2 26 Bog-Trotting for Orchids 



the bottom, so that the water did not look more than 

 knee-deep; but, finding that my feet sunk in it, I took 

 off my trousers and waded through." * He visited this 

 stream often: *'The cave makes a fresh impression 

 upon me every time I visit it, — so deep, so irregular, 

 so gloomy, so stern, — part of its walls the pure white 

 of marble, — others covered with a gray decomposition 

 and with spots of moss, and with brake growing where 

 there is a handful of earth." "^ 



Hawthorne believed firmly that " a complete arch of 

 marble, forming a natural bridge over the top of the 

 cave," must have covered the whole chasm of the 

 stream at an unknown period. The pot-hole, I am 

 most certain, has been forded by few lads, and it is 

 hardly probable that any other poet or prose master 

 ever disrobed and bathed in its waters as Hawthorne 

 did in 1838. The basin is from six to eight feet deep, 

 with a beautifully rounded, highly polished brim. I 

 christened this bowl " Hawthorne's Bath-Tub," and, 

 unable to wade it, climbed out of the '* Cave" to the 

 light above. I, however, descended again to see the 

 northern portal of the arch below the Bath-Tub. I 

 was interested in the names painted high and low upon 

 the marble rocks. Some visitors had evidently tried 

 to place their initials as high as possible, while others 

 more modest sought to write theirs as low, and in more 

 obscure places. I regretted that I had not brought a 

 pot of red paint and a brush to daub my own title there, 

 with the ambitious crowd. 



* Hawthorne, American Notes, July 31, 1838. ^ Ibid. 



