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Page 248:-
the bottom and sides so dark, that, with all the light we could
procure from our candles and torches, we were not able to see the
dimensions of this cavern. The light we had, seemed only darkness
visible, and would serve a timid stranger, alone, and ignorant of
his situation,
To conceive things monstrous, and worse
Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd -
Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire.
Milton.
The height of the cave was somewhat between a dozen and twenty
yards; the breadth about the same dimension with the height; and
the length at least fifty or sixty yards. Some of the party, who
had seen both, thought it much more stupendous and magnificent
than the famous Peak's-hole, in Derbyshire.
Having passed a small brook, which one of the party called the
Stygian lake, we came to the western side of the cave. It is a
solid perpendicular rock of black marble, embellished with many
rude sketches, and names of persons now long forgotton (sic), the
dates of some being above two hundred years old. After we had
proceeded thirty or forty yards northward, past some huge rocks
that had at sometime fallen from the roof or side, and arrived at
a collonade of rude massy pillars, standing obliquely on their
bases, the road divided itself into two parts, but not like that
of Eneas, when descending in the realms of Pluto -
Hac inter Elysium nobis; at loeva malorum
Exercet poenas, et ad impia Tartarus mittit.
Virgil's En. b.6. l.542.
'Tis here in different paths the way divides;
The right to Pluto's golden palace guides;
The left to that unhappy region tends,
Which to the depth of Tartarus descends,
The seat of night profound, and punish'd fiends.-
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