THE SHAWL CAVE.
About 30 yards from the Sparkling rock is the Shawl Cave. It is
approached through a passage from six to eight feet high and two to four
feet wide, containing numerous small but pretty grottoes. The Shawl Cave
is very interesting. To the left of the entrance is a grotesque pillar
with little domes of snowy whiteness and masses of stalactite. The cave
is about 25 feet long, 15 feet high, and from 12 to 15 feet wide. It
contains three magnificent "shawls." One is 14 feet long, 18 inches
deep, and one-sixth of an inch thick, and in the blending of colours
represents tortoise-shell. The other two are not quite as large as the
first-mentioned. They are straw-coloured, varied with rich brown. They
hang at right angles from the side of a convex sloping roof, and the
colouring runs from end to end in parallel lines, but the bands of
colour vary in depth. For instance, the first piece of the shawl--say
one inch and a half from the roof--may be pure white formation, of lime,
or carbonate of lime coloured with oxide of iron which gradually becomes
paler and paler. The next two inches may be light yellow, spotted with
brown. The next strip may be fox-colour, and so on, until the design is
completed. For the most part, the cave "shawls" are of uniform
thickness, like sheets of opaque glass slightly corrugated transversely.
The opposite wall is nearly perpendicular. At each end of the cave is a
grotto. One is low down and gloomy-looking; the other lofty, going up
into the roof and full of formation, some of which is like frost work.
The stalactites are immense. From the further wall are sloping terraces,
gradually enlarging towards the base underneath the hanging shawls.
There are also some remarkable clumps of formation. One is like a
giant's foot; another resembles the skull of a wolf, or of some other
animal related to the canine tribe.
About seven yards north from the Shawl Cave is a cavern 20 feet broad,
30 yards long, and from 12 to 14 feet high, the principal object in
which is "The Lady's Finger." Under a shelving rock fringed with
stalactites of all the prevailing colours, and almost every variety of
shape, the "finger" forms the extremity of a stalagmite about 12 inches
high, and similar in figure to a feminine forearm in a sleeve, with
coral trimmings. The forearm is white, and the chubby hand is of a
waxy-looking flesh colour. The thumb and the index finger point upward.
According to the Talmud, "man is born with his hands clenched, and dies
with his hands wide open;" in reference to which one of the Rabbinical
sages remarks--"Entering life he desires to grasp everything; leaving
the world, all that he possessed has slipped away." This hand with the
lady's finger, however, is not grasping, and it points upwards. The
modern science of chiromancy, according to A. R. Craig, M.A., in his
interesting book "Your Luck is in Your Hand," divides hands into seven
classes: "1. The hand elementary, or hand with a large palm; 2. The hand
necessary, or spatulated; 3. The hand artistic, or conical; 4. The
useful or square hand; 5. The philosophical, or knotted hand; 6. The
psychological, or pointed hand; 7. The mixed hand." It would be
difficult to class the hand with "the lady's finger" in any of the
foregoing divisions, and it would puzzle one skilled in palmistry, and
who regards the human hand as a mirror of the mind, to use it even in
the way phrenologists use the casts of bull-necked, animal-headed
felons. The index finger is long, the pollex (thumb) is short; the
medius (middle) is wanting, and so are the annularis (ring finger) and
the auricularis (little finger), "so named by the Romans because of its
utility in cleansing the ear." The visitor, therefore, must not expect
to find here a hand like a model of perfection on a Greek statue; but he
will see a remarkable alabaster extremity, sufficiently well formed to
be called "the lady's finger." The rocky bank, which is coloured with
several shades of brown, and veined with formation, is also flecked with
white, like snow. At one end of the cave the view closes with
long-sparkling stalactites--those nearest being brown and
flesh-coloured. Behind them is pure white formation which sets off to
great advantage the beautifully-tinted stalactites sparsely scattered
about the cave. The other end of the cavern gradually tones off to
sombre rocks of grey and brown.
At the end of the Lady's Finger Cave is a charming grotto, and, above,
the rocks are like fine coral in various shades of red and grey. Inside
the grotto are stalagmites thick at the base and with elegant
stalactites resting on them. Some are pure white, and others are covered
with fine tracery. In front is a perfect stalactite which descends to
within an inch of a perfect stalagmite just underneath it, and aptly
illustrates the process of their growth. On the floor are pretty
hillocks of somewhat dismal-looking matter which, on close inspection,
is seen to be made of coralline figures and sparkling crystal atoms. In
the foreground is a fine stalagmite, fitted all over with minute coral.
This group, protected by wire netting, is specially interesting because
it is unblemished. All round the approaches are little bunches of
stalactites like epaulettes.
After travelling west about nine yards, ascending five steps, and then
proceeding 14 yards north, the tourist arrives at a cave containing a
very conspicuous column called "Lot's Wife."