Cracow.--Casimir the Great.--Kosciusko.--Tombs of the Polish
Kings.--A Polish Heroine.--Last Words of a King.--A Hero in
Decay.--The Salt-mines of Cracow.--The Descent.--The
Mines.--Underground Meditations.--The Farewell.
CRACOW is an old, curious, and interesting city, situated in a valley on
the banks of the Vistula; and approaching it as I did, toward the sunset
of a summer's day, the old churches and towers, the lofty castles and
the large houses spread out on the immense plains, gave it an appearance
of actual splendour. This faded away as I entered, but still the city
inspired a feeling of respect, for it bore the impress of better days.
It contains numerous churches, some of them very large, and remarkable
for their style and architecture, and more than a hundred monasteries
and convents. In the centre is a large square, on which stands the
church of Notre Dame, an immense Gothic structure, and also the old
palace of Sobieski, now cut down into shops, and many large private
residences, uninhabited and falling to ruins. The principal streets
terminate in this square. Almost every building bears striking marks of
ruined grandeur. On the last partition of Poland in eighteen hundred and
fifteen by the Holy Alliance, Cracow, with a territory of five hundred
square miles and a population of a hundred and eight thousand, including
about thirty thousand Jews, was erected into a republic; and at this day
it exists nominally as a _free city_, under the protection of the three
great powers; emphatically, such protection as vultures give to lambs;
three masters instead of one, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, all claiming
the right to interfere in its government.
But even in its fallen state Cracow is dear to the Pole's heart, for it
was the capital of his country when Poland ranked high among nations,
and down to him who last sat upon her throne, was the place of
coronation and of burial for her kings. It is the residence of many of
the old Polish nobility, who, with reduced fortunes, prefer this little
foothold in their country, where liberty nominally lingers, to exile in
foreign lands. It now contains a population of about thirty thousand,
including Jews. Occasionally the seigneur is still seen, in his short
cassock of blue cloth, with a red sash and a white square-topped cap; a
costume admirably adapted to the tall and noble figure of the proud
Pole, and the costume of the peasant of Cracow is still a striking
feature in her streets.
After a stroll through the churches, I walked on the old ramparts of
Cracow. The city was formerly surrounded with regular fortifications,
but, as in almost all the cities of Europe, her ancient walls have been
transformed into Boulevards; and now handsome avenues of trees encircle
it, destroying altogether its Gothic military aspect, and on Sundays and
fete days the whole population gathers in gay dresses, seeking pleasure
where their fathers stood clad in armour and arrayed for battle.
The Boulevards command an extensive view of all the surrounding country.
"All the sites of my country," says a national poet, "are dear to me;
but, above all, I love the environs of Cracow; there at every step I
meet the recollections of our ancient glory and our once imposing
grandeur."
On the opposite bank of the river is a large tumulus of earth, marking
the grave of Cracus, the founder of the city. A little higher up is
another mound, reverenced as the sepulchre of his daughter Wenda, who
was so enamoured of war that she promised to give her hand only to the
lover who should conquer her in battle. Beyond this is the field of
Zechino, where the brave Kosciusko, after his return from America, with
a band of peasants, again struck the first blow of revolution, and, by a
victory over the Russians, roused all Poland to arms.
About a mile from Cracow are the ruins of the palace of Lobzow, built by
Casimir the Great, for a long time the favourite royal residence, and
identified with a crowd of national recollections; and, until lately, a
large mound of earth in the garden was reverenced as the grave of
Esther, the beautiful Jewess, the idol of Casimir the Great. Poetry has
embellished the tradition, and the national muse has hallowed the palace
of Lobzow and the grave of Esther.
"Passer-by, if you are a stranger, tremble in thinking of human
destruction; but if you are a Pole, shed bitter tears; heroes have
inhabited this palace.... Who can equal them?...
* * * * *
"Casimir erected this palace: centuries have hailed him with the name of
the great....
* * * * *
"Near his Esther, in the delightful groves of Lobzow, he thought himself
happy in ceasing to be a king to become a lover.
* * * * *
"But fate is unpitiable for kings as for us, and even beauty is subject
to the common law. Esther died, and Casimir erected a tomb in the place
she had loved.
"Oh! if you are sensible to the grief caused by love, drop a tear at
this tomb and adorn it with a crown. If Casimir was tied to humanity by
some weaknesses, they are the appendage of heroes! In presence of this
chateau, in finding again noble remains, sing the glory of Casimir the
Great."
I was not a sentimental traveller, nor sensible to the grief that is
caused by love, and I could neither drop a tear at the tomb of Esther
nor sing the glory of Casimir the Great; but my heart beat high as I
turned to another monument in the environs of Cracow; an immense mound
of earth, standing on an eminence visible from every quarter, towering
almost into a mountain, and sacred to the memory of Kosciusko! I saw it
from the palace of the kings and from the ramparts of the fallen city,
and, with my eyes constantly fixed upon it, descended to the Vistula,
followed its bank to a large convent, and then turned to the right,
direct for the mound. I walked to the foot of the hill, and ascended to
a broad table of land. From this table the mound rises in a conical
form, from a base three hundred feet in diameter, to the height of one
hundred and seventy-five feet. At the four corners formerly stood small
houses, which were occupied by revolutionary soldiers who had served
under Kosciusko. On the farther side, enclosed by a railing, was a small
chapel, and within it a marble tomb covering Kosciusko's heart! A
circular path winds round the mound; I ascended by this path to the top.
It is built of earth sodded, and was then covered with a thick carpet of
grass, and reminded me of the tumuli of the Grecian heroes on the plains
of Troy; and perhaps, when thousands of years shall have rolled by, and
all connected with our age be forgotten, and time and exposure to the
elements shall have changed its form, another stranger will stand where
I did, and wonder why and for what it was raised. It was erected in 1819
by the voluntary labour of the Polish people; and so great was the
enthusiasm, that, as an eyewitness told me, wounded soldiers brought
earth in their helmets, and women in their slippers; and I remembered,
with a swelling heart, that on this consecrated spot a nation of brave
men had turned to my country as the star of liberty, and that here a
banner had been unfurled and hailed with acclamations by assembled
thousands, bearing aloft the sacred inscription, "Kosciusko, the friend
of Washington!"
The morning was cold and dreary, the sky was overcast with clouds, and
the sun, occasionally breaking through lighted up for a moment with
dazzling brilliancy the domes and steeples of Cracow, and the palace and
burial-place of her kings, emblematic of the fitful gleams of her
liberty flashing and dazzling, and then dying away. I drew my cloak
around me, and remained there till I was almost drenched with rain. The
wind blew violently, and I descended and sheltered myself at the foot of
the mound, by the grave of Kosciusko's heart!
I returned to the city and entered the Cathedral Church. It stands by
the side of the old palace, on the summit of the rock of Wauvel, in the
centre of and commanding the city, enclosed with walls and towers, and
allied in its history with the most memorable annals of Poland; the
witness of the ancient glory of her kings, and their sepulchre. The rain
was pattering against the windows of the old church as I strolled
through the silent cloisters and among the tombs of the kings. A verger
in a large cocked hat, and a group of peasants, moved, like myself, with
noiseless steps, as if afraid to disturb the repose of the royal dead.
Many of the kings of Poland fill but a corner of the page of history.
Some of their names I had forgotten, or, perhaps, never knew until I saw
them inscribed on their tombs; but every monument covered a head that
had worn a crown, and some whose bones were mouldering under my feet
will live till the last records of heroism perish.
The oldest monument is that of Wladislaus le Bref, built of stone,
without any inscription, but adorned with figures in bas-relief, which
are very much injured. He died in thirteen hundred and thirty-three, and
chose himself the place of his eternal rest. Charles the Twelfth of
Sweden, on his invasion of Poland, visited the Cathedral Church, and
stopped before this tomb. A distinguished canon who attended him, in
allusion to the position of John Casimir, who was then at war with the
King of Sweden, remarked, "And that king was also driven from his
throne, but he returned and reigned until his death." The Swede answered
with bitterness, "But your John Casimir will never return." The canon
replied respectfully, "God is great and fortune is fickle;" and the
canon was right, for John Casimir regained his throne.
I approached with a feeling of veneration the tomb of Casimir the Great.
It is of red marble; four columns support a canopy, and the figure of
the king, with a crown on his head, rests on a coffin of stone. An iron
railing encloses the monument. It is nearly five hundred years since the
palatins and nobles of Poland, with all the insignia of barbaric
magnificence, laid him in the place where his ashes now repose. The
historian writes, "Poland is indebted to Casimir for the greatest part
of her churches, palaces, fortresses, and towns," adding that "he found
Poland of wood and left her of marble." He patronized letters, and
founded the University of Cracow; promoted industry and encouraged
trade; digested the unwritten laws and usages into a regular code;
established courts of justice; repressed the tyranny of the nobles, and
died with the honourable title of King of the Peasants; and I did not
forget, while standing over his grave, that beneath me slept the spirit
that loved the groves of Lobzow and the heart that beat for Esther the
Jewess.
The tomb of Sigismund I. is of red marble, with a figure as large as
life reclining upon it. It is adorned with bas-reliefs and the arms of
the republic, the white eagle and the armed cavalier of Lithuania. He
died in fifteen hundred and forty-one, and his monument bears the
following inscription in Latin: "Sigismund Jagellon, King of Poland,
Grand-duke of Lithuania, Conqueror of the Tartars, of the Wallachians,
of the Russians and Prussians, reposes under this stone, which he
prepared for himself." Forty years ago Thaddeus Czacki, the Polish
historian, opened the tombs of the kings, and found the head of
Sigismund resting upon a plate of silver bearing a long Latin
inscription; the body measured six feet and two inches in height, and
was covered with three rich ermines; on the feet were golden spurs, a
chain of gold around the neck, and a gold ring on one finger of the left
hand. At his feet was a small pewter coffin enclosing the body of his
son by Bone Sforza.
By his side lies the body of his son Sigismund II., the last of the
Jagellons, at whose death began the cabals and convulsions of an
elective monarchy, by which Poland lost her influence among foreign
powers. His memory is rendered interesting by his romantic love for
Barbe Radzewill. She appeared at his father's court, the daughter of a
private citizen, celebrated in Polish history and romance as uniting to
all a woman's beauty a mingled force and tenderness, energy and
goodness. The prince had outlived all the ardour of youth; disappointed
and listless amid pleasures, his energy of mind destroyed by his
excesses, inconstant in his love, and at the summit of human prosperity,
living without a wish or a hope; but he saw Barbe, and his heart beat
anew with the pulsations of life. In the language of his biographer he
proved, in all its fulness, that sentiment which draws to earth by its
sorrows and raises to heaven by its delights. He married her privately,
and on his father's death proclaimed her queen. The whole body of nobles
refused to acknowledge the marriage, and one of the nuncios, in the name
of the representatives of the nation, supplicated him for himself, his
country, his blood, and his children, to extinguish his passion; but the
king swore on his sword that neither the diet, nor the nation, nor the
whole universe should make him break his vows to Barbe; that he would a
thousand times rather live with her out of the kingdom than keep a
throne which she could not share; and was on the point of abdicating,
when his opponents offered to do homage to the queen. When Czacki opened
the coffin of this prince, he found the body perfectly preserved, and
the head, as before, resting on a silver plate containing a long Latin
inscription.
At the foot of his coffin is that of his sister and successor, Anne; and
in a separate chapel is the tomb of Stephen Battory, one of the greatest
of the kings of Poland, raised to the throne by his marriage with Anne.
I became more and more interested in this asylum of royal dead. I read
there almost the entire history of the Polish republic, and again I felt
that it was but a step from the throne to the grave, for near me was the
great chair in which the kings of Poland were crowned. I paused before
the tomb of John Casimir; and there was something strangely interesting
in the juxtaposition of these royal dead. John Casimir lies by the side
of the brother whom he endeavoured to supplant in his election to the
throne. His reign was a continued succession of troubles and
misfortunes. Once he was obliged to fly from Poland. He predicted what
has since been so fearfully verified, that his country, enfeebled by the
anarchy of its government and the licentiousness of the nobles, would be
dismembered among the neighbouring powers; and, worn out with the cares
of royalty, abdicated the throne, and died in a convent in France. I
read at his tomb his pathetic farewell to his people.
"People of Poland,
"It is now two hundred and eighty years that you have been governed
by my family. The reign of my ancestors is past, and mine is going
to expire. Fatigued by the labours of war, the cares of the
cabinet, and the weight of age; oppressed with the burdens and
vicissitudes of a reign of more than twenty-one years, I, your king
and father, return into your hands what the world esteems above all
things, a crown, and choose for my throne six feet of earth, where
I shall sleep with my fathers. When you show my tomb to your
children, tell them that I was the foremost in battle and the last
in retreat; that I renounced regal grandeur for the good of my
country, and restored my sceptre to those who gave it me."
By his side, and under a monument of black marble, lies the body of his
successor, Michel Wisniowecki, an obscure and unambitious citizen, who
was literally dragged to the throne, and wept when the crown was placed
upon his head, and of whom Casimir remarked, when informed of his late
subjects' choice, "What, have they put the crown on the head of that
poor fellow?" And again I was almost startled by the strange and
unnatural mingling of human ashes. By the side of that "poor fellow"
lies the "famous" John Sobieski, the greatest of the long line of kings
of a noble and valorous nation;
"One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die."
On the lower floor of the church, by the side of Poniatowski, the
Polish Bayard, is the tomb of one nobler in my eyes than all the kings
of Poland or of the world. It is of red marble, ornamented with the cap
and plume of the peasant of Cracow, and bears the simple inscription "T.
Kosciusko." All over the church I had read elaborate panegyrics upon the
tenants of the royal sepulchres, and I was struck with this simple
inscription, and remembered that the white marble column reared amid the
magnificent scenery of the Hudson, which I had often gazed at from the
deck of a steamboat, and at whose base I had often stood, bore also in
majestic simplicity the name of "Kosciusko." It was late in the
afternoon, and the group of peasants, two Poles from the interior, and a
party of the citizens of Cracow, among whom were several ladies, joined
me at the tomb. We could not speak each other's language; we were born
and lived thousands of miles apart, and we were strangers in our
thoughts and feelings, in all our hopes and prospects, but we had a bond
of sympathy at the grave of Kosciusko. One of the ladies spoke French,
and I told them that, in my far distant country, the name of their
nation's idol was hallowed; that schoolboys had erected a monument to
his memory. They knew that he had fought by the side of Washington, but
they did not know that the recollection of his services was still so
dearly cherished in America; and we all agreed that it was the proudest
tribute that could be paid to his memory, to write merely his name on
his monument. It meant that it was needless to add an epitaph, for no
man would ask, Who was Kosciusko?
It was nearly dark when I returned to my hotel. In the restaurant, at a
small table directly opposite me, sat the celebrated Chlopicki, to whom,
on the breaking out of the last revolution, Poland turned as to another
Kosciusko, and who, until he faltered during the trying scenes of that
revolution, would have been deemed worthy to lie by Kosciusko's side.
Born of a noble family, a soldier from his birth, he served in the
memorable campaigns of the great patriot, distinguished himself in the
Polish legions in Italy under Dombrowski, and, as colonel of a regiment
of the army of the Vistula, behaved gloriously in Prussia. In Spain he
fought at Saragossa and Sagunta, and was called by Suchet _le brave des
braves_; as general of brigade in the army of Russia, he was wounded at
Valentina, near Smolensk, and was general of a division in eighteen
hundred and fourteen, when Poland fell under the dominion of the
autocrat. The Grand-duke Constantine censured him on parade, saying that
his division was not in order; and Chlopicki, with the proud boast, "I
did not gain my rank on the parade-ground, nor did I win my decorations
there," asked his discharge the next day, and could never after be
induced to return to the service. The day after the revolutionary blow
was struck, all Poland turned to Chlopicki as the only man capable of
standing at the head of the nation. The command of the army, with
absolute powers, was conferred upon him by acclamation, and one of the
patriot leaders concluded his address to him with these words: "Brother,
take the sword of your ancestors and predecessors, Czarnecki,
Dombrowski, and Kosciusko. Guide the nation that has placed its trust
in you in the path of honour. Save this unhappy country." Chlopicki,
with his silver head grown white in the service of Poland, was hailed by
a hundred thousand people on the Champ de Mars with shouts of "our
country and its brave defender, Chlopicki, for ever." He promised never
to abuse their confidence, and swore that he would defend the liberty of
Poland to the last moment. The whole nation was enthusiastic in his
favour; but in less than three months, at a stormy session of the diet,
he threw up his high office of dictator, and refused peremptorily to
accept command of the army. This brave army, enthusiastically attached
to him, was struck with profound grief at his estrangement; but, with
all the faults imputed to him, it never was charged that he attempted to
take advantage of his great popularity for any ambitious purposes of his
own.
At the battle of Grokow he fought nominally as a private soldier, though
Skryznecki and Radziwill being both deficient in military experience,
the whole army looked to him for guidance. Once, when the battle was
setting strong against the Poles, in a moment of desperation he put
himself at the head of some disposable battalions, and turning away from
an aiddecamp who came to him for orders, said, "Go and ask Radziwill;
for me, I seek only death." Grievously wounded, his wounds were dressed
in presence of the enemy; but at two o'clock he was borne off the field,
the hopes of the soldiers died, and the army remained without any actual
head. Throughout the revolution his conduct was cold, indifferent, and
inexplicable; private letters from the Emperor of Russia were talked of,
and even _treason_ was whispered in connexion with his name. The Poles
speak of him more in sorrow than in anger; they say that it was not
enough that he exposed his person on the field of battle; that he should
have given them the whole weight of his great military talents, and the
influence of his powerful name; that, standing alone, without children
or relations to be compromised by his acts, he should have consummated
the glory of his life by giving its few remaining years for the liberty
of his country. He appeared about sixty-five, with hair perfectly white,
a high florid complexion, a firm and determined expression, and in still
unbroken health, carrying himself with the proud bearing of a
distinguished veteran soldier. I could not believe that he had bartered
the precious satisfaction of a long and glorious career for a few years
of ignoble existence; and, though a stranger, could but regret that, in
the wane of life, circumstances, whether justly or not, had sullied an
honoured name. It spoke loudly against him that I saw him sitting in a
public restaurant at Cracow, unmolested by the Russian government.
The next day I visited the celebrated salt-mines at Wielitska. They lie
about, twelve miles from Cracow, in the province of Galicia, a part of
the kingdom of Poland, which, on the unrighteous partition of that
country, fell to the share of Austria. Although at so short a distance,
it was necessary to go through all the passport formalities requisite on
a departure for a foreign country. I took a fiacre and rode to the
different bureaux of the city police, and, having procured the
permission of the municipal authorities to leave the little territory of
Cracow, rode next to the Austrian consul, who thereupon, and in
consideration of one dollar to him in hand paid, was graciously pleased
to permit me to enter the dominions of his master the Emperor of
Austria. It was also necessary to have an order from the director of the
mines to the superintendent; and furnished with this I again mounted my
fiacre, rattled through the principal street, and in a few minutes
crossed the Vistula. At the end of the bridge an Austrian soldier
stopped me for my passport, a _douanier_ examined my carriage for
articles subject to duty, and, these functionaries being satisfied, in
about two hours from the time at which I began my preparations I was
fairly on my way.
Leaving the Vistula, I entered a pretty, undulating, and well-cultivated
country, and saw at a distance a high dark line, marking the range of
the Carpathian mountains. It was a long time since I had seen anything
that looked like a mountain. From the Black Sea the whole of my journey
had been over an immense plain, and I hailed the wild range of the
Carpathian as I would the spire of a church, as an evidence of the
approach to regions of civilization.
In an hour and a half I arrived at the town of Wielitska, containing
about three thousand inhabitants, and standing, as it were, on the roof
of the immense subterraneous excavations. The houses are built of wood,
and the first thing that struck me was the almost entire absence of men
in the streets, the whole male population being employed in the mines,
and then at work below. I rode to the office of the superintendent, and
presented my letter, and was received with great civility of manner but
his _Polish_ was perfectly unintelligible. A smutty-faced operative,
just out of the mines, accosted me in Latin, and I exchanged a few shots
with him, but hauled off on the appearance of a man whom the
superintendent had sent for to act as my guide; an old soldier who had
served in the campaigns of Napoleon, and, as he said, become an amateur
and proficient in fighting and French. He was dressed in miner's
costume, fanciful, and embroidered with gold, holding in his hand a
steel axe; and, having arrayed me in a long white frock, conducted me to
a wooden building covering the shaft which forms the principal entrance
to the mine. This shaft is ten feet square, and descends perpendicularly
more than two hundred feet into the bowels of the earth. We arranged
ourselves in canvass seats, and several of the miners, who were waiting
to descend, attached themselves to seats at the end of the ropes, with
lamps in their hands, about eight or ten feet below us.
When my feet left the brink of the shaft I felt, for a moment, as if
suspended over the portal of a bottomless pit; and as my head descended
below the surface, the rope, winding and tapering to a thread, seemed
letting me down to the realms of Pluto. But in a few moments we touched
bottom. From within a short distance of the surface, the shaft is cut
through a solid rock of salt, and from the bottom passages almost
innumerable are cut in every direction through the same bed. We were
furnished with guides, who went before us bearing torches, and I
followed through the whole labyrinth of passages, forming the largest
excavations in Europe, peopled with upward of two thousand souls, and
giving a complete idea of a subterraneous world. These mines are known
to have been worked upward of six hundred years, being mentioned in the
Polish annals as early as twelve hundred and thirty-seven, under
Boleslaus the Chaste, and then not as a new discovery, but how much
earlier they had existed cannot now be ascertained. The tradition is,
that a sister of St. Casimir, having lost a gold ring, prayed to St.
Anthony, the patron saint of Cracow, and was advised in a dream that, by
digging in such a place, she would find a treasure far greater than that
she had lost, and within the place indicated these mines were
discovered.
[Illustration: Salt-mines of Wielitska.]
There are four different stories or ranges of apartments; the whole
length of the excavations is more than six thousand feet, or three
quarters of an hour's walk, and the greatest breadth more than two
thousand feet; and there are so many turnings and windings that my guide
told me, though I hardly think it possible, that the whole length of all
the passages cut through this bed of salt amounts to more than three
hundred miles. Many of the chambers are of immense size. Some are
supported by timber, others by vast pillars of salt; several are without
any support in the middle, and of vast dimensions, perhaps eighty feet
high, and so long and broad as almost to appear a boundless
subterraneous cavern. In one of the largest is a lake covering nearly
the whole area. When the King of Saxony visited this place in eighteen
hundred and ten, after taking possession of his moiety of the mines as
Duke of Warsaw, this portion of them was brilliantly illuminated; and a
band of music, floating on the lake, made the roof echo with patriotic
airs. We crossed the lake in a flatboat by a rope, the dim light of
torches, and the hollow sound of our voices, giving a lively idea of a
passage across the Styx; and we had a scene which might have entitled us
to a welcome from the prince of the infernals, for our torch-bearers
quarrelled, and in a scuffle that came near carrying us all with them,
one was tumbled into the lake. Our Charon caught him, and, without
stopping to take him in, hurried across, and as soon as we landed beat
them both unmercifully.
From this we entered an immense cavern, in which several hundred men
were working with pickaxes and hatchets, cutting out large blocks of
salt, and trimming them to suit the size of barrels. With their black
faces begrimed with dust and smoke, they looked by the light of the
scattered torches like the journeymen of Beelzebub, the prince of
darkness, preparing for some great blow-up, or like the spirits of the
damned condemned to toil without end. My guide called up a party, who
disengaged with their pickaxes a large block of salt from its native
bed, and in a few minutes cut and trimmed it to fit the barrels in which
they are packed. All doubts as to their being creatures of our upper
world were removed by the eagerness with which they accepted the money I
gave them; and it will be satisfactory to the advocates of that currency
to know that paper money passes readily in these lower regions.
There are more than a thousand chambers or halls, most of which have
been abandoned and shut up. In one is a collection of fanciful things,
such as rings, books, crosses, &c., cut in the rock-salt. Most of the
principal chambers had some name printed over them, as the "Archduke,"
"Carolina," &c. Whenever it was necessary, my guides went ahead and
stationed themselves in some conspicuous place, lighting up the dark
caverns with the blaze of their torches, and, after allowing me a
sufficient time, struck their flambeaux against the wall, and millions
of sparks flashed and floated around and filled the chamber. In one
place, at the end of a long, dark passage, a door was thrown open, and I
was ushered suddenly into a spacious ballroom lighted with torches; and
directly in front, at the head of the room, was a transparency with
coloured lights, in the centre of which were the words "Excelso
hospiti," "To the illustrious guest," which I took to myself, though I
believe the greeting was intended for the same royal person for whom the
lake chamber was illuminated. Lights were ingeniously arranged around
the room, and at the foot, about twenty feet above my head, was a large
orchestra. On the occasion referred to a splendid ball was given in this
room; the roof echoed with the sound of music; and nobles and princely
ladies flirted and coquetted the same as above ground; and it is said
that the splendid dresses of a numerous company, and the blaze of light
from the chandeliers reflected upon the surface of the rock-salt,
produced an effect of inconceivable brilliancy. My chandeliers were
worse than Allan M'Aulay's strapping Highlanders with their pine
torches, being dirty, ragged, smutty-faced rascals, who threw the light
in streaks across the hall. I am always willing to believe fanciful
stories; and if my guide had thrown in a handsome young princess as part
of the welcome to the "Excelso hospiti," I would have subscribed to
anything he said; but, in the absence of a consideration, I refused to
tax my imagination up to the point he wished. Perhaps the most
interesting chamber of all is the chapel dedicated to that Saint Anthony
who brought about the discovery of these mines. It is supposed to be
more than four hundred years old. The columns, with their ornamented
capitals, the arches, the images of the Saviour, the Virgin and saints,
the altar and the pulpit, with all their decorations, and the figures of
two priests represented at prayers before the shrine of the patron
saint, are all carved out of the rock-salt, and to this day grand mass
is regularly celebrated in the chapel once every year.
Following my guide through all the different passages and chambers, and
constantly meeting miners and seeing squads of men at work, I descended
by regular stairs cut in the salt, but in some places worn away and
replaced by wood or stone, to the lowest gallery, which is nearly a
thousand feet below the surface of the earth. I was then a rather
veteran traveller, but up to this time it had been my business to move
quietly on the surface of the earth, or, when infected with the soaring
spirit of other travellers, to climb to the top of some lofty tower or
loftier cathedral; and I had fulfilled one of the duties of a visiter to
the eternal city by perching myself within the great ball of St.
Peter's; but here I was far deeper under the earth than I had ever been
above it; and at the greatest depth from which the human voice ever
rose, I sat down on a lump of salt and soliloquized,
"Through what varieties of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!"
I have since stood upon the top of the Pyramids, and admired the daring
genius and the industry of man, and at the same time smiled at his
feebleness when, from the mighty pile, I saw in the dark ranges of
mountains, the sandy desert, the rich valley of the Nile and the river
of Egypt, the hand of the world's great Architect; but I never felt
man's feebleness more than here; for all these immense excavations, the
work of more than six hundred years, were but as the work of ants by the
roadside. The whole of the immense mass above me, and around and below,
to an unknown extent, was of salt; a wonderful phenomenon in the natural
history of the globe. All the different strata have been carefully
examined by scientific men. The uppermost bed at the surface is sand;
the second clay occasionally mixed with sand and gravel, and containing
petrifactions of marine bodies; the third is calcareous stone; and from
these circumstances it has been conjectured that this spot was formerly
covered by the sea, and that the salt is a gradual deposite formed by
the evaporation of its waters. I was disappointed in some of the
particulars which had fastened themselves upon my imagination. I had
heard and read glowing accounts of the brilliancy and luminous splendour
of the passages and chambers, compared by some to the lustre of precious
stones; but the salt is of a dark gray colour, almost black, and
although sometimes glittering when the light was thrown upon it, I do
not believe it could ever be lighted up to shine with any extraordinary
or dazzling brightness. Early travellers, too, had reported that these
mines contained several villages inhabited by colonies of miners, who
lived constantly below, and that many were born and died there, who
never saw the light of day; but all this is entirely untrue. The miners
descend every morning and return every night, and live in the village
above. None of them ever sleep below. There are, however, two horses
which were foaled in the mines, and have never been on the surface of
the earth. I looked at these horses with great interest. They were
growing old before their time; other horses had perhaps gone down and
told them stories of a world above which they would never know.
It was late in the afternoon when I was hoisted up the shaft. These
mines do not need the embellishment of fiction. They are, indeed, a
wonderful spectacle, and I am satisfied that no traveller ever visited
them without recurring to it as a day of extraordinary interest. I wrote
my name in the book of visiters, where I saw those of two American
friends who had preceded me about a month, mounted my barouche, and
about an hour after dark reached the bank of the Vistula. My passport
was again examined by a soldier and my carriage searched by a
custom-house officer; I crossed the bridge, dined with my worthy host of
the Hotel de la Rose Blanche, and, while listening to a touching story
of the Polish revolution, fell asleep in my chair.
And here, on the banks of the Vistula, I take my leave of the reader. I
have carried him over seas and rivers, mountains and plains, through
royal palaces and peasants' huts, and in return for his kindness in
accompanying me to the end, I promise that I will not again burden him
with my Incidents of Travel.
THE END.
A NEW Classified and Descriptive Catalogue of HARPER & BROTHERS'
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_New York, January, 1847._
List of Corrections:
p. 13: "Voznezeuski" was changed to "Vosnezeuski."
p. 21: "the last time in the _caleche_" was changed to "the last time
in the _caleche_."
p. 71: "merchandize" was changed to "merchandise" as elsewhere in
the book.
p. 77: "The men where nowhere" was changed to "The men were
nowhere."
p. 129: "sailed down the Dneiper from Kief" was changed to "sailed down
the Dnieper from Kief."
p. 137: "of a lilach colour" was changed to "of a lilac colour."
p. 202: "Diebisch directed the strength" was changed to "Diebitsch
directed the strength."
Errata:
The summary in the table of contents is not always consistent with the
summary at the beginning of each chapter. The original has been
retained.