We, however, once more lighted our torches; but, had we not been able to
do so, we might, at our leisure, have contemplated the gloominess of the
cavern, for no one would have come to us till the next day. In one room
we found an excellent spring of water, which boiled up as if to slake
our thirst, then sunk into the mountain, and was seen no more. In
another room was a noble pillar, called the TOWER OF BABEL. It is
composed entirely of stalactites of lime, or, as the appearance would
seem to suggest, of petrified water. It is about thirty feet in
diameter, and a little more than ninety feet in circumference, and not
far from thirty feet high. There are probably millions of stalactites in
this one pillar.

Thus we wandered on in this world within a world, till we had visited
twelve very beautiful rooms, and as many creeping places, and had now
arrived at the end,--a distance from our entrance of between twenty-four
and twenty-five hundred feet; or, what is about its equal, half a mile
from the mouth. We here found ourselves exceedingly fatigued; but our
torches forbade us to tarry, and we once more turned our lingering steps
towards the common world. When we arrived again at Washington Hall, one
of our company three times discharged a pistol, whose report was truly
deafening; and as the sound reverberated and echoed through one room
after another till it died away in distance, it seemed like the moanings
of spirits. We continued our wandering steps till we arrived once more
at daylight, having been nearly three hours in the cavern. We were much
fatigued, covered with dirt, and in a cold sweat; yet we regretted to
leave it. From the farther end of the cave I gathered some handsome
stalactites, which I put into my portmanteau, and preserved as mementos
of that day's visit.

To compare the Natural Bridge and Cave together as objects of curiosity,