xt737p8tb93j https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt737p8tb93j/data/mets.xml Hughes, R. E. (Robert Elkin), b. 1869. 1901  books b92-106-27901845 English Corbitt Railway Printing Co.], : [Chicago : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Kentucky Description and travel.Ousley, C. C. Kentucky the beautiful  / by R.E. Hughes and C. C. Ousley ; issued by the Passenger Department, Louisville and Nashville Railroad. text Kentucky the beautiful  / by R.E. Hughes and C. C. Ousley ; issued by the Passenger Department, Louisville and Nashville Railroad. 1901 2002 true xt737p8tb93j section xt737p8tb93j 





















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This page in the original text is blank.


 













  By
R. E. HUGHES
  and
C. C. OUSLEY



K E N T U C KY

, v o T H E o v v

B E A U T I F U L



I SSU ED BY TH E PASSENGER
DEPARTMENT o LOUISVILLE
AND NASHVILLE RAILROAD
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE


 































                     COPYRIGHT, 1901,
                           BY
          C. L. STONE. GENERAL PASSENGER AGENT,

               LOUISVILLE  NASHVILLE R. R.
























COR BITT

CHICAGO


 


KENTUCK Y  THE  V EAUTIFUL



TRAPPIST MONKS AND THEIR PECULIAR AND INTERESTING
              MONASTERY AT GETHSEMAN.\NE.

          ORTY - EIGHT     miles out from  Louisville-a
   E      pleasant run over the Louisville  Nashville Rail-
            road-is Gethsemane station, the "getting-off
            place" for visitors to the home of the most
            remarkable monastic community in the world,
            Gethsemane Abbey.    The abbatial buildings,
            colleges, schools, mills, shrines and the abbey
            itself, cluster in as beautiful a bit of landscape
            as can be found the length and breadth of the
            commonwealth. Here is the home of one of the
            two orders of Trappist Monks on this side the
Atlantic. The other is near Dubuque, Iowa.
   Before penetrating the supposed mysteries that surround
this community, however, the tourist should go prepared with
a bit of history. The romantic, imaginary and the unreal have
been allowed such freedom in dealing with this unique order
that it is a positive relief to turn to authoritative sources and
review the true history. The Abbey of Notre Dame de la
Maison de la Trappe was founded about 1140 A. D., by Botron,
Count of Perche, at Soligny la Trappe, de- 2Brief history
partment of Orne, Normandy.    It was a of famous
reform of the Benedictine Order of the fifth Order
century and to-day the Trappists follow the rule of St. Benedict
in its primitive rigor. The monastery's name grew from its
location in a vale near Soligny called "The Trap," because
there was a single entrance through the rugged hills that
enclosed the gorge.
   A few years later the abbey became a dlepen(lency of the




 


KEN TUCK Y  THE  BEAU TIF UL



Cistercian Order.  Time wrought destructive changes and
the rigor of the ancient order relaxed. The wars between
France and England also exercised a deleterious influence
on La Trappe and many times was the abbey pillaged.
   A reformer came in Armand Jean Bouthillier de Rance,
a wealthy Norman nobleman of Paris, who, after a wild and
reckless youth, entered the monastery. The ancient discipline

Abbey of (.ethseane. the only Trappist Monastery in the  nitewd States.
















was not only restored by him but its austerity was increased.
De Rance from the time of his entry into the order in 1662
became as devout as he had previously been dissipated. He
it was who introduced among the monks the vows of silence
and obedience and he instituted the custom observed until a
few brief years ago of the Trappists greeting each other with
the salutation, "Alfemen/o Mtortis" (remember death).
Arrit'al        The stormy political history of France played
of the          with varying effects on the Trappist Order,
French Monts but it was the revolutionary year of 1848 that
resulted in the marching out from the gates of St. Melleray,



6


 


LOUISVILLE L NASHVILLE X. R.



near Nantes, of a solemn company of silent men bound for a
new home on the Western Continent. The party embarked at
Havre. One Trappist died and was buried at sea during the
stormy voyage of thirty-two days to New Orleans. The monks
ascended the Mississippi and Ohio and landed at Portland,
now a part of Louisville. With a cross in the lead, they
marched on foot to their future monastery, then a wooden
structure that had formerly been occupied as an academy
by the Sisters of Loretto.  They arrived at Gethsemane
December 20, 1848.
   The stillness and peacefulness that pervade the monastery
seem to spread to the surrounding atmosphere and impress
the visitor on his approach.  The great three-story brick
building, the abbey, with its surrounding stone wall, rises
above the trees and the reflected rays of the sun come stream-
ing from the great golden cross. Perchance on approach late
in the day one may hear the music of the vesper bells.
From the abbey gates to the porter's lodge an avenue 5oo
feet long leads through four rows of magnificent English
elms.
   On the way from the porter's lodge to the monastery
proper the visitor is led through a beautiful garden, in the
center of which is a statue of the Virgin Mary, mounted
on a rustic hillock, and on the frame-work surrounding the
wooden benches that line the divided path is the inscription
in Latin, " Hail Sweet Virgin Mary."
   Twenty-four rooms in the monastery are set aside for guests.
Each room is named after a saint. Often, indeed much of the
time, this side of the monastery is full of visitors who come for
a week or so of quiet retreat.  Hospitality is enjoined and
the plain but bounteous fare is served in a neat dining-room
that is marked by that cleanliness characteristic of every
nook an(l corner of Gethsemane.


 


KENT UCK Y THE BEAUTIFUL



   The refectory, or monks' dining-hall, is located on the south
side of the abbey. Trappists eat only that they may live.
Long wooden tables are lined by benches on which the
somber cowled men sit and eat their frugal meal once a day.
A tin plate, tin cup and wooden spoon are allotted each monk.
The Trappists eat no meat. In a room adjoining the dining-
hall is a confessional for the brethren, above which is suspended
the wooden cross that was brought from France in 1848.
   Above these rooms is the dormitory. This is a long room
partitioned into cells, in each of which is a bunk of boards
covered with a straw pallet. A woolen coverlet protects from
the rigors of cold. The poor monk stretches his weary body
on this hard bed without the luxury of disrobing.
   Near at hand to the dormitory and dining-hall building
are the church, an imposing cruciform edifice 2IO feet in
length, the infirmary, the apothecary and the library, the
latter stocked with hundreds of rare old volumes in Latin,
Spanish, French and English. Newspapers and worldly books are
never read, save on rare occasions by the Superior or by his
orders.
GraVe eVer    Opening from a side door of the abbey comes
open for a    the graveyard and recreation grounds, the most
tenant        lugubrious place imaginable and one of the
intensely interesting features of Gethsemane. Over eighty
mounds coated with ivy mark the resting places of the
departed Trappists.  Rude crosses in wood stood at the
heads of these mounds until recent years when more enduring
crosses of iron have been substituted, though in several in-
stances the old wooden crosses are yet to be seen.  Beside
the grave of the monk who departed last is a grave begun
but not finished. When the next monk dies this grave will
be excavated and after the burial another will be started,
destined for the next holy man called hence. When a burial




 


LOUISVILLE  NASHVILLE R. R.

takes place a brother monk descends into the grave and in
his arms receives the body of the Trappist. The virgin soil is
tenderly placed upon the cowl. No coffin ever encloses the
body.
   Generally speaking, ladies are never admitted to the
monastery. Exceptions to the rule are made in two instances,
in favor of the wife of the Governor of Kentucky and the wife
of the President of the United States. And even these "first
ladies" are denied the privilege of setting foot on certain more
sacred and secluded portions of the place. And still another
noteworthy exception to the rule has at some time occurred,
for in the grewsome cemetery where the wooden and iron
crosses mark row after row of the monks who have returned
to dust there is a modest marble tombstone marking the last
sleeping place of a woman. In the public burying ground that


                                Gethsemane-Burial Gron-l of the Monks.




 


KENT U CK Y  THE  BEAU TIF UL



may be easily reached during a visit to Gethsemane will be
found the grave of a sister of Jefferson Davis, the President
of the Confederacy.
   The day of the Trappist ordinarily begins at 2.00 a. m.
In winter the monks retire at seven and in summer at eight



zethvemlane-Englishl Elm Avenue.



O'clock.  An hour at midday is allowed for a nap in the
latter season. From the hour of rising to that of retiring the
time is spent in devotion and manual labor, with a brief
respite for reading and rest and the simple meal that sustains
the peculiar existence of the Trappists.
                             10




 
LOUISVILLE 6 NASHVILLE R. R.



Gcthsett ane-StatuC of Virgin Mary.


    r . K    :

       AXE




 


KENT UCK Y  THE  BEA UTIF UL



                           .0
   THE SPOT THAT GAVE THE INSPIRATION TO STEPHEN
         COLLINS FOSTER FOR HIS SONG "MY OLD
                   KENTUCKY HOME."

                   HERE are more enduring monuments than
                   granite, and Stephen Collins Foster has
                   one.  His world-renowned " My Ol(
                   Kentucky Home," the most beautiful
                   of his many compositions, will live as
 I          Ulong as the State he honored with the
                    name has a surviving son or daughter.
                    Foster was not a Kentuckian, but his
                    ancestry were Southern. This put him
                    in touch with the plantation life existing
below the Mason-Dixon line, enabling him to give to the
world his " Old Folks at Home," "Massa's in the Cold
Ground," etc., but " My Old Kentucky Home" came from
his musical nature while he was on a summer's sojourn at
a typical residence in the Bluegrass State. The house from
which he derived the thoughts embodied in the song still
stands. It is known as " Federal Hill," the residing place for
almost a century of the Rowan family, and is within the city
limits of Bardstown, on the Louisville  Nashville Railroad.
It was there that-Judge John Rowan, a Congressman, United
States Senator and learned jurist lived for many years; there
that Hon. John Rowan, Jr., endowed also with rare intellect
and who held high official position, lived until his death, since
which his widow, once a lady of great beauty and popularity
and who even in her old age retains much of these splendid
gifts, has resided at the historic mansion.
   It was late in the '5os, only five or six years before
his death, that Foster, then in bad health, came to Kentucky



I12




 



LOUISVILLE             e   NASHVILLE              R.    a(.

from his Pennsylvania home, at the urgent solicitation of
the Rowans, to pay "Federal Hill" an extended visit. This
stay, as Foster often saidl, was one of the most Health
pleasant periods of his life. Surrounded by  Was Sought;
all that was beautiful, it was easy for the man Fame
who had given expression to so many soul- Was Found
stirring melodies to compose his tribute to the mansion of the
Blue Grass.  It is doubtless possible that Foster wrote the
three verses of " My Old Kentucky Home " in quite as many
(lays, and gave a fitting musical expression to the words
employed as rapidly as his pencil dropped the lines. He was
inspired alike by the beautiful sunshine of the mornings and
the yellow moonlight of the nights that fell upon " Federal


                     Federal lill, residence of Judge Rowan. where Foster wrote
                               Ad My Old Kentucky ome.-'



     , I   L11      ,
  ,,sl11,,,   I
...........""
)!"i` 11"                  ,
  II , ,
  -  I           11 I11
1,




 


KENTUCK Y  THE  BEAU TIF UL



Hill," by the waving golden grain, the hush of the corn,
the negroes in the field, the lazy little darkies in the cabins,
and finally by the warblings of the mocking-bird, the thrush's
mellow song and the fife-like notes of the Kentucky Cardi-
nal, given fame by James Lane Allen.


                           10'

  EXILED KING OF FRENCH LIVED IN A HOUSE STILL
                STANDING AT BARDSTOWN.

          HE identical house in which that famous king of
            the French, Louis Phillippe, passed the years of
            his exile in America is to be seen to this day at
            Bardstown.  The old house stands on a cross
      K     street in the center of the little city, less than a
            five-minute walk from the Louisville  Nashville
            Railroad station. The Bourbon king, forced to
            flee over the seas, feared for his life to remain
            in one of the cities of the East, and at the invi-
            tation of a    Ruin., of the house in which Louis Phillippe
            Kentuck-              taught a class in French.
ian came over the
mountains and spent
the days of his exile
in the village that was
at that time the life of  
the West.
  The house was a two-
story log structure and
the same walls now
stand that sheltered
the king, though the



1.J




 


LOUISVILLE              e   NASHVILLE              R. R.

external appearance of the house has been changed by weather-
boarding.  It was here that King Louis Phillippe boarded
while he taught a French class in the then flourishing St.
Joseph's College, where Bishop Flaget, whose acquaintance
-made in Europe-had broadened into a warm friendship
with the king, gave the latter a position. Phillippe Danced
Children of pioneers relate to this day  with Kentucky
the tales told them  by their fathers of Belles
how the exiled monarch sat beneath the trees in front of
the old house after the day's lessons wvere over and chatted
with his neighbors.  Miany,    First Cathedral WVest of the Alleghenies
too, are the stories handed
down of the manner in which
this royal visitor participated
in the festivities of the old
Bayne Tavern-the foundation
of which still stands-a famous
hostelry at the beginning of
the last century, and of the
king's pleasure in dancing
with the Kentucky beauties,
as famous then as nowv.
   Louis Phillippe appreciated
the hospitality of his Kentucky
friends, and many of them were handsomely remembered when
the monarch was restored to his title. The bell in St. Joseph's
Church was presented to the good bishop on Phillippe's
return to France and the beautiful-toned instrument still
hangs in the tower of St. Joseph's Church at Bardstown.
The bell was recast in i887 out of the metal originally sent
across the Atlantic. This historic church, the first cathedral
west of the Allegheny Mountains, contains one of the rarest
and costliest paintings in existence-an altar-piece valued at



15




 


KEN TUCK Y             THE       nBEAUTIFUL

100,000.  It is twenty-one feet high by twelve feet wide,
and was painted by the famous Antwerp artist, Van Bri.
It also was presented to Bishop Flaget by King louis
Plhillippe.








            Where Kling Louis Phillippe boarded during his exile.




 


LOUISVILLE               NASHVILLE              LR. R,.



  PLACE WHERE HARRIET BEECHER STOWE GOT THE
         CHARACTERS FOR HER FAMOUS WAR-
                PRODUCING SLAVE EPIC.

          ERHAPS the most interesting character in Ken-
            tucky, from a historical point of view, is Norman
            Kennedy Argo of Paint Lick, Garrard County.
            A half day's ride on the Louisville  Nashville
            brings one to this hamlet, with its store, roller-
            mill and blacksmith's shop. A small depot for
            freight and passenger purposes combined is the
            first thing that meets the eye of the traveler;
            the second is a diminutive creature as black as
            the proverbial ace of spades, standing well
            back on the platform. Approached and asked
his name, he will straighten up as far as three feet nine
inches of stature and sixty pounds of weight will permit and
answer in a voice that seems to come from his heels, it is of
such depth, " I'se old Norman; I knowed Uncle Tom;
what's yer name"
   Norman, like most of the other inhabitants A Playmate
of the village, meets every train. Engaging of
him in conversation will elicit the story of Uncle Tom
his life in a darkey dialect, peculiar to the ante-bellum black
man of the South, a dialect now as rare as rag-time song and
minstrel joke imitations are base. He tells a stranger in the
first breath that he knew " Uncle Tom " because he thinks it
will be the next question he will have to answer, an intuition
justified by many years' contact with those who have heard
of his career and seek affirmation at his hands. Norman is
the sole survivor of the ioi slaves left by General Thomas
                            17




 


KEN TUCK Y  THE  BEAU TIF U 1



Kennedy, who lived near Paint Lick, at his death.  One
hundred were willed to the old general's son, Thomas Ken-
nedy, Jr.. while Norman, one of the house-boys, was given
to Robert Argo, hence the name he now bears-Norman
Kennedy Argo.   It was General Kennedy who owned the
chief characters of Mrs. Stowe's immortal novel, "Uncle
A Playmate 4f Uncle Tc,,,.  Toni's Cabin," and it is
                            through old Norman's ac-
                            quaintance with them that any
                            importance attaches to him.
                            if the fact that he is over a
                            hundred years old and has
                            lived in three centuries is not
                            considered.
                               It will be remembered
                         , that Mrs. Stowe opens her
                             book by referring to Paint
                             Lick as "a quiet little town."
                                    That was over fifty
                 -       fi years ago and it has
                                    grown very little
                                    since. This to the
                                    contrary, however,
                                    no place with a hun-
                                    dred times its growth
                                    can boast of the many
                                    things that have com-
                                    bined to make it well
known. No sight-seeing trip through Kentucky is complete
without including it in the itinerary. It was in the Paint Lick
neighborhood that Stephen A. Burchard, whose " Rum,
Romanism and Rebellion" speech in '84 probably defeated
James G. Blaine for the Presidency; Rev. Geo. 0. Barnes,



18


 


LOUISVILLE 6 NASHVILLE R. k.



the noted "Mountain Evangelist," and Hon. R. M. Bradley,
the father of the first Republican governor of Kentucky,
were born. There, too, first saw the light of day Nathan
Hall and Nathan Rice, far-famed divines, and Commodore
Cicero Price, whose daughter Lillian, now Lady Beresford
of England, was Dowager Duchess of Marlborough.  Paint
Lick is also the home of the best known fox hunters of
America, the Walker brothers, who entertain annually in
chases for a week the redoubtable Jack Chinn, of race-track
and State capital fame.
   It was certainly fitting that Mrs. Stowe should have
located the originals of her novel in this modest little town, for
it is east by only eighteen miles of the first Union recruiting
station south of the Ohio River-Camp Dick Robinson, over
the destinies of which once presided such  Rich Field
noted Federal generals as Anderson, the  for
hero of Fort Sumter, Thomas, Sherman, Such Labors
Nelson, Landram, Fry and Woolford, during the war which
followed the publication of the book.  By even a shorter
distance to the west may be found Berea College, the first
and doubtless only school ever established in the South for
the co-education of the races. It lies not far, too, from
"White Hall," the world-renowned home of Gen. Cassius
Marcellus Clay, Sr., the fiercest abolitionist of them all and
ex-minister to Russia. It is within a twelve hours' run also
of the birth-places of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.
Thus did the authoress have good ground upon which to
find her characters and build her story.
   Lewis George Clark, the prototype of George Harris, the
most prominent person in the novel, was owned by General
Kennedy, who was Garrard County's first representative in the
General Assembly of Kentucky, the county's wealthiest
citizen and a large dealer in race horses and negroes. Old
                            19




 


K EN TUCK Y             THE        BEAU TIF U L

Norman says he remembers Clark well and that he slept
an(l worked with him quite frequently.  WVhen young, Clark
was a weaver, knitter and sewer andl cooked well. Because
of these accomplishments he was not sent to the field during
General Kennedy's life, an(l Norman being house-boy got
intimately acquainted with SMrs. Stowe's hero. Young Tom
Kennedy did not long survive his father and Clark was about
to be put up for sale with the other negroes when he
  Kennedy Homestead. where lived the slaves -ho  determined to gain his
      figured in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'  liberty, whatever  the
                                    cost. He informed Nor-
                                    man of his plans, which
                                    included  a bleaching
                                    process from  the mu-
                                    latto that he was to a
                                    tolerably fair-skinnled
                                    dwhite man.   Norman
                                    says Clark inlmedliately
                                    began to wear gloves
                                    and a big hat to his
                                    work and in a few
months, true to his declaration, escaped by stealing a mule and
going north. His wife, Margie, the " Eliza" of the novel, was
left behind, but soon ran off to Louisville.  Here is where o0l
Norman explodes the strongest part of the story, the descrip-
tion of Eliza's (or -Margie's) flight across the drifting ice from
the Kentucky shore to Ohio and freedom. Old Norman says
Margie secreted herself in the Falls City until Clark's
return from the Buckeye State, whither he had gone after
leaving Paint Lick, when she joined him and the two sped
up the Ohio River on a steamboat for Cincinnati. Eliza was
an octoroon won by General Kennedy on a horse race in
Indian Territory.



20




 


LOUISVILLE             et  NASHVILLE              R. R.


   O0l Normanl denies the allegation that General Kennedy
was cruel to his slaves. It is said that the "Uncle Toni" of
the story was not the sensitive, persecuted Little EVa
darkey of Mrs. Stowe's romance, but a lazy, didn't go to
trifling, "no-'count nigger," of whom the woods the Angels
in that locality used to be full, and that his exodus from the
neighborhood was hailed with delight by even his own race.
   The little Eva of the novel never died, but is now a
grandmother and has for a son-in-law one of the leading
Democrats of Kentucky.









              Caip Dick Robinson. first Union recruiting station
                     south of Mason-Dixon Line.




 


K ENT U C KY  T IIE E 1 EAU T IF U 1



MIAMMOTH CAVE. NUMIBERED ANIONG THE GREAT NAWTRAL
               CURIOSITIES OF THE WORLD.

          AMMOTH       CAVE, the greatest subterranean
            wonder in the world, is one of 5oo known cav-
            erns undermining Edmonson County, Ky. Almost
            from the time of the discovery of the cave in
            5 8o9, by a hunter who pursued a wounded bear
            into the mouth of the great recess, the place has
            been the mecca of tourist and scientist. And in
            this day of easy travel the trip from Louisville to
            this marvelous labyrinth of tunnels is the merest
            incident. The cave is about ninety-five miles
            out from the metropolis of the commonwealth
and a delightful ride of scarcely three and a half hours over
the Louisville  Nashville Railroad, supplemented by a few
minutes' journey up a peculiar little mountain railway from
Glasgow Junction, places the tourist at Cave Hotel.  The
fingerprints of almost a century are left on this quaint hostelry
that shelters the stranger during his stay in the cave region.
   Wonders are encountered by the visitor almost from the
moment he steps on the picturesque, winding path leading
from the hotel to the cave entrance. The path suddenly
" Breathing " stops in a gully marked by a black hole
of the Great   at the bottom opening into the side of the
Cavern.         mountain.  If the visitor's arrival should
happen on a hot afternoon or evening in August he will
experience the delight of an instantaneous change from a
torrid climate of something like go degress to the pleasant air
of an October afternoon. The current of air rushing from
the mouth of the cave is responsible for this change. The
                            22




 









S  B i RW
  g j j
I1  


 


KENT U CK Y  THE  BEA UTIF UL



atmospheric stream flows with force sufficient to at once dry
the perspiration from the brow and momentarily chill the
flesh. It is popularly described as the "breath" of the cave,
the cool air constantly rushing out in summer and the heavy
cold air continually flowing in in winter.
   Passing through the narrow gate that opens into the hall-
way of this marvelous and mystic mansion built by nature's
master architect, water, the visitor has before him in the
neighborhood of 200 miles of underground avenues, stately
chambers, tortuous passages, stairways, inclines, halls and
domes. The regulation courses or " routes" mapped out by
the guides are such that each moment brings with it its par-
ticular wonder.
   The first stop is made at the Rotunda, a magnificent cav-
ern whose limestone ceiling vaults some fifty feet above.
Here are to be found the rude leaching vats, log pipes and
Giant's Coffin frame work used by the early miners to
in the           secure the lime nitrate so important in the
Pathway          manufacture of saltpetre.  The identical
objects seen here played their silent but nevertheless effectual
part in tiding the then infant nation over the perilous sea
of 1812.
   To the right of the Rotunda extends Audubon Avenue,
named after the great naturalist. This treasure-laden passage
leads to Olive's Bower, which contains the most beautiful
stalactites to be found in the entire cave. Off to the left
of the Rotunda one strikes the Main Cave, almost as wide
as a city street and fully fifty feet high.  Turning aside
from the Main Cave for a moment before the Rotunda has
been left many rods behind, the visitor may find himself
walking through Gothic Avenue, inspecting numerous grot-
toes and alcoves, examining the snow-white eyeless crusta-
ceans in the Cooling Tub, casting a pebble into the Lake of
                             24


 


LOUI SVILLE el NASHVILLE R. R.



Purity and winding up at the odd little water-fall and its
attendant beauties in Annette's Dome.
   The way is retraced and on again entering the Main
Cave the guide leads his guest directly to one of the most
remarkable sights in the cave, the Giant's Coffin. This is a
colossal rock of limestone formation, plucked in some pre-
historic moment from the wall of the cavern and set down at
the side of the pathway.  The huge rock is estimated to
weigh 2,000 tons, is forty-five feet long, varies from twelve
to fifteen feet in width and has an almost uniform height
of eighteen feet. It is appropriately named from its remark-
able resemblance to an enormous burial casket.
   A little further along the Acute Angle is reached, where
the avenue turns with a suddenness seldom witnessed on a
surface stream of water-for it is supposed this is the river-
bed of a former underground torrent-and then the visitor
pauses at the famous Star Chamber, a name nearly as com-
mon as that of Mammoth Cave itself. Here truly is a sight
of a lifetime.  Probably nowhere else in the world will the
tourist be able to secure so thorough an impression of the
meaning of an utter absence of light. The peculiar, flick-
ering little cave lamps have in a measure penetrated the
shadows, but in the Star Chamber the guest is to be treated
to a new sensation.
   The guide collects all lamps and retraces his steps, leav-
ing his guests alone in a spacious hall with a high, flat
ceiling. He soon loses himself to view and the dim reflection
of the lamps he carries is to be seen on the ceiling. In this
faint light far overhead the spots or "stars" of a thousand
gypsum crystals stand out against a background of mangan-
ese dioxide, giving an excellent imitation of a portion of the
  Milky Way" seen in the inky blackness of a misty sky.
  And then the guide shouts a warning to his guests, the
                              25




 





  m arc
  i 0w0tXX  
   I    


  :X,
In 4 2  f  
    X ,   ir,", tdoW g7
      f  X mIce it



   S g gIs i Al
   . g Ed; E. eE li W0A

NAPO    \Y12fi \j
CAVEa


 


LO UIS VILLE           el   NASH VILLE            X.    R.

receding footsteps of the pilot in this sea of darkness are
again heard, an(l, presto!-all light is gone. The senses of
the visitor are appalled by the terrifying intensity of the in-
describable blackness and he is left in hopelessness and awe
until the  guide makes his welcome      Five "Stories'"
reappearance.  Brief cave description   in this NVature's
will have accomplished its purpose ini Mansion
the mind of the reader if it persuades himi to make a per-
sonal inspection of these ever-recurring wonders. There are
five tiers or ' stories " to Mammoth Cave, and when the
lowest is reached and all is in readiness for an embarkation
on the wonderful Echo River, the visitor is about 270 feet
beneath the surface of the earth.
   This stream located amid such weird surroundings is
navigable to the three rude boats that ply its surface during
the dry season for a distance of something over half a mile.
The ' river'' has its source in darkness and empties into the
black unknown.   The well-nigh perfect acoustic properties
of the walls rising out of and arching Echo River have been
often described. In places the smooth arch draws down to
within less than three feet of the surface of the water and
the mariner must stoop in his seat. The "river" has a
maximum width of forty or fifty feet and its greatest depth
is believed to be about thirty-five feet. The natural sound-
ing-board formed by the solid rock twisted into hundreds
of nooks and inlets returns the faintest noise or note in a
myriad of echoes. In the cool, (lark waters are often found
marvelous, whitish fish and crawfish that Nature has kindly
deprived of eyes because of their utter uselessness in such a
place.
   Mere mention can here be made of a few of the many
other wonders shown by the guide on even the briefest cave
journey. Mammoth Dome, about 150 feet from floor to
                             27


 
K ENT U C KY THE BEAUTIFUL



vaulted roof, is one of the striking glories of the cavern.
Its almost perpendicular walls are relieved by gigantic col-
umns rich in sculpture that the hand of man might imitate
but not excel.  Often these walls suggest that they might
have served as models for the sculptors of the interiors of the
ancient Egyptian pyramids.
   The Bottomless Pit is another glorious cavern which,
despite its name, has been fathomed.  This was first crossed
where now there is a tiny bridge by the elder Bishop, guide
and explorer, on a cedar sapling. The Cataracts, the Bacon
Chamber, Lover's Leap, Standing Rocks, the Arm Chair,
the Cork Screw, the Bridal Altar-where half a dozen
weddings have occurred - River Styx, Martha Washing-
ton's Statue and a double score of other interesting features
found in this land of darkness get their names from imagi-
nations keenly descriptive, and a