114 THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 
proprietor of the hotel] had foreseen our appe- 
tites, and there were stores of venison, biscuit, 
ham, and pastry, more than sufficient for all. 
We made our mid-day, or rather midnight, meal, 
sitting, like the nymph who wrought Excalibur, 
‘Upon the hidden bases of the hills,’ 
buried far below the green Kentucky forests, far 
below the forgotten sunshine. For in the Cave 
you forget that there is an outer world some- 
where above you. The hours have no meaning. 
Time ceases to be; no thought of labor, no sense 
of responsibility, no twinge of conscience, in- 
trudes to suggest the existence you have left. 
You walk in some limbo beyond the confines of 
actual life yet no nearer the world of spirits. 
For my part, I could not shake off the impres- 
sion that I was wandering on the outside of 
Uranus, or Neptune, or some planet still more 
deeply buried in the frontier darkness of our 
solar system.” 
We indorse all that we have quoted from Mr. 
Taylor. 
“There may be,’ remarked our corpulent 
friend B., “a great deal of romance in this way 
of eating, with your plate on your lap and 
seated on a rock or lump of nitre-earth; but, 
