THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 57 



career in exhibiting and explaining the curi- 

 osities of the Cave, with which his name has 

 become identified, to thousands of delighted 

 visitor's, departed this life about eleven years 

 ago. 



Alfred is also dead. " Old Mat," as he is 

 familiarly called, who has trodden the dark and 

 mysterious paths of the Cave for more than 

 thirty years, still lives, and may be seen about 

 the hotel, but is no longer . on duty, yet he 

 thinks he is quite as capable of exhibiting the 

 Cave now as he ever was, and believes that he 

 possesses more knowledge regarding it than any 

 one else. 



From the hotel we passed down the deep 

 ravine through the native forest, before men- 

 tioned, along the rugged pathway. The pre- 

 cipitous and rocky character of the path, 

 however, was not particularly observed until 

 our return at night. We then began to wonder 

 if some freak of nature had not occurred in our 

 absence to cause the picturesque and rather 

 easy-graded path of the morning to present a 

 nearly perpendicular front, every small stone 

 that lay in the way to attain the proportions of 

 an insurmountable rock, and the fourth of a mile 

 that we had passed so easily and so pleasantly 



