Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844: By a VisiterBullitt, Alexander Clark
History
Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844: By a Visiter
Bullitt, Alexander Clark
Bullitt, Alexander Clark, 1807-1868; Mammoth Cave (Ky.)
Croghan, at a great
expense,) leaves the Turnpike, and joins it again at the Dripping
Springs, eight miles below, on the route to Nashville. This road, in
going from Louisville to Nashville, is not only the shortest by three
and a half miles, but to the Cave it is from ten to twelve miles
shorter than the one taken by visiters previous to its construction.
It therefore lessens the inconvenience, delay and consequent expense
to which travelers were formerly subjected. The road itself is an
excellent one, the country through which it passes highly picturesque,
and Dr. Croghan has entitled himself to the gratitude of the traveling
community by his liberality and enterprise in constructing it.
Persons visiting the Cave by Steamer, (a boat leaves Louisville for
Bowling-Green every week) will find much to interest them in the
admirable locks and dams, rendering the navigation of Green river safe
and good at all seasons for boats of a large class. Passengers can
obtain conveyances at all times and at moderate rates, from
Bowling-Green, by the Dripping Spring, to the Cave, distant twenty-two
miles. Fifteen miles of this road is M'Adamized, the remainder is
graded and not inferior to the finished portion. The last eight miles
from the Dripping Spring to the Cave, cannot fail to excite the
admiration of every one who delights in beholding wild and beautiful
scenery. A visit to the Cedar Springs on this route, is alone worth a
journey of many miles. Passengers on the upper turnpike, from
Bardstown to Nashville, can, on reaching Glasgow, at all times procure
conveyances to the Cave, either by Bell's or by Prewett's Knob.
Arrived at the Cave, the visitor alights at a spacious hotel, the
general arrangements, attendance and _cuisine_ of which, are adapted
to the most fastidious taste. He feels that as far as the "creature
comforts" are necessary to enjoyment, the prospect is full of promise;
nor will he be disappointed. And now, this first and most important
preliminary to a traveler settled to his perfect content, he may
remain for weeks and experience daily gratification, "_Stephen_ his
guide," in wandering through some of its two hundred and twenty-six
avenues--in gazing, until he is oppressed with the feeling of their
magnificence, at some of its forty-seven domes,--in listening,
until their drowsy murmurs pain the sense, to some of its many
water-falls,--or haply intent upon discovery, he hails some new vista,
or fretted roof, or secret river, or unsounded lake, or crystal
fountain, with as much rapture as Balboa, from "that peak in Darien,"
gazed on the Pacific; he is assured that he "has a poet," and an
historian too. Stephen has linked his name to dome, or avenue, or
river, and it is already immortal--in the Cave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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