we are conducted have lost none of the rusticity of the exterior surroundings, but everything is scrupulously neat, and there are excellent negro servants in attendance—desirable features in a hotel. Not less so is savory broiled chicken, to which we were speedily introduced.
Being all impressed with the idea that about nine extra hours of sleep were requisite to fit us for the labors of the morrow, we denied ourselves the pleasures of the large ball-room, whence issued the strains, evoked by some black musicians, wooing to the giddy mazes of the dance! Loose flannel suits are kept at the hotel for those who come unprepared for the cool climate and rough climbing of the cave; but we found our baseball toggery to be the very thing we wanted, and, arrayed therein, immediately after an early breakfast assembled on the wide veranda, which surrounds the house and makes a pleasant promenade.
The ladies look charming in their picturesque costumes of bright colors. Being a modest man, we merely mention that our stalwart frame does credit to the uniform of the “Yellow Garters,” of which glorious nine we boast ourself a member.
All in high spirits, we descend a thickly wooded ravine to the right of the house: beautiful ferns and mosses carpet the sides of the funnel-shaped opening surrounding the mouth of the cave, to the bottom of which our winding path is gradually leading us, a descent of forty or fifty feet. Around and above, tall trees stand sentinel on the only approach to this secret underworld.
Our guide remarks that the present is not the original mouth of the cave, which is distant a quarter of a mile on the south bank of Green River. Many, many years ago, the
upper crust must have given way, forming this opening into which we are now descending, and filling with earth and stones that first part of the cavern, now called “Dickson’s” and rarely visited. The present entrance was discovered, in 1809, by a hunter running a bear into it. So little was the extent or value of the cave known, that it was soon afterward sold, with two hundred acres of land, for forty dollars. A short, sharp turn in the path brings us facing an archway of rock, over which a silver thread of water is falling. A cold wind rushes from a dark opening, above which the condensed atmosphere floats like a veil. With a sort of awe we descend some rough stone steps, and enter the cave. Already darkness is becoming visible: our party, numbering twenty-five, are furnished with lamps, and all with our “pilgrim staves” set forth on the “short route.”
To give some general idea of the outlines of the cave, we cannot do better than quote the simile of a scientific gentleman who, in writing on this subject, asks the reader to “imagine the channel of a large and winndig river, with tributaries at intervals, some of them the size of the main stream, emptying into the chief river, as, for instance, the Missouri and Ohio joining the Mississippi; these tributaries also receiving their support from creeks and rivulets, some of them quite small and extending but a short distance, while others are much longer, larger, and more beautiful. Now, it is easy to imagine these rivers as being under ground, or having a surface covering of earth and rocks, and that their rugged channels and banks have long ceased from some cause to be bathed with the waters which in ages long past flowed so freely along them; in fact, that they are quite dry, except in a few of the avenues.”
From this illustration it will be seen that we cannot “cut across country” from one point to another, but must explore each avenue, and then retrace our steps to the point where we left the main cave. Necessarily there are many avenues well known to the guides rarely seen by visitors, because too much time would be consumed in visiting any but the most interesting. To see the cave at all satisfactorily, one day should be devoted to the “Short,” another to the “Long Route.” And from our own experience, we would suggest that these two tramps should not be made one immediately after the other, but let an intervening day be devoted to some other of the many minor expeditions of this region; then you are rested, and fresh for all the day in the cave of the “Long Route.”
While indulging in these practical and retrospective reflections, we have left our party in the narrow archway, about seven feet high, which is just within the mouth, and called the Narrows. Here there was a slight detention caused by the lamps blowing out: Mat, our black guide, explains this by saying, “The cave’s breathin’ out.” To explain which still further means that, the atmosphere of the cave being at 59°, when the exterior air at the mouth is of a higher temperature, a strong current sets outward; in winter, of course, the current sets inward: thus the cave breathes once a year. This action is felt a short distance. Soon we leave behind everything reminding us of the upper world.
Before the eye has become accustomed to the darkness, a great sense of disappointment is felt in groping through scenes of such interest with insufficient light. This feeling, however, gradually wears off, and the guides burn oiled paper, blue-lights, etc.,