242 KIVERBY 



spectacle to the eye; it is a wonder to the ear, a 

 strangeness to the smell and to the touch. The body 

 feels the presence of unusual conditions through 

 every pore. 



For my part, my thoughts took a decidedly sepul- 

 chral turn; I thought of my dead and of all the 

 dead of the earth, and said to myself, the darkness 

 and the silence of their last resting-place is like this; 

 to this we must all come at last. No vicissitudes of 

 earth, no changes of seasons, no sound of storm or 

 thunder penetrate here; winter and summer, day 

 and night, peace or war, it is all one; a world be- 

 yond the reach of change, because beyond the reach 

 of life. What peace, what repose, what desolation! 

 The marks and relics of the Indian, which disappear 

 so quickly from the light of day above, are here be- 

 yond the reach of natural change. The imprint of 

 his moccasin in the dust might remain undisturbed 

 for a thousand years. At one point the guide reaches 

 his arm beneath the rocks that strew the floor and 

 pulls out the burnt ends of canes, which were used, 

 probably, when filled with oil or grease, by the na- 

 tives to light their way into the cave doubtless cen- 

 turies ago. 



Here in the loose soil are ruts worn by cart- 

 wheels in 1812, when, during the war with Great 

 Britain, the earth was searched to make saltpetre. 

 The guide kicks corn-cobs out of the dust where the 

 oxen were fed at noon, and they look nearly as fresh 

 as ever they did. In those frail corn-cobs and in 

 those wheel- tracks as if the carts had but just gone 



