The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and artAbbott, John Loraine
Science
The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and art
Abbott, John Loraine
Curiosities and wonders
Passing now to the second account of a visit to the cave, to which we
have already alluded, we find the visitor saying, that the cave is every
way so wonderful, that it is impossible to give more than a faint idea
of its magnificence and splendor. “As in exploring the cave,” he
continues, “there are three rivers to cross and a great deal of climbing
over rocks and crawling through narrow places, ladies adopt the Bloomer
costume from necessity, and gentlemen are provided with dresses
according to their fancy, so that a party starting out for a trip
through the cave, present a most grotesque and comical appearance. On
arriving at the mouth, the visitor is provided with a lamp, and makes an
abrupt, though comparatively easy descent of some seventy or eighty
feet. Here he enters a dark avenue, about five rods wide, called the
Narrows, and soon finds himself far beyond where daylight ever shone. At
the distance of about six hundred yards from the mouth, this avenue
expands and forms a large circular room, called the Rotunda, or Great
Vestibule. The guide stops here, and ignites a light, a compound of
sulphur, saltpeter and antimony, prepared for illuminating the various
points of special interest through the cave. This forms a most brilliant
light, and reveals a room some two or three hundred feet wide, and
forty-seven feet high. The view revealed by this first illumination is
most imposing and sublime. I told my guide that he was certainly right
in his ideas about describing the cave. As he saw me getting my paper
and pencil ready at the mouth, he began laughing very significantly, and
said, ‘Writin ’bout the cave aint no use, sir. Most everybody that goes
in writes, but they gin’ally throws it away when they comes out. Writin
don’t do no good. If anybody wants to know ’bout the cave, they must
come and see it.’ Although I had barely commenced my journey through it,
I told my guide that I could heartily subscribe to the whole of his
speech on this subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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