Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/212

136 into the intense gloom beyond. Yet there was no sound of an oar; not a splash nor a dip was heard. Even spirits, to whom this silent navigation seemed most fitting, could not have moved more inaudibly. How was the boat navigated? By wire. Standing in the craft the guide grasped a single wire and easily piloted his passengers downstream to the exit. As the boat left the landing the candle was extinguished, leaving for illumination only the light of the glowworms. At first it was so dark that we on shore could not see face or hand six inches from our eyes. In a few minutes we could see vaguely our own outlines and the cavern walls opposite to us. But the silence did not decrease; excepting when broken at intervals by drops of water falling loudly into the stream, it was as the silence of a tomb.

At last it was my turn for a ride, and a wonderful ride it was. The current carried me under a Milky Way of glowworms, under constellations, satellites, and isolated planets. In fancy the black roof and walls were the sky and the gleaming lights the stars. But the glint of glowworms was not everywhere visible; it was mainly on the roof. There were broad spaces without even one "star," and shortly before I emerged into the moonlight I passed stalactites and stalagmites unlighted by a single ray.