within a foot of the ceiling, between which and the side walls no connection is discernible. The contrast of the black roof and the gray side walls has the effect of lifting up the former to an immense height, and the beholder unconsciously begins to look for the moon, that must, he fancies, be turning her golden furrows in the clouds. But its splendors silently rebuke the poor effort of description, which at the best is like the attempt to enlarge the liberal air,

"And pour fresh light into the diamond, To herald that the fragrant rose is fair, And that the sun in beauty doth abound." Each visitor, however, has his favorite localities, and special points of impressive

ness.

Gorin's Dome, Mr. Willis tells us, was the first point where his commonplace sensations positively lost themselves in enthusiasm. He says:

"There I made the discovery that there were places of which I had never before conceived the character and existence-utter noveltieseffects of form, structure, space, and combination, which were strangely unexpected, and at the same time flooded, satiated, and staggered the craving sense of the love of the wonderful."

It is usual for the guide to leave the visitor at a window of the Dome, while he enters it and makes an illumination with sheets of medicated paper, called Bengal lights. Mr. Willis, to whose admirable account of the cave we are already greatly indebted, continues:

"In my turn I put my head into the rocky window, and looked down, first into a profound abyss, and then up to a height of which I could see no termination, and it was hard to realize

that such vast depths and altitudes were all under ground-graves dug, and trees growing far over head; but it was not the extent upward and downward that formed its novelty and beauty. It was like a steeple built over a gulf, but both steeple and gulf seemed curtained with uncut velvet of creamy richness, fringed at all its folds and edges with elaborato em: broidery. The stalactical ooze which had been

employed since the deluge, or since création in draping and embellishing this cavernous temple, had fallen in fluted folds, like the most massive, yet artistic drapery, and with its sur perb doublings and overlayings, it was indeed

the upholstery of giants. A tyrant would forbid his courtiers to see such a place, for the contrast would impoverish his grandeur. The damask and velvet of a throne would look scanty and poor after it. Height and depth together, this magnificent dome measures three hundred feet; the window is one hundred and sixty feet from the bottom, and the situation of it about two miles from the entrance of the cave." We shall have to pass wonders upon wonders without comment, referring the reader to the many detailed accounts al. ready printed, and crowd together numbers of others without regularity of arrangement or special description, which would, we fear, be wearisome to the general reader, as there must necessarily be a good deal of repetition.

There are black chambers with shaggy and irregular ceilings, perforated with great holes as big as hogsheads, through which, for the most part, the water runs drippingly and dully, but after the heavy spring rains, with a dash and roar that make the rocky walls tremble. There is a great pit whose gaping mouth receives the torrents, and about which those

"Rifted rocks whose entrance leads to hell,"

the roof were found to be pouring in water more liberally than usual, but not in alarming quantities. They had crawled through various chutes and recesses, and reached the farthest extremity of the cave, when they were startled from their equanimity by a sudden rumbling and roaring, distant indeed, but of terrible significance. The general silence of the cave, it must be re membered, is so deep as to render the least noise, frightful. Fast as possible they sound noticeable, and any considerable began to retrace their steps, but on reaching the mouth of one of the small passages through which they had to crawl, they found it pouring down a flood of water. Astounded and affrighted, yet rejoiced to find the escape was not entirely cut off, they splashed through, and rushed forward, the loose stone's sliding beneath their feet and rattling down the crevices and gaps of the floor as they went. Every moment it became more evident that torrents were pouring into the cave through every cleft and fissure, and the terrific din seemed to warrant the supposition that some of the lesser openings must be quite filled up. There was no time for consideration, and the guide, resolutely climbing up to one of the chutes, was met by a shower of spray that immediately extinguished his torch. He perceived, however, that the path was still open to the Garret Hole, to reach which would save himself and friend from dying the death of drowned

rats.

He crept a little back and relighted his torch, but finding it insufficient to resist the spray and whirling eddies of air, he manfully substituted his shirt for the torch, and with that flaming aloft, and calling his friend to follow, made a gallant rush, and defeated the hungry flood. This story should warn visitors to this part of the cave from being found shiftless.ov nad

This portion of the cave, as lits name denotes, is grand and terrible, yet the chambers contain nothing very remarkable. Their entire area is strewn with rocks, tumbled together in the wildest confusion, and they present several domes, arching over mountains, of fallen stones, and some stalactites and clusters of crystals. The greatest curiosities are four or five piles of rocks, looking like rude altars, and so denominated.

The main entrance to these chambers is their special peculiarity: it is through narrow and contorted windings called the

Black Chimneys, and though they are not very difficult of access, by these dark and crooked ways, the exit is altogether another matter. About the tops of these chimneys there is the same chaotic confusion of rocks as the floor presents, so it is sometimes a difficult task to find the chimneys, especially if any sudden danger confuses the mind. To add to the difficulty, there are numberless holes leading to nothing, that in appearance precisely resemble the chimneys.

A few years ago two gentlemen were introduced to these chambers by a guide not so familiar with them as guides are supposed to be, and having become wearied with researches, and proposing to return, they made the unpleasant discovery that the feat was not of the easiest accomplishment. The guide flew like a swallow from chimney to chimney, peeped into them, and out again. Not one could he find leading to any region of which he had any knowledge. He began to think the rocks must have fallen and filled up the passages while he and his friends had been exploring the further extremity of the chambers.

A terrible scene ensued; each man, "like a body that had been seven days dead," floated upon his fears. Here was one of those extremities that

"Force us to feel The desolation and the agony Of our wrong doings,"

and make us know how very dear to us "are the sweet infants that but yesterday laughed at our breasts."

After a season of blind tossings and tumblings, our explorers became nearly frenzied, and declared they would rather die by their own hands, than endure the agony of being longer sealed up in a living tomb. The only question was whether each should destroy himself, or whether, devoted to the awfulest duty of friendship, they should perform the last solemn office for each other. Fortunately, while the discussion was pending, the guide stumbled upon one of the chimneys, and the catastrophe ended in a happy but somewhat ludicrous scramble.

Doubtless there is some danger of being entrapped in the intricate passages of the cave, but the alarm and confusion of any unexpected difficulty increases it a thousandfold.

The black rocks along every path where there is likely to be any confusion, are marked with pointing arrows made of white chalk, and the rocks about the chimneys have a liberal share, so that with the exercise of a moderate degree of philosophy there is little real danger.

Furthest removed from the light of day are found the White Halls. Here abound ocher, gypsum, chalcedony, and salts; the latter, which hangs in loose flakes from one of the ceilings, produces the most surprisingly-beautiful effect-the least breath brings them down like a snowshower. These White Halls are built of stalactites, and every inch of them is a study of brilliant crystallization.

Dismal Hollow is in the vicinity of these Halls. In the outer world

"Fate links strange, strange contrasts, And the scaffold's gloom is neighbor'd by the altar,"

and here, too, it appears, she joins her opposites. It affords no chance for the eye to get away or to rest, being overhung by a concave of jagged rocks, and floored by a hollow to match.

The Ball Room, a splendid hall with projecting galleries, and roof lined with brilliant varieties of spar, and studded with crystallizations, is in close vicinity to Satan's Council Chamber, in the center of whose vast amphitheater of gloom rises a pile of rocks to the height of a hundred feet, and shaped at the top something like a chair this is called Satan's Throne, and is set round with numerous stalagmites and stalactites, which, under the gleam of the torches, present the most brilliant effects.

"In this Council Chamber, the rocks, with singular appropriateness, change from an imitation of Gothic architecture to that of the Egyptian. The dark massive walls resemble a series of Egyptian tombs, in dull and heavy outline." There is here an angle which forms the meeting of several avenues, and is one of the finest points of observation which the entire cave presents. Lights are usually kindled here, and the startling splendor of the effect, as the gigantic proportions of frieze and column are brought out, with grotesque figures, many-colored domes and fine galleries, must be seen to be appreciated. The lights, checking and streaking the heavy masses of shadow, produce contrasts that are alike beautiful and surprising.

(To be concluded in our next.)

IN

MILITARY ELEPHANTS.

N these last days, the elephant is in his own country a beast either of burden or parade, while in ours he is an object either of vulgar or scientific curiosity, shut up in a cage to be gazed at through the bars. Let us turn away for a moment from the spectacle of his degradation to reflect on what he was in his better days, when he was the hero, not of a village fair or of a circus, but of battle-fields, on which nations contended for supremacy, and his trumpet gave the signal for attack.

The distinguished position which, from the earliest period, the elephant held in the estimation of the nations inhabiting the banks of the Ganges, is evidenced in the mythology and archæology of these peoples, as in their poetry and traditions. Indra, the mightiest of their secondary gods, the ruler of the air, and wielder of the thunders of heaven, is always represented seated upon an elephant; Ganesa, the god of wisdom and science, is symbolized under the figure of a man with the head of an elephant; a symbol which, according to our notions, ought to have been reversed, but which is undeniably very complimentary to the animal to whose strength all honor is also done in the Indian dogma, that the earth owes its stability to its being upborne upon the backs of eight elephants. The name of this animal is furthermore associated, in Indian epics and romances, with those of kings and heroes; and there were times when the favor of an elephant proved an adventurer's passport to the confidence of the people. Such was the case with Sandrocottus, who drove the Macedonians out of India, and established his own dominion over a great part of the country, and who partially owed his success to the fact of his having made the people believe that a wild elephant had presented itself to him, had allowed him to get upon its back, and had become his guide and his defender.

The reverence in which this docile and sagacious quadruped was held by the nations of India, did not, however, prevent them from turning its strength and docility to more useful purposes than those of religious and royal pageantry; and thus we find these animals holding a very prominent position in the numerous armies set on foot by Indian potentates at various

periods, and a position, not of beasts of burden, as in the present day, but as armed warriors, bearing a conspicuous part in the battle.

This heroic period of the elephants must have commenced at a much earlier date than any recorded by history; but the first mention of these animals in their character of warriors, by the historians of antiquity, is in connection with the war which the far-famed Semiramis is said to have waged against Strabobates, King of India. This prince enjoying, according to Diodorus Siculus, a great advantage over the Assyrians, inasmuch as his armies were strengthened by the presence of a number of elephants, the Assyrian queen, to place herself on an equality with the enemy, whose country was believed to be the only one that produced the animals in natura, devised the stratagem of producing them artificially. For this purpose, we are told, she ordered three hundred thousand black oxen to be slaughtered, and of their hides, sewn together and stuffed with straw, she constructed a certain number of elephant effigies. To render these more lifelike, a living camel and a man to guide its movements were placed in each; but, in spite of all the art exercised, nature proved the strongest, for the Assyrian princess was defeated, and her army totally routed. It is, however, more likely that the heroic princess had recourse to this singular artifice to inspirit her own troops than to intimidate her adversary; for we are told that Perseus, King of Macedonia, when engaged in war with the Romans, who had then also adopted the use of elephants in their armies, had recourse to a similar expedient to familiarize his men and horses with the uncouth appearance of the huge animals. On this occasion, a man with a trumpet was placed in the interior of each simulated elephant, to accustom the horses to their piercing cries. The terror inspired by the elephants, armed not only with the formidable weapons with which nature has endowed them, but having, moreover, sharp swords attached to their tusks, and towers manned with sharpshooters on their backs, and having their foreheads and broad ears, which they lift up and spread out when enraged, painted red, blue, or white, to add to the hideousness of their appearance, seems to have been one of the chief causes of the havoc inflicted among troops unac

customed to the sight of them. And the Romans also, though disdaining such puerile devices as we have mentioned above, yet acting upon Tacitus's principle that in every battle defeat commences with the eyes, adopted various measures to secure their troops against the panic so frequently inspired by these quadruped warriors. Elephants that were captured were publicly exposed to the people, who were encouraged to examine and even to torment them; and not only were gladiators made to combat them, but in order to cover the animals with opprobrium and ridicule, and thus to diminish the awe with which they were regarded, they were driven round the public arenas with hues and cries and common sticks, by individuals belonging to the lowest and most contemptible classes of the community. Cæsar, with wiser discretion still, regularly trained his men to combat the elephants, pointing out to their notice the most vulnerable points in the body of the animals, which were, moreover, armed and protected in the same way as in the armies of the enemy. How terrific the aspect of an elephant must have been in antiquity to those who had never before seen one, is attested by the fact that Alexander the Great is reported to have said, on behold- | ing for the first time a line of these animals drawn up in the front of Porus's army, stretching forth their snake-like trunks, and uttering their shrill cries, that never before had he encountered an enemy so worthy of his courage. The impassibility of Fabius is also mentioned with admiration, when, in the midst of a conversation, Pyrrhus suddenly exposed to his view the largest of his elephants. "Thy gold did not seduce me yesterday," said the noble Roman with imperturbable coolness; "thy monster does not terrify me to-day."

The Greeks who followed Alexander on his expedition to India, were the first Europeans who encountered elephants on the field of battle; but during the centuries that intervened between the death of the Macedonian hero and the last days of the Roman republic, these animals played a prominent part in almost every battle fought within the territories stretching from the Caucasus to the Alps, and from the Euphrates to the Columns of Hercules. The successors of Alexander introduced them to the Western world. The Lagidæ

and Seleucida employed great numbers in their armies. Antipater introduced them into Greece, and Pyrrhus carried a certain number with him into Italy, thus affording the Romans an opportunity of becoming acquainted with an instrument of war which they were subsequently so frequently to encounter in their life-and-death struggle with the Carthaginians. This latter people are supposed first to have adopted the use of these animals in war when they found themselves threatened by the growing power of the Ptolemies, who employed them in vast numbers. The Romans, last of all, following the example of the nations with whom they had to contend, made a feeble attempt to introduce elephants into their armies, but they soon again abandoned the idea, being averse to the use of any expedient likely to reduce the reliance of their soldiers on their own personal strength and prowess.

The Greek writer, Alianus, gives a description of the military organization of the elephants, according to which they were divided into what we would now term brigades, each consisting of sixtyfour animals, and called a phalanx. This was again subdivided into minor sections, bearing names derived from Greek tactics. The commander-in-chief of the elephants was called Elephantarque among the Greeks, and Magister Elephantarium among the Latins; he enjoyed the greatest consideration, and in rank was only second to the commander-in-chief of the whole army. The officers commanding the subordinate divisions bore titles derived from the names of these, and ranked according to the number of animals under their orders. Each elephant was known by a particular name, and had its special attendant or conductor, called Elephantagogue in Greek, and Moderator Belluæ in Latin; to whom it generally became so much attached, that instances are mentioned of the most poignant grief evinced by elephants whose conductors had been killed in battle. The Elephantagogue was seated on the neck of the animal, and directed its movements by his voice, and by means of an iron bar, about a foot in length, rounded at one end and pointed at the other, in the same manner as elephants are managed to this day in India.

The first inducements to the use of elephants in war were no doubt the strength, intelligence, and docility of these animals,