the hill, and consequently must
have been cold and comfortless. They were kept prisoners within their
narrow cells, for the rough rocks and stones everywhere abounding
rendered a promenade for invalids quite impracticable. The deprivation
of sunlight, fresh air, and all the beauties of the earth must have been
the direst punishment imaginable. No wonder these poor creatures were
carried out one by one to die.

The last one having become so weak that it was deemed unsafe to move
him, his friends resolved to stay with him in the cavern till the last.
What transpired is now beyond investigation. Whether some effect of
light, which in this cavern has a most mysterious and awful appearance,
or whether the death-bed was one of terrors, owing to some imp of
mischief having laid a plan to "scare" them, as they say in this
country, is not known; but they rushed terror-stricken from the cave,
and on reaching the hotel fell down insensible. Subsequently they
declared they had seen spirits carrying away their friend. Mustering a
strong force, the people from _terra firma_, with the guides and plenty
of torches, sallied down to the lower and supposed infernal regions. The
spirits, however, had fled, leaving nothing but the stiffening corpse
of the poor consumptive. This ended all hope of the cavern as a cure for
consumption.

The Mammoth Cave is perhaps the most extensively explored cavern known.
It extends for nine continuous miles, so that it would be possible to
walk fifty miles in and out by different roads. The cavern consists of
various large chambers and lofty domes, averaging from twenty to one
hundred feet in height. Some of the chambers exactly resemble the tombs
of the kings of Egypt, and the narrow tortuous defiles through the rocks
are also very like the roads into the Pyramids. Most of these chambers
are merely natural excavations in the solid rock. One of the white-domed
ceilings is covered with a thick scroll-pattern traced in black, and
consists entirely of bats, which take up their winter quarters in these
caverns, and fare better in them apparently than the consumptives. It is
curious how these sightless creatures, from various parts of the
country, find out the caves, so impervious to light and cold, and where,
from the noise they make, they seem to have a merry time of it. Not so,
however, the visitors passing through this part of the cave; for the
bats are apt to fly right in one's face, or stick against one'