Here you gaze
upward at vast cliffs sixty feet high and one hundred feet long,
above which you go with cautious tread, then up a stone stairway
that leads to the river Styx, a body of water forty feet wide
and four hundred feet long, which is crossed by a natural
bridge. A beach of finest yellow sand extends for five hundred
yards to Echo river, the largest of all, being from twenty to
two hundred feet wide, ten to forty feet deep, and about three
miles long.
You never can forget your trip on this river of Stygian
darkness. With oil lanterns that emit but a feeble flickering
flame you see ghostlike figures, goblins and grim cave monsters
that loom before you; your imagination peoples these
subterranean halls and their titanic masonry with fantastic
forms of its own creation. At this place these lines from Poe
will perhaps flash through your mind:
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where the Eidalon, named night
On a black throne reigns upright;
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule,
From a wild, weird chink sublime,
Out of space and out of time.
When you speak loudly your words have a weird sepulchral tone
that echoes far and near through the spacious halls and avenues
that makes the black pall of mystery all the more uncanny. As
you first enter on your journey on this stream of inky blackness
you are appalled by the awful darkness, and the stillness so
intense is like that of some vast primeval forest at midnight.
The ceiling is so low at one place you can touch it with your
hands. With rock above and on both sides of you and water
beneath, you think you have a faint conception of Hades. You
hear no sound but the gentle splash of the water struck by the
oars, or the labored and rapid breathing of the more timid ones
of your party.
Suddenly your boat stops and the guide utters a few tones
beginning low in the scale and running higher, when, lo! the
whole subterranean cavern seems filled with fairy tongues and
becomes melodious with softer, sweeter tones until they die away
among those avenues, like the music heard only in the realm of
dreams. Some one suggests that a song be sung, whereupon an
Irishman with deep sonorous voice starts, "Nearer, My God, to
Thee," but he only sings but one line, for the clamor of voices
insisting on another selection, is like that of a flock of crows
in autumn who have discovered an owl. The multitudinous echoes,
if not as musical as the voice of the guide, made more obvious
harmony.
Thus do these aged halls send back rarest melodies for the
discordant notes received. How like the noble souls one knows
who take the discordant jeers and taunts of the world and by a
life of serenity and steadfastness of purpose (which is ever to
help mankind onward) build for them an admiration and devotion
that returns from a multitude of grateful hearts like musical
echoes, perhaps too late unheard.
The temperature of both Luray Caverns and Mammoth Cave is
uniformly fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year, and
the atmosphere is both chemically and optically of singular
purity. For this reason stone huts were once erected for
consumptives in Mammoth Cave. Thirteen was the original number
and for the poor unfortunates who inhabited them it was most
unlucky; the patients became worse, and on being taken from
their subterranean homes in Mammoth Cave quickly died. Only two
of the huts still remain.
"Those curious mortals who are always seeking morgues and
graveyard scenes should come here." What a place for
contemplation! "Into what vast unrecorded ages the philosopher
could let his thoughts go back!"
On entering Luray Caverns one of the first of the many curious
formations to attract your attention will be rows of stalactites
resembling fish on market. Here are fish that were on exhibit
before Noah entered the ark. How patient the old fisherman must
be to have stood through innumerable years and not yet have had
a sale. You will see other forms that represent hams and
sidemeat. You will, perchance, detect the lean streak as most
people do. This meat needs no sugarcuring or smoking and will
keep many more years with no fear of the blue-bottle fly.
Glittering stalactites. blaze in front of you; fluted columns
and draperies in broad folds with a formation that resembles the
finest hemstitching may be seen all around you, while Pluto's
chasm, a wide rift in the walls, contains a spectre clothed in
shadowy draperies. One wonders how long this grim, ghastly
person has stood here. Long ages came and went in that shadowy
and evanescent time with no record save these stony ghosts, and
over all a black pall of mystery still broods.
One of the most remarkable formations as well as one of the most
beautiful which may be seen in Mammoth Cave is the flower
garden. Dr. Hovery describes its beauty thus: "Each rosette is
made of countless fibrous crystals; each tiny crystal is in
itself a study; each fascicle of carved prisms is wonderful and
the whole glorious blossom is a miracle of beauty. Now multiply
this mimic blossom from one to a myriad as you move down the
dazzling vista as if in a dream of Elysium; not for a few yards,
but for two magnificent miles all is virgin white, except here
and there a patch of gray limestone, or a spot bronzed by
metallic stain, or as we purposely vary the lonely monotony by
burning chemical lights. We admire the effective grouping done
by Nature's skillful fingers. Here is a great cross made by a
mass of stone rosettes; while floral coronets, clusters,
wreaths, and garlands embellish nearly every foot of the ceiling
and walls.
