Head, the Curtain, and
arrived at last at the Lover's Leap. The Lover's Leap is a large
pointed rock projecting over a dark and gloomy hollow, thirty or more
feet deep. Our guide told us that the young ladies often asked their
beaux to take the Lover's Leap, but that he never knew any to "love
hard enough" to attempt it. We descended into the hollow, immediately
below the Lover's Leap, and entered to the left and at right-angle
with our previous course, a passage or chasm in the rock, three feet
wide and fifty feet high, which conducted us to the lower branch of
the Gothic Avenue. At the entrance of this lower branch is an
immensely large flat rock called Gatewood's Dining Table, to the right
of which is a cave, which we penetrated, as far as the Cooling Tub--a
beautiful basin of water six feet wide and three deep--into which a
small stream of the purest water pours itself from the ceiling and
afterwards finds its way into the Flint Pit at no great distance.
Returning, we wound around Gatewood's Dining Table, which nearly
blocks up the way, and continued our walk along the lower branch more
than half a mile, passing Napoleon's Dome, the Cinder Banks, the
Crystal Pool, the Salts Cave, etc., etc. Descending a few feet and
leaving the cave which continues onwards, we entered, on our right, a
place of great seclusion and grandeur, called Annetti's Dome. Through
a crevice in the right wall of the dome is a waterfall. The water
issues in a stream a foot in diameter, from a high cave in the side of
the dome--falls upon the solid bottom, and passes off by a small
channel into the Cistern, which is directly on the pathway of the
cave. The Cistern is a large pit, which is usually kept nearly full of
water.

Near the end of this branch, (the lower branch) there is a crevice in
the ceiling over the last spring, through which the sound of water may
be heard falling in a cave or open space above.

Highly gratified with what we had now seen in the Gothic Avenue, we
concluded to pursue it no further, but to retrace our steps to the
Main Cave, regretting however, that we had not visited the Salts Cave,
(a branch of the Gothic Avenue,) on being told, when too late, that it
would have amply compensated us for our trouble, being rich in fine
specimens of Epsom or Glauber salts.

CHAPTER IV.

The Ball-Room--Willie's Spring--Wandering Willie--Ox-Stalls--Giant's
Coffin--Acute-Angle or Great Bend--Range of Cabins--Curative Properti