yet discover some traces, as in the vale which divides the two rocks we still find the remains of some of the arches on which the bridge rested. This vale, which lies at the back of the ruins and probably over the cavern, is called the Cave’s Way, and is one of the greatest thoroughfares to the town. In the part at which, at some distance, it begins to descend between these two mountains, its descent is so gentle that one is not at all tired in going down it; but if you should happen to miss the way between the two rocks and continue on the heights, you are in great danger of falling from the rock, which every moment becomes steeper and steeper.