The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-05-04
me lin endless range. Mile after mile we

march along dim interminable galleries,
through the dead silence of which our steps
echo with unnatural loudness, while the little
ring Of pale light that encircles us, hemmed
in on every side by the b~lackness of a dark
ness which may be felt, gives us the look of
two wizards proving through g burlal-Vault
at midnight by the CLEAN Of an enchanted
taper. And, in truth, there is an aspect of
enchantment upon all that our light reveals
On every side Of us, from walls, and roof,
and floor, start out at each step, only to van
ISL again instantly, all the goblin phantasies
of an architecture more wild and wonderful
than that which the haunted founder Of Col
Ogne Cathedral saw in his fevered vision.
Carved battlements, wide-mouthed %gargoyles,
slender Moorish columns, sculptured capitals,
grim, low-browed arches, fretted roofs,
sombre Gothic gateWays, intertWined spirals,
massive pillars festooned with cypress or
palm leaves, tomb-like crypts, vaulted CALLER
les, grand cathedral-ljke domes, colossal
chandeliers Of cold white stone, glittering
diamond-like with countless drops Of water,
follow each other without order and without
end. To these succeed other and wilder
freaks of natural sculptures. Heads Of men
and beasts, Enthusiastically intertwined, grin
~hideously at US through the subterranean
twilight. Tigers thrust forward their gaping
Jaws. Serpents rise menacingly from the
| floor in cleaning coils. ShadoWy monsters,
| with grisly half-human faces, seem to gnash
and gibber at US from their gloomy hooks.
Huge, black, distorted arms, issuing from
dark rock-clefts, clutch at us as we pass.
CHASTITY faces, petrifed into a dumb and
stony agony, glare up at US from the damp,
Shiny floor, seeming to Writhe themselves
into fresh commissions as the ftful light falls
upon them. The effect Of all this phantas-
magoria Of furious life, without motion or
sound, frozen as it were in the very height of
its frenzy, and shut up forever in this dark,
silent prison deep down beneath the earth, IS
beyond the power Of words to describe.
Suddenly a broad glare of light dazzles our
eyes, and we emerge from these gloomy cata-
combs upon q spacious chamber, smoothly
paved and welllighted, on one side Of which
is a kind of stand suggestive Of q band Of
music, while on the other appears q large
booth, which, though 10 closed and bolted,
is Enthusiastically a refreshment bar. Ny
guide grins from ear to ear at my look OF
amazement, and proceeds to explain that this
space has been cleared for a dancing floor,
,,l kbo4 *boo n, Htorro ~ n hol1c 90 wa11
attended and quite as merry as any upon the
upper earth. "When the Emperor was here
last year," he continued, 'We had as many
people here as the place would hold, and we
lighted it with colored lamps, and hung
wreaths and gilt ~hangings all round, and had
the military band over from the town, and q
lot of officers in grand uniforms, till the
place looked just like one Of those fairy pal
aces in Grimm's stories" My worthy pilot
caps the effect of all this information BY
pointing with an air Of triumph to a low
wheeled truck standing upon iron ralis-s
veritable subterranean tram-car, with a rail
road of its own-on the further side of The
underground ballroom, and informing me il
q tone of undisguised eXultation that they
have now more than two miles OF line lalC
down, and that ladies whose strength is no
equal to making a tour Of the cavern on foo
are trundled through it upon these novel con
veyances, like baggage wheeled in a han(
cart.
Leaving the ballroom, we turn suddenly
off to the left and move upward along a steer
and narrow ledge, over the low hand-rail O.
which we look down into a fathomless gull
Of blackness, such as Dante and Virgil gazel
into from the winding path which traVerse(
the nine circles Of the Inferno. Far dow1
in the eternal darkness we can hear tht
ghostly drip Of unseen water, falling, falling
falling forever, and building up inch by inch
through countless ages, new portions Of thi
great temple Of the night. All at once tn,
dim light of our candle is eclipsed by
brighter CLEAN, and a vast white mass, seem
ing1y suspended in mid-air, starts suddenly
out Of the gloom, glittering, tWinkling, spark
ling like a thousand stars in one. It is
monster stalactite, at least forty feet in length
by more than twenty in thickness. Its shap.
is that Of q gigantic ear-drop, the upper par
being pure white, while the countless drops
of water which hang trembling from tht
clustering spires Of the lower portion sparkle
into one large rainbow as the light falls upor
them, hinging far into the depth Of the ever
lasting night a blaze of many-colored splen
dor. How many thousands Of years has thi