Chapter IV

The Ball-Room--Willie's Spring--Wandering Willie--Ox-Stalls--Giant's Coffin--Acute-Angle or Great Bend--Range of Cabins--Curative Properties of the Cave Air long known.

We are now again in the Main Cave or Grand Gallery, which continues to increase in interest as we advance, eliciting from our party frequent and loud exclamations of admiration and wonder. Not many steps from the stairs leading down from the Gothic Avenue into the Main Cave, is the Ball-Room, so called from its singular adaptedness to such a purpose; for there is an orchestra, fifteen or eighteen feet high, large enough to accommodate a hundred or more musicians, with a gallery extending back to the level of the high embankment near the Gothic Avenue; besides which, the avenue here is lofty, wide, straight and perfectly level for several hundred feet. At the trifling expense of a plank floor, seats and lamps, a ball-room might be had, if not more splendid, at all events more grand and magnificent than any other on earth. The effect of music here would be truly inspiring; but the awful solemnity of the place may, in the opinion of many, prevent its being used as a temple of Terpsichore. Extremes, we are told, often meet. The same objection has been urged against the Cave's being used for religious services. "No clergyman," remarked a distinguished divine, "be he ever so eloquent could concentrate the attention of his congregation in such a place. The God of nature speaks too loud here for _man to be heard_."

Leaving these points to be settled as they may, we will proceed onwards; the road now is broad and fine, and in many places dusty. Next in order is Willie's Spring, a beautifully fluted niche in the left hand wall, caused by the continual attrition of water trickling down into a basin below. This spring derives its name from that of a young gentleman, the son of a highly respectable clergyman of Cincinnati, who, in the spirit of romance, assumed the name of Wandering Willie, and taking with him his violin, marched on foot to the Cave. Wishing no better place in which to pass the night, he selected this spot, requesting the guide to call for him in the morning. This he did and found him fast asleep upon his bed of earth, with his violin beside him--ever since it has been called Willie's Spring. Just beyond the spring and near the left wall, is the place where the oxen were fed during the time of the miners; and strewn around are a great many corn-cobs, to all appearance, and in fact, perfectly sound, although they have lain there for more than thirty years. In this neighborhood is a niche of great size in the wall on the left, and reaching from the roof to the bottom of a pit more than thirty feet deep, down the sides of which, water of the purest kind is continually dripping, and is afterwards conducted to a large trough, from which the invalids obtain their supply of water, during their sojourn in the Cave. Near the bottom, this pit or well expands into a large room, out of which, there is no opening. It is probable that Richardson's Spring in the Deserted Chambers is supplied from this well. Passing the Well Cave, Rocky Cave, etc., etc., we arrived at the Giant's Coffin, a huge rock on the right, thus named from its singular resemblance in shape to a coffin; its locality, apart from its great size, renders it particularly conspicuous, as all must pass around it, in leaving the Main Cave, to visit the rivers and the thousand wonders beyond. At this point commence those incrustations, which, portraying every imaginable figure on the ceiling, afford full scope to the fanciful to picture what they will, whether of "birds, or beasts, or creeping things." About a hundred yards beyond the Coffin, the Cave makes a majestic curve, and sweeping round the Great Bend or Acute-Angle, resumes its general course. Here the guide ignited a Bengal light. This vast amphitheatre became illuminated, and a scene of enchantment was exposed to our view. Poets may conceive, but no language can describe, the splendor and sublimity of the scene. The rapturous exclamations of our party might have been heard from afar, both up and down this place of wonders. Opposite to the Great Bend, is the entrance of the Sick Room Cave, so called from the fact of the sudden sickness of a visiter a few years ago, supposed to have been caused by his smoking, with others, cigars in one of its most remote and confined nooks. Immediately beyond the Great Bend, a row of cabins, built for consumptive patients, commences. All of these are framed buildings, with the exception of two, which are of stone. They stand in line, from thirty to one hundred feet apart, exhibiting a picturesque, yet at the same time, a gloomy and mournful appearance. They are well furnished, and without question, would with good and comfortable accommodations, pure air and uniform temperature, cure the pulmonary consumption. The invalids in the Cave ought to be cured; but I doubt whether the Cave air or any thing else can cure confirmed Phthisis. A knowledge of the curative properties of the Cave air, is not, as is generally supposed, of recent date. It has been long known. A physician of great respectability, formerly a member of Congress from the district adjoining the Cave, was so firmly convinced of the medical properties of its air, as to express more than twenty years ago, as his opinion, that the State of Kentucky ought to purchase it, with a view to establish a hospital in one of its avenues. Again the author of "Calavar," himself a distinguished professor of medicine, makes the following remarks in relation to the Cave air, as far back as 1832, the date of his visit:

"It is always temperate. Its purity, judging from its effects on the lungs, and from other circumstances, is remarkable, though in what its purity consists, I know not. But, be its composition what it may, it is certain its effects upon the spirits and bodily powers of visiters, are extremely exhilarating; and that it is not less salubrious than enlivening. The nitre diggers were a famously healthy set of men; it was a common and humane practice to employ laborers of enfeebled constitutions, who were soon restored to health and strength, though kept at constant labour; and more joyous, merry fellows were never seen. The oxen, of which several were kept day and night in the Cave, hauling the nitrous earth, were after a month or two of toil, in as fine condition for the shambles, as if fattened in the stall. The ordinary visiter, though rambling a dozen hours or more, over paths of the roughest and most difficult kind, is seldom conscious of fatigue, until he returns to the upper air; and then it seems to him, at least in the summer season, that he has exchanged the atmosphere of paradise for that of a charnel warmed by steam--all without is so heavy, so dank, so dead, so mephitic. Awe and even apprehension, if that has been felt, soon yield to the influence of the delicious air of the Cave; and after a time a certain jocund feeling is found mingled with the deepest impressions of sublimity, which there are so many objects to awaken. I recommend all broken hearted lovers and dyspeptic dandies to carry their complaints to the Mammoth Cave, where they will undoubtedly find themselves "translated" into very buxom and happy persons before they are aware of it."