Pensico Avenue--Great Crossings--Pine Apple Bush--Angelica's Grotto--
Winding Way--Fat Friend in Trouble--Relief Hall--Bacon Chamber--
Bandit's Hall.
Pensico Avenue averages about fifty feet in width, with a height of
about thirty feet; and is said to be two miles long. It unites in an
eminent degree the truly beautiful with the sublime, and is highly
interesting throughout its entire extent. For a quarter of a mile from
the entrance, the roof is beautifully arched, about twelve feet high
and sixty wide, and formerly was encrusted with rosettes and other
formations, nearly all of which have been taken away or demolished,
leaving this section of the Cave quite denuded. The walking here is
excellent; a dozen persons might run abreast for a quarter of a mile
to Bunyan's Way, a branch of the avenue, leading on to the river. At
this point the avenue changes its features of beauty and regularity,
for those of wild grandeur and sublimity, which it preserves to the
end. The way, no longer smooth and level, is frequently interrupted
and turned aside by huge rocks, which lie tumbled around, in all
imaginable disorder. The roof now becomes very lofty and imposingly
magnificent; its long, pointed or lancet arches, forcibly reminding
you of the rich and gorgeous ceilings of the old Gothic Cathedrals, at
the same time solemnly impressing you with the conviction that this is
a "building not made with hands." No one, not dead to all the more
refined sensibilities of our nature, but must exclaim, in beholding
the sublime scenes which here present themselves, this is not the work
of man! No one can be here without being reminded of the all pervading
presence of the great "Father of all."
"What, but God, pervades, adjusts and agitates the whole!"
Not far from the point at which the avenue assumes the rugged
features, which now characterize it, we separated from our guide, he
continuing his straight-forward course, and we descending gradually a
few feet and entering a tunnel of fifteen feet wide on our left, the
ceiling twelve or fourteen feet high, perfectly arched and beautifully
covered with white incrustations, very soon reached the Great
Crossings. Here the guide jumped down some six or eight feet from the
avenue which we had left, into the tunnel where we were standing, and
crossing it, climbed up into the avenue, which he pursued for a short
distance or until it united with the tunnel, where he again joined us.
In separating from, then crossing, and again uniting with the avenue,
it describes with it something like the figure 8. The name, Great
Crossings, is not unapt. It was however, not given, as our intelligent
guide veritably assured us, in honor of the Great Crossings where the
man lives who killed Tecumseh, but because two great caves cross here;
and moreover said he, "the valiant Colonel ought to change the name of
his place, as no two places in a State should bear the same name, and
this being the _great_ place ought to have the preference."
Not very far from this point, we ascended a hill on our left, and
walking a short distance over our shoe-tops in dry nitrous earth, in a
direction somewhat at a right angle with the avenue below, we arrived
at the Pine Apple Bush, a large column, composed of a white, soft,
crumbling material, with bifurcations extending from the floor to the
ceiling. At a short distance, either to the right or left, you have a
fine view of the avenue some twenty feet below, both up and down. Why
this crumbling stalactite is called the Pine Apple Bush, I cannot
divine. It stands however in a charming, secluded spot, inviting to
repose; and we luxuriated in inhaling the all-inspiring air, while
reclining on the clean, soft and dry salt petre earth.
All lovers of romantic scenery ought to visit this avenue, and all
dyspeptic hypochondriacs and love-sick despondents should do likewise,
for there is something wonderfully exhilarating in the air of Pensico.
Our friend B. remarked while rolling on the salt petre earth at the
Pine Apple Bush, that he felt "especially happy," and whether from
sympathy, air or what not, we all partook of the same feeling. The
guide seeing the position of our fat friend, and hearing his remark,
said, laughing most immoderately, "these sort of feelings would come
over one, now and then in the Cave, but wait till you get in the
Winding Way and see how you feel then."
Having descended into the avenue we had left, we passed a number of
stalactites and stalagmites, bearing a remarkable resemblance to
coral, and a hundred or more paces beyond, arrived at a recess on the
left, lined with innumerable crystals of dog-tooth spar, shining most
brilliantly, called Angelica's Grotto. One would think it almost
sacrilege to deface a spot like this; yet, did a Clergyman (the back
of the guide being turned,) deliberately demolish a number of
beautiful crystals to inscribe the initials of his name.
Returning to the head of Pensico Avenue, we turned to our right, and
entered the narrow pass which leads to the river, pursuing which, for
a few hundred yards, descending all the while, at one or two places
down a ladder or stone steps, we came to a path cut through a high and
broad embankment of sand, which very soon conducted us to the much
talked of and anxiously looked for Winding Way. The Winding Way, has,
in the opinion of many, been channeled in the rock by the gradual
attrition of water. If this be so, and appearances seem to support
such belief, at what early age of the world did the work commence? Was
it not when "the earth was without form and void," thousands of years
perhaps, before the date of the Mosaic account of the Creation? The
Winding Way is one hundred and five feet long, eighteen inches wide,
and from three to seven feet deep, widening out above, sufficiently to
admit the free use of one's arms. It is throughout tortuous, a perfect
_zig-zag_, the terror of the Falstaffs and the ladies of "fat, fair
and forty," who have an instinctive dread of the trials to come, and
are well aware of the merriment that their efforts to _force a
passage_ will excite among their companions of less length of girdle.
Into this winding way, we entered in Indian file, and turning our
right side, then our left, twisting this way, then that, had nearly
made good the passage, when our _fat friend_, who was puffing and
blowing behind us like a high pressure engine, cried out, "Halt, ahead
there! I am stuck as tight as a wedge in a log!" Halt we did, when the
guide, looking at our friend, who was in truth "wedg'd in the rocky
way and sticking fast," cried out, "I told you, when you said at the
Pine Apple Bush, that you felt _especially happy_, to wait till you
got to the Winding Way, to see how you would feel then!" The
imprisoned gentleman soon burst his bonds, not, however, without
damage to his indispensables; and at length forcing his way into
Relief Hall, he cried out, in the joy of his heart, while stretching
himself and wiping the perspiration from his jolly, rubicund face,
"never was a name more appropriate given to any place--Relief. I feel
already the _expansive faculty_ of the atmosphere, I can now breathe
again."
Relief Hall, which you enter from the Winding Way, at a right-angle,
is very wide and lofty but not long; turning to the right, we reached
its termination at River Hall, a distance of perhaps, one hundred
yards. Here two routes present themselves; the one to the left
conducts to the Dead Sea and the Rivers, and that to the right, to the
Bacon Chamber, the Bandit's Hall, the Mammoth Dome and an infinity of
other caves, domes, etc. We will speak of the Bacon Chamber; but
before doing so, let us take our lunch. The air or exercise, or
probably both, acted as powerful appetizers, and we soon gave proof
that we needed not Stoughton's bitters to provoke an appetite. Having
discussed a few glasses of excellent Hock, we left the Bacon Chamber,
which is a pretty fair representation of a low ceiling, thickly hung
with canvassed hams and shoulders; and proceeded to the Bandit's Hall,
up a steep ascent of twenty or thirty feet, rendered very difficult,
by the huge rocks which obstructed the way and over which we were
forced to clamber. The name is indicative of the spot. It is a vast
and lofty chamber, the floor covered with a mountainous heap of rocks
rising amphitheatrically almost to the ceiling, and so disposed as to
furnish at different elevations, galleries or platforms, reaching
immediately around the chamber itself or leading off into some of its
hidden recesses. The guide is presently seen standing at a fearful
height above, and suddenly a Bengal light, blazes up, "when the rugged
roof, the frowning cliffs and the whole chaos of rocks are refulgent
in the brilliant glare." The sublimity of the scene is beyond the
powers of the imagination.