Truly, light enough to make a bold dash at his ratship. But we are in gloom-gloom unparallelled by any thing in the world. indeed, man knows nothing about darkness there-Alas! none but those to whose eyes Heaven has denied the blessing of light altogether. The blind see such darkness; and here we can learn (for during a period, we can feel it) the depth and misery of the pri-vation. And now, while thus sitting in gloom ineffable, a secret dread (notwithstanding the actual assurance we possess of security) stealing through our spirits, we can understand and appreciate the horror of mind which inevitably seizes upon men lost in caves, and deprived of their lights; even when their reason-if they could listen to that ever illused counsellor, the victim and football of every fitful passion-tells them that their situation is not wholly desperate. Although no fatal accident has ever happened in the Mammoth Cave, men have been frequently lost in it; or, at least, have lost their lights, and so been left imprisoned in darkness. In such a case, as proceeding in any direction in the dark is quite out of the question, all that is to be done is to sit patiently down, waiting until relief comes from without; which will happen as soon as the persons outside have reason, from your unusual stay, to suspect that some such catastrophe has occurred. This every body who enters the cave knows well enough, and none better than the guides; and, one would suppose, such knowledge would always, in case of accident, preserve from unmanly terror. The case is, however, as numerous examples prove, quite otherwise; guide and visiter, the bold man and the timid, yield alike to apprehension, give over all as lost, and pass the period of imprisonment in lamentations and prayers. It is astonishing, indeed, how vastly devout some men, who were never devout before, become, when thus lost in the cave; though, as might be suspected, the fit of devotion is of no longer duration than the time of imprisonment: "When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; When the devil was well, the devil a monk was he". applies very well to the history of cave conversions. I had the good fortune, when on my way to the Mammoth Cave some years ago, in a certain city of the South-West, to stumble upon a worthy gentleman, who, among his many virtues public and private, was not supposed to lay any particular claim to religious devotion; or if he did, took no great pains to make it evident: on the contrary, I heard it very energetically averred by one who was a proficient in the same accomplishment, "that Captain B could swear harder than any other man on the Mississippi." The Captain ascertaining whither we were directing our footsteps, congratulated us upon the pleasures we had in store, and concluded by informing us that he had visited the Mammoth Cave himself, and, with his guide, had been lost in it, remaining in this condition and in the dark, for eight or nine hours. "Dreadful!" my friend and self both exclaimed: "what did you do?" "Do!" replied the Captain, with the gravity of a philosopher; "all that we could;-as soon as our lights went out, we sat down upon a rock, and waited until the people came in and hunted us up." We admired the Captain's courage, and went on our way, until we had arrived within two miles of the Mammoth Cave; when a thunder-shower drove us to seek shelter in a cabin on the way-side. Here we found a man who had been born and bred, and lived all his life, within so short a distance of the cave, without having ever entered it: in excuse of which unpardonable deficiency, he told us, "he had a brother who had been in it often enough," had sometimes officiated as guide, and had once even been lost in it. "He was along with a gentleman he was guiding-Captain B: perhaps you know Captain B- -?" said our hospitable host, "Captain B———— of BWell, he was the gentleman with my brother: they lost their lights, and were kept fast in the desperate hole for nine hours-awfully frightened, too." "What! Captain B frightened?" "Just as much as my brother: I have heard my brother tell the story over a hundred times. They got to praying, both of 'em, as loud as they could; and my brother says, the Captain made some of the most beautiful prayers he ever heard in his life! and he reckons, if the Captain would take to it, he'd make a rale tear-cat of a preacher!”—O philosophy! how potent thou art in an arm-chair, or at the dinner table! But we have been long enough in darkness, long enough even in the cave. We re |