t might well be called the Water Route, for no
dry spot is touched on the round trip; but if one goes prepared for
such a journey it is well worth the effort and the mud. If the visitor
is a man, the suit worn should be one he is ready to part with, or
overalls; ladies receive the same advice even to the overalls, as some
of the most beautiful portions of the cave, which we failed to see, can
be visited only in that objectionable costume. To visit any cave
comfortably a short dress is necessary and if any thing like a thorough
knowledge of the ramifications is desired, the unavoidable climbing will
soon prove the superior claims of a divided skirt; but if it is properly
made, only the wearer need be conscious of the divide. Rubber boots and
water-proof protection for the head and shoulders complete a costume
that is not exactly an artistic creation, unless our ideas of art have
been gathered in the school of Socrates, but it is suited to the
requirements of the occasion and makes the explorations far more easy
and profitable than they otherwise could be.

The passage back of the White Throne is called the Serpentine Passage,
and most of it is sufficiently high for traveling in an erect position;
yet there are several places that require crawling. The first stopping
point is the Gulf of Doom Room, or as it is also known, the Register
Room, because here visitors usually write their names in the peculiar
dark red clay, which is moist but firm and cuts with a polish. This
room is twenty-five feet high and fifty feet wide, and looks off into
the Gulf of Doom, which seems rightly named when a rock is thrown into
it and you note the lapse of time before any sound returns; and when the
awful Gulf is made visible by lights thrown in, one involuntarily seeks
a firmer footing and clings to a projecting rock. The height of the Gulf
is ninety-five feet and the distant sound of falling water is not
reassuring. The walls are not smoothly worn away, but have the rough and
weird appearance of having been torn by a torrent in a narrow mountain
gorge, and are stained with the dark clay.

Retracing our steps a short distance, if that style of locomotion could
be called steps, we turned into Dore's Gallery, and surely that artist
was in his usual working mood when he conceived this awful method of
connecting the upper regions with the lower. Great bowlders have fallen
down without helping to fill the black holes that received them, and
int