George Alfred Henty Part 6

There was a judge who went on circuit, and he was chosen for a period of three years, but might be re-elected twice. To meet these stupendous demands, which meant an expenditure of about three thousand pounds a year, the government raised a revenue by the profits upon the sale of tobacco and salt, these being, as in other parts of Italy, state monopolies.

In addition to this a very small tax was levied on the landed proprietors, and the Italian government paid a sum of eighteen thousand francs a year, which was used for making roads, a.s.sisting the poor, giving aid in cases of loss by fire or misfortune, and repairing the public buildings. This sum was paid by the Italian government for customs dues.

Following his guide, Henty found the city to be a long narrow village on and below the crest of the cliff. It was enclosed by a wall some twenty-five feet high, surmounted by numerous round bastions. It showed every proof of having been very strong in former times, and even then, although the walls were very old and crumbling, it was evident that a thousand men could defend it for some time against a strong force, the rock falling so steeply away below it that it would be difficult to bring cannon to bear on it. Within the walls the houses were all crowded together; the streets, although they all zigzagged upwards, were so steep that no horse could draw a vehicle up them.

Among the antiquities of the place were the old a.s.sembly Hall and the building which contained the rooms of the captain regent, displaying the arms of the republic--three towers with plumes on the tops and the motto "Libertas." These towers represented the three which stood upon the highest points of the rocks. The view from the summit of the rock was superb. A thousand feet below lay the Burgo. Beyond that for miles upon miles spread a gently undulating country, dotted with innumerable towns and villages, stretching away to the seash.o.r.e. To the north lay a perfectly flat marsh land through which the Po and Adige find their way into the sea, this--the Adriatic--looking like a blue wall dotted with white sails. The guide a.s.sured the visitor that just before sunrise the mountains of Dalmatia, a hundred miles distant at least, were plainly visible.

Away to the west the Apennines shut in the view. Upon one of the spurs the castle of Saint Leon was visible, where the celebrated Cagliostro was imprisoned and died.

Henty observed upon his descent to the gate of the tower six strong posts, four being placed to make a parallelogram with cross pieces at the top, to one of which was attached a windla.s.s. The remaining two posts were placed one in front and one behind, the whole suggesting the possibility that they had been used in former times in the defence of the tower. On being questioned, however, the guide explained that they were used for a much more matter-of-fact purpose. When oxen are being shoved they are not so calm and patient over the operation as a horse, generally objecting very strongly to the performance. Hence they were driven in between the posts, ropes were fastened to the cross-bar on one side, these were attached to the windla.s.s, and when this was turned, the bullock was swung up into the air, and his feet fastened to the posts in front and behind.

It proved to be a delightful visit, the visitor ending by dining at a little auberge in the village at the foot of the hill, where to his surprise he found that they had an excellent cook.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A LAND OF MYSTERY.

Henty, having been interested in mining early in life, was at any time eager to seize upon an opportunity to plunge into the bowels of the earth, and not long after he commenced as war correspondent to the _Standard_, that is, at the termination of the Italo-Austrian campaign, he took occasion when at Trieste to run up into the hill country for a few days and visit the three great sights of Carniola, namely, the Grotto of Adelsberg, the Lake of Zirknitz, and the quicksilver mines of Idria.

Here the man who had studied mining in his youth with the possibility of succeeding to his father's industrial occupation was in his element, and showed himself ready to study the country with an open and receptive mind. He was eager at once to investigate the mountainous and sterile country covered by the Alps and Tyrol, the vast forests and their timber, the transport, the burning of charcoal, and the general cheerlessness of a land of desolation often covered with huge boulders and scaurs of white stone. Quite the geologist here, he notes the hard white limestone of the secondary formation, quarried extensively, being excellent for building, and known through Italy as Istrian marble. He speaks of it as being the same stone which extends through Carniola and through Dalmatia into Greece, and here he seems to revel in a kind of exciting pleasure as he finds himself in a limestone formation somewhat similar to that of our own Derbys.h.i.+re, asking to be explored and tempting him to excursions, honeycombed as it is with fissures and caverns.

Probably in no tract of country of equal size in the world are there so many singular freaks of nature. Rivers of navigable size and depth issue from its mountains--rivers which far surpa.s.s the subterranean streams of Central France--and these, after running for a few miles, enter a cavern and lose themselves as suddenly and mysteriously as they appeared.

It is a land of mystery and wonder, and, as if the spirit were moving within him to store up his mind with the natural wonders for attractive stories to come, such as would in some form or another fascinate readers yet unborn, Henty, with great eagerness, embraced the opportunity here offered to explore a wild land of savage sterility, where, as if to be in keeping with the "crag, knoll, and mound confusedly hurled, the fragments of an earlier world," terrible tempests sweep with irresistible force. In the fury which rages in this inhospitable region, horses and wagons are not infrequently hurled over precipices, and a foot pa.s.senger, surprised in one of the tempestuous mountain squalls, is forced to seek for shelter beneath the parapets that have been built along the road.

Here he found that he was in a country where the railroads were protected by strong stone walls ten or twelve feet high, or equally lofty wooden palisading supported on both sides by ma.s.sive struts, so as to afford some shelter to the pa.s.sing trains which, when the gales are at their worst, are quite unable to pursue their journey.

Here, too, the engineering difficulties encountered in the construction of one of the lines had the deepest interest for Henty as a mining engineer, for not only was he face to face with the difficulties of the making of the railroad, but also with those of obtaining a supply of water at the various stations. Where the line ran, all was aridity and desolation. The water was below, requiring the help of powerful engines to raise it, and aqueducts over the surface to bear it along, one of these water-bridges being twenty-five miles in length. It was a very giant-land for a writer of fiction to fill with adventure.

Pa.s.sing through this country of desolation, he at last reached the well-named village of Adelsberg, which in a state of nature might very well have supplied the crags where the eagles built. This he found a comfortable well-to-do village, Swiss-like in appearance, with its chalet style of architecture; but he was bent on the works of nature, and drove out to the famed Lake of Zirknitz, a piece of water that has obtained fame through its peculiar habit of quitting its bed once a year for a few weeks and so supplying the natives of those parts with an opportunity for growing a crop of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and millet before its return. This is all a suggestion of the peculiar workings of the subterranean waters below, and the regularity is more or less wonderful.

About midsummer the waters of the lake begin to shrink, growing lower and lower, and so rapidly that, after about twenty days in July, the lake is empty, remaining so till September or October, according to the season. This is the rule; but as there is no rule without an exception, the lake sometimes remains full for three or four years together, to the great loss of the people of the stony neighbourhood, who depend upon the little crop of buckwheat and millet which they are able to grow in the muddy bed. They also look forward to another harvest given to them when the water dries away; for, strange to state, at this time a plentiful supply of fish that flourish in the depths of the lake is left high and dry, and forms a portion of the natives' food.

Knowing the character of the lake, Henty on his visit had looked forward to finding the place empty; but it presented no attraction for the visitor, appearing to be only an ordinary sheet of water some four miles long by three wide. There were villages about its sh.o.r.es, and a few small islands dotted its surface; but no opportunity was afforded him of examining what to a mining engineer would have been a matter of intense interest, the natural machinery which operates in the remarkable process of emptying and refilling. For above ground the lake has neither outlet nor inlet; but the limestone which forms its bed contains a number of funnel-shaped holes communicating with the vast caves, grottoes, and reservoirs in the mountains, by which the water enters or is drawn off.

Some of these act as ebbing-pipes only; by others the water both enters and retires.

Upon occasions when the lake is empty, and there has been a sudden storm in the mountains, the water pours into the dry bed with such wonderful force and rapidity that it is sometimes filled in twenty-four hours.

The annual emptying of the lake, however, is observed almost as a fete by the surrounding villages. The church announces the strange phenomenon, and the inhabitants become fishers for the nonce. Nets are prepared, and every description of vessel is held ready for the capture of the fish left behind when the water retreats, the nets being princ.i.p.ally used as the waters sink and the funnel-shaped holes can be reached by the fishermen, who endeavour to cover these orifices before the fish can descend through them into the natural reservoirs below.

As the waters gradually disappear, a certain number of little pools are left, each being the property of one or other of the villages, and bearing its name. These pools vary greatly in the extent of the harvest they yield the villagers. One year a pool will contain cart-loads of fish, another year perhaps only a few dozen.

Henty gives a most interesting account of the strange phenomenon, but says nothing respecting the quality of the fish, except such as is conveyed by the eagerness of the inhabitants to obtain this natural yielding of the lake. They in all probability, however, belong to the _coregonus_ family, a kind of lake fish which in variety haunt the lakes of Central Europe, and which one can answer for being very good eating, a quality not often possessed by fresh-water fish. In this case, as salt forms a large source of trade in the neighbourhood of Lake Zirknitz, the fish obtained from its waters most likely partake of the firmness and good qualities of those obtained from the sea.

In this mountainous region Henty's observation was always busy, and he notes everything, not forgetting the accommodation. He describes the inns as rude, but not uncomfortable, the cookery not bad, but considers the people display an undue affection for stewed apples, which they look upon as a vegetable to be consumed with meat of all kinds.

He was much interested, too, in the custom of the villagers of keeping bees. He noticed in some villages several long carts, upon each of which were placed some twenty or thirty bee-hives of the shape of fig-boxes, but about two feet and a half long by a foot wide and nine inches deep. These hives are the property of various villagers, who club together, take a cart, and send it from place to place, so as to give the bees a fresh hunting-ground and a change of blossom for their supply.

Of course it is in the nature of a bee to be busy. Here they all seemed to be very active and hard at work, but they were rather a nuisance in the villages by reason of their numbers. However, they seemed particularly good-tempered bees, a fact of which Henty gives an example, and were not so much a nuisance through offering injury as from their habit of cl.u.s.tering upon the grapes and other fruits exposed for sale.

Henty says he remonstrated with a market woman, of whom he was willing to buy a bunch of grapes, when she held it out to him with eight or ten bees upon it, busily extracting honey, whereupon she laughed at him, picked the insects off with her fingers, and held them out to him to show that they were not disposed to use their stings even when roughly handled. An interesting fact this in natural history, and one which Henty admired, though he preferred seeing it done with other fingers than his own, and was quite content that the woman should have a poor opinion of his personal courage. But there are bees and bees, some more aggressive than others.

We all know the qualities of our own native bee, and any bee-keeper, unless he has been stung frequently and become inured, will tell you that the bees imported of late years from Liguria, and now acclimatised, have a rather vicious disposition.

These from the neighbourhood of Adelsberg are in all probability the reverse in character. Certainly they seem to vary, for Henty describes the honey as by no means good, being very dark-coloured, and having a strong, unpleasant tw.a.n.g. On the other hand, the flavour depends upon the neighbouring growth of flowers, and the taste may be given by some nectary common to the neighbourhood, possibly by what Henty describes when he says the fields were bright with purple crocus, which he had never before seen flowering at this time of year--October--evidently a mistake on his part, for the colchic.u.m, the producer of the old-world remedy for gout.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A SUBTERRANEAN EXCURSION.

The next day Henty started for his eagerly antic.i.p.ated plunge into the far-famed Grotto of Adelsberg, and he frankly declares at once that there are some sights of which it is impossible by mere words to convey any adequate impression, and to do justice to which it would be necessary to combine the epithets and imagery of a dozen languages.

"Foremost among these," he says, "is the Grotto of Adelsberg, and I had hardly entered it when I became painfully conscious that the idea with which I had come--namely, of writing a description which should give a vivid conception of the most beautiful and varied succession of grottoes in the world--was hopelessly beyond my powers."

The entrance to the caverns is about a mile from Adelsberg, and a little way up the side of a limestone mountain whose strata dip at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Immediately below the entrance a good-sized stream plunges into a low cavern and reappears only some ten miles distant in a direct line to the north. But some idea of the actual course of this river may be gained from the fact that pieces of cork thrown in where the river disappears do not emerge again for twelve hours, which goes to prove that the distance they have travelled is more than double the above. There are, it seems, two entrances, and in the one followed, the path at first led through a pa.s.sage or corridor of no great length, and then opened suddenly into a n.o.ble cavern known as the "Dome."

This was all that was known of the grottoes till the year 1819, when a workman accidentally destroyed a stalact.i.te screen and discovered the entrance to the apparently illimitable series of caves beyond. Of these, five miles in length have been explored; but the end has not been reached, and they extend for unknown distances in several directions.

The effect of the Dome is superlatively grand. It is three hundred feet in length and one hundred feet in height and width. The sides are quite perpendicular, and at about half their height a natural gallery runs partially round them. The view from this is magnificent in the extreme.

The guides who accompanied the visitors placed candles at short intervals along the parapet, but their light barely pierced the gloomy expanse. Upward the roof loomed dark and vague. Beneath, the river, which had commenced its subterranean pa.s.sage, rushed brawling among rocks, and was crossed by a wooden bridge lit up by two rows of candles, whose rays were reflected in broken flashes from the black tumbling water.

At the extreme end of this vast hall a faint blue light showed where the daylight beyond struggled in at the outlet of the river cave. Above and around the roar of the stream was re-echoed and answered by a thousand low reverberating murmurs. The whole effect was ineffably solemn and awe-inspiring. Henty and his companions having provided themselves with magnesium wire at Trieste, this was now used, and the effect was absolutely startling. The light streamed out into the most distant recesses, the candles faded to dim red points, and the roof, which had before appeared of fabulous height, seemed now to be crus.h.i.+ng down upon them, the stalact.i.tes of its rugged surface standing out clear and well defined. Then, as the bright white light with its clouding smoke died out, the darkness deepened with oppressive heaviness. Everything had been so grand, that it needed all the persuasions of the guide, who a.s.sured the party that far more beautiful things were to be seen beyond, before they could be induced to leave this spot and to ascend the steps which led to the entrance of the inner caves.

The path which they followed then was upwards of three miles long, and so arranged that they returned by a different series of grottoes from those they had traversed. The variety of scenery displayed in these three miles was extraordinary. Sometimes the way contracted into low narrow pa.s.sages, at others opened out into enormous halls. Chambers and corridors, fairy grottoes and gloomy caves, alternated with each other, and the princ.i.p.al halls were popularly named the Ball-room, the Concert-room, and the Calvary. The Ball-room was of nearly the same proportions as the Dome, except that the height was not so great, but its character was entirely different. It was graceful and airy, and was apparently illuminated with numerous chandeliers. The floor was perfectly smooth and level, and at one end an artificial orchestra had been erected in the midst of a group of crags and stalagmites. This, once a year, is really used as a ball-room for a dance, to which thousands of the surrounding peasantry flock. Nothing could be more beautiful than the way in which the walls are decked by nature.

Everywhere from walls and roof depend ma.s.ses of stalact.i.tes of the most graceful and elegant forms. Floating draperies are festooned around.

Filmy, semi-transparent veils seem to wave gently to and fro as they sparkle in the numerous lights. Here appear drooping pendants and tapering spike-like projections; there, majestic pillars and cl.u.s.tering columns.

The Concert-room is similar in character, but larger and narrower, and hence issued an immense and gloomy corridor more than a hundred feet high. The floor was covered with ma.s.ses of loose rock, whose huge and rugged shapes loomed, distorted and uncouth, in the faint light of the candles.

From this abode of gloom they entered the Calvary, which appeared to be the largest of all the halls. It must have been three hundred feet long and upwards of two hundred wide. At one end rose a lofty heap of rocks that had fallen from the roof and been cemented together by stalagmites.

It bore a resemblance to a great shrine, and was brilliantly illuminated, while the rest of the vast s.p.a.ce lay in deep and mysterious shadow. From the lower end, where the observers stood, the floor sloped steeply up. It was composed of misshapen blocks of stone, for at some far-distant period the whole interior, now a flat bare surface, must have fallen with a mighty crash, brought down by the weight of the stalact.i.tes that had formed upon it. That the catastrophe happened long ages since was evidenced by the fact that the whole floor was covered with stalagmites of various sizes and heights, which looked as though a forest of great pines had once grown there, till their trunks had been snapped short off by the swoop of some mighty whirlwind.

There was a weird grandeur about this hall which was almost appalling, producing as it did questioning fancies respecting the possibility of a repet.i.tion of the old-world scene.

In the corridors and caves that intervened between these princ.i.p.al chambers and halls there was an infinity of fantastic shapes, in which fancy could trace almost every known form. A monstrous bee-hive, a Brobdingnagian tortoise, huge fallen trees covered with lichens growing rankly, half-rounded nodules, and great wart-like protuberances. In one place the roof would be supported by Gothic columns, farther on by unshapely props and b.u.t.tresses. In one corner rough stems as of ivy seemed to be clinging to the wall, or the gnarled trunks of oaks thrust themselves up between the blocks. Above one cave it seemed as if a great tree were growing, whose twining roots hung down from the roof.

And so on, and so on, fancy helping the visitor to believe that he was gazing upon long ranges of organ pipes, upon stems of palm-trees with well-defined marks whence the broad leaves had sprouted, or upon basaltic columns, with wide steps slowly formed by ages, where water had trickled down. Farther on, too, at intervals, creamy-red couches seemed to be temptingly placed, with folds of a soft white material thrown carelessly over them, while long flags and fringed draperies of admirable texture and design drooped down from c.h.i.n.ks and crannies in the roof, as if to form decorations for some fete in the world of the gnomes.

There was no end to the wonders wrought by nature's own sculptors-- fonts, chalices, exquisitely chased imaged shrines, and strange confessionals; groups of statuary wrought in beauty, with roofs above covered with fretwork of the most delicate tracery; and in opposition there was the grotesque on every hand, with squat heathen idols, grim corbels, and in the darkness, with Dore-like effect, diabolical-looking creations or works as of some enchanter's wand. In parts everything was so real, that it was impossible not to believe that that cascade, glistening as it did when the lights were turned upon it, was not deep water, but only stone, or that a fountain glittering with diamond spray in the pa.s.sing light was not composed of liquid drops.

In one cave the wall seemed to be hung in ruddy ma.s.ses of stalact.i.te of so truly a fleshy tint that they seemed to be palpably strips of flesh, which carried the spectator back to old cla.s.sic readings and the legends of the Latin ancients. For it seemed as if the cave might be the spot where Apollo had skinned Marsyas, and Henty listened as if expectant of hearing the sufferer's howls re-echo through the vast labyrinth. For here seemed to hang his flesh--great strips of muscle and tendon, some looking cold and stiff, others soft and limp, with the glowing tint of life still warm upon them. It was terribly real.

Earthy solutions had stained some of the stalact.i.tes of a dirty grey hue, the material of the carbonate of lime being dull and coa.r.s.e; but others again were white as alabaster, the carbonate giving place to the sulphate, and looking pure and semi-transparent. In many places the surface of the deposit of lime, slowly formed of nature's great patience, was smooth as polished marble, while in other places, suggestive of the more ready work of heated springs of water charged with lime, the deposit was uneven as ma.s.ses of coral. The tints, too, varied from clear white to cream colour, orange, and red; and while in many places the drooping stalact.i.tes were dull and soft-looking, and reflected no light, in others they sparkled with myriads of coruscations as of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies; or rather, as they changed and flashed in the pa.s.sing light, they resembled rocks over which a thin film of jewels was streaming, or a sudden blaze of suns.h.i.+ne upon h.o.a.r frost.

And it was not only the eye that was dazzled and seemed to gather an imagination of its own; but there were wonders for the ear, for now and again there were hanging ma.s.ses offering themselves to be struck, waiting there in the whispering silence of the vast halls of wonder, to give out a clear bell-like sound which varied from the sharp ring of a struck gla.s.s to the deep soft boom of some cathedral bell, the tone being invariably much purer and sweeter from the semi-transparent blocks than from those that were formed of material which was loose and coa.r.s.e.

Many of the caves that closely adjoined each other varied in the most extraordinary manner. Some seemed to be dark and murky, suitable homes for gnomes and evil genii. Misshapen monsters appeared to lurk, eerie and gruesome, in obscure corners; slimy and uncouth reptiles seemed to crawl and grovel in the damp mire, looking horribly real, though only fancy save in the solidity of stone.