The topography was nearly as broken, in its way, as the natural “piking” spread over it, and very beautiful with the dense forests lighted by the slanting yellow rays of the afternoon sun.  The way leads up to the “ridge road” which is at length abandoned for no road at all, and descending through the forest, more than half the distance down to the James River flowing at the base of the hill, we come suddenly in view of the cave entrance, which is probably one of the most magnificent pieces of natural architecture ever seen.

Rounding a corner by a narrow path, we step onto a covered portico ninety-seven feet long, with an average width of ten feet.  The floor is smooth and level, as also is the ceiling, which is nine feet above, supported by handsomely carved pillars and rising in a gray cliff projecting from the slope of the hill above, out to the brink of the more abrupt descent to the water’s edge ninety feet below.  Between the pillars are three large door-ways into the cave.  The comparison suggested is an Egyptian temple, and the idea is continued within, where there are no chambers as in other caves; but instead, the entire interior is a labyrinth of passages winding about in every direction among an uncounted number of low massive pillars, some supporting a low ceiling and others connected by high arches, the highest point being estimated at sixty feet, but appearing to be more, because the enclosed space rising to a dome is so narrow that the point of view is necessarily directly underneath.

All exposed surfaces of pillars and walls inside the cave are of clay or a soft porous rock having the same appearance, and are covered with curious little raised markings like the indescribable designs of mixed nothing generally known as “Persian patterns.”  This is, of course, easily explained; the clay being the residuum from disintegrated limestone, the markings described are the harder portions of the rock remaining after particles of clay had been carried out by flowing water while the disintegrating process was yet incomplete.

The Drinking Fountain is considered the great attraction of the cave, and appears to have been fashioned to suggest a model for the handsome soda fountains belonging to a later period.  The water bowl is a large depression worn in the top of a rock which seems to have been built into the wall.  In front it is five feet high and nine feet across, with artistic corners approximately alike, and at the back ornamental carving extends upward towards the ceiling with an opening through the wall at the center.  This opening is divided by a short column down which water trickles to supply the bowl.  The ceiling here is about thirty-five feet high and most of the exposed surface is a blue-gray limestone.  Only one portion of Gentry Cave has received a deposit of dripstone and even that is of limited extent, and located at the end of a narrow slippery passage between high, slippery walls.