Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/338

Rh the grottoes of Cuba, but certain forms occurred here more frequently. Among these were in particular fluted columns, organ-pipes, towers, cascades, as of frozen, foaming water; shields were reared against walls, which were hung with spears, immense depending draperies, often in the most soft and plastic folds, upon which if one struck with a stick a loud clanging tone was returned, which resounded through the subterranean vaults. There were alcoves, in which were standing solitary figures resembling human masks; and between these figures, along the rock-walls, a confusion of fantastic forms of animals, flowers, wings, which seemed ready to fly away from the walls, cities which stood forth in bold relief, with streets, and squares, and towers, and everything which an active imagination could conceive. There is one crypt, in which the whole natural world is represented in stone masks—the dark dream of a mountain king about the life of the world of light, for even sun and moon are there represented by large round white dials shining forth from the deep, dusky vault. There are large halls, in the centre of which stand two or three solitary stone images, always in the semblance of man. Here are warriors about to draw the sword, there a philosopher deep in meditation, or a woman with a child wrapped in the folds of her robe; throughout the whole it is a mysterious world, where life seems petrified in the midst of its presentment. A clear little fountain, the musical dropping of whose water is heard at a considerable distance, furnishes a cool draught. But it was so very cool in that subterranean world, and I felt so ill there, both body and soul, that I was glad to leave it and inhale God's warm air and sunshine.

It was an unimaginably beautiful evening, and the whole region was like the most lovely pastoral poem. I enjoyed it, as I rambled alone beside the lively little, roaring, dancing, river Schenandoah, and up among