Kain on Caves. 429 



jFarther up French Broad, near Newport, is a very large mound. 

 It reposes on a very level and extensive plain, and is itself the 

 largest I ever saw. It is thirty feet high, and its base covers 

 half an acre of ground. As it ascends from its base, there is 

 a slight inclination from a perpendicular on all sides, and the 

 upper surface is as level as the rest is regular. From the great 

 size of this mound, its commanding situation, and the mystery 

 which veils its history, it is a most interesting spot of ground. 

 There are many other mounds of this description in the State 

 of Tennessee, but I have not visited them. 



Though not immediately connected with this subject, I take 

 the liberty to subjoin an account of a remarkable cave or grotto, 

 in a bluff of limest6ne, on the south bank of the Holston River, 

 opposite the mounds first described. The bluff is perhaps 100 

 feet high and 50 wide. The grotto is a large natural excava- 

 tion of the rock, 60 feet high and 30 feet wide. It is very 

 irregular, and to the very top bears marks of the attrition of 

 waves. The river to have been so high, must have covered 

 the Valley through which it now winds its quiet way. The 

 excavation gradually diminishes in size as you proceed back- 

 ward, till at 100 feet from the entrance, it terminates. A re- 

 markable projection of the rock divides the back part into two 

 stories. This grotto, whose walls are hung with ivy, and the 

 bluff crowned with cedars, and surrounded by ah aged forest, 

 on which the vine clambers most luxuriantly, viewed from the 

 river which winds slowly around it, and reflects its image, is 

 more than beautiful : it is even venerable. But what renders 

 it most interesting to many visiters, is a, number of rude paint- 

 ings, which were, as tradition reports, left on it by the Che- 

 rokee Indians. These Indians are known to have made this 

 cave a resting-place, as they passed up and down the River 

 Holston. These paintings are still distinct, though they have 

 faded somewhat within my remembrance. They consist of 

 representations of the sun and moon, of a man, of birds, 

 fishes, &c. They are all of red paint, and resemble in this 

 respect, the paintings on Paint Rock near the warm springs. 



Much has been said of the objects of curiosity in the country 

 north of us ; and I took the Hberty to describe some of them 



Vol. I.... No. 4. 33 



