This is
the disagreeable phase-one of the disagreeable phases--of man's conquest
over nature in England,--cavern mouths shut up with cellar doors,
cataracts under lock and key, precipitous crags compelled to figure in
ornamented gardens,--and all accessible at a fixed amount of shillings or
pence. It is not possible to draw a full free breath under such
circumstances. When you think of it, it makes the wildest scenery look
like the artificial rock-work which Englishmen are so fond of displaying
in the little bit of grass-plot under their suburban parlor windows.
However, the cavern was dreary enough and wild enough, though in a mean
sort of way; for it is but a long series of passages and crevices,
generally so narrow that you scrape your elbows, and so low that you hit
your head. It has nowhere a lofty height, though sometimes it broadens
out into ample space, but not into grandeur, the roof being always within
reach, and in most places smoky with the tallow candles that have been
held up to it. A very dirty, sordid, disagreeable burrow, more like a
cellar gone mad than anything else; but it served to show us how the
crust of the earth is moulded. This cavern was known to the Romans, and
used to be worked by them as a lead-mine. Derbyshire spar is now taken
from it; and in some of its crevices the gleam of the tallow candles is
faintly reflected from the crystallizations; but, on the whole, I felt
like a mole, as I went creeping along, and was glad when we came into the
sunshine again.
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