,
commanding a view of those passing in the boat, and those waiting on the
shore. Seen from this height, the lamps in the canoe glare like fiery
eyeballs; and the passengers sitting there, so hushed and motionless,
look like shadows. The scene is so strangely funereal and spectral, that
it seems as if the Greeks must have witnessed it, before they imagined
Charon conveying ghosts to the dim regions of Pluto. Your companions,
thus seen, do indeed--

"Skim along the dusky glades,
Thin airy shoals, and visionary shades."

[Illustration: THE RIVER STYX.]

If you turn your eye from the canoe, to the parties of men and women,
whom you left waiting on the shore, you will see them, by the gleam of
their lamps, scattered in picturesque groups, looming out in bold relief
from the dense darkness around them.

When you have passed the Styx, you soon meet another stream,
appropriately called Lethe. The echoes here are absolutely stunning. A
single voice sounds like a powerful choir; and could an organ be played,
it would deprive the hearer of his senses. When you have crossed, you
enter a high level hall, named the Great Walk, half a mile of which
brings you to another river, called the Jordan. In crossing this, the
rocks, in one place, descend so low, as to leave only eighteen inches
for the boat to pass through. Passengers are obliged to double up, and
lie on each other's shoulders till this gap is passed. This
uncomfortable position is, however, of short duration, and you suddenly
emerge to where the vault of the cave is more than a hundred feet high.
In the fall of the year, this river often rises, almost instantaneously,
over fifty feet above low-water mark; a phenomenon supposed to be caused
by heavy rains from the upper earth. On this account, autumn is an
unfavorable season for those who wish to explore the cave throughout. If
parties happen to be caught on the other side of Jordan, when the sudden
rise takes place, a boat conveys them, on the swollen waters, to the
level of an upper cave, so low that they are obliged to enter on hands
and knees, and crawl through. This place is called Purgatory. People on
the other side, aware of their danger, have a boat in readiness to
receive them. The guide usually sings while crossing the Jordan, and his
voice is reverberated by a choir of sweet echoes. The only animals ever
found in the cave are fish, with which this stream abounds. They are
perfectly white, and