The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1891-11-04


soon forget All writer's who have
ever visited the cave have mention
ed its "vestibuIe." Seen for the
first time at night, by aid of the
guides blue fire, the effect on spec
tators is too deep reaching for
analysis. There are '.the ferns that
line It's Sides but their tiny fronds
seems slSeletonized to night; the
grill that leaps fifty feet" down into
the dark chasm. to lend new beauty
to the scene, and whose music is
sweeter, as We listen, than the
sweetest cathedral chimes. The
picture is wierd, fascinating-there
is witchcraft in it. Looking down
the winding way of the seventy
moss enamelIed stone steps to where
the guide stoops to touch afresh his
Illuminating fire, one recalls the
cave scene in BuIwcr's Pompeii,
looks around, furtively, at the sug
gestive grouping of ones's own party
and reflects that the lovers might
be furnished for reproduction, if
only the artitle could be found
But the day has been too full of
experience for sleep not to be very
busy with the w. Va, editors eyes,
so an early bedtime finds him in
dulging in fresh dreams of wonder
and reinforcing himself for the
fatiguing events the morning may
bring.
a trip through Mammoth Cave,
however, is less fatiguing than
would be imagined. The air is SO
pure, chemically as well as optically,
one is sustained marvelously through
the rugged ascent of irregular rocks,
the scaling of forked battIements,
the creeping through natural tun-
nels, trudging along tortuous paths,
and the numberless experiences that
would contribute to ones discomfort
ordinarily. Our party was in the
cave five hours. To endeavor
to describe it, for those who have
not seen it, would be to attempt an
impossibility. 1t cannot be written
about, any more than it can be de-
fined by compass and measuring
sand. 1t is wonderful because it is
incomprehensible, and being incom-
prehensible, it is indescribable.
We gaze around the vast anti
chamber at the blind bats that cling
in numbers to the wall, and that
with the wingless grasshoppers and
eyeless crawfish are the only inhab-
itants of this realm of night. We
follow the guide through the gothic
arcade, austere with stalagmitic
columns; the rotunda where the
ruins of the old saltpetre works;
and the chapel built by unseen
hands, where the swarthy miners
of long ago sat before a rocky pull
pit to hear of Him to whom the
darkness and the light are both
alike. We linger with emotions
infinitely pleasurable in the vast
ampitheatre from whose stage ma
lures own making Edwin Booth is
said once to have delivered selec-
ton from Hamlet, and look with
shudder down into the abysmal
depths of the pit where the son of
the poet Pentice once descended
and came near losing his life. In
Memorial Hall we place stone after
stone on the monument dedicated
to West Virginia, for we are, every
one, enthusiastic and devoted chill
dren of our little mountain State.
Then we cross the Styx on a natu-
raj bridge; we lean over the yawn-
ing gulfs, and stand tiptoe on the
dizziest points; lowering constantly
on the verge of danger and enjoy
ing it. We pass under arches,
through halls, into chambers that
Indian tradition has invested with
all sorts of weird and fascinating
mystery. We have the experience
of every tourist in the star chamber
Ia few thrilling moments when we
would like TO borrow little extra
power of vision from hours when it
would be less needed, that we might
comprehend if possible, the illusion
of cloudless nights and starry skies
where the eye of heaven cannot
penetrate. We take a ride on Echo
River, and Miss Clark, of Buckhan-
non, lends her beautiful voice in a
solo. 1t finds it's way into every
nook and crevice in the surround
ing and over hanging rocks, and
each tone is borne back to us in
the pauses ofthe singing, in cadence
SO magical and so marvellous as tc
credit the belief that Orpheus is