Now we visit the “Ball Room,” which is large and handsome, with its walls as white as snow.  Leaving this, we take a difficult and exciting journey to the “Rocky Mountains.”  We go down steep paths, which are narrow, and up steep ones, which are wide; we jump over wide cracks and step over great stones, and we are getting very tired of scrambling about in the bowels of the earth; but the guide tells us that if we will but cross the “mountains”—­which we find to be nothing more than great rocks, which have fallen from the roof above, but which, however, are not very easy to get over—­we shall rest in the “Fairy Grotto.”  So on we push, and reach the delightful abode of the fairies of the Mammoth Cave.  That is, if there were any fairies in this cave, they would live here.

And a splendid place they would have!

Great colonnades and magnificent arches, all ornamented with beautiful stalactites of various forms, and glittering like cut-glass in the light of our lanterns, and thousands of different ornaments of sparkling stone, many of them appearing as if they were cut by the hand of skilful artists, adorn this beautiful grotto.  At one end there is a group of stalactites, which looks to us exactly like a graceful palm-tree cut out of alabaster.  All over the vast hall we can hear the pattering and tinkling of the water, which has been dripping, drop by drop, for centuries, and making, as it carried with it little particles of earth and rock, all these beautiful forms which we see.

We have now walked nearly five miles into the great cave, and there is much which we have not seen.  But we must go back to the upper earth.  We will have a tiresome trip of it, but it is seldom that we can get anything good without taking a little trouble for it.  And to have seen this greatest of all natural caverns is worth far more labor and fatigue than we have expended on its exploration.  There is nothing like it in the known world.

THE LION.

[Illustration:  The lion’s home.]

I do not desire to be wanting in respect to the Lion.  Because I asserted that it was my opinion that he should resign the throne of the King of Beasts to the Elephant, I do not wish to deprive him of any part of his just reputation.

The Lion, with the exception of any animal but the Elephant, the Rhinoceros, the Hippopotamus, and such big fellows, is the strongest of beasts.  Compared to Tigers and Panthers, he is somewhat generous, and compared to most of the flesh-eating animals, he is quite intelligent.  Lions have been taught to perform certain feats when in a state of captivity; but, as all of us know who have seen the performing animals in a menagerie, he is by no means the equal of a Dog or an Elephant.

The Lion appears to the greatest advantage in the midst of his family.  When he and his wife are taking their walks abroad they will often fly before a man, especially if he is a white man.