The Prescott daily news., 1908-06-20

sepulcher of animal hopes and fears which year by year has drawn thou sands of visitors to its rocky sides.
 As If in keeping with it's treacherous fame the guide who shows you the place is a full-fedged brigand, who. when work is slow" ekes out a sub sistence by playing at guide. Ten to one he has little dog at his heels. and thereby hangs tale. While you listen to the guide the puppy looks at you with blinking eyes and grin of confidence, the while his busy tail seems to say. q know you'll never put me in that poisonous hole, will you?" And you cant keep your eyes off his silly little face, until you find yourself wondering if he's like your little dog at home, your far-away Buster" whose friendly face and welcome bark you have missed more than you would care to say. Certainly this idiotic little pup bears no outward resemblance to your far-away Buster; but inwardly- how about that? There lies a story. Shall you tell it to the guide? No, he's brigand and might demand ransom for permitting you to live: for no doubt he'd rather kill you out right than have you live to tell an other story. Hurrah. now you've got Unhappy thought! You'll try it on the dog. Fixing him with your eye you begin:
 "The tleas bothered my oog so, I concluded I'd teach 'em a lesson l learned long ago. but never put in prac- tice. l sent and got a piece of liver and put it near the dog. The fieas all hopped onto it and stuck. Just as l was getting ready to throw it in the fire l turned my back moment and the dog ate the liver, fleas and all Now, he's fieas lined"
 But about the Dog Grotto. Well, it's filled with carbonic acid gas, and for generations guides have made money out of tourists by showing some poor little canine into the cave and keep ing him there until his legs began to totter and his head to whirl, when they would haul him out and souse him in the nearby lake until he re- vived; and revive he must, for was there not another tourists carriage coming down the hill? But sometimes doggie didn't revive. Well, he was only dog, and there had been in stances where men had perished in the foul-smelling cave. But that was ages ago. There was French king who brought donkey to the grotto and tried the effect of the gas on him. The animal died. But why the king tried it on donkey 1 don't know, unless that fellow-feeling makes us-but, ho-I won't. Then there was an early Span ish viceroy who wanted to decide whether the gas was in prime condi tion or not, so he put two of his slaves in the cave and they were brought out dead. Spoke well for the gas, at any rate.
 Nowadays the question as to the virtue of the gas is more humanely settled. The guide takes a burning torch and plunges it into the cave Instantly it goes out. But if the act is repeated several times the gas, i'm pregnated with smoke, assumes the appearance of a silver sea, flowing in ripping waves against the black wall of the cavern A good story is told of the guides of that region. As mat ter of fact they are wholly unreliable with their high-sounding names of this broken wall or that defaced in scription.
 It is said that they keep little dog which they offer up as a sacrifice on the altar of the tourists curiosity.
 Shall 1 throw him in?" they will ask the visitor; and if he be of hu- mane disposition he will quickly re- ply, Certainly not. What d you think am?"
 And the guide will say-making a shrewd guess-"I teenk you are Ameri- can. Englees he say, 'Yaas, bah love, t'row leetle beggar een!"
 But once there came along an American, whom the guide took to be English, and when he asked, Shall t'row leetle beggar een?" the Ameri can replied:
 If you do, I'll throw your d-d car cass in after him!'
 The thing to do while at Naples is to go to the pink coral grotto, so to the pink coral grotto we went. It lies between the Bay of Pozzuoli and that special little bay where Pliny kept his navy. We went out in a boat with four rowers, the chief of whom gave us large punches of taffy about our try-"beeyuteeful America, fine New York " etc-he had travelled oh