34 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



soon out of sight, and sometimes out of hearing. I 

 followed, with an Indian winding up the line, while 

 I made notes. I had two Indians with long bun- 

 dles of lighted sticks, who, whenever I stopped to 

 write, either held them so far off as to be of no use, 

 or else thrust them into my face, blinding the eyes 

 with smoke and scorching the skin. I was dripping 

 as if in a vapour-bath ; my face and hands were 

 black with smoke and incrusted with dirt ; large 

 drops of sweat fell upon my book, which, with the 

 dirt from my hands, matted the leaves together, so 

 that my notes are almost useless. They were, no 

 doubt, imperfect, but I do not believe that, with the 

 most accurate details, it is possible to convey a true 

 idea of the character of this cave, with its deep 

 holes and passages through a bed of solid rock, and 

 the strange scene presented by the Indians, with 

 torches and calabashes, unmurmuring and uncom- 

 plaining, at their daily task of seeking, deep in the 

 bowels of the earth, one of the great elements of 

 life. 



The distance, as we traversed it, with its ladders, 

 ascents and descents, winding and crawling passa- 

 ges, seemed a full half league, as represented by the 

 Indians. By measurement it was not quite fifteen 

 hundred feet, which is about equal to the length of 

 the Park fronting on Broadway. The perpendicu- 

 lar depth to the water I am not able to give, but 

 some idea may be formed of these passages from 

 the fact that the Indians did not carry their cala- 



