The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1861-01-10
Music in the Mammoth Cave.

"Were you ever in the Mammoth
Cave2 1t is, with all it's wonders, the
most Godforsaken, dreary, gloomy spot
mortal ever entered Yet there is some
strange mystic power in the place to
transfgure the weakest, most wretchcd
music into harmony lit for the celestial
spheres.
CATER polling about in the bowels of
the earth for three on four hours, visitors
to the cave arrive at Echo river, where
they embark on disgustingly muddy
scow, or if the party is large enough, two
or three wretched boats are brought into
requisiton. The women are all dressed
in fancifully colored bloomcr dresses, and
with upliftcd lanterns, present strange
and weird appearance as the boat lis push
ed from the shore, and floats down into
the black gloom, the lights rejecting
themselves on the surface of the deadly
still water, lighting up with strange effect
the arch Of rock overhead. When they
are fairly out of sight we enter the other
boat, and ourselves push out into tie dark
stream. Dark, awfully dark, it is. The
dark river of death finds on earth ITO more
vivid parallel than this. You know, in
the first picture of Coles Voyage of Life,
the gloomy river of the past from which
floats out into life and light the little boat
of the baby voyagcr. The stream issues
from q dark rocky cavern, mysterious
and unknown. Such stream is this on
which we are embarked. Silent and
gloomy, dark and mysterious, it serves as
a type of the past and the future; of the
past mystery whence all life evolves, of
the inscrutable future whittier all life
tends.
"The feeling of security is not very
great. The boats sink down almost to
the waters edge, and the perpendicular
slippery rock on either side offers no
ledge on which shipwrcclzed voyagcr
might find a temporary footing. Above,
sometimes SO low that you must crouch
to avoid it, and again so high as to be
scarcely visible, rises the rock-roof, while
the water in which you glide is
thirty feet in depth, and as cold as the
brow of q corpse. There is no sound but
the ripping made by the boat; not a
cricket along the shorclcss stream, not a
fish to plunge up and flash moment IN
the air before returning to it's watery
home-no symptom of life-no sound,
no motion, save that made by ourselves.
clark there is sound! Far off
delicate shade of music, SO faint as to seem
the ghost of some wandering echo. But
by degrees it increases. 1t becomes
clear and defined. Rich harmony, trem-
bling with strange sensuous wildness, fut-
tering around the rocky projections, swell
ing in waves of harmony to the arched
roof above. Now it appears to come
from one direction, now from another
Anon a higher note or strain is heard,
like some clear voice rising above nigh
ty chorus. Never did syren sing more
magic songs to listening travelcr-ncvcr
did the mysterious maiden of Lurlciburg
chant more entrancing melody to the un-
wary boatman who floats along the moon
lit Rhine.
Suddenly turn of the boat brings
you opposite break in the perpendicular
rocky shore; and, perched upon mass Of
broken rock, you see party of four ne
groes playing upon violins and cornet.
Those are the syrcns, these the Lurlines
of Echo river. Out on the earth's surface
their music would be merely quaint
and odd; but here, in the Mammoth
Cave, it is weird and unearthly.
Floating away, out of sight of the
above minstrels-who are, in fact, the
barber, boot-blaclz, OF waiter from the ho-
tel at the mouth Of the cavc-thcir music