Two miles under ground! With these facts in view, who shall quarrel with his neighbour for believing, as many a man does, that he has eaten his dinner, in the Mammoth Cave, under the bed of Green River? or with the monkeys of Gibraltar for having made their way from Africa to Europe, as every body knows they must have done, via the Grot of St. Michael, under the foundations of the Mediterranean?

The extent of caves is a subject upon which men are still more inclined to be glorious. But here we have facts enough on record to countenance any stretch of magniloquence; besides opinions, which, as the world goes, have, in general, with mankind, all the weight and consequence of facts. Thus, the people of Java are of opinion that the sacred cave of Samarang affords a submarine passage from their island to Canton, in China-a distance of somewhat more than two thousand miles, traced in a line as straight as could be winged by an albatross. But leaving opinions, let us refer to a fact of philosophic celebrity, which, besides being quite a settler of all difficulties, possesses some peculiar features of interest. In the year 1752, the Rio del Norte, one of the greatest rivers

of America, (its length is reckoned at full two thousand miles,) suddenly sank into the earth, leaving its bed dry for a space of fifty leagues; and in this condition it remained several weeks, the waters flowing into some subterranean abyss, which it required them so long a time to fill. Allowing the river at the Paso del Norte, where the incident occurred, to be but a quarter-mile wide, and its depth but five feet, with a current of two miles the hour, and supposing it continued to sink into the earth during two weeks, we can give a pretty shrewd guess at the extent and capacity of the cavern in which it was swallowed up. According to my calculations, to dispose of such a body of water, would have demanded a cave one hundred feet wide and high, and just five hundred miles long! Nor must this statement, however lightly made, be considered absurd. Let it be remembered that the channel of the river for a space of fifty leagues, was absolutely robbed of its waters. Supposing their disappearance had been only momentary, it is easy to perceive, the abyss that received them must have been vaster than we can readily figure to our imaginations.

After this, no one need doubt the veracity

of those traveliers who relate their moderate rambles of" twenty miles or thereabouts" in the great caves of the West. No one need even be astounded at the grandeur of that renowned cave of Tipperary, discovered, in 1833, with its chambers-" wider than angels ken"-one "nearly a mile in circumference," another "of about three miles in circumference"-so paddywhackishly described by an enthusiastic correspondent of the Tipperary Free Press; though, sorry we are to confess, in the hands of a malicious surveyor, the hall of a mile in circumference is said to have suddenly shrunk into a room of ninety feet by one hundred and fifty, and that of three miles into one of one hundred feet by just two hundred and fifty. This is a climax somewhat similar to that of the story of the seventy cats "our cat and another one!" But what if it be? There is

"Something yet left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon:"

The wonders of the cave-world are not yet exhausted.

Let us accompany Humboldt, the profoundest of chorographers, the most veracious

of travellers, to the cave of the Guacharo, among the mountains of Cumana, in South America. It opens on the face of a precipice, a grand abyss seventy-seven feet high and eighty-five wide. A river, born of darkness and night, like many of the streams of Carniola, rolls from its mouth; while festoons of creeping plants, the ivies of the tropics, hanging from the rocks above, and glittering with flowers of every gorgeous dye, swing across the chasm like so many boa-constrictors on the watch for prey. A grove of palms and ceibas-the tropical cotton-wood -rises tall and verdant at the very entrance, with birds singing, and monkeys chattering, among the boughs. Through this grove you enter the cave; and in this grove you continue, even when the world of sunshine has been left some distance behind. The palms still lift their majestic tops, and the ceibas rub their green heads against the rocky roof; whilst flowers-the heliconia, the dragonroot, and others-bloom under your feet. The palms and ceibas at last cease to appear; but not so the flowers. As far as man has penetrated-a distance of more than a quarter of a mile-you still see them growing, and all in darkness; on the hill of the cascade

(for a hill there is, and a cascade too,) and beyond, you find them flourishing among pillars of stalactite, as pale, as sepulchral, as fantastic, yet as beautiful, as the growth of spar around them. One might here dream of the grove of Aladdin, with its trees bearing fruits of diamond and ruby, of sapphire and emerald; and the more especially as every rub of your iron lamp against a spar calls up before your affrighted eyes a thousand horrible genii-not the mighty sons of Eblis indeed, but black and dismal guacharos, birds bigger than our northern screech-owls -that with fluttering wing and thrilling shriek, repel the invader of their enchanted abode. Compared with such a subterraneous elysium, the garden discovered by Don Quixotte, in his memorable exploration of the cave of Montesinos, el mas bello, ameno y deleitoso que puede criar la naturaleza-the most beautiful and delightful that nature ever made—is but a kitchen garden.

But what is even the cave of the Guacharo to the Flaming Caves of Cumanacoa-two wonders of nature hidden among the same mountains? In the face of a tremendous precipice looking over the savage woods that skirt the mountain below, are two immense