CHAPTER VII.

The grand gulf.

Oregon County, Missouri, is also fortunate in having within its limits the Grand Gulf, which has been declared by competent judges to be one of the wonders of the world; and it offers a combination of attractions that certainly entitles it to an important place among a limited few of America’s choicest scenes.

The Gulf is nearly nine miles northwest of Thayer, Missouri, and about equally distant from Mammoth Spring in Arkansas, just a little south of the Missouri state line.  The drive is a pleasant one, as the road winds among the forest-clad hills and passes occasional fields of cotton and corn; but having been macadamized in very ancient times by the original and all-powerful general government of that early period is somewhat rough, yet threatens no danger greater than the destruction of wheels.

The only approach to the Gulf is over the hill-tops; and the entrance in past times, while it was still a cave, must have been a sink-hole in the roof of the largest chamber.  This chamber is now the upper end of the Grand Gulf, and into it we descended by a rugged path, sufficiently difficult to maintain expectations of grandeur that are not doomed to disappointment.  The precipitous walls, two hundred feet in height, bear a faithful record of the energy of circling floods; but instead of frowning, as some good people persistently accuse all noble heights of doing, they seem to look with conscious pride towards the windings of the great rough chasm, where every available spot has been seized on as a homestead for some form of vegetation.  All the great, dark rock masses that interfere with easy progress along the lowest depth, were surrounded by a feathery setting of blooming white agaratum; and each turn in the winding course reveals new charms of rock and verdure with their varying lights and shadows until the crowning glory is reached at the Natural Bridge, about twelve hundred feet from the upper end of the canon.  This bridge is magnificent.  It was impossible to secure photographs because the abrupt curve by which it is approached gave no point of view for a small camera; and it was equally impossible to reach desirable points for taking measurements, but the open arch is not less than twenty feet wide and considerably more than that in height.  From the floor or bed of the Gulf to the road that crosses the bridge is more than two hundred feet.  The passage under the bridge makes a curve, the shortest side of which measures exactly two hundred and nineteen feet, and as the width varies from twenty to forty feet, the other side is longer.  Most of the floor is flat and level as also is the ceiling, the greatest irregularities being along the wall of greater length which shows at what points the rushing water has spent its force.  No water flows through here now except in times of heavy rainfall.  The other end of