Part 18
“On getting beyond this river, we entered a region of avenues of incredible if not of interminable length, which have been discovered within the last twelve or fifteen years. One of the first of these is called Silliman Avenue, in honor of Professor Silliman, who has made very thorough explorations of the cave. This avenue is a mile and a half long, about three rods wide, and has various interesting features which I have not time to notice. At the termination of this avenue, the cave widens into a large room, several rods wide, and some fifty or sixty feet high, which is called Ole Bull’s concert-room, from the fact that this musician gave a free concert there to the visitors who were at the cave at the time of his visit.
“Beyond this room, we entered an avenue two miles long, called the Pass of El Gor. This is an exceedingly rocky and uneven avenue, leading, by a most circuitous path up and down great piles of rock, along a most rugged and desolate way, near deep holes and fissures in the rocks, until at length we come to a fine sulphur spring called Hebe’s Spring, which we found very refreshing. Here, through a narrow opening in the rocks, we climb a ladder eighteen feet high, and find a scene that abundantly compensates for the rough walk we have taken to reach it. On reaching the top of this ladder, we find ourselves in Martha’s Vineyard. Here is a vast room, the sides of which are covered over with a formation resembling grapes. They hang on the wall above, plump, round and perfect in form, and in the greatest profusion. They are so solid and hard that it is difficult to break off any of the clusters, and are said to be formed by the drippings of the water through the rocks. Near the head of the ladder there is a fine representation of a vine, of solid rock, running along the wall; and apparently connected with this vine, there are seemingly cart-loads of these rocky grapes. Our guide illumined the vineyard with one of his Bengal lights, and the view was magnificent.
“Going on from this point through Elindo’s Avenue and Washington’s Hall, we reached another of the remarkable rooms of the cave, called the Snowball Room. The cave is here about a hundred feet wide, ten or fifteen feet high, and the ceiling quite even and beautifully arched. Nature has here played most fantastic tricks. I know of no way so good to describe this room, as to say that its walls and ceiling overhead look like the end of some building that a score of school-boys have completely covered over with snowballs. We examined these formations for some time with our lamps, and then Alfred gave us the benefit of an illumination. But of its appearance when thus lighted up, I will attempt no description.
“We were now about seven miles from the mouth of the cave; and with appetites sharpened by our long walk, we sat down to the dinner which our host had sent along for us. It was a magnificent dining-saloon in which we were seated. Taylor’s saloon on Broadway is splendid, and has dazzled and bewildered multitudes, when they first entered it; but neither Taylor, nor prince, nor potentate, ever built a room so gorgeous as that in which we were seated. None but the God who built the skies, and bent and decorated the arch above us, could build another comparable to it.
“The Snowball Room is at the entrance of an avenue more extensive and beautiful than any other in the cave. This is called Cleveland’s Cabinet, and is altogether indescribable. It is about five rods wide and two miles long! Think of its dimensions a moment! About as long as Broadway from the Battery to Union Square, and with walls, not of brick, granite and marble, shaped and graven by art and man’s device, but with walls and ceiling above covered all over with the exquisite and beautiful workmanship of its divine builder.
“We passed slowly through this cabinet, two miles long, the guide conducting us from point to point of remarkable interest, and all the way along showing us new and strange developments. We went to Mary’s Bower, Virginia’s Festoons, Saint Cecelia’s Grotto, Flora’s Garden, where were roses and lilies, rosettes and wreaths, as perfect as though they had been chiseled there by the most accomplished sculptor. The formation on the wall in which these various flowers and other beautiful things are developed, is gypsum of the most snowy whiteness; and our guide said it was in three separate layers, and that the forming process was constantly going on, the inner layers crowding off the outer. The floor was covered with tuns of these layers, which had been crowded off, and which visitors are at liberty to carry off as specimens, while they are strictly prohibited from breaking anything from the walls. But still it is with the utmost difficulty that the guides can preserve some of the most beautiful views in the cave from the destruction of vandal visitors. This part of the cave is less beautiful than formerly, having become a good deal smoked by the lamps of the thousands of visitors who have examined it. But our guide took us into an avenue immediately under this, which is but rarely visited, and conducted us to a most enchanting spot called Egeria’s Grotto. Here the formations were as pure, and beautiful and white, as if fresh from the hand of their Maker. Here were formations, not only of the purest white, but of other most exquisite coloring. We remained a long time in this grotto, examining its various wonders, and deemed ourselves very fortunate in seeing it, as from this we could better understand how Cleveland’s Cabinet above us appeared during the long ages that intervened before it was polluted by the presence of man. Another beautiful grotto was perfectly brilliant and gorgeous, and looked as though its rough walls were a solid mass of diamonds. The most gorgeous and brilliant room ever built in the palace of an earthly monarch, is tameness itself compared with this diamond grotto.
“Emerging again into Cleveland’s Cabinet, we passed on to its termination, where we ascended the Rocky Mountains, a vast pile of loose, broken rocks, one hundred and sixty feet high, which have apparently dropped down from the cave above, leaving a vast vaulted opening in the cave above, to indicate the place from which they have fallen. Beyond these mountains, the cave branches in three directions. We took the branch leading to Croghan’s Hall, the remotest point in the cave that has yet been visited, and _nine miles from its mouth_. On the right of this room there is a deep, awful pit, into which we threw stones, as we had into many others, and heard them roll and bound from rock to rock, down a distance of one hundred and eighty-five feet. The water from some point below us runs over these rocks, and flows off, no mortal knows where. This hall contains large, massive pillars, elaborately carved and ornamented by the Invisible Architect, stalactites and stalagmites of various beautiful forms, and its walls are festooned with that rich drapery which no art can imitate, and which only decks the grottos, bowers and halls of this wonderful cave.
“After refreshing ourselves here from a pleasant spring, we started on our nine-mile tramp for the mouth of the cave, taking only a hurried glance of the varied objects of interest as we passed them. We, however, sailed very leisurely down Echo River, or the Jordan, as it is also called. We again had solos and choruses, and drank in rich delights from this enchanting sail. When we reached Lethe, some of our party determined to send their clothes across in our boat and swim over. They accordingly plunged in very boldly, but hurried out in the quickest time possible; and the chattering of teeth, shivering, leaping and running to get warm again, seemed more befitting a bath in February, than in one of the hottest days in August.
“I had now made four different visits to the cave, traveling, according to the reckoning of my guide, about fifty-four miles. Very few visitors explore it as thoroughly, and yet I had not gone over one-third of the space that has already been explored. The guide says that two hundred and fifty different avenues are already known, measuring the distance of one hundred and sixty-five miles. The temperature of the cave is uniformly about fifty-five degrees, and its bracing, invigorating character may be judged from the fact that ladies, some of them quite delicate, are constantly taking this ‘long route,’ traveling a greater number of miles than most men would think of going on foot above ground.
“We felt but little fatigue from our rough, clambering walk of some twenty miles, until we emerged from the cave, and came in contact with outer air. After breathing the air of the cave from eight A. M. till five P. M., the atmosphere seemed very impure. We could smell every tree, and plant, and old log; and the air was so sultry and sickening, that we had to rest awhile at the mouth before starting for the hotel, some fifty rods distant.
“I have thus attempted to redeem my promise in regard to writing you from the cave. I had no thought of writing at so great length. If the cave were possessed of mind and sensibility, I would take off my hat to it, and feelingly ask its pardon for the great injustice I have done it in these letters. But as it is, I will only say that I have over and over again assented to the truthfulness and justice of my guide Alfred’s idea of all descriptions of the cave: ‘Writin don’t do no good. If anybody wants to know how the cave looks, they must come and see it.’ And I can not conceive of any journey for this purpose so long and toilsome, that those making it would not be abundantly compensated for their pains, by a view of this wonderful work of a wonder-working God.”
Still another visitor, writing to a friend in Europe, says of this wonderful cave, “I had heard and read descriptions of it, long since; but the half, the quarter, was not told. Its vastness, its lofty arches, its immense reach into the bosom of the solid earth, fill me with astonishment. It is, like Mont Blanc, Chimborazo, and the falls of Niagara, one of God’s mightiest works. Shall I compare it with anything of a similar description, which you have seen on the other side of the Atlantic? with the grotto of Neptune, or that of the Sibyl, at Tivoli, or with any of Virgil’s poetic Italian machinery? No comparison can be instituted. I speak, as you are aware, from personal knowledge. You, seated on the opposite bank of the Arno, have seen me clamber up, from the noisy waters below, to the entrance of the far-famed grotto of Neptune, which I leisurely explored. In point of capaciousness, that grotto has little more to boast of than the cellar of a large hotel, and, like that, was, as I think, excavated by human hands. That of the Tiburtine Sibyl is still more limited in its dimensions. Indeed, every cavern which I have ever seen, if placed along side of this, would dwindle into insignificance.”
The same writer says, “I can not refrain from giving you an account of an incident that happened in this cave last spring. A wedding party went to the cave to spend the honeymoon. While there, they went to visit those beautiful portions of the cave which lie beyond the river ‘Jordan.’ In order to do this, a person has to sail down the river nearly a mile before reaching the avenue which leads off from the river on the opposite side, for there is no shore, or landing-place, between the point above on this side, where you come to the river, and that below on the other; for the river fills the whole width of one avenue of the cave, and is several feet deep where the side walls descend into the water. This party had descended the river, visited the cave beyond, and had again embarked on the water for their return homeward. After they had ascended the river about half-way, some of the party, who were in a high glee, got into a romp and overturned the boat. Their lights were all extinguished, their matches wet, the boat filled with water and sunk immediately; and _there they were_, in ‘the blackness of darkness,’ up to their chins in water. No doubt, they would all have been lost, had it not been for the guide’s great presence of mind. He charged them to remain perfectly still; for, if they moved a single step, they might get out of their depth in water; and swimming would not avail them, for they could not see where to swim to. He knew that, if they could bear the coldness of the water any length of time, they would be safe; for another guide would be sent from the cave house, to see what had become of them. And in this perilous condition, up to their mouths in water, in the midst of darkness ‘more than night,’ _four miles under ground_, they remained for upward of five hours; at the end of which time, another guide came to their relief. Matthew, or Mat, the guide who rescued them, told me that, when he got to where they were, his fellow-guide, Stephen, (the Columbus of the cave,) was swimming around the rest of the party, cheering them, and directing his movements, while swimming, by the sound of their voices, which were raised, one and all, in prayer and supplication for deliverance!”
In conclusion it may be interesting to state, that Colonel Croghan, to whose family the Mammoth cave belongs, was a resident of Louisville, Kentucky. He went to Europe some twenty years ago, and found himself frequently questioned of the wonders of the Mammoth cave, a place he had never visited, and of which he had heard but little at home, though living within ninety miles of it. He went there on his return, and the idea struck him to purchase it, and make it a family inheritance. In fifteen minutes’ bargaining he bought it for ten thousand dollars, and shortly after he was offered one hundred thousand dollars for his purchase. In his will he tied it up in such a way that it must remain in his family for two generations, thus appending its celebrity to his name. There are nineteen hundred acres in the estate, though the cave probably runs under the property of a great number of other land owners. For fear of those who might dig down and establish an entrance to the cave on their own property, (a man’s farm extending up to the zenith and down to the nadir,) great vigilance is exercised to prevent such subterranean surveys and measurements as would enable one to sink a shaft with any certainty. The cave extends ten or twelve miles in several directions, and there is probably many a back-woodsman sitting in his hut within ten miles of the cave, quite unconscious that the most fashionable ladies and gentlemen of Europe and America are walking without leave under his potatoes and corn.
THE GREAT CAVERN OF GUACHARO.
Passing from the Mammoth cave in North America, let us next notice the great cavern of Guacharo in South America, as described in the narrative of Humboldt, which is abridged in the account that follows.
“In a country where the people are fond of the marvelous, a cavern that gives birth to a river, and which is inhabited by thousands of nocturnal birds, the fat of which is used to dress the food of the inhabitants, is a ceaseless topic of conversation and discussion. Scarcely has a stranger arrived at Cumana, when he is told of the stone of Araya for the eyes; of the laborer of Arenas who suckled his child; and of the cavern of Guacharo, which is said to be several leagues in length; till he is tired of hearing of them.
“The Cueva del Guacharo is pierced in the vertical profile of a rock. The entrance is toward the south, and forms a vault eighty feet broad, and seventy-two feet high. The rock, that surmounts the grotto, is covered with trees of gigantic hight. The mammee-tree, and the genipa with large and shining leaves, raise their branches vertically toward the sky; while those of the courbaril and the erythrina form, as they extend themselves, a thick vault of verdure. Plants of the family of pothos with succulent stems, oxalises, and orchideæ of a singular structure, rise in the driest cliffs of the rocks; while creeping plants, waving in the winds, are interwoven in festoons before the opening of the cavern. We distinguished in these festoons a bignonia of a violet blue, the purple dolichos, and for the first time that magnificent olandra, the orange flower of which has a fleshy tube more than four inches long. The entrances of grottos, like the view of cascades, derive their principal charm from the situation, more or less majestic, in which they are placed, and which in some sort determines the character of the landscape. What a contrast between the Cueva of Caripe, and those caverns of the north crowned with oaks and gloomy larch-trees!
“But this luxury of vegetation embellishes not only the outside of the vault, it appears even in the vestibule of the grotto. One sees with astonishment plantain-leaved heliconias eighteen feet high, the praga palm-tree, and arborescent arums, follow the banks of the river even to those subterranean places. The vegetation continues in the cave of Caripe, as in the deep crevices of the Andes, half excluded from the light of day; and does not disappear, till, advancing into the interior, we reach thirty or forty paces from the entrance. We measured the way by means of a cord; and we went on about four hundred and thirty feet, without being obliged to light our torches.
“Daylight penetrates into this region, because the grotto forms but one single channel, which keeps the same direction from south-east to north-west. Where the light begins to fail, are heard from afar the hoarse sounds of the nocturnal birds, sounds which the natives think belong exclusively to those subterraneous places. The guacharo is of the size of our fowls, has the mouth of the goatsuckers and procnias, and the port of those vultures, the crooked beak of which is surrounded with stiff silky hairs. It forms a new genus, very different from the goatsucker by the force of its voice, by the considerable strength of its beak, containing a double tooth, and by its feet without the membranes that unite the anterior phalanxes of the claws. In its manners it has analogies both to the goatsuckers and the alpine crow. The plumage of the guacharo is of a dark bluish-gray, mixed with small streaks and specks of black. It is difficult to form an idea of the horrible noise occasioned by thousands of these birds in the dark part of the cavern, and which can only be compared to the croaking of our crows, which, in the pine forests of the north, live in society, and construct their nests upon trees, the tops of which touch each other. The shrill and piercing cries of the guacharoes strike upon the vaults of the rocks, and are repeated by the echo in the depth of the cavern. The Indians showed us the nests of these birds, by fixing torches to the end of a long pole. These nests were fifty or sixty feet high above our heads, in holes in the shape of funnels, with which the roof of the grotto is pierced like a sieve. The noise increased as we advanced, and the birds were affrighted by the light of the torches of copal. When this noise ceased around us, we heard at a distance the plaintive cries of the birds roosting in other ramifications of the cavern. It seemed as if these bands answered each other alternately.
“The Indians enter into the Cueva del Guacharo once a year, near midsummer, armed with poles, by means of which they destroy the greater part of the nests. At this season several thousands of birds are killed; and the old ones, to defend their brood, hover around the heads of the savage Indians, uttering terrible cries, which would appall any heart but that of man in an untutored state.
“We followed, as we continued our progress through the cavern, the banks of the small river which issued from it, and is from twenty-eight to thirty feet wide. We walked on the banks, as far as the hills formed of calcareous incrustations permitted us. When the torrent wound among very high masses of stalactites, we were often obliged to descend into its bed, which is only two feet in depth. We learned with surprise, that this subterraneous rivulet is the origin of the river Caripe, which, at a few leagues’ distance, after having joined the small river of Santa Maria, is navigable for canoes. It enters into the river Areo under the name of Canno de Terezen. We found on the banks of the subterraneous rivulet a great quantity of palm-tree wood, the remains of trunks, on which the Indians climb to reach the nests hanging to the roofs of the cavern. The rings, formed by the vestiges of the old footstalks of the leaves, furnish as it were the footsteps of a ladder perpendicularly placed.
“The grotto of Caripe preserves the same direction, the same breadth, and its primitive hight of sixty or seventy feet, to the distance of fourteen hundred and fifty-eight feet, accurately measured. I have never seen a cavern in either continent, of so uniform and regular a construction. We had great difficulty in persuading the Indians to pass beyond the outer part of the grotto, the only part which they annually visit to collect the fat. The whole authority of the priests was necessary, to induce them to advance as far as the spot where the soil rises abruptly at an inclination of sixty degrees, and where the torrent forms a small subterraneous cascade.[3] The natives connect mystic ideas with this cave, inhabited by nocturnal birds; they believe, that the souls of their ancestors sojourn in the deep recesses of the cavern. ‘Man,’ say they, ‘should avoid places which are enlightened neither by the sun nor by the moon.’ To go and join the guacharoes, is to rejoin their fathers, is to die. The magicians and the poisoners perform their nocturnal tricks at the entrance of the cavern, to conjure the chief of the evil spirits.
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Footnote 3:
We find this phenomenon of a subterranean cascade, but on a much larger scale, in England, at Yordas cave, near Kingsdale, in Yorkshire.
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