The Peak Cavern. 5 1 



tain and perilous to the feet, and wearisome to the eye, 

 the only illumination being that from the tapers supplied 

 to the visitors. Revealed for a moment by torch or 

 rocket light, the gloom of the place, and the portentous 

 altitude of one part, no doubt have a kind of sublimity; 

 still there is nothing to please, unless it be pleasure to 

 stand in a place that seems no part of our own world, 

 and which can scarcely be entered without a feeling of 

 dismay. The very doonvay is a terror, recalling Dante 

 and the inscription that is worse than death. 



Yet there is a circumstance that perhaps counterpoises 

 all the dreariness, and almost reconciles us to the adven- 

 turement of a second entrance. Such is the disposition 

 of the natural stone- work of the porch, and of the per- 

 pendicular rocks that form the vestibule, that on emerging 

 from the blackness, instead of gradually recovering broad 

 day, and by and by once more beholding the heavens 

 that very instant there enters at once into the eye and 

 the soul a fragment of sky, so soft, so sweet, so tenderly 

 and radiantly azure, that to look on it is Life. It rises 

 in the distance an arch of hope and promise : " Truly 

 the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing is it for the eyes 

 to behold the sun." 



The measurements of this singular cavern give an ex- 

 treme length of 2300 feet, or 766 yards, and an extreme 

 height, in the loftiest part, of 840 feet. To explore the 

 whole, and to witness the effects produced by coloured 

 fires, &c., requires nearly two hours. 



