60 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 
this portion of its course there are many well-like holes in the 
ground, through which, if the ferns and undergrowth were cleared 
away we could see the creek rushing silently After this, the creek 
again appears at a natural bridge, a beautiful spot to which our 
guide first takes us and where we first make our acquaintance with 
the creek. 
This bridge consists of a large rock some ten or twelve feet in 
length, suspended on two walls of rock some fifteen feet high, over 
a pool of water, pure as crystal, with a fine yellowy-white, sandy 
bottom. To properly see the bridge, we must go down an almost 
perpendicular bank to the edge of the pool; here we find the creek 
bubbling up on the left hand side of the pool, swiftly running across 
it as if surprised at appearing so suddenly in the sunlight and 
disappearing under the wall of rock on the right, only to appear 
again some distanee further on. The opposite side of the pool to 
that on which we descend slopes gradually up the hill side and is for 
many feet up covered with beautiful ferns of all sizes. 
After having seen this we go on to the first Cave, taking care not 
to fall into any of the deep holes, across the bottom of which the 
creek runs. Having arrived at it, we find a pool of water guarding 
the entrance, of a depth unknown, and which appears black and 
gloomy in the deep shade of the rocky entrance, surrounded as it is 
with shrubs, while overhead, the staghorn and other ferns covering 
the rock almost seem to shut out the daylight. Towards this we- 
descend, our guide telling us it is only about two feet deep, but we 
find on reaching the edge that we can get over it by some stepping 
stones at one end, and then we are in the first Cave, through which 
a branch of the creek runs all the way. This Cave is high, and in 
some places you can see the daylight streaming in through a man- 
hole far above your head on the top of the hill under which the Cave 
lies. The floor is black and slippery, with here and there beds of 
shingle ; in other places it and the sides in the dim light appear to 
be black marble. At the far end and just before we reach the day- 
light again, we come to a sharp rise in the floor of the left hand side 
of the Cave, after ascending which we find ourselves met by a deep, 
dark hole, some distance down which, by the aid of our candles, we 
can just see the glimmer of water, the depth of which, our guide tells 
us, is very great, and that he has never yet been able to find the 
bottom of it, (perhaps he has never tried, and as we have no means 
of checking him, we must take it for oranted that it is so.) We 
then retrace our steps (as it is easier to walk 100 yards underground 
than a quarter of a mile over a hill,) and proceed to the second 
Caye. The creek between the first and second Cayes, a distance of 
nearly a quarter of a mile, runs between high banks covered with 
beautiful flowering dintihes tree ferns, and many smaller sorts, and 
is open to daylight all the way. 
