When you speak loudly your words have a weird sepulchral tone that echoes far and near through the spacious halls and avenues that makes the black pall of mystery all the more uncanny. As you first enter on your journey on this stream of inky blackness you are appalled by the awful darkness, and the stillness so intense is like that of some vast primeval forest at midnight. The ceiling is so low at one place you can touch it with your hands. With rock above and on both sides of you and water beneath, you think you have a faint conception of Hades. You hear no sound but the gentle splash of the water struck by the oars, or the labored and rapid breathing of the more timid ones of your party.
Suddenly your boat stops and the guide utters a few tones beginning low in the scale and running higher, when, lo! the whole subterranean cavern seems filled with fairy tongues and becomes melodious with softer, sweeter tones until they die away among those avenues, like the music heard only in the realm of dreams. Some one suggests that a song be sung, whereupon an Irishman with deep sonorous voice starts, "Nearer, My God, to Thee," but he only sings but one line, for the clamor of voices insisting on another selection, is like that of a flock of crows in autumn who have discovered an owl. The multitudinous echoes, if not as musical as the voice of the guide, made more obvious harmony.
Thus do these aged halls send back rarest melodies for the discordant notes received. How like the noble souls one knows who take the discordant jeers and taunts of the world and by a life of serenity and steadfastness of purpose (which is ever to help mankind onward) build for them an admiration and devotion that returns from a multitude of grateful hearts like musical echoes, perhaps too late unheard.
The temperature of both Luray Caverns and Mammoth Cave is uniformly fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year, and the atmosphere is both chemically and optically of singular purity. For this reason stone huts were once erected for consumptives in Mammoth Cave. Thirteen was the original number and for the poor unfortunates who inhabited them it was most unlucky; the patients became worse, and on being taken from their subterranean homes in Mammoth Cave quickly died. Only two of the huts still remain.
"Those curious mortals who are always seeking morgues and graveyard scenes should come here." What a place for contemplation! "Into what vast unrecorded ages the philosopher could let his thoughts go back!"
On entering Luray Caverns one of the first of the many curious formations to attract your attention will be rows of stalactites resembling fish on market. Here are fish that were on exhibit before Noah entered the ark. How patient the old fisherman must be to have stood through innumerable years and not yet have had a sale. You will see other forms that represent hams and sidemeat. You will, perchance, detect the lean streak as most people do. This meat needs no sugarcuring or smoking and will keep many more years with no fear of the blue-bottle fly. Glittering stalactites. blaze in front of you; fluted columns and draperies in broad folds with a formation that resembles the finest hemstitching may be seen all around you, while Pluto's chasm, a wide rift in the walls, contains a spectre clothed in shadowy draperies. One wonders how long this grim, ghastly person has stood here. Long ages came and went in that shadowy and evanescent time with no record save these stony ghosts, and over all a black pall of mystery still broods.
One of the most remarkable formations as well as one of the most beautiful which may be seen in Mammoth Cave is the flower garden. Dr. Hovery describes its beauty thus: "Each rosette is made of countless fibrous crystals; each tiny crystal is in itself a study; each fascicle of carved prisms is wonderful and the whole glorious blossom is a miracle of beauty. Now multiply this mimic blossom from one to a myriad as you move down the dazzling vista as if in a dream of Elysium; not for a few yards, but for two magnificent miles all is virgin white, except here and there a patch of gray limestone, or a spot bronzed by metallic stain, or as we purposely vary the lonely monotony by burning chemical lights. We admire the effective grouping done by Nature's skillful fingers. Here is a great cross made by a mass of stone rosettes; while floral coronets, clusters, wreaths, and garlands embellish nearly every foot of the ceiling and walls. The overgrown ornaments actually crowd each other till they fall on the floor and make the pathway sparkle with crushed and trodden jewels."
We find several forms of life in Mammoth Cave, such as light gray or stone colored crickets, with antennae and legs twice the length of our black musician. If this cave dweller is a musician like our cheery outdoor fiddler, how the empty walls must ring! We found several of these odd insects near Echo river and on the walls of the cave near the well known as the "Bottomless Pit." White crayfish moved back and forth on the sand at the edge of Echo river and backed away from us when we tried to procure one for a specimen. His subterranean home has seemingly not affected his habits. This cave also contains a fish known to scientists as "Amblyopsis Speloens," meaning "A weak-eyed cave dweller."
At one place in the caverns rows of stalactites are arranged in lines of various lengths in reference to tone, just like the strings of a piano, in regular graduated system. A small boy who accompanies the guide will strike those stone harps in rapid succession which give forth delicious liquid tones, sweet and silvery as the chimes of Antwerp Cathedral. They waver and float through those vast halls until the ear catches only a faint echo from some far, dim aisle. "How many centuries elapsed before this subterranean organ gave forth its delightful tones!" It lacked only the soul of a Beethoven or Chopin to interpret them aright. How like many noble lives whose talents perhaps shall only bud "unseen" or waste upon the desert air of environment. One thinks of Keats, whose wonderful Ode to the Nightingale and lovely Nature Poems might never have been sung had he not gone out into the fragrant fields and woods, where the song of the lark and the breezes, "heaven born," touched his great soul like an Aeolian harp which dispersed sweetest melodies for all mankind to hear.