I' V l\,&£> 1 AlN V fe i KK AM . 



347 



I inclose you a book on Nats ml History wliieli may bo ot some use to 

 yon as a book of reference, as it Is extracted from the- beM authors. 

 The chapter on the flog may help yon in replying to dog questions from 

 Borne ofyour numerous em-responilents. Allison. 



A few extracts from this work may serve to give our 

 readers an idea of its character. Of the peacock, it is said, 

 among other things, that— " The flesh of this fowl, though 

 ever so thoroughly drest, yet when it is cold it appears as per- 

 fectly raw." Speaking of the " Cuekow," the hook tells us 

 that this bird " neither builds a nest nor hatches its young ;" 

 and, having described the method by which a foster parent is 

 secured for the egg, we are informed that "if the Cuckow's 

 egg be first hutched, she immediately destroys the eggs of the 

 small bird ; but if the small bird's eggs be first, hatched the 

 cuekow allows the young to live till its own egg ia hatched, 

 and then destroys the young belonging to the small bird, 

 which still feeds and brings up the young Cuekow as its own 

 when some say (it) ungratefully kills and eats its nurse." 



Sportsmen will be glad to be informed that "Partridges and 

 Quails are taken with a net by the help of a setting dog 

 trained up for the sport, who finds out the birds, and, when 

 he sees them, stands still or lies down on his belly, not going 

 very near them ; but looking back on his master, wags his 

 tail, by which he knows the birds are near the Dog, and so he 

 and hiB assistant run with the net and cover both birds and 

 Dog." Farmers will be interested by the chapter on the ox, 

 where it is stated that, "At the age of three years the horns 

 of the ox fall off and new ones arise, which continue as long 

 as they live." The last chapter in this curious little book 

 describes the ass— his humility, his patience, and the great at- 

 tachment which he " discovers to his master," and concludes 

 with this pithy sentence : " Whatever be the pace he is going 

 at, if you push him he instantly stops." 



Cannot some bibliophile among our readers give us some 

 account of this little volume besides what is furnished by the 

 title page ? 



Peripatetic Idiots. — A man named Porter recently wheeled 

 a barrow from Albany, N. Y, to San Francisco, Cal. He 

 was not an idiot for doing this, but in our estimation, the 

 man who paid him a good round wager for his achievement 

 was an idiot. Now two more candidates for blistered feet 

 and newspaper notoriety have started out from San Francisco 

 for a foot passage to Now York. In this case, too, they are 

 not the idiots. The men who pity them for their tramp are 

 idiots. 



Game Suppee.— The fourth annual game supper of the Rod 

 and Gun Club, of Springfield, Mass,, was held at the Old 

 Tavern Stand, West Springfield, on Ihursday evening, the 

 21st inst. The bill of fare comprised the usual assortment of 

 game of every description, and the affair passed off in the en- 

 joyable manner characteristic of these occasions. We ac- 

 knowledee with thanks an invitation to be present, and re- 

 gret the hard fate which prevented us from participating. 

 . — -». — . 



Missed the Train.— As we go to press one day earlier than 

 usual this week, several scores, etc., which would otherwise 

 appear, have been necessarily deferred. 



— • — . — 



ALADDIN'S WONDERFUL CAVE. 



WE read in the " Arabian Nights " of a cave where Forty 

 Thieves were discovered by a fortunate youth, who, 

 from his hiding-place in the top of a palm tree, heard them 

 pronounce two cabalistic words, and saw the famed robbers 

 quickly disappear in the depths of a rock-bound hill. The 

 passport he found both useful and convenient to remember, 

 and when on their return and departure the way was made 

 safe for his descent, he experimented with it "by way of a 

 little diversion," as Micky Free hath it; and to his amazement, 

 at the " Open Sesame " the rocks moved apart and invited en- 

 trance into a cave so entrancing and wonderful that he stood 

 spell-bound at the sight. But not long, for being of a frugal 

 mind, the jewels and bars of gold, amassed at such an expense 

 of time and labor by these obliging Forty Directors and Stock- 

 holders (their old surname being too ugly a word for ears po- 

 lite in these days, besides being long obsolete), were of far 

 more interest to his youthful but calculating character. 

 "With an acuteness worthy of the nineteenth century, he ap- 

 pointed himself Receiver, and placed the valuables where they 

 did most good— to himself. 



Such is the story in that most beguiling and wonderful book 

 ever written, and yet fact discounts fiction, as it often doe3 in 

 life, and Ali Baba's cave, springing from the vivid, impas- 

 sioned fancy of the Eastern romancers, cannot equal the 

 reality in the chambered galleries and the vaulted halls of this 

 newly discovered cave in Luray. 



From a thorough examination of the place I have just come. 

 I visited it in ? coolly critical humor, which nothing but a 

 succession of marvels might satisfy. I returned bewildered, 

 dazzled by the most wonderful and beautiful work ever fash- 

 ioned by the cunning fingers of Nature. 



When I reached the vicinity of the cave a large crowd was 

 clustering about the entrance, for the cave is not in the moun- 

 tains, as one might suppose, only set in a moderate sized hill 

 not over seventy-five feet high. To the foot of this hill the 

 people would come and then disappear as mysteriously as 

 did the children following the Piper of Hamliu, who sank 

 out of sight in the depths of the ground, never to return. 

 The cave was discovered by accident last August by a Mr. 

 Btebbins, who knew by the indications that there must exist 

 a cave near at hand ; and finding a small hole in a bunch of 

 brier busbes, proceeded to investigate the orifice ; widened it j 



then, feeling the cold air rushing through, lowered a com- 

 panion down by a rope, so discovering the greatest curiosity 

 in America, if not in the world. Its existence was never 

 dreamed of. It is true that many a time sportsmen, in starting 

 old hares and flushing partridges, would see them fly to 

 a bunch of briers on a barren hill, and on going up could 

 never flush them. Many a puzzled head has been rubbed to 



get the perplexity out of it, wondering where the d 1 the 



things had gone. The descent is about sixty feet, and you 

 enter a large arched room, rugged and rough, that seems to 

 have been formed by volcanic action. From this there open 

 several vaulted passages that extend into others, which lead 

 away and away into chambers and seemingly interminable la- 

 byrinths, each one varying with a distinctive and bewildering 

 beauty of its own. Every day the prospect widens to ex- 

 plorers, who, breaking the stalagtites and crawling through 

 crevices, enter upon new L realms of marvel. These stalag- 

 mites hang from the roof in endless variety ; some like the folds 

 of a heavy curtain, with cords and tassels complete ; others 

 drop like furled flags over the military bier ; while the roof is 

 studded with pendant icicles, some light green, blue, purple, 

 or else gleaming like silver in the lamplight, and flashing out 

 like diamonds. 



Further on you come to a grand chamber that surpasses 

 anything mortal hands could shape or mind conceive. It is 

 an immense apartment, oval in shape, wiih a lofty roof 

 fretted by millions of designs in frost work and sculptured 

 tracery, all in the most weird, fantastic carvings. In the very 

 centre of this place, that resembles the interior of a grand 

 cathedral, there arises a massiye pillar of white 'rock that is a 

 marvel of perfection and beauty. It looks like bas-relief, and 

 is worthy of hours' study. From all portions of this chamber 

 there rise shadowy, indistinct, half-carved forms and figures of 

 the purest white, like as one would see in an artist's studio were 

 he to half work out his conceptions, and then in a caprice 

 throw his chisel away, leaving them all designed, yet all un- 

 finished. Words cannot describe the solemnity of the place • 

 it must be felt. The immensely lofty ceiling, the fantastic 

 gleaming statues, the stately alabaster pillars, the trailing 

 vines, the drooping drapery all in spotless, pure adamant, the 

 unfathomable vastness, the deep stillness that fills the soul 

 with a shuddering awe, no language can do them justice. 

 One could easily imagine himself in a vast cathedra! for purer 

 beings than our coarser clay of earth, and half expect to hear 

 unearthly music float away through tho chancelled aisles and 

 pillared domes. A lady tourist with us sang in her pure 

 soprano the "Evening Hymn to the Virgin," and the effect 

 was unutterably grand. The voice rang out clear and sweet, 

 filling to the vaulted roof the air with rich melody, while the 

 intermingling corridors sobbed and wailed back the refrain 

 in a sad echo, that died away in tremulous murmurs, faintly 

 and more faintly, in the far off-distance. Then the deep, 

 heavy, sacred silence, for centuries old, crept back once more 

 and held its royal sway. Yes, one could swear he beheld the 

 stoled monk flitting along the vestibule and disappearing be- 

 hind the shadowy pillars, silent, noiselessly absorbed telling 

 his beads, and thinking not of earth. 



Clear limpid springs are found in many chambers. In one 

 a series of springs, each varying in size and distinct from the 

 rest. The loveliest thing of all is one which is hollowed out 

 in the floor of the cathedral, and lies there limpid, cool and 

 pure. Around it is a framework of stone, whiter than Pari- 

 an marble, and embossed with the most exquisite carvings in 

 Nature's softest touch. Delicate leaves in fragile designs, as 

 softly pure and delicately beautiful as frost work, yet as 

 durable as tempered steel. No human hand, however gifted, 

 might catch in a life time the secret of this marble carving ; 

 it is above everything earthly and beyond. And the spring 

 itself— well, Hebe handing up a cup of nectar from the im- 

 mortal spring ; Venus drinking her libation to the sovereignty 

 of Pluto ; Titania, queen of fairies, attended by her train, 

 spring from earth, sea and air ; Ponce de Leon, dreaming of 

 the Fountain of Youth— never beheld aught lovelier than this. 

 Even as the fabled water hid in the grotto under the sea, that 

 Areosto saw in his vision when the mermaids combed their 

 golden locks, and the three old blind crones passed a single 

 eye around that each might glance once at its magical beauty, 

 so one stands by the lovely creation and feels that Mother 

 Earth keeps hidden in her depths greater wonders than ever 

 mortals wot of. 



We kept on descending steadily downward, new beauties 

 opening to the enraptured eye. In one cavern there looms up 

 a grand pulpit of white stone ; in another the walls were so 

 smooth and polished that we saw our faces in them as in a 

 mirror ; again, in a large round room, there spread out be- 

 neath it naught but the clear, still waters of a lake— was 

 ever lofty room so carpeted before ?— while around in inter- 

 minable distances were immense masses of blocks, columns, 

 walls, pillars, set with diamond springs, flashing and reflect- 

 ing the light in dreams of beauty too numerous for the tell- 

 ing. Can it be our pure lost Eden laid away in its silent 

 crypt ■'. Drops of water, filled with mineral properties, filter- 

 ing through the ground for ages, solidifying and crystallizing, 

 formed through centuries, under the mighty hand of the 

 Maker, these wonders and marvels of beauty. Footprints of 

 wild animals, long since vanished, have sunken deep in the 

 cky with heavy treat!, and the impression yet so soft that it 

 can be easily obliterated, tell of the great passing of time. 

 Hour by hour, day by day, year after year, centuries upon cen- 

 turies, before even primeval man was born, in age succeeding, 

 age, has this slow, amazing work progressed. 



la its deep, silent slumber it Jay, reiaiadiag.oue of too 



vision John saw in Patmos of tho city whose twelve gates 

 were twelve pearls, and whose waters were as clear as crystal. 

 Generations came and went, heedlessly passing over the fair 

 realms beneath their feet. To us, as if the stone had been 

 rolled away by angel hands, it bursts upon the startled gaze 

 as a revelation. To our eyes it is sent in its calm, still glory. 

 We receive it reverently "a thing of beauty and a joy for- 

 ever." 



In the bridal chamber, a large, roomy apartment nearby 

 oval in form, is the " Cascade." Imagine a torrent of water 

 falling from the height of some twenty feet, and then as if 

 struck by the wand of the enchanter Merlin, that every drop 

 of water, each bubble of foam, the very spray itself, and 

 the falling fluid were changed into pure marble and solid ada- 

 mant, and you can picture to yourself this exquisite produc- 

 tion of nature. The illusion is so perfect that the eye does 

 not recognize the change, and only the actual visible touch 

 shows the wonderful metamorphosis. 



Perhaps the grentest curiosity is the skeleton of a man, 

 which lies as it fell at the bottom of the deepest gulch in the 

 cavern. The hair is gone, but the skull, jaw and lower limbs 

 remaiu, and both of the thigh bones are fractured. Who he 

 was, of what race and what period he came, none will ever 

 know. Imagination shudders at his awful fate. Lost in this 

 vast labyrinth— alone, surrounded by Cimmerian darkness, 

 groping his way foot by foot, inch by inch ; shouting, per- 

 chance, and hearing nothing but mocking echoes returning his 

 desparing cries ; hearing, in his distempered fancy, strange, 

 fearful noises, and seeing gleaming spectral lights, and then 

 losing his balance he fell to the bottom of a chasm and laid 

 there with shattered bones and tortured sinews, dying by 

 inches in lingering agony all alone, with no sound save the 

 ceaseless drip of the water drops on the granite floor beneath. 

 Surely the devilish cruelty of the holy inquisition never con- 

 ceived a death more full of horrors than this. 



There is a tradition told by tho old inhabitants of this section 

 of a man who disappeared from his home near here some foi% 

 ypars ago and was never found. His gun was discovered on 

 the hill side, but he and his dog were never seen again. To 

 my mind these bones are the remains of a race long extinct, 

 and have been lying here for hundreds and hundreds of years. 

 As for the ancient inhabitant who disappeared a half a cen- 

 tury or so ago— well, he may have gone up the mountain 

 like old Rip Van Winkle and his dog Wolf ; and he may, for 

 aught we know, be asleep on some mountain top to-day, and 

 will yet reappear in the streets of Luray with his beard a yard 

 long all spotless white, and inquire for his Gretchen, who had 

 turned to dust this many a long day ago. Lord! how the 

 ancient farmer will be surprised; he will see a huge cave, 

 over which he has so often walked unconsciously, the interior 

 illuminated by Edison Electric light ; he will hear the hoarse 

 scream of the locomotive ; he will see lightning-rod peddler 

 and three-card monte men, and, greater wander of all, wi 

 hear the political orators blowing their political trumpets an d 

 boasting of how virtuous this present age is. No wonder if 

 the ancient slumberer will turn his" steps mountainward and 

 try to go to sleep again or to die. 



The great mystery to me is where the pure air comes from 

 that sweeps through the cave. ISie temperature is not over 

 00 deg. , and never varies perceptibly. I believe that this whole 

 region will be found to be one vast cavern connected together 

 by passages. Every day the explorers discover new rooms, 

 which lead into others, and since the first explorations scores 

 of other openings have been found that branch into apart- 

 ments that have remained for infinite time untouched by the 

 footsteps of meu, or the black darkness rising Ike a pall, un- 

 lighted by the gleam of a lamp. 



Then dozens of springs, pools and miniature lakes all 

 throughout these caverns, from the depth of several inches to 

 many feet \ the waters are clear and opaline in tint, with a 

 slight limestone taste, and cool as though drawn from a deep 

 well. 



I have written but a brief description of these caverns. I 

 could say much more, but no pen can convey the wonderful, 

 weird, fantastic loveliness of the place. Only a thorough 

 personal examination can do that. I recommend a visit to 

 this cave for all lovers of the beautiful and to all tourists who 

 love the strange and marvelous in nature. 



I wish I could recommend also the accommodations for 

 travelers in the ancient town of Luray; but I cannot. Tie 

 hotel beats the ancient hostels of Spain, and serve up to the 

 hungry guests real Barmecedian feasts. Travelers are taken 

 in and done for ; the fare is execrable, bread like brick-bats, 

 meat tougher than a money-lender's conscience, and, as for 

 the coffee— well, we feel like saying with the famous John 

 Randolph, of lloanoake, " Waiter, if this is lea, bring me 

 coffee, and if this is coffee, then, d n it, bring me tea." 



Luray is a moral, virtuous town, either before or behind the 

 times. There is not a bar-room or restaurant in the place. 

 Drinks can only be had by the prescription of tlw doctor, and 

 the amount of sickness that prevails in Luray is appalling. 

 Cramps and neuralgia of the stomach are an epidemic there, 

 and the physicians are kept at work day and night in filling 

 out permits. There is but one remedy used in these com- 

 plaints, and it always cures, and that remedy is a pint of 

 whisky, taken with a little sugar internally. 



I am indebted to Mr. Broadus, editor of the Page Courier, 

 for many favjrs, Chasbbub. 



- <©* Forest and SiHEAM^will bo sent for fractions of a year 

 ftafollowsi SlxmontiiB, $3-, threomoat'tiB, $L To uisof 

 two or more, $3 per anaum. 



