IN THE SIEKKA FOOT-HILLS 333 



the best of them. Their beauty is thrust upon 

 them by exuberant Nature, apart from which they 

 are only a few logs and boards rudely jointed and 

 without either ceiling or floor, a rough fireplace 

 with corresponding cooking utensils, a shelf-bed, 

 and stool. The ground about them is strewn with 

 battered prospecting-pans, picks, sluice-boxes, and 

 quartz specimens from many a ledge, indicating the 

 trend of their owners' hard lives. 



The ride from Murphy's to the cave is scarcely two 

 hours long, but we lingered among quartz-ledges 

 and banks of dead river gravel until long after 

 noon. At length emerging from a narrow-throated 

 gorge, a small house came in sight set in a thicket 

 of fig-trees at the base of a limestone hill. " That," 

 said my guide, pointing to the house, " is Cave 

 City, and the cave is in that gray hill." Arriving 

 at the one house of this one-house city, we were 

 boisterously welcomed by three drunken men who 

 had come to town to hold a spree. The mistress 

 of the house tried to keep order, and in reply to 

 our inquiries told us that the cave guide was then 

 in the cave with a party of ladies. "And must we 

 wait until he returns?" we asked. No, that was un 

 necessary ; we might take candles and go into the 

 cave alone, provided we shouted from time to time 

 so as to be found by the guide, and were careful 

 not to fall over the rocks or into the dark pools. 

 Accordingly taking a trail from the house, we were 

 led around the base of the hill to the mouth of the 

 cave, a small inconspicuous archway, mossy around 

 the edges and shaped like the door of a water-ouzel's 

 nest, with no appreciable hint or advertisement of 



