THE BONE CAVE.
Ascending a flight of 10 steps out of the Architect's Studio the course is south-west about 30 yards to the Bone Cave. The way is difficult, a portion of the journey having to be performed on hands and knees. The cave, which runs north and south, is about 10 feet high, 150 feet long, and from 5 to 30 feet wide. In the middle of it is a passage only partially explored. The Bone Cave is guarded by iron rods and wire netting. Bunches of stalactites hang from the roof, and the floor is strewn with bones, covered with a thick coating of lime formation. There are also bones embedded in the floor. Some of the formations on the floor are very peculiar, consisting of small curiously-shaped pieces fitted together at remarkable angles, and yet capable of being taken to pieces like triplicate kernels pressed together in one nutshell. A large proportion of the stalactites are quite transparent and decorated with small sharp points, and some formations among the coral are as lovely as fine marine mosses, which they resemble. In the midst are numerous unexplored recesses, which, when the light penetrates, are seen to hold hundreds of fine stalactites, crystal and opaque. The objects of beauty in the Bone Cave retain their colour, because they cannot be handled by that class of visitors who fancy that they can see only with their fingers. On the walls are specimens of delicate fretwork, and on the floor as well as on the top of rocky ledges, stalagmites lavishly ornamented. Although not as grand as the Architect's Studio, this is a very fine cave, and additional interest attaches to it in consequence of the fossil bones it contains. The adjacent chambers cannot be explored without destroying some of the well-known beauties of the cavern.
[CHAPTER XV.]
THE MARGHERITA CAVE.
From the Bone Cave to the Margherita Cave is about 130 yards, travelling north-east to the top of the first 10 steps, then east into the Architect's Studio, and then north about 30 yards. The Margherita Cave varies from 10 to 20 feet in height, and is from 10 to 15 feet wide. It is remarkable chiefly for the magnitude and beauty of its stalactitic formation, the best portions of which are fenced off with iron rods and wire netting. The formations are nearly all of the same general character. Although there are many changes in detail, the typical pattern is observed everywhere in the midst of infinite variety, just as in a fugue choice snatches of melody sound forth in the clear treble, skip away in the mellow tenor, roll forth in the deep bass, and then dart about Will-o'-the-wisp-like all through the composition, without ever getting out of harmony. It is a grand chamber full of stately concords and charming effects of light and shade.
Hard by is another chamber with masses of beautiful stalactites, and, on a pinnacle, a figure appears about the height of the Venus de Medici, robed in drapery of white, slightly suggestive of the binary theory of feminine attire, and with a peculiar curvature denominated the "Grecian bend." The bend is unmistakable. There is just a suspicion of the "divided skirt," and the attitude is easy and graceful, the Grecian bend notwithstanding. The upper part of the body from the waist has no "boddice aptly laced," but becomes gradually mixed indiscriminately with other kinds of beauty, which, although they may "harmony of shape express," do not in the sense indicated by Prior become "fine by degrees and beautifully less." Admirers of classic beauty may be inclined to regard the incompleteness of the figure as "fine by defect and delicately weak." There are some stalagmites on the sloping bank of formation, which runs down to the wire netting and is finished off at each extremity by two massive stalactitic pillars.