suspended from above and arranged in folds like a curtain. Here we are
then, the guide fifty feet below us. Some of the party thrusting their
heads and, in their anxiety to see, their bodies through the window
into the vast and gloomy dome of two hundred feet in height. The
window is not large enough to afford a view to all at once, they crowd
one on the top of the other; the more cautious, and those who do not
like to be squeezed, stand back; but still holding fast to the
garments of their friends for fear they might in the ecstasy of their
feelings, leap into the frightful abyss into which they are looking.
Suddenly the guide ignites a _Bengal light_. The vast dome is radiant
with light. Above, as far as the eye can reach, are seen the shining
sides of the fluted walls; below, the yawning gulf is rendered the
more terrific, by the pallid light exposing to view its vast depth,
the whole displaying a scene of sublimity and splendor, such as words
have not power to describe. Returning, we ascended the ladder near
Louisa's Dome, and continued on, having the Labyrinth on our right
side until it terminates in the Bottomless Pit. This pit terminates
also the range of the Deserted Chambers, and was considered the Ultima
Thule of all explorers, until within the last few years, when Mr.
Stephenson of Georgetown, Ky. and the intrepid guide, Stephen,
conceived the idea of reaching the opposite side by throwing a ladder
across the frightful chasm. This they accomplished, and on this
ladder, extending across a chasm of twenty feet wide and near two
hundred deep, did these daring explorers cross to the opposite side,
and thus open the way to all those splendid discoveries, which have
added so much to the value and renown of the Mammoth Cave. The
Bottomless Pit is somewhat in the shape of a horse-shoe, having a
tongue of land twenty seven feet long, running out into the middle of
it. From the end of this point of land, a substantial bridge has been
thrown across to the cave on the opposite side.