Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1858-09-29
The CAVE OF DEATH.

IN Hugh Miller's posthumous work entit-
tied ''rhe Cruise of the Betsy" we lake the
following Interesting account of the Cave in
which the whole people of the Island of
Eigg. one of the IIebrides, were smoked to
death by a neighboring clan, the McLcods:
I'VE struck light, and, worming our
selves through the narrow entrance, gained
the inserior-a true rock gallery, vastly more
roomy and lofty than one could have antici
pated from the mean yestibule placed in front
of it, It.. extreme length We found to be
two hundred and sixty feet; its extreme
breadth twenty feet; its height, where
the roof rises highest, from eighteen to
! twenty feet The cave seems to have owed its
origin to two distinct causes. The trap rock
on each side of the fault like crevice which
separates them greatly decomposed as if
! by the moisture from above; and directly in
the line of the cregice must the surf have
charged, wave after wave, ages ere the last
uphcaved of the land. When the Dog
stone at Dunolly existed sea stack. skir-
ted with alga, the breakers oil this shore
must have dashed overy tide though the mar
row opening of the cavern, and scooped out
by handfu the decomposing trap within.
1.-The process of decomposition, and con-
sequcnt enlargement, is still going on inside,
but there is no longer an agent to sweep away
the disntegrated fragments. Where the roof
rises highest, the floor is blocked up with ac-
cunulations of bulky decaying masses, that
have dropped from above; and it is covered
over its entire area by stratum of earthly
rubbish, which has fa lien from the sides and
ceiling in such abundance that it covers UP
the straw beds of the perished islam n1ers,
which still exist beneath, as brown mould
ering felt, to the depth of from FIVE to eight
inches Never yet was tragedy enacted OF
a gloomier theatre. An uncertain twilight
glimmers gray at the entrance, from narrow
vestibule; but all within, for two hundred
J feet, is black as with Egyptian darkness. AZ
we passed on with our one feeble light, along
the dark mouldering walls and roof, which
absorbed every struggling ray that reachet
them, and over the dingy floor, ropy ant
damp, the place called to recollection tha
hall in Roman story, hung and carpeted witt
black, into which Domitian once thrust hI
senate, in frolic, to read their own names
on the coffin-lids placed against the wall
The darkness seemed to press upon US from
every side, as if it were dense jetty fluid
out of which our light had scooped pailfu
or two, and that was rushing in to supply th
: vacuum; and the only objects we saw dis
: tinctly visible were each others heads AM
) faces, and the lighter, parts of our dress.
The floor for about one hundred feet in
wards from the narrow vcstibules, resemble
! that of charncl-house At almost ever
: step We came upon heaps of human bone
t grouped together. as when one cutteth an
!, cleaveth wood to the earth They are of
brownish, earth hue, here and there tinge
with green; the skulls with the exception {
# few broken fragments, have disappeared
for travellers in the Hebrides have of La
years been numerous and curious; and man