I inquired of Bob when the cave was discovered.  ‘In 1842,’ he replied.  ‘And by whom?’ I continued.  ‘Why,’ rejoined our guide, ’Mister Howe was a huntin’ for caves, and he came across this one.’  Rather a queer thing to be hunting for, I thought, though without comment; but in future I allowed Bob to carry on the conversation as best suited himself.  He plunged at once into a dissertation on the state of the country, gravely stating that ‘Washington was taken.’  At the involuntary smile which this astounding piece of news called forth, Bob confessed ’he might be mistaken in this respect, as his paper came but once a week, and frequently only once in two weeks.’  Finding him a stanch Union man, and inclined to serve his country to the best of his ability, we undertook ‘to post him up’ on the present state of affairs, for which the poor fellow was truly grateful.

Entrance Hall leads into Washington Hall, a magnificent apartment, three hundred feet long, and in the lowest part upwards of forty feet high.  Our guide favored us at every turn with some new story or legend, repeated in a sing-song, nasal tone, ludicrously contrasting with the extravagance of the tales themselves.  Yet he recited all alike with the most immovable gravity.  It was a lively waltz of three notes.

Old Tunnel and Giant’s Chapel, two fine cave-rooms, were next explored.  On entering the latter, Bob favored us with the rehearsal of an old story from the Arabian Nights, which—­unfortunately, not one which will bear repetition—­he wished us to believe actually happened in this very locality.

I may here confess that, when we came to ‘the dark hole in the ground,’ I felt some slight reluctance to trust myself therein.  Bob, observing this, immediately drew from his lively imagination such an astonishing increase of the perils of the way, looking complacently at me all the while, that my alarm, strange to say, took flight at once, and I pushed onward defiantly.  The journey is, however, one that might justly inspire timidity.  Above our heads, and on each side, frowned immense rocks, threatening at every instant to fall upon us; while the dash and babble of a stream whose course we followed, increasing in volume as we progressed, came to our ears like the ‘sound of many waters.’  We crossed this stream a hundred times, at least, in our journey.  Sometimes it murmured and fretted in a chasm far below us; again, it spread itself out in our very path, or danced merrily at our side, until it seemed to plunge into some distant abyss with the roar of a cataract.

We emerged from the windings of our tortuous path into Harlem Tunnel, a room six hundred feet in length.  In its sides were frequent openings, leading into hitherto unexplored parts of the cave; but we did not venture to enter many of these.  Never have I seen such rocks as we here encountered; at one time piled up on one another, ready to totter and fall at a touch; at another, jutting out in immense boulders, sixty feet above our heads, while, in the openings they left, we gazed upward into darkness that seemed immeasurable.