Describes an unpleasant stagecoach ride on the way to Mammoth Cave. Transcription: worse, even to execrability. We were now but four, woman having gotten out at Elizabethtown; and were horribly bumped and jolted. Unnecessary delays were there also, gettings out and walkings, fast speedings and slow crawlings, and by an hour after sunset all talk was tacitly dispensed with, each one ground his teeth in silence, or shifted his position, or bounded aloft (when a particularly big rock defied the coach wheel,) with muttered oath or groaning ejaculation. I dozed during alternate bruisings, which oc
Describes an unpleasant stagecoach ride on the way to Mammoth Cave. Transcription: worse, even to execrability. We were now but four, woman having gotten out at Elizabethtown; and were horribly bumped and jolted. Unnecessary delays were there also, gettings out and walkings, fast speedings and slow crawlings, and by an hour after sunset all talk was tacitly dispensed with, each one ground his teeth in silence, or shifted his position, or bounded aloft (when a particularly big rock defied the coach wheel,) with muttered oath or groaning ejaculation. I dozed during alternate bruisings, which occurred about thrice during a minute. By midnight, and not before the accursed ride came to an end, and we were at Bell ?s Tavern, where quitting the ever-memorable Nashville stage, I & Dr Brodmax, (who has decided on one visit to the Cave,) put up for the night. 29 30. Thursday Friday. Uprising and breakfasting done, forthwith we enter the Stage for the Cave. Through nine miles of leafy loveliness, up steep hillsides, through green, wildly luxuriant valleys, all tangled with wild-vine and creepers, by savage glade and over mountain we jolt onwards. But for the atrocious stones in the road, the place might have been a dream of Fairy land; the autumnal leaf-turfs, the exquisite varying shades of yellow, red, purple and black amid the fresh green around, were indescribably beautiful. And ever present the red clusters of sumach berries, with its not less brilliant leaves. Nevertheless we were glad to descry and disembark at the Cave House. It is a long, plain building, two stories in heighth, and a lengthy wing projecting angle-wise from the extreme end. All around is beautiful woodland, forest trees and shrubbery; behind, a large garden. The estate, a vast one, comprising 1700 acres, belonged to one Dr [John] Croghan of Louisville, and by him was willed to certain trustees, by them to be managed for the behalf of spendthrift heirs, who would with dice, drab, and bottle, have long
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