rance, that is by no means the measure of its extent,
but only the extent of the direct route; there being a number of other
tunnels branching off from it on either side, some of which connect with
it again at a distance of several miles, and some of which have not been
explored to their connection, if they have any.

The total length of all the explored avenues is estimated at over one
hundred miles. If a single day's experience in the cave were sufficient
ground for offering an opinion, I should say that this was a large
over-estimate; but I have no doubt that, like all other great works of
both art and nature, it grows upon the sense of the beholder. But even
setting down its extent at half the foregoing estimate, none can tread
these hollow chambers, thinking of others unexplored, and extending not
only from that distant nine-mile-station, but on every hand, into the
unknown, without a feeling of awe and fear.

Thus on and on through the echoing avenues, where the reverberation of
our footsteps seemed to follow stealthily far behind us, through chamber
and hall, where my guide in the advance flung up his lights, revealing
for an instant the grim and distant vaults,--through "Star Chamber,"
five hundred feet long, seventy in width, and sixty in height, "Cloud
Room," a quarter of a mile in length, sixty feet in height, "Deserted
Chamber," "River Hall," "Revellers' Hall," "The Great Walk,"--through
all these, and a dozen more, we wandered, until, after two hours' walk,
and at a distance of four and a half miles from the entrance to the
cave, I paused upon the muddy banks of the "Styx," and, stooping, dipped
up in my hands a draught from its cold, sunless waters.

Here my guide would willingly have played Charon to my Ulysses, but as
no one had penetrated thus far into the cave for several months, the
boat used to carry visitors over, and to voyage up and down the short
river (only a hundred and fifty yards in length), had sunk, and we
found it impossible to raise it.

The river is about twenty-five feet in width, its course crossing that
of the cave at right angles, and its channel being simply another avenue
or tunnel on a little lower level than the one by which the visitor
approaches it.

In this stream, as well as in "Echo River," are found the famous eyeless
fish. We dipped in vain, for a long time, in hopes of capturing some of
these. At last I was fortunate enough to secure one tiny specimen, about
two inch