University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

Caves—the world of rock-ribbed darkness
under our feet—have always formed a subject
on which my imagination delighted to
dwell; and to this day, the name seldom
falls upon my ears without conjuring up a
thousand grimly captivating associations—
thoughts of the wild and supernatural, the
strange and terrific—which are the more enticing
for being so unlike the usual phantasms
of a day-dream existence. To my boyish

conceits, Epimenides gathering wisdom in a
brown study of fifty years in the cavern of
Crete, was a much wiser personage than the
other seven sages of Greece, who merely
hunted for truth at the bottom of a well; while
Bassus, the Carthaginian, digging, with a
Roman army, for the lost treasure-cave of
queen Dido,[1] was a greater hero than the
mightiest Julius wading in blood at Pharsalia.
For the same reason, if the truth must be
told, I even held that the dark Hades—the
inamabile regnum, as Tisiphone so emphatically
called it—the domain of Pluto, which,
as every body knows, was only to be reached
through the dismal antres of Cumæ and
Tænarus, was a decidedly more interesting
habitation for curious spirits than even the
sun-lit and privileged tops of Olympus. The
Troglodytes were my beau ideal of a sensible
and happy nation.

Some tincture of my own peculiar propensity,
however, I think may be traced in
the mind of the world at large. It is certain,
there are few subjects on which men have
given, and still continue to give, a greater
loose to their imaginations than that of caves.
The time has indeed gone by when they believed
that devils and condemned souls had
their appointed place within the hollows of
the earth, accessible, even to mortal foot,
through each cavern, each alta spelunca that
yawned on its surface; the Pythium no longer
breathes its oraculous vapour; the cave of Trophonius
whispers no more the secrets of fate;
and even the modern hags of the broomstick,
that once

and the fairy Gnomes that
are no longer expected to be found quiring
around the infernal caldron, or dancing amid
their heaps of gleaming treasure. But if
Truth—the murderess of Fancy—has been
at work on the classic mythos and the Gothic
fable, she has still left us enough to wonder
at in the world below; she has robbed it of
the supernatural, but not of the marvellous.
The Mundus Subterraneus of old father Kircher,
however exploded in most of its particulars,
among scientific men, contains nothing
too incredible for the mass of mankind. Fortunately,
as it happens, for the good old
Jesuit's sake, as well as mankind's, there are,
as far as mere caves are concerned, so many
wonders already established as undoubted
facts, that a man may be pardoned for believing
almost any thing.—But let us glance
at some of these authenticated marvels.
They will form a proper introduction to the
subject of the present description—the limestone
Pandemonium, with which I desire to
make the reader acquainted. A propylon of
wonders becomes the Mammoth Cave, and
should lead the way up to its gaping door, as
rows of sphinxes conduct the traveller to the
front of an Egyptian temple.

The famous Eldon Hole of Derbyshire

(who has not heard of the Eldon Hole?) has
been sounded with a plummet-line of nearly
ten thousand feet in length—that is, within
but a little of two miles—without reaching the
bottom; and the Pit of Fredericshall, in Norway,
it is inferred from the number of seconds
a stone consumes in reaching the bottom,
must be more than two miles in depth.
Whether the sound of a falling stone, rever-berating
through a tube even smoother than
than we can fancy the pit of Fredericshall to
be, could be actually heard at the depth of
eleven thousand feet, I leave to be conjectured;
but I may aver, in reference to the
Eldon Hole, which was really sounded by a
line to the depth mentioned, that if the doctrine
of internal fire, resuscitated by modern
Vulcanists, be true, and the scale of increasing
temperatures adopted by them be just,
there ought to ascend from this same convenient
flue, heat enough to warm all Derbyshire.
The internal heat of the earth is
said by philosophers to increase 1° Fahrenheit,
for every 100 feet of descent. If the
mouth of Eldon Hole were on a level with
the general surface of the earth, the bottom
ought to be at a temperature 100° above the
mean temperature (say 50°) at the surface.

Two miles under ground! With these facts
in view, who shall quarrel with his neighbour
for believing, as many a man does, that he
has eaten his dinner, in the Mammoth Cave,
under the bed of Green River? or with the
monkeys of Gibraltar for having made their
way from Africa to Europe, as every body
knows they must have done, via the Grot of
St. Michael, under the foundations of the
Mediterranean?

The extent of caves is a subject upon
which men are still more inclined to be glorious.
But here we have facts enough on
record to countenance any stretch of magniloquence;
besides opinions, which, as the
world goes, have, in general, with mankind,
all the weight and consequence of facts.
Thus, the people of Java are of opinion that
the sacred cave of Samarang affords a submarine
passage from their island to Canton,
in China—a distance of somewhat more than
two thousand miles, traced in a line as straight
as could be winged by an albatross. But
leaving opinions, let us refer to a fact of philosophic
celebrity, which, besides being quite
a settler of all difficulties, possesses some peculiar
features of interest. In the year 1752,
the Rio del Norte, one of the greatest rivers

of America, (its length is reckoned at full
two thousand miles,) suddenly sank into the
earth, leaving its bed dry for a space of fifty
leagues; and in this condition it remained
several weeks, the waters flowing into some
subterranean abyss, which it required them
so long a time to fill. Allowing the river at
the Paso del Norte, where the incident occurred,
to be but a quarter-mile wide, and its
depth but five feet, with a current of two
miles the hour, and supposing it continued to
sink into the earth during two weeks, we can
give a pretty shrewd guess at the extent and
capacity of the cavern in which it was swallowed
up. According to my calculations, to
dispose of such a body of water, would have
demanded a cave one hundred feet wide and
high, and just five hundred miles long! Nor
must this statement, however lightly made,
be considered absurd. Let it be remembered
that the channel of the river for a space of
fifty leagues, was absolutely robbed of its
waters. Supposing their disappearance had
been only momentary, it is easy to perceive,
the abyss that received them must have been
vaster than we can readily figure to our imaginations.

After this, no one need doubt the veracity

of those travellers who relate their moderate
rambles of “twenty miles or thereabouts” in
the great caves of the West. No one need
even be astounded at the grandeur of that
renowned cave of Tipperary, discovered in
1833, with its chambers—“wider than angels
ken”—one “nearly a mile in circumference,”
another “of about three miles in circumference”—so
paddywhackishly described by an
enthusiastic correspondent of the Tipperary
Free Press; though, sorry we are to confess,
in the hands of a malicious surveyor, the hall
of a mile in circumference is said to have
suddenly shrunk into a room of ninety feet by
one hundred and fifty, and that of three miles
into one of one hundred feet by just two hundred
and fifty. This is a climax somewhat
similar to that of the story of the seventy
cats—“our cat and another one!” But what
if it be? There is
The wonders of the cave-world are not yet
exhausted.

Let us accompany Humboldt, the profoundest
of chorographers, the most veracious

of travellers, to the cave of the Guacharo,
among the mountains of Cumana, in South
America. It opens on the face of a precipice,
a grand abyss seventy-seven feet high
and eighty-five wide. A river, born of darkness
and night, like many of the streams of
Carniola, rolls from its mouth; while festoons
of creeping plants, the ivies of the tropics,
hanging from the rocks above, and glittering
with flowers of every gorgeous dye, swing
across the chasm like so many boa-constrictors
on the watch for prey. A grove of
palms and ceibas—the tropical cotton-wood
—rises tall and verdant at the very entrance,
with birds singing, and monkeys chattering,
among the boughs. Through this grove you
enter the cave; and in this grove you continue,
even when the world of sunshine has
been left some distance behind. The palms
still lift their majestic tops, and the ceibas
rub their green heads against the rocky roof;
whilst flowers—the heliconia, the dragon-root,
and others—bloom under your feet.
The palms and ceibas at last cease to appear;
but not so the flowers. As far as man has
penetrated—a distance of more than a quarter
of a mile—you still see them growing,
and all in darkness; on the hill of the cascade
(for a hill there is, and a cascade too,) and
beyond, you find them flourishing among
pillars of stalactite, as pale, as sequlchral, as
fantastic, yet as beautiful, as the growth of
spar around them. One might here dream
of the grove of Aladdin, with its trees bearing
fruits of diamond and ruby, of sapphire
and emerald; and the more especially as
every rub of your iron lamp against a spar
calls up before your affrighted eyes a thousand
horrible genii—not the mighty sons of
Eblis indeed, but black and dismal guacharos,
birds bigger than our northern screech-owls
—that with fluttering wing and thrilling
shriek, repel the invader of their enchanted
abode. Compared with such a subterraneous
elysium, the garden discovered by Don
Quixotte, in his memorable exploration of the
cave of Montesinos, el mas bello, ameno y
deleitoso que puede criar la naturaleza—the
most beautiful and delightful that nature ever
made—is but a kitchen garden.

But what is even the cave of the Guacharo
to the Flaming Caves of Cumanacoa—two
wonders of nature hidden among the same
mountains? In the face of a tremendous precipice
looking over the savage woods that
skirt the mountain below, are two immense

holes, visible at a great distance, even in the
day-time. But it is at night that they are
seen to the best advantage; and then, if his
star be propitious, if the Indian Cyclopes in
the bowels of the Cerro start from their slumbers
to renew their oft interrupted toil at
forge and bellows, the traveller, leaping from
his own uneasy couch, beholds with amazement
the mouths of the caverns lighted up
with flames; he sees, high on the sable cliff,
two mighty disks of fire that glare upon him
from afar, like the eyes of some crouching
monster—a tiger-cat as big as a Cordillera
—or those more portentous orbs that might
have blazed under the brows of the archenemy,
when he
the Quinbus Flestryn of demons. The Indians
and Creoles that take to their heels at
the first shriek of the guacharos, could be
scarcely expected to brave the terrors of the
Flaming Caves. The thick forests at the
base of the cliffs are, besides, the haunts of
innumerable jaguars—creatures that think
little of shouldering a bullock in the midst of
the herd, and tramping victorious off, and
would, of course, think still less of swallowing
a herdsman who should come in their
way. Hence, as it happens, mortal man has
not yet disturbed the solitude, or explored the
wonders of the Flaming Caves, which he is
content to admire at the distance that lends
safety, as well as enchantment, to the view.

Of an equally, perhaps of a still more,
wonderful character is another cave of South
America—in Peru or Bolivia, I think—of
which I once read, though I cannot now tell
where to lay my hands on it, that gapes on
a mountain side, as black and gloomy as
cave may be, until the close of the day; when,
the shades of the mountain having fallen over
it, and over every thing else in the neighbourhood,
on a sudden, warm sunshine gushes
from its jaws, lights up the objects around,
smiles, trembles, fades, and then expires.
This must be the entrance to the Elysium of
the American races—the Happy Hunting
Grounds, which all the tribes, savage and
civilized together, believe the Master of Life
has prepared for the souls of the brave and
just. But, unfortunately, no Humboldt has
yet visited the spot, and we know no more of
it than I have mentioned. Within its unknown

chambers we should perhaps find such
Hesperian Gardens and Elysian Fields as
must leave even the cave of the Guacharo in
the shade—crystal wildernesses, overgrown
with phosphorescent cryptogamiœ—those luminous
plants, which, in the coal-mines of
Dresden, and some other places, hanging in
festoons from the roof and pillars, and stretching
in tapestry along the walls, diffuse a
glorious lustre on all around; until the visiter,
amazed and delighted, fancies himself in the
palace of the Fairy Queen, or a cavern dug
out of moonlight. The South American cave,
to whatever cause it may owe its resplendent
emanation, is, undoubtedly, a great wonder;
but the rocks of the Nile and the Orinoco exhale
music—why should not others breathe
sunshine?

According to old Mezeray (or rather, according
to some of those philosophers who
quote him, for I myself could never light upon
the page that records the marvel,) there is a
cavern in Dauphiny, near Grenoble, famous
as the seat of a subterraneous Erie and Niagara,
famous also for the exploring voyage
performed in it, in his youth, by Francis I, in
royal person. At a considerable distance
from the entrance was a sheet of water of

unknown bounds, which had previously arrested
the steps of all visitants. But what
shall restrain the curiosity of a king? A
barge was constructed, illuminated with hundreds
of flambeaux, and launched into the
flood; into which the gallant Francis, attended
by a party of his bravest courtiers, struck
boldly out, the Columbus of the caverned deep
—taking good care, however, to leave a huge
beacon-fire blazing behind him on the rocky
beach, to secure his safe return. A voyage
of three miles (cave-distance, be it recollected,)
conducted the royal adventurer to the opposite
shores of the ocean; whence having
landed, and, I suppose, taken possession in
the usual style of discoverers, he turned his
prow in another direction, determined to
fathom all the mysteries of the lake. By and
by, an experienced boatman declared the
barge was no longer floating on a stagnant
lake, but in a current that was perceptibly
increasing in strength; and a courtier called
the attention of the monarch to a hollow
noise heard in the distance, which, like the
current, was every moment growing stronger
—nay, even swelling into horrific thunder.
The navigators rested on their oars, while a
plank, to which several flaming torches were
tied, was committed to the water. It floated
rapidly away, became agitated, tossed up
and down, and finally pitched down the unknown
cataract, to which the rival of Charles
V. was so ignorantly hastening. “Back
oars!” was then the cry; and all rowing for
their lives, the monarch had the good fortune
to regain his beacon, and the upper air, with
which, it appears, he remained content for
the rest of his life.

A singular story was formerly told of a
cave in Upper Canada, in the ridge that
bounds the western shore of Ontario, from
which it was but seven or eight miles removed.
It bore the awe-inspiring title of the
Devil's Wigwam—Manito Wigwam—so called
by the Indians, who seemed very devoutly
to believe that the father of lies had there established
his head-quarters. (Had they put
him in the Irish cave, previously described,
the residence would have been more appropriate.)
The Manito-Wigwam was reported
to be of vast depth, consisting of several terraces
separated one from another by precipices
of more than a hundred feet perpendicular
pitch, the last terminating in a fathomless
gulf, into which no human being had ever
endeavoured to penetrate. From this cavern,

once a week, issued a terrific din, an earthquake-like
explosion, of such force as to
shake the hills for five leagues around. The
Manito-Wigwam was therefore a very wonderful
cave. I say was, for I know not
whether it is now in existence. The same
enterprizing spirit which has converted Niagara
into a mill-pond, might as easily have
modified the Devil's Wigwam into a hole for
storing winter potatoes.

To this catalogue of wonderful caverns,
which I might easily swell to greater length,
it would be unpardonable not to add a notice
of the marvellous one discovered a year or
two since by two scientific gentlemen of
Philadelphia, in one of the mountain counties
of East Tennessee; in which they lighted
upon the petrified bodies of two men and a
dog, of races manifestly older by many thousand
years than the men and dogs of the
present day. Those venerable remains it
was said to be the intention of the discoverers
to remove from their rocky dwelling to
the more appropriate shelves of a museum, to
take their places among mummied moderns
of the time of Pharaoh, and divide with Javanese
dragons and mermaids the admiration
of a discerning public. It does not, however,

appear that these petrified ancients
have yet left their cavern, not so much as a
finger having been received in any museum
in the land; a circumstance that can only be
accounted for by the ingenious and veracious
editor, to whom the public owes the first notice
of the discovery.