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But let us enter the Bat Rooms—the Big
Bat room and the Little one—the latter being
a narrow branch of the former, remarkable
only for its two pits, one of which, the
Crevice Pit, is the deepest that has been
measured in the whole cave.

The Big Bat Room is about one third of a
mile long, counting from its entrance, which
is not half a mile as is generally supposed,
but just three hundred yards from the mouth
of the cave. It is interesting only from its
width and height, which it preserves nearly
to the end unimpaired. It terminates in
mounds of massive sandstone, that, with the
assistance of water ever dripping through

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them, have crushed in the roof, leaving a
shadowy dome above them. The Little Bat
Room opens in its left wall, six or seven hundred
feet from the Vestibule. It is long,
winding, low, and deep; and was once the
bed of a torrent that has worn its walls into
a thousand figures, with numerous winding
holes which lead perhaps into other caverns,
but are too small to be entered. It is now
dry, like other parts of the cave, and blackened
by age, or by the smoke of the torches
of the ancient inhabitants of the cave and the
miners. Within but a few feet of its extremity,
there are two low-browed niches, one
in each wall, nearly opposite each other, the
blackest, ugliest looking places in the whole
world, particularly that on the left hand,
which is a hundred times blacker and uglier
than the other. One feels an instinctive horror
of this place at the very first look, and
perceives a crab-like inclination in his legs
to sidle away from it, if not to beat a retreat
altogether. There never was better occasion
for instinct. Under that niche, down to
which the rocky floor you stand on so treacherously
inclines, is a pit three hundred feet
deep—ay, by'r lady! and perhaps three times
three hundred more to the back of them, if

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not three times three thousand—who can
tell? Mr. Lee struck bottom at two hundred
and eighty feet; but, as in the case of the
Bottomless Pit, to be spoken of hereafter, a
stone thrown down tells quite another story.
Bang, bang, rattle, rattle, bang, bang again,
down it goes; now loud, now low, now loud
again, and then softer and softer, until the
sound gradually becomes inaudible. One
false step on this villanous floor, and the thing
is settled. You roll over, as a matter of
course; and, as another matter of course,
that hideous niche receives you into its jaws,
ever gaping for prey, like the jaws of a sleeping
alligator in fly time; and then comes the
plunge of the three hundred feet, the crashing
of bone and flesh, the—pah!

But let us sit down by its brink; the guide
has many a wild and dreary story to tell,
which can be best told in such a place as
this.

And, first, he tells us that this identical
abyss—the Crevice Pit, as it is called—
sounded by Mr. Lee in 1835, with a string
having a stone tied to the end of it, was
sounded, many a long year before, by the
miners, pretty much in the same way; only
that, instead of a stone to the string, they

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had a young negro tied to the end of it.
However, this highly original plummet, it
appears, was tied on with its own consent,
the lad being a bold romantic fellow, ambitious
to signalize himself by a daring exploit,
and perhaps a brilliant discovery. Down,
therefore, into the pit they lowered him;
though with an effect singularly resembling
that attending the Knight of La Mancha's
descent into the cave of Montesinos. The
rope suddenly became light, its burden had
vanished; though, in due course of time, it
again felt heavy in the hands of the miners,
who, drawing it up, found the adventurer at
its end as before. Some very wondrous
story he told them, with great glee, of his
having discovered, fifty or sixty feet below,
a spacious and splendid cave, in which he
had walked; but as he never after could be,
by any persuasions, induced to attempt a
second descent, it was thought he had imitated
Don Quixote to the letter, ensconced
himself on the first convenient ledge or shelf,
and dreamed the remainder of the adventure.

The Mammoth Cave, as I observed, was
wrought for saltpetre during the last war,
when the price of that article was so high,

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and the profits of the manufacturer so great,
as to set half the western world gadding
after nitre caves—the gold mines of their
day. Cave hunting, in fact, became a kind
of mania, beginning with speculators, and
ending with hair-brained young men, who
dared from the love of adventure the risks
that others ran for profit. As might be expected,
this passion was not always indulged
without accident; and several caves in Kentucky
and Tennessee obtained a mournful celebrity
as the scenes of painful suffering and disaster.
In some cases, caves have been entered
by explorers who were never again known to
leave them, and around whose fate yet hangs
the deepest mystery. Accidents, not attended
with loss of life, were of frequent occurrence;
and, as for frights, they were lumped
together in report, in the style of a constable's
inventory, as too tedious to mention.

Among the tragical incidents illustrative
of the time and the mania, told by the guide
at the Crevice Pit, the following I consider
worthy of being recorded, and the more so
as it occurred within the immediate vicinity,
and had therefore gained nothing by

“Travelling with increase from mouth to mouth.”

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Four or five miles from the Mammoth
Cave, a few paces from the bridle-path over
the Knobs, by which the visiter coming from
Bell's at the Three Forks, reaches it, is a
cave known as the Pit Cave, though sometimes
called, I believe, Wright's Cave, after
the name of the person who first attempted
to explore it. This man was a speculator,
who having some reason to believe the cave
a valuable one, resolved to examine it; but
possessing little knowledge of caves and less
of the business of the nitre-maker, he applied
to Mr. Gatewood, the proprietor of the works
at the Mammoth Cave, and of course experienced
in both these particulars, to assist
him in the search. A day was accordingly
appointed, on which Mr. Gatewood agreed
to meet him at the cave, and conduct the exploration
in person. But on that day, as it
happened, there arose a furious storm of rain
and thunder; and Mr. Gatewood, not supposing
that even Wright himself would, under
such circumstances, keep the appointment,
remained at his own works. In the meanwhile,
however, Wright had reached the cave,
in company with another man, a miner, though
of no great experience in cave-hunting; and
with him, finding that Mr. Gatewood did not

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come, and having made all his preparations,
he resolved to undertake the exploration himself.
This the two men commenced, and
pursued for several hours without accident
and without fear, seeing, indeed, nothing to
excite alarm, except a cluster of very dangerous
pits, which they passed while engaged in
the search. But by and by, having consumed
much time in rambling about, they discovered
that by some extraordinary oversight,
they had left their store of candles at the
mouth of the cave, having brought in with
them only those they carried in their hands,
which were now burning low. The horrors
of their situation at once flashed on their
minds; they were at a great distance from
the entrance, which there was little hope they
could reach with what remained of their
candles, and the terrible pits were directly on
their path. It was thought, however, that if
they could succeed in passing these, it might
be possible to grope their way from the cave
in the dark, as the portion beyond the pits
offered no unusual interruptions, and was
without branches. The attempt was made;
and as desperation gave speed to their feet,
they had, at last, the inexpressible satisfaction
to reach the pits, and to pass them in

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safety, leaving them several hundred feet behind,
ere their lights entirely failed. But now
began their difficulties. In the confusion and
agitation of mind which beset them at the
moment when the last candle expired, they
neglected to set their faces firmly towards
the entrance; and in consequence, when darkness
at last suddenly surrounded them, they
were bewildered and at variance, Wright
vehemently insisting that they should proceed
in one direction, the miner contending
with equal warmth that the other was the
right one. The violence of Wright prevailed
over the doubts of his follower, who allowed
himself to be governed by the former,
especially when the desperate man offered to
lead the way, so as to be the first to encounter
the pits, supposing he should be wrong.
An expedient for testing the safety of the
path, which Wright hit upon, had also its
effect on his companion's mind; he proposed,
as he crawled along on his hands and feet—
the only way they dare attempt to proceed in
the dark over the broken floor—to throw
stones before him, by means of which it would
be easy to tell when a pit lay in the way. The
miner, accordingly, though with many misgivings,
suffered himself to be ruled, and

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followed at Wright's heels, the latter every moment
hurling a stone before him, and at every
throw uttering some hurried exclamation, now
a prayer, now a word of counsel or encouragement
to his companion, though always expressive
of the deepest agitation and disorder
of mind. They had proceeded in this way
for several moments, until even the miner
himself, believing that if they were in error,
they had crawled far enough to reach the pits,
became convinced his employer was in the
right path; when suddenly the clang of one of
the stones cast by Wright, falling as if on the
solid floor, was succeeded by a rushing sound,
the clatter of loose rocks rolling down a declivity,
and then a heavy hollow crash at a
depth beneath. He called to Wright; no answer
was returned; all was dismal silence;
not even a groan from the wretched employer
replied to the call. His fate the terrified miner
understood in a moment: the first of the
pits was, at one part of its brink, shelving;
on the declivity thus formed, the stone cast
by Wright had lodged; but Wright had slipped
from it into the pit, and slipped so suddenly
as not to have time to utter even one
cry of terror. The miner, overcome with
horror, after calling again and again without

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receiving any answer, or hearing any sound
whatever, turned in the opposite direction, and
endeavoured to effect his own escape from
the cave. He wandered about many hours,
now sinking down in despair, now struggling
again for life; until at last yielding to his fate
in exhaustion of mind and body, incapable of
making any further exertions, a sudden ray
of light sparkled in his face. He rushed forward—
it was the morning-star shining through
the mouth of the cave! The alarm was immediately
given. Mr. Gatewood, with a
party of his labourers, hurried to the cave
and to the pit, on whose shelving edge
were seen evidences enough of some heavy
body having lately rolled into it. The offer
of a reward conquered the terror of one of
the workmen, who was lowered with ropes
to the bottom of the pit, a depth of fifty or
sixty feet; and Wright's lifeless body was
drawn out.

The above tragical incident I have heard
confirmed by the lips of several different persons;
one of whom, however, contested the
right of the morning-star to figure in it;
affirming that the miner made his way out
before night, and that it was the light of day,
shining at a distance like a star, which gave

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rise to that poetical embellishment. I believe
he was right. It is thus, like a star—the
loveliest of all the lamps that spangle the
vault of night—that daylight breaks from
afar upon the adventurer, returning from the
depths of the Mammoth Cave.