There is a remarkable cave or grotto, situated on a bluff of limestone, on the south bank of the Holston river, in East Tennessee, which has been well described by Mr. Kain, in an article in Silliman’s Journal. The bluff is perhaps one hundred feet high, and fifty wide. The grotto is a large natural excavation of the rock, sixty feet high and thirty feet wide. It is very irregular, and to the very top bears marks of the attrition of waves. The river to have been so high, must have covered the valley through which it now winds its quiet way. The excavation gradually diminishes in size as you proceed backward, till one hundred feet from the entrance it terminates. A remarkable projection of the rock divides the back part into two stories. This grotto, whose walls are hung with ivy, and the bluff crowned with cedars, and surrounded by an aged forest, on which the vine clambers most luxuriantly, viewed from the river which winds slowly around it, and reflects its image, is more than beautiful: it is even venerable. But what renders it most interesting to many visitors, is a number of rude paintings, which were, as tradition reports, left on it by the Cherokee Indians. These Indians are known to have made this cave a resting place as they passed up and down the river Holston. These paintings are still distinct, though they have faded somewhat within my remembrance. They consist of representations of the sun and moon, of a man, of birds, fishes, &c. They are all of red paint, and resemble, in this respect, the paintings on Paint Rock, near the warm springs.