plying the ear to this opening, the sound of an immense cataract
becomes audible, pouring over the rocks far within the recesses of the
mountain, where the Creator alone, who meted out those unseen, sunless
waters, can behold its beauty and its terror.

Crossing the Pool of Siloam, whose babbling waters sparkled into beauty
as we held our lamps above them, we entered Franklin Hall. Here the
roof, although high enough in some places, is uncomfortably low in
others; whereupon Bob bade us give heed to the caution of Franklin,
'Stoop as you go, and you will miss many hard thumps.'

We arrived next at Flood Hall, where a party of explorers were once put
in great peril by a sudden freshet in the stream. They barely saved
themselves by rapid flight, the water becoming waist-deep before they
gained the entrance. We had no reason to doubt the truth of this story,
as there were evidences of the rise and fall of water all about us.

Congress Hall now awaited us, but I will omit a description of it, as
Musical Hall, which immediately succeeded, contains so much more that is
interesting. On entering, our attention was first directed to an
aperture wide enough for the admission of a man's head. Any sound made
in this opening is taken up and repeated by echo after echo, till the
very spirit of music seems awakened. Wave after wave of melodious sound
charms the ear, even if the first awakening note has been most
discordant. If the soul is filled with silent awe while listening to the
unseen waterfall in Cataract Hall, it is here wooed into peace by a
harmony more perfect than any produced by mortal invention. A
temple-cavern vaster than Ellora with a giant 'lithophone' for organ!

The second wonder of Musical Hall is a lake of great extent, and from
ten to thirty feet in depth. The smooth surface of these crystal waters,
never ruffled by any air of heaven, and undisturbed save by the dip of
our oars as we were ferried across, the utter darkness that hid the
opposite shore from our straining sight, the huge rocks above, whose
clustering stalactites, lighted by our glimmering lamps, sparkled like a
starry sky, the sound of the far-off waterfall, softened by distance
into a sad and solemn music, all united to recall with a vivid power,
never before felt, the passage of the 'pious AEneas' over the Styx, which
I had so often read with delight in my boyhood. I half fancied our
Yankee Bob fading into a vision of the classic Charon, and that