buried far below the green Kentucky forests, far below the forgotten sunshine. For in the cave you forget that there is an outer world somewhere above you. The hours have no meaning: Time ceases to be; no thought of labour, no sense of responsibility, no twinge of conscience intrudes to suggest the existence you have left. You walk in some limbo beyond the confines of actual life, yet no nearer the world of spirits. For my part, I could not shake off the impression that I was wandering on the outside of Uranus or Neptune, or some planet still more deeply buried in the frontier darkness of our solar system.
Washington Hall marks the commencement of Elindo Avenue, a straight hall about sixty feet wide, twenty in height, and two miles long. It is completely encrusted from end to end with crystallizations of gypsum, white as snow. This is the crowning marvel of the cave, the pride and the boast of the guides. Their satisfaction is no less than yours, as they lead you through the diamond grottoes, the gardens of sparry efflorescence, and the gleaming vaults of this magical avenue. We first entered the “Snow-ball Room,” where the gnome-children in their sports have peppered the grey walls and ceiling with thousands of snow-white projecting discs, so perfect in their fragile beauty, that they seem ready to melt away under the blaze of your lamp. Then commences Cleveland’s Cabinet, a gallery of crystals, the richness and variety of which bewilder you. It is a subterranean conservatory, filled with the flowers of all the zones; for there are few blossoms expanding on the upper earth but are mimicked in these gardens of Darkness. I cannot lead you from niche to niche, and from room to room, examining in detail the enchanted growths; they are all so rich and so wonderful that the memory does not attempt to retain them. Sometimes the hard limestone rock is changed into a pasture of white roses; sometimes it is starred with opening daisies; the sunflowers spread their flat discs and rayed leaves; the feathery chalices of the cactus hang from the clefts; the night-blooming cereus opens securely her snowy cup, for the morning never comes to close it; the tulip is here a virgin, and knows not that her sisters above are clothed in the scarlet of shame.
In many places the ceiling is covered with a mammary crystallization, as if a myriad bubbles were rising beneath its glittering surface. Even on this jewelled soil which sparkles all around you, grow the lilies and roses, singly overhead, but clustering together towards the base of the vault, where they give place to long, snowy, pendulous cactus-flowers, which droop like a fringe around diamonded niches. Here you see the passion-flower, with its curiously curved pistils; there an iris with its lanceolate leaves; and again, bunches of celery with stalks white and tender enough for a fairy’s dinner. There are occasional patches of gypsum, tinged of a deep amber colour by the presence of iron. Through the whole length of the avenue there is no cessation of the wondrous work. The pale rock-blooms burst forth everywhere, crowding on each other until the brittle sprays cannot bear their weight, and they fall to the floor. The slow, silent efflorescence still goes on, as it has done for ages in that buried tropic.
What mostly struck me in my underground travels was the evidence of design which I found everywhere. Why should the forms of the earth’s outer crust, her flowers and fruits, the very heaven itself which spans her, be so wonderfully reproduced? What laws shape the blossoms and the foliage of that vast crystalline garden? There seemed to be something more than the accidental combinations of a blind chance in what I saw—some evidence of an informing and directing Will. In the secret caverns, the agencies which produced their wonders have been at work for thousands of years, perhaps thousands of ages, fashioning the sparry splendours in the womb of darkness with as exquisite a grace, as true an instinct of beauty as in the palm or the lily, which are moulded by the hands of the sun. What power is it which lies behind the mere chemistry of Nature, impregnating her atoms with such subtle laws of symmetry? What but Divine Will, which first gave her being, and which is never weary of multiplying for man the lessons of His infinite wisdom?
At the end of Elindo Avenue the floor sinks, then ascends, and is at last blocked up by a huge pile of large, loose rocks. When we had reached the foot, the roof of the avenue suddenly lifted and expanded, and the summit of the Rocky Mountains, as they are called, leaned against a void waste of darkness. We climbed to the summit, about a hundred feet above, whence we looked down into an awful gulf, spanned far above our heads by a hollow dome of rock. The form of this gigantic hall was nearly elliptical. It was probably 150 feet in height, by 500 in length, the ends terminating near the roof in the cavernous mouths of other avenues. The guides partly descended the hill and there kindled a brilliant Bengal light, which disclosed more clearly the form of the hall, but I thought it more impressive as its stupendous proportions were first dimly revealed by the light of our lamps. Stephen, who discovered this place, gave it the name of the Dismal Hollow.
Scrambling along the ridge of the Rocky Mountains, we gained the entrance to the cavern opening on the left, which we followed for about two hundred yards, when it terminated in a lofty circular dome, called Crogan’s Hall. The floor on one side dropped suddenly into a deep pit, around which were several cushions of stalagmite, answering to short stalactites, hanging from the ceiling far above. At the extremity of the hall was a sort of recess, formed by stalactitic pillars. The wall behind it was a mass of veined alabaster. “Here,” said Stephen, “is your Ultima Thule. This is the end of the Mammoth Cave, nine miles from daylight.” But I doubt whether there is really an end of the cave any more than an end of the earth. Notwithstanding the ground we had traversed, we had left many vast avenues unexplored, and a careful search would no doubt lead to further discoveries.
We retraced our steps slowly along Elindo Avenue, stopping every few minutes to take a last look at the bowers of fairy blossoms. After reaching Washington’s Hall we noticed that the air was no longer still, but was flowing fresh and cool in our faces. Stephen observed it also, and said: “There has been a heavy rain outside.” Entering the pass of El Ghor again at Martha’s Vineyard, we walked rapidly forward, without making a halt, to its termination at Silliman’s Avenue. The distance is reckoned by the guides at a little more than a mile and a half, and we were just forty minutes in walking it. We several times felt fatigue, especially when passing the rougher parts of the cave, but the sensation always passed away in some unaccountable manner, leaving us fresh and buoyant. The crossing of the rivers was accomplished with some labour, but without accident. I accompanied Stephen on his return through the second arch of Echo River. As I sat alone in the silent, transparent darkness of the mysterious stream, I could hear the tones of my boatman’s voice gliding down the caverns like a wave, flowing more and more faintly until its vibrations were too weak to move the ear. Thus, as he sang, there were frequently three or four notes, each distinctly audible, floating away at different degrees of remoteness. At the last arch there was only a space of eighteen inches between the water and the rock. We lay down on our backs in the muddy bottom of the boat, and squeezed through to the middle branch of Echo River, where we found the rest of the party, who had gone round through Purgatory.
After again threading Fat Man’s Misery, passing the Bottomless Pit and the Deserted Chambers, we at last emerged into the Main Avenue at the Giant’s Coffin. It was six o’clock, and we had been ten hours in the cave.
When we heard the tinkling drops of the little cascade over the entrance, I looked up and saw a patch of deep, tender blue set in the darkness. In the midst of it twinkled a white star—whiter and more dazzling than any star I ever saw before. I paused and drank at the trough under the waterfall, for, like the Fountain of Trevi at Rome, it may be that those who drink there shall return again. When we ascended to the level of the upper world we found that a fierce tornado had passed along during the day; trees had been torn up by the roots and hurled down in all directions; stunning thunders had jarred the air, and the wet earth was fairly paved with leaves cut off by the heavy hail—yet we, buried in the heart of the hills, had heard no sound, nor felt the slightest tremour in the air.
The stars were all in their places as I walked back to the hotel. I had been twelve hours under ground, in which I had walked about twenty-four miles. I had lost a day—a day with its joyous morning, its fervid noon, its tempest, and its angry sunset of crimson and gold; but I had gained an age in a strange and hitherto unknown world—an age of wonderful experience, and an exhaustless store of sublime and lovely memories.