Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

enough to destroy), plate, bullion, tapestries, brocades, weapons, and manuscripts, to the value of nearly seventy millions sterling. The crown, made after the fashion of the Persian diadems, had twelve points surmounted by diamonds of the purest water, with a pearl of extraordinary size and value in the centre; it was valued at above two millions sterling. The throne was ascended by silver steps, on which four silver lions supported the canopy of gold, the whole adorned with jewels, and worth (it is said) thirty millions of English money. Allowing for every exaggeration, the spoil was enormous, and tells an awful tale of the rapine and bloodshed by which it was acquired.

Akbar expired in October, 1605, from the effects of a poisoned cake, which he had prepared for the Raja Maun Sing of Jeypore. He had reigned forty-nine years, being mostly contemporary with Queen Elizabeth.

Such was the end of one of the most splendid monarchs the world ever saw! Do not our young readers see how much better it is to be poor and pious, than rich and forget God-better far be a sabbath scholar in England reading the Bible, fearing God, and loving the Saviour, than be the Great Mogul of India, living and dying without hope and without God!

Yes, JESUS is more precious than the richest treasures of all the earth :

"Should both the Indies at my call

Their boasted stores resign;

With joy would I give up them all,

For leave to call HIM mine!"

A FEARFUL VENTURE.

THERE are some men who seem fond of doing things which no other men dare do. There are no places on the face of the earth, or down in its deepest depths, that they will not venture to visit if at all possible. They will climb the highest mountains of ice and snow, or descend into the depths of dismal darkness. We have now a tale of this kind to tell you; but we do not tell it to set you to do deeds of daring. All such ventures are dangerous, and many have lost their lives in attempting them; just as many boys have hurt themselves by leading on other lads to "go a daring." Dont you follow them.

There are, in many parts of the earth, vast caverns, and deep pits sinking down from them to a great depth. We told you of one of these at page 207. But one of the largest caverns in the world ever yet found is in the United States of America. It is many miles in length, and is called the Mammoth Cave. One of their newspapers thus describes two attempts to descend a deep pit at the further end of it, and how a young man succeeded in reaching the bottom. It almost makes one tremble to read it!

"At the supposed end of what has always been considered the longest avenue of the Mammoth Cave, nine miles from the entrance, there is a pit, dark and deep, and terrible, known as the Maelstrom. Tens of thousands have gazed into it with awe whilst Bengal-lights were thrown down it to make its fearful depths visible, but none ever had the daring to explore it. The celebrated Guy Stephen, who was deemed insensible to fear, was offered 600 dollars by the proprietors

of the cave if he would descend to the bottom of it, but he shrank from the peril. A few years ago a Tenessee profesor, a learned and bold man, resolved to do what no one before him had dared to do, and, making his arrangements with great care and precaution, he had himself lowered down by a strong rope a hundred feet, but, at that point, his courage failed him, and he called aloud to be drawn out. He never could be induced to repeat the experiment.

A couple of weeks ago, however, a young gentleman of Louisville, whose nerves never trembled at mortal peril, being at the Mammoth Cave with Professor Wright, of our city, and others, determined, no matter what the dangers and difficulties might be, to explore the depths of the Maelstrom. Mr. Proctor, the enterprising proprietor of the cave, sent to Nashville and procured a long rope of great strength, expressly for the purpose. The ropes and some necessary timbers were borne by the guides and others to the point of exploration. The arrangements being soon completed, the rope, with a heavy fragment of rock affixed to it, was let down and swung to and fro to dislodge any loose rocks that would be likely to fall at the touch. Several were thus dislodged, and the long continued reverberations, rising up like distant thunder from below, proclaimed the depth of the horrid chasm. Then the young man, with several hats drawn over his head to protect it as far as possible against any masses falling from above, and with a light in his hand and a rope fastened around his body, took his place over the awful pit, and directed the half-dozen men who held the end of the rope to let him down into the gloomy abyss.

We have heard, from his own lips, an account of his descent. Occasionally masses of earth and rock went whizzing past, but none struck him. Thirty or forty feet from the top he saw a ledge, from which, as he judged by appearances, two or three avenues led off in different directions. About a hundred feet from the top, a cataract of water from the side of the pit went rushing down the abyss, and, as he descended by the side of the falling water and in the midst of the spray, he felt some apprehension that his light would be extinguished, but his care prevented this. He was landed at the bottom of the pit, 190 feet from the top. He found it almost circular, and about 18 feet wide, with a small opening at one point, leading to a chamber of no great extent. He found on the floor beautiful specimens of black silex of immense size, vastly larger than were ever discovered in any other part of the Mammoth Cave, and also a multitude of exquisite formations, as pure and white as virgin snow. Making himself heard, with great effort, by his friends, he at length asked them to pull him partly up, intending to stop on the way and explore a cave that he had observed opening, about forty feet above the bottom of the pit. Reaching the mouth of that cave, he swung himself with much exertion into it, and, holding the end of the rope in his hand, he incautiously let it go, and it swung out apparently beyond his reach. The situation was a fearful one, and his friends above could do nothing for him. Soon, however, he made a hook of the end of his lamp, and, by extending himself as far over the verge as possible without falling, he succeeded in securing the end of the rope. Fastening it to a rock, he followed the avenue

150 or 200 yards to a point where he found it blockaded by an impassable barrier of rock and earth. Returning to the mouth of this avenue, he beheld an almost exactly similar mouth of another on the opposite side of the pit; but, not being able to swing himself into it, he re-fastened the rope around his body, suspended himself again over the abyss, and shouted to his friends to raise him to the top. The pull was an exceedingly severe one, and the rope being ill-adjusted round his body, gave him the most excruciating pain. But soon his pain was forgotten in a new and dreadful peril. When he was ninety feet from the mouth of the pit and 100 from the bottom, swaying and swinging in mid-air, he heard rapid and excited words of horror and alarm above, and soon learned that the rope by which he was upheld had taken fire from the friction of the timber over which it passed. Several moments of awful suspense to those above, and still more awful to him below, ensued. To them and him a fatal and instant catastrophe seemed inevitable. But the fire was extinguished by a bottle of water belonging to himself, and then the party above, though almost exhausted by their labours, succeeded in drawing him to the top. He was as calm and self-possessed as upon his entrance into the pit, but all of his companions, overcome by fatigue, sank down upon the ground, and Professor Wright, from over-exertion and excitement, fainted, and remained for a time insensible.

The young adventurer left his name carved in the depths of the Maelstrom-the name of the first and only person that ever gazed upon its mysteries."

« ElőzőTovább »