ANTECHAMBER OF THE CAVERNS. 205 



in which the case was carried to the highest 'court, he won his suit. Pre- 

 viously, a company of Northern gentlemen, most of them also interested 

 in the local railway, formed a joint-stock company to purchase the prop- 

 erty, and it passed into their hands in the spring of 1881. But during 

 the two years the original cost had swelled, and the early visions had 

 dwindled until they met at $40,000. This is the history of the " won- 

 der," and now we are ready to enter it. 



The ground rises only a trifle from the level of the valley to the hill, 

 and on the open slope stands a house with porticoes all around, conspicu- 

 ous in fresh paint, and having a public air about it. There is the ordinary 

 appearance of public waiting-rooms about this house, but, unlike most 

 houses, the great interest of it lies in its cellar. Registering your name, 

 your guide gives you a tin frame, much like a scoop-shovel, held upright 

 by a handle at the back, which holds in front three lighted candles. He 

 opens an inner door, and you follow him down a staircase of masonry, 

 and before you grasp the idea that your adventures have begun, you 

 find yourself in the large antechamber of the caverns. This unpre- 

 meditated, unintentional entrance is as though you had been dropped in 

 the midst of it, or had waked from a sleep there, and is most effectual in 

 putting the stranger en rapport with the spirit of astonishment which he 

 must feign, if (b} r reason of any sad defect in his constitution) it is lack- 

 ing, in order to maintain his reputation in this locality as a respectable 

 person. At the same time the truth is pressed upon your mind that this 

 cavern is not in the side of a mountain, as your preconception of it would 

 suggest, but underneath one of the low hills which diversify the surface 

 of the valley, and which remain from the hollowing out of all the val- 

 leys, and the production of the mountains four or five miles distant on 

 either side; and the cave "has no obvious relation with them, except that 

 its origin was partly coincident with their origin, and with the excavation 

 of the valley by erosion." 



When the Campbells first entered this antechamber, which is about 

 as large as an ordinary barn, they were able to follow a narrowing exten- 

 sion of it only a little way, when, as I have said, they were stopped by 

 water. Some weeks later, in order to make a second exploration, they 

 took a small boat with them, but found that the water had nearly dried 

 away. We can now walk across on a causeway of clay for twenty-five or 

 thirty yards, past the Vegetable Garden, the Bear Scratches, the Theatre, 

 the Gallery ; over Muddy Lake on a planking bridge, which is itself 

 spanned by a stone arch ; through the Fish Market and across the Elfin 

 Ramble — a plateau in which the roof is generally within reach of the 



