make out; the shore on either hand, widening rapidly until lost to sight; while its length was equally uncertain. A haze on the distant horizon bounded our view. As to its height we could see that it must be many miles to the roof. Looking upward, it was not impossible to discover where the stupendous roof began. The lowest of the clouds must have been floating at an elevation of two thousand yards, a height greater than that of terrestrial vapors which circumstance was doubtless owing to the extreme density of the air.
I use the word cavern in order to give an idea of the place. I cannot describe its awful grandeur; human language fails to convey an idea of its savage sublimity. Whether this singular vacuum had or had not been caused by the sudden cooling of the earth when in a state of fusion, I could not say. I had read of most wonderful and gigantic caverns—but none in any way like this.
The great grotto of Guachara, in Columbia, visited by the learned Humboldt; the vast and partially explored Mammoth Cave in Kentucky; what were these holes in the earth compared to that in which I stood in speechless admiration! with its vapory clouds, its electric light, and mighty ocean slumbering in its bosom! Imagination, not description, can alone give an idea of the splendor and vastness of the cave.
I gazed at these marvels in profound silence. Words were utterly wanting to indicate the sensations of wonder I experienced. I seemed, as I stood upon that mysterious shore, to be some wandering inhabitant of a distant planet, present for the first time at the spectacle of some terrestrial phenomena belonging to another existence. To give body and existence to such new sensations, would have required the coinage of new words—and here my feeble brain found itself wholly inadequate. I looked on, I thought, I reflected, I admired, in a state of stupefaction not altogether unmingled with fear!
The unexpected spectacle restored some color to my pallid cheeks. I seemed to be actually getting better under the influence of this novelty. Moreover, the vivecity of the dense atmosphere reanimated my body, by inflating my lungs with unaccustomed oxygen.
It will be readily conceived that after an imprisonment of forty-seven days, in a dark and miserable tunnel, it was with infinite delight that I breathed this saline air. It was like the genial, reviving influence of the salt sea waves. My uncle had already got over the first surprise. With the Latin poet, Horace, his idea was that—
"Not to admire, is all the art I know
To make man happy and to keep him so."
"Well," he said, after giving me time thoroughly to appreciate the marvels of this underground sea, "do you feel strong enough to walk up and down?"
"Certainly," was my ready answer, "nothing would give me greater pleasure."
"Well, then, my boy," he said, "lean on my arm, and we will stroll along the beach."
I accepted his offer eagerly, and we began to walk along the shores of this extraordinary lake. To our left were abrupt rocks, piled one upon tha other,—a stupendous titanic pile; down their sides leapt innumerable cascades, which at last, becoming limpid and murmuring streams, were lost in the waters of the lake. Light vapors, which rose here and there, and floated in fleecy clouds from rock to rock, indicated hot springs, which also poured their superfluity into the vast reservoir at our feet.
Among them I recognized our old an faithful stream, the Hans-bach, which, lost in that wild basin, seemed as if it had been flowing since the creation of the world.
"We shall miss our excellent friend," I remarked, with a deep sigh.
"Bah!" said my uncle, testily, "what matters it. That or another, it is all the same."
I thought the remark ungrateful, and felt almost inclined to say so; but I forbore. At this moment my attention was attracted by an unexpected spectacle. After we had gone about five hundred yards, we suddenly turned a steep promontory, and found ourselves close to a lofty forest! It consisted of straight trunks with tufted tops, in shape like parasols. The air seemed to have no effect upon these trees—which in spite of a tolerable breeze remained as still and motionless as if they had been petrified.
I hastened forward. I could find no name for these singular formation. Did they belong to the two thousand and more known trees—or were we to make the discovery of a new growth? When we at last reached the forest, and stood beneath the trees, my surprise gave way to admiration. In truth, I was simply in the presence of a very ordinary product of the earth, of singular and gigantic proportions. My uncle unhesitatingly called them by their real names. "It is only," he said, in his coolest manner, "a forest of mushrooms."
On close examination I found that he was not mistaken. Judge of the development attained by this product of damp hot soils. I had heard that the lycoperdon giganteum reaches nine feet in circumference, but here were white mushrooms, nearly forty feet high, and with tops of equal dimensions. They grew in countless thousands—the light could not make its way through their massive substance, and beneath them reigned a gloomy and mystic darkness.
Still I wished to go forward. The cold in the shades of this singular forest was intense. For nearly an hour we wandered about in this darkness visible. At length I left the spot, and once more returned to the shores of the lake, tolight and comparative warmth.
The amazing vegetation of this subterraneous region was not confined to gigantic mushrooms. New wonders awaited us at every step. We had not gone many hundred yards, when we came upon a mighty group of other trees with discolored leaves—the common humble trees of mother earth, of an exorbitant and phenomenal size; mosses a hundred feet high; flowing ferns as tall as pines; gigantic grasses!
"Astonishing, magnificent, splendid!" cried my uncle; here we have before us the whole flora of the second period of the world, that of the transition. Behold the humble plants of our gardens, which in the first ages of the world were mighty trees.
