Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1882-08-13
disappears, 40 though his earnestness
remains,
AVAILABILITY HwRTTrEN on HIS EVERY
REATURE,

thousands whoa he has guided through
this network o. sunless channels, Yes,
he repeats, 80 Iich old gentleman from
New Jersey-Irenton, n. j., think
tumbled into thlsvery pit"
"Were you his guide?"
al was guiding him. went on old
Matt, not seeming to hear the interrupt
ing question, yet at the same time
answering IL, Sand three young men, all
| of whom were his sons. We had just
climbed over the Rocky mountains and
/ were still looking a the Dead sea, when
/ the old gentleman tambled ahead Of us
| We were within only a hundred yards
| of the end Of the passage, and as there
were no more by-wsys leading OF, /
knew he was safe from getting lost. SO,
| telling the sons, / guided them ON in no
| haste, pointing out everything remark
able until one of the sons, peering for
ward into the cave, cried out: where
is fathers light?" To q dead certainty,
no light was TO be seen ahead. oh!
said /, most every man that comes in,
blows out his torch at some place just
! to get good glimpse OF the darkness.
| Let me go swing up light at Cleopatra's
Needle and you'll see the oldgentleman
sitting on q rock with his back to the
wall as snug as a bug in q rug, and all
faith" says Matt, addressing me, and
pointing his right hand, black with the
smoke of many torches, at the piece OF.
granite on which am sitting, ~ ex-
pected TO see him there. We found his
walkmg-stick leaning against he rock
at the end yonder. A pair of gold spec
tacles lay at the foot of his unlighted
torch on the shelving stone where your
torch is now. And We found nothing
else.n
Nothing else%
'cNothing else" responds Matt, TO
whom, 50 at least it now seems to me,
long dwelling among extraordinary
things which his office as guide calls
upon him daily to explain, has given
ALMOST AN EXTRAORDINARY POWER
Or SPEECH.
"And as we looked round on all Sides"
continues he, with his story in still a
more graphic manner, "the solid rock
saved us the trouble of saying aloud
that, unless the old gentleman had
finger-nails tough enough to claw
through granite, he could be hiding
| from our sight only in the bottomless
pit, | tied my torch to the end Of the
walking-stiek he had left, and held it
thereby over the pits mouth. The
three sons lay down on the rocky floor
and put their heads over the pits edge,
while / leaned out as far assafety would
allow. Through the clotted dark
ness we could not see twenty
feet. / dropped in the torch, but,
being heavy, its own swiftness blew it
out. had in my pocket few yellow
and red lights to be used for showing to
view the beauties of the Star chamber.
But now let fall the yellow. They
light they made grappled with the
darkness, it seemed, and hurled 1t from
the Dit. The Three sons drew back, and
would not look, fearing what they
might see. looked: yet saw nothing
but the rocky sides and the blazing
first bottom, and crevice at its side.
And into that crevice flung the red
lights. And tell you, sir, | tell
YOU, reader, that in this Outlandish
place should be frightened at the ex-
| tremity Of excitement in which the old
guide has suffered the vividness of his
recollection to work him, were 1t not
that all the GOODNESS am master of Is
needed to take down the words that
now from his lips are flowing swiftly as
| lis heated breath. "And I tell you, sir,
| believe that should have died on
the spot had seen the old gentleman's
! face, mangled, looking CHASTITY up
| through the glaring and lurid red flame
| and red smoke, that were struggling up
from the depth and filling the whole
waste Of the bottOmless pit"
"My God! stop. Mattp' | exclaim:
THIS PLACE is TOO NEAR THE WORLD
BELOW
| to call up picture of the judgment fire.
But was the body ever POUNDS"
"NO; they let down men by ropes,
but never found trace of it. And there
were some who believed that the old
gentleman never fell headlOng into the
old Nick"
"Once for all, Matt, / say that the
gloom about us is too real for ghost tales
TO be wholesome. So take q seat on
this rock in front of me, and hurry
along, in your eheerfulest vein, with the
story of those neatly built, those firmly
built stone houses that while back we
passed so far from the upper air."
"They were built for the consump-
tiyes," begins Matt.
What eOnsumptivesw
1.-TWO or three years before the civil
war;" and by the way Matt is settling
to his story it is PLANE that he does not
wish again to be interrupted, sit was
believed by even the most learned ply
sieians that consumption could be
cured in the cave. because of the pure
air which no decaying negotiations ever
taints, and because of the even temper
ature, which at 50 degrees Fahrenheit
is delightful from years beginning to
years end. The report had not been
abroad a month before cOnsumptives
from all parts of the Union, began to-
register at the hotels. A great many
of them, the most of them in fact, did
not stay. For the stOutest hearted
man generally had to make two or
three trips in before he could accustom
himself to the notion of living nights
and days, and weeks and months I'M
foreground in darkness, lit only by a
feeble torch. And no woman, of all
that came in before the experiment
was oyeT, ever screwed up her courage
70 toe dwelling point inside ola week!
b0R EhOcH WHO HAD TRIED COLORADO
ALR.I VAIN,
those who had iailed to find life in
Fio<itia, those who, in short, were
hopeless ~ health elseShere, stayed;
and o2fteAn fraHe cottages were put
mp along the main PASSAGE, aud two or
three ON this aide Of Echo river. Into
these. after bidding sood-by 30 atheir
frienais of the daylight sooss me
patients, men ana women, retnee4i.
Two, who came to thecottAge5 On 3AI<
side Of the river, were scared 0Gt by
darkness, and no telling what 6ls4 b.
fore a week had passed. Some fen11tn-
ell a month; some three Mo11A6,
some six months; and one man Breu
Virginia, rather advanced in age, fe-
manned one year and seven monthS.4
AT the end of three months, however,
a man, who had been among the
first to enter, died; and that sent troop
inp ont oil nilf fhraa fttyN