



,6 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



resembles a picture set in the frame of "The Arch." The walls are eighty feet in height, 

 the breadth of the flat rock which joins them is thirty feet, and all along its edge 

 droop stalactites, black against the blue sky. It is a very fitting entrance to such caves 

 as are found below a portal worthy of the sepulchres of the gods. 



With the intricate and delicate beauties of the "Imperial Caves" still in mind, but 

 overshadowed by the colossal grandeur of those beneath the " Carlotta Arch," another 

 vista in wonder-land opens out; this is the portico of the great "Cathedral Cave," which 

 lies chiefly within the crown and about the southern side of "The Grand Arch." Imme- 

 diately the iron gate is closed, the candles lit, and the descent begun, new chords of 

 sensation are struck. Fairy-land and wonder-land have been seen before ; here is vaulted 

 gloom, suggestive of the tests to which all adventurers of fairy-lore were submitted 

 before the triumph of their quest was achieved : 



Downward De Vaux through dubious ways 



And darksome vaults hath gone, 

 Till issue from the wildering maze 



Or safe retreat seems none. 



Down flight after flight of damp steps winds the path, by dark dank walls, over 

 grave-like floor-spaces, by rocks of mountainous bulk piled in weird confusion, an 

 occasional bat' flitting across the gloom and vanishing into the darkness far overhead. 

 After an eerie ten minutes of journeying, the magnesium wire is lit, and then the great 



nave of "The Cathedral" is fullv disclosed. Its dome towers aloft three hundred feet. 



i 



Its greatest diameter is not less than two hundred. Its colours, as shown by the light, 

 are all cold and gloomy, an occasional stalactite-formation of a warmer gray affording 

 but scant relief. Still down goes the path, but not to a succession of glooms and 

 dolours. A " shawl " cave is presently reached, but not of the proportions of those seen 

 in " The Imperial." The shawls here trail from great walls, droop from the front of 

 rocks like precipice edges, hang screen-like upon dark spaces, so perfect in every fold 

 that a strange desire is felt to stretch a hand and draw them aside. One special 

 curtain in this chamber should bear the name of " The Marble Screen." It hangs upon 

 the left-hand wall, and is seen across a chasm about thirty feet wide. It is about eight 

 feet in length by ten in breadth, and appears in the lamp-light to drape so exactly 

 like long folds of white samite, that if the least breath of wind should blow one might 

 expect to see a ripple of motion pass from fold to fold. It is a screen that has never 

 been withdrawn. Nature wove and hung it there, and still labours towards its perfec- 

 tion. When this cave of marble drapery is left in darkness another great space opens 

 which is called " The Exhibition " a vast hall or vault of majestic desolation. The 

 most prominent object is " The Broken Column." A marble base, a marble cornice and 

 capital above, enriched with those decorations which are of the order of Nature ; a shaft 

 rising, a shaft descending so Nature builds here, mocking all the art of man ; but the 

 two will never meet, for on some great day of a far-away time the foundation of the 

 stalagmite slipped forward just so much as to render completion forever impossible. 

 One might imagine that day saw a terrible havoc in these vaults, that some spirits had 

 set about here to reproduce the glories of another world, that they had made marvellous 

 progress with their work, but were suddenly arrested, condemned, overthrown ; all their 



