Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 | Page 4

which is truly lovely and picturesque.
The hotel is a large edifice, two hundred feet long by forty-five wide,
with piazzas, sixteen feet wide, extending the whole length of the
building, both above and below, well furnished, and kept in a style, by
Mr. Miller, that cannot fail to please the most fastidious epicure.
The Cave is about two-hundred yards from the hotel, and you proceed
to it down a lovely and romantic dell, rendered umbrageous by a forest
of trees and grape vines; and passing by the ruins of saltpetre furnaces
and large mounds of ashes, you turn abruptly to the right and behold
the mouth of the great cavern and as suddenly feel the coldness of its
air.
It is an appalling spectacle,--how dark, how dismal, how dreary.
Descending some thirty feet down rather rude steps of stone, you are
fairly under the arch of this "nether world"--before you, in looking
outwards, is seen a small stream of water falling from the face of the
crowning rock, with a wild faltering sound, upon the ruins below, and
disappearing in a deep pit,--behind you, all is gloom and darkness!
Let us now follow the guide--who, placing on his back a canteen of oil,
lights the lamps, and giving one to each person, we commence our

subterranean journey; having determined to confine ourselves, for this
day, to an examination of some of the avenues on this side of the rivers,
and to resume, on a future occasion, our visit to the fairy scenes beyond.
I emphasize the word some of the avenues, because no visitor has ever
yet seen one in twenty; and, although I shall attempt to describe only a
few of them, and in so doing will endeavor to represent things as I saw
them, and as they impressed me, I am not the less apprehensive that my
descriptions will appear as unbounded exaggerations, so wonderfully
vast is the Cave, so singular its formations, and so unique its
characteristics.
At the place where our lamps were lighted, are to be seen the wooden
pipes which conducted the water, as it fell from the ceiling, to the vats
or saltpetre hoppers; and near this spot too, are interred the bones of a
giant, of such vast size is the skeleton, at least of such portions of it as
remain. With regard to this giant, or more properly skeleton, it may be
well to state, that it was found by the saltpetre workers far within the
Cave years ago, and was buried by their employer where it now lies, to
quiet their superstitious fears, not however before it was bereft of its
head by some fearless antiquary.
Proceeding onward about one-hundred feet, we reached a door, set in a
rough stone wall, stretched across and completely blocking up the Cave;
which was no sooner opened, than our lamps were extinguished by the
violence of the wind rushing outwards. An accurate estimate of the
external temperature, may at any time, be made, by noting the force of
the wind as it blows inward or outward. When it is very warm without,
the wind blows outwards with violence; but when cold, it blows
inwards with proportionate force. The temperature of the Cave, (winter
and summer,) is invariably the same--59° Fahrenheit; and its
atmosphere is perfectly uniform, dry, and of most extraordinary
salubrity.
Our lamps being relighted, we soon reached a narrow passage faced on
the left side by a wall, built by the miners to confine the loose stone
thrown up in the course of their operations, when gradually descending
a short distance, we entered the great vestibule or ante-chamber of the

Cave. What do we now see? Midnight!--the blackness of
darkness!--Nothing! Where is the wall we were lately elbowing out of
the way? It has vanished!--It is lost! We are walled in by darkness, and
darkness canopies us above. Look again;--Swing your torches aloft!
Aye, now you can see it; far up, a hundred feet above your head, a grey
ceiling rolling dimly away like a cloud, and heavy buttresses, bending
under the weight, curling and toppling over their base, begin to project
their enormous masses from the shadowy wall. How vast! How solemn!
How awful! The little bells of the brain are ringing in your ears; you
hear nothing else--not even a sigh of air--not even the echo of a drop of
water falling from the roof. The guide triumphs in your look of
amazement and awe; he falls to work on certain old wooden ruins, to
you, yet invisible, and builds a brace or two of fires, by the aid of
which you begin to have a better conception of the scene around you.
You are in the vestibule or ante-chamber, to which the spacious
entrance of the Cave, and the