A VISIT
TO
THE MAMMOTH CAVE OF KENTUCKY.
BY JOHN WILSON,
THE SCOTTISH VOCALIST.
EDINBURGH: 1849.
A VISIT
TO
THE MAMMOTH CAVE OF KENTUCKY.
Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, May 20, 1849.
We left the City of Rooks, as Nashville is called, onThursday morning at half-past four, and travelled ninetymiles to our place of destination for the night, which occupied19 hours. The stages in this part of the country losea great deal of time needlessly by stopping for meals a greatdeal oftener than people require them. During our ridewe had breakfast at 21 miles from Nashville, at a placecalled Tyree Springs, and that was acceptable enough; butbefore it was well digested we had to stop for dinner, andthen again for supper, in three hours more; and as thepeople in this last hotel, which was at a pretty little towncalled Bowling Green, did not wish to be at the trouble ofmaking one supper for their own boarders and another forthe coach travellers, we were compelled to “bide theirtime” though not any of us wanted supper at all, and herewe lost an hour and a half. In our journey we were interestedin the day time by the great variety of wild flowerswe saw, and after dark by the crowds of fire-flies in theair, in the trees, in the fields. We reached Bell’s,[1] wherewe were to stay for the night, at half-past 11, where wemight have had another meal, but we did not like. Bell, acivil old fellow, is famed for making a kind of Atholl brose,of old peach brandy and honey, which we had a tasting of,and then went to bed; but Mr Bell’s brose I shall nevertaste again, for although it is pleasant enough to taste, yetI could not get the disagreeable flavour of the peach brandyout of my mouth the whole of the next day. After a capital4breakfast, Bell sent us in a four horse stage to the MammothCave, a distance of eight miles, over one of the roughestroads I ever encountered; but what we have seen in thiswonderful place amply compensates for any trouble or difficultywe may have undergone. I am really quite at a losshow to begin to give you the least idea of the place, for itis almost beyond description; at all events I feel quite surethat any kind of description given in writing, by any mortalman, cannot afford to a stranger the smallest notion of thewondrousness, the sublimity, the awfulness of this cave—thisstupendous work of Nature. First let me tell you,however, that it contains 226 avenues; at least that numberhas been discovered, for there are more than that;forty-seven domes, eight cataracts, pits innumerable, andeight rivers, only three of which have been explored. Itwas first discovered by the whites in 1802, and during thelast war with England immense quantities of saltpetre weremade in it, the remains of the utensils for the manufactureof which are still to be seen at a short distance from theentrance, and even the marks of the hoofs of the oxen theminers used can be traced in the ground. It is only aboutten years since the curious began to visit the cave, andevery year the visitors increase in number, and they mustcontinue to do so as the wonders of the place become moretalked of. About the end of June is the time for crowdscoming, and there is ample accommodation for more thantwo hundred people i