Journey to the Bottomless Pit

by Mitchell, Elizabeth; Alder, Kelynn Z. ;

  “The story goes, the rope broke and he lost the lantern. So he sent this young slave down there. He was hardly more than a boy, so he didn’t weigh much. A couple of men tied a good stout rope around him. They lowered him as far as the rope would reach—about forty-five feet.

  “That young fellow told the wildest tale when they finally pulled him up. He was shivering and shaking. Swore he’d never go down there again, not for any money. He said that skinny little crevice opens out into an enormous cave room with a huge tunnel in the side. He never found the lamp. Not only that, he claimed he couldn’t even see the bottom.”

  Miller stood up and dusted off his pants. “Nobody believed him. We’ve never found hide nor hair of any new cave passage. That pit is nothing but a hole in the ground. Now let’s get moving. Past this room, the passage comes to an end. We’re going back the way we came, to the Church.”

  Stephen followed obediently, but he was thinking hard. Why couldn’t the slave’s story be true? Why couldn’t there be another level of caverns deep below? He had been in Mammoth Cave only a short while, but he had seen one or two small holes that looked as though they might go somewhere.

  Stephen made a promise to himself. One day, he would find out what was at the bottom of Crevice Pit.

  The Church and the Steamboat

  They retraced their steps to the Rotunda. Mr. Miller quizzed Stephen on the names of everything they passed, and made him go in front to show the way. It reminded Stephen of walking in the woods at night. But no nighttime forest was ever as dark as this.

  And no forest was ever so quiet. All he could hear was the sound of their breathing and the scuff of their footsteps on the dusty floor.

  By now his eyes had adjusted to the low light. He could see his surroundings much better. “This passage ends pretty soon after the Little Bat Room,” he recited. “Back up here is the Rotunda.” He led the way with his lantern.

  Stephen was more fascinated by this cave every minute. It was unlike any other place he had ever known. And his master wanted him to learn all about it! He would be happy to oblige.

  He thought of the long summer coming, when the field slaves would have to toil outside even on the hottest days. In the eastern part of Kentucky, hundreds of workers sweated in the hemp fields. Hemp is a plant used to make rope and a rough cloth in which the southern plantation owners wrapped their bales of cotton. It was the most important crop in Kentucky.

  Then Stephen thought about himself. His mother always said that God had blessed him with a strong body and a quick mind. White people seemed to look on him with favor. He could have been a carriage driver or a house slave. House slaves mixed with the white masters much more than the field slaves did. That meant they wore better clothing, got better food, and usually had better places to sleep.

  But now Stephen had no interest in being a house slave. He felt very lucky to be right where he was. He promised himself that he would become the best guide Mammoth Cave had ever known.

  Back in the Rotunda, their little fire was burning down. Archibald Miller stamped it out and led the way across the huge room into another high passageway.

  “This is what we call the Grand Gallery,” he said. “On the left here are the Cliffs of Kentucky. They’re named after the rocky cliffs along the Ohio River. Now, look where I’m pointing. See that hole up there?”

  Stephen had to look hard before he located the gap, high up under the cave roof. Mr. Miller said, “You can get through there and climb down the other side, but it’s dangerous. Lots of huge rocks, and half of ’em are loose, just lying on each other in a huge pile.”

  They moved straight ahead down a tall, wide tunnel. Stephen understood why it had been named the Grand Gallery. A gallery is a tall, wide passageway.

  They walked for quite a while. Then, suddenly, the tunnel widened into a very large room. Along one wall were rough wooden benches made from split logs. Mr. Miller gestured to Stephen to sit down on one of the logs. Then he held out his hand. “Give me your lantern,” he ordered.

  Stephen obeyed. Miller took it and began to walk away. What was happening? Was he going to leave Stephen in the dark?

  It seemed as though they had been exploring the cave for hours. Stephen could not possibly find his way back alone.

  But there was no need for him to worry. As Stephen watched, Mr. Miller climbed up the steep, rocky side of the chamber. He pulled himself onto a ledge and stood up.

  Now Stephen could see that someone had built a wooden pulpit up there. It looked just like the one inside the church near Mr. Gorin’s house, only not as shiny.

  Mr. Miller got behind the pulpit. He flapped his elbows and put his hands on his shirtfront, just like a preacher. Stephen grinned.

  Mr. Miller leaned forward to gaze down at Stephen. “In the old days,” he said, “there was a preacher who didn’t have his own church. Or maybe he did have a church, but he couldn’t keep people coming back more than two Sundays in a row. Probably it was because his sermons lasted all day long.” He lit his pipe, and Stephen caught the strong smell of tobacco.

  Miller went back to his story. “So, he had the bright idea of holding some church services in the cave. First he preached to the slave miners who were working way down here. Then he invited folks to join him on a cave tour, ending with a sermon here in the Church. When he got them here, he had them sit down comfortably, collected all their lanterns, and proceeded to preach at them for the next four hours.”

  Stephen guessed the ending of the story. “And they couldn’t leave because they couldn’t find their way out!”

  He flapped his elbows and put his hands on his shirtfront, just like a preacher.

  Mr. Miller nodded with approval. He climbed down and gave Stephen’s lantern back to him.

  Stephen was certainly glad that he didn’t have to find his own way out. He had no doubt that he could learn these trails, but it was only his first day!

  They walked on. This time Stephen spotted something up ahead. It was a wooden ladder, tall but not very strong-looking, leaning against the right-hand wall. At the top was darkness.

  “There’s a big wide hole up there,” said Archibald Miller. “Go on, climb up.”

  Stephen did as he was told. The ladder was sturdier than it looked. But he was happy to reach the top and climb off onto a wide shelf of rock. The floor seemed a long way down.

  Miller came up the ladder, too. He pointed into the entrance.

  “This is called the Haunted Chambers,” he told Stephen. “When you get up here, set your lantern so that it lights up the ledge. Then go back down and help the customers. Tell them to wait right here until everyone is together.”

  “Can ladies climb that ladder, Mr. Miller?”

  “Most of them choose not to. If you have a lady on the tour, then you either skip this part or ask if she would rather wait below. Never leave her alone, of course. Allow her to stay behind only if others will wait with her. Leave their lanterns with them, and don’t take too long away. Now, look over there.”

  Miller pointed straight across the passageway. Dimly, Stephen could see another opening, about as wide as the one that led into the Haunted Chambers. It was directly across from them at the same height.

  “It looks as though this tunnel used to continue on that side, doesn’t it?” Miller said. “We investigated that hole, but it chokes up with sand pretty close to the entrance and there’s no way to get through.”

  Again Stephen had the feeling that there was much more of Mammoth Cave waiting to be explored. The cavern seemed riddled with holes. Tunnels up high, pits down low, odd little nooks and crannies everywhere . . . who could say how big Mammoth Cave really was?

  Miller was talking. “Let your customers rest a little after the ladder climb. While they’re doing that, you can tell them how the Haunted Chambers got its name.”

  Step
hen knew another story was coming. He made himself comfortable on the smooth floor.

  “I was telling you about the miners,” Miller said. “During the War of 1812 the British Navy blockaded our coastline. Our soldiers were running out of gunpowder because no supply ships could reach Washington. But the man who owned Mammoth discovered that the cave was full of saltpeter. That’s the peter-dirt I was telling you about. If you wash down the dirt and mix it with sulphur and charcoal, you get gunpowder.

  “My daddy was in charge of the mining operation. He had seventy men digging in here. There were oxen to pull the carts full of dirt, pipes to bring water from the entrance to wash it down, everything they needed. A lot of the work went on right down there.” He pointed downward. Stephen could see some old wooden vats. Sticking out of them were wooden pipes leading back toward the cave entrance.

  “The workers were all slaves,” Miller went on. “One day there was a new man on the job. The overseer asked for somebody to go back into the Salts Room, where there was a lot of good peter-dirt. And although this fellow had been back there only once before, he put up his hand.”

  Mr. Miller pointed into the Haunted Chambers. “The Salts Room is this way. Come on.”

  Stephen stood up and followed him. The passage ran straight ahead.

  “The fellow knew there were no branch-offs on the way, so he thought he would be fine,” Miller went on. “Sure enough, he reached the right place, dug a couple of bags of dirt, and loaded them up to come back to the Grand Gallery. But somewhere along the way, he decided the return trip was taking too long. He got it into his head that he’d taken a wrong turn. Even though there aren’t any wrong turns to take, as you can see!”

  Miller laughed and shook his head. Stephen didn’t think the story was funny. The cave was a strange and peculiar place. Surely a person who had been inside only once before could become confused.

  Miller was still chuckling. “The silly fellow dropped his bags and started darting forward, then back again, trying to figure out which way to go. Finally he tripped over a stone and dropped his lantern, and there he was in the dark! Can you imagine?”

  Stephen felt sorry for the long-ago slave.

  Miller said, “In the meantime, the other fellows are sitting down to have their dinner, when they suddenly realize that he never came back. They decide to put together a search party. But by the time they come upon the lost man, he’s completely lost his wits. When he sees them coming, he starts screaming about devils and demons and starts running! They can’t catch up with him until he trips over a rock again and falls flat on his face. He told them later he was so scared that he thought he’d been cast into the devil’s own region down below.”

  “And that’s why they call these the Haunted Chambers,” Stephen concluded.

  He still didn’t see anything funny about the story. He would remember the tale, and he would repeat it to visitors, but he wouldn’t laugh like Mr. Miller had when he did so.

  Miller showed Stephen other interesting features of the Haunted Chambers. Here Stephen saw his first stalactites. Miller had him repeat the word several times to make sure he pronounced it right: “stuh-lack-tights.”

  The stalactites were rock formations that hung down from the roof of the passageway. In other places, the formations grew up from the floor.

  “When they grow upward, we call ’em stalagmites.” Miller smoothed his hand along one tall growth. “You can remember which one is which because ‘stalagmite’ has the sound ‘guh’ in it, like ‘ground.’ It’s the one that grows up from the ground.”

  Stalagmite, Stephen repeated to himself. Stalactite. What interesting words, he thought. Interesting words for interesting things.

  This passageway was full of the strange growths. In some places a stalagmite and a stalactite had joined in the middle to form a single column from roof to floor. Many were blackened by the candle smoke of visitors who had come here before. These formations looked almost like the trunks of trees, if trees were made out of rock.

  Stephen asked Miller how the stalactites were formed.

  “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” Miller’s voice was rough. “Put that one to a scientist.”

  The tone of his voice made Stephen flinch. Mr. Miller seemed angry at him, and angry men often struck out at slaves. Then Stephen had a thought. Miller probably didn’t know the answer to Stephen’s question, and he was embarrassed about it. So he was angry at Stephen for asking.

  Things were quiet for a moment. Then Miller said, “I believe they were formed by water dripping down from the cave roof. See the way some of them are shaped like icicles? I just don’t know why they’re made out of rock instead of ice.”

  He turned back to Stephen. “We’ll likely have a scientist or two visiting here this summer,” he said. “Why don’t you ask one of them? Then you’ll know what to answer when somebody asks you how they’re formed.”

  Stephen thought that was an excellent idea. He wanted to learn everything he could about the cave.

  Miller didn’t seem to be a bad fellow. He did not yell at Stephen, like some white men yelled at slaves. Friends of Stephen’s had been beaten for working too slowly, or whipped for disobeying. But Archibald Miller simply wanted him to learn.

  He showed Stephen how to make one of the biggest stalactites ring like a bell by banging it with a stone. The gonging sounded spooky and hollow in the dark passageway. Next came the Register Room, where earlier travelers had used candles tied onto sticks to burn dates, initials, and even crude drawings onto the roof of the cave. Stephen wondered why people wanted to make dirty smoke marks on such a unique creation of nature.

  Miller pointed out the Devil’s Arm-Chair, an oddly shaped formation at the bottom of one stalactite, big enough so that visitors could sit down in it and rest. They looked at the Salts Room, where the unlucky slave had worked before getting lost in the tunnel. Then they walked out onto Lovers’ Leap, which was a stone ledge projecting out over a dark pit.

  Miller held his lantern out over the darkness. Stephen could barely see the bottom of the pit.

  “Nobody has ever been so desperate about his ladylove that he decided to jump here,” Miller told him. Stephen could understand why. Stalagmites grew up from the ground below like quills on a porcupine’s back.

  Then he noticed a steep slope at the left edge of the pit. Bootprints showed in the damp earth.

  “Yep, that’s the way to the lower level,” Miller said. “Down there are the Devil’s Elbow, a couple of domes and pits, and a spring. But it’s a tough trail down. Let’s eat first.”

  They each found a chunk of rock to perch on. Stephen handed the lunch basket to Miller. Now that he was sitting still, Stephen could feel the coolness of the cave air. While he ate, he thought over everything he had seen.

  Stone “trees,” an underground church, a winter home for bats, and tunnel upon tunnel upon tunnel. His head felt full of wonderful sights.

  The lantern light cast weird shadows around them. The cave air seemed to move, brushing him gently.

  Mammoth Cave did not feel like a closed, locked-in place. Stephen had the sense of much more space around him. It could be above his head or deep beneath his feet.

  Wherever it was, he would find a way in.

  The First Discovery

  By the end of April 1838, Mammoth Cave was ready for new visitors. Work on the inn was finished, and Archibald Miller was now the manager. At the cave entrance, the wooden handrail made it much safer to descend the rocky stairs. A wooden basin stood beneath the little waterfall so visitors could fill their canteens before entering the cave.

  Stephen was ready, too. Miller had shown him all the trails and told him all the stories. Stephen had practiced by guiding some of Mr. Gorin’s workmen through the cave as if they were paying customers.

  Still, Stephen was nervous. He wanted to do a good job, but wh
at if the visitors didn’t like the way he talked about the cave? Would Mr. Gorin replace him with another guide?

  April was too early in the year for most travelers to visit the cave. The main stagecoach road went through Bell’s Station, about nine miles to the east of the cave. From there, visitors had to come by horseback up a rough trail into the hills. Right now, the road was muddy from spring rains. It was not a quick or easy journey.

  So Stephen’s first tour was a small one. It was a group of travelers who had decided to stop for two days at the cave during their stagecoach journey from Louisville heading south.

  Four men and two women took rooms at the inn. That evening, while Mr. Gorin socialized with the visitors, Archibald Miller called Stephen away from his supper. They met in the yard next to the kitchen. Chickens clucked around their feet.

  Miller handed Stephen a bundle.

  “This will be your guide uniform,” he said. “Wear it whenever you lead a tour, and be sure you keep it clean. If you need something mended or replaced, tell Nita.” Nita was the slave woman who cooked at the inn.

  Stephen received the bundle with delight. He had never owned a new piece of clothing. As a little child, he had worn nothing hut a long shirt that hung down to his knees. Later he made do with cast-off clothing that never seemed to fit and cheaply made shoes that hurt his feet. He wanted to look at the garments right then and there, but Archibald Miller had more to say.

  “You will treat every visitor with the deepest respect,” the inn manager told him. “They are paying customers. But more than that, they have come a long way to see the cave. It may be the only time they ever come. If you do your job well, they will tell their friends and relations all about the tour, and our business will grow.”