The next day Henty started for his eagerly anticipated 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 passage or corridor of no
great length, and then opened suddenly into a noble cavern known as the
"Dome."
This was all that was known of the grottoes till the year 1819, when a
workman accidentally destroyed a stalactite 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 passage, 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 crushing down upon
them, the stalactites 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
assured 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 passages, at others opened out into enormous halls. Chambers and
corridors, fairy grottoes and gloomy caves, alternated with each other,
and the principal 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 masses of stalactites 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 clustering
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 masses 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 space 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
stalactites 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
repetition of the old-world scene.
In the corridors and caves that intervened between these principal
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 buttresses. 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 chinks 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 passing light was not composed of liquid drops.
In one cave the wall seemed to be hung in ruddy masses of stalactite of
so truly a fleshy tint that they seemed to be palpably strips of flesh,
which carried the spectator back to old classic 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 stalactites of a dirty grey
hue, the material of the carbonate of lime being dull and coarse; 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 masses of coral. The tints, too,
varied from clear white to cream colour, orange, and red; and while in
many places the drooping stalactites 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 passing light, they resembled rocks over which a thin
film of jewels was streaming, or a sudden blaze of sunshine upon hoar
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 masses 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 glass 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 coarse.
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.
And then, gloomily seen on high, weird, shadowy creatures, dank and
bat-like with their dusky wings, appeared to be hovering just beneath
the roof, till a nameless horror seemed to pervade the gloomy
atmosphere, and the imagination peopled the place with unearthly
creatures which the mind refused to believe were illusory, so real were
they in their stony extravagance; yet all were the work of nature,
formed through the dark ages slowly, drop by drop.
There they were in the dim nooks and recesses, seeming, as the smoking
candles flickered upon their glistening surfaces, to beckon and grin,
peering round twisted buttresses, gloating, vampire-like, on the
passer-by from behind the fallen columns, and producing a shuddering
horror, as they seemed to be only waiting till the visitors to these
awful shades had passed before they sprang.
It was here that even the brilliant rays of magnesium failed to dispel
the gathered blackness, and the strange shapes stood out more spectral
and awe-inspiring than before. And it was water--water everywhere,
drip, drip, drip, never ceasing--the hardest of hard water, that the
most thirsty in these caverns would shrink from drinking, for he would
know that he was sipping liquid stone, the stone that had built up
everything around, and which would go on almost silently building fresh
wonders until Time should be no more. And in spite of the flash and
brilliancy of beauty as opposed to the dull, glistening, slimy look of
much of nature's work, there was something shuddering in its inspiration
as he who gazed at the same time had what was going on conveyed to him
through his ears--the drip of water never ceasing, and its feeble echoes
seeming to rustle with mysterious whisper throughout these shadowy cells
and proclaim the wonder-work in process of construction.
It was with a strange feeling of relief that they passed on out of these
awe-inspiring caverns into a region where, in delightful contrast, the
eyes were welcomed with a sight of what could only be the
dwelling-places of the inhabitants of a kind of fairyland. Here all was
graceful pinnacle, delicate spire, tapering point, and slender pillar,
each frosted alike with silvery rime, which made the finger shrink when
touching them; for it seemed, according to everyday knowledge, quite
startling that these beautiful works of nature should feel cool and
temperate; the visitor felt that they ought to sting the nerves with
pain, for their sparkling effect looked so exactly as though it had been
produced by frost.
Icy, too, appeared much of the beauty now--the sparkling fairy couches
spread with frosty lace, the gauzy floating folds encrusted with gems.
Everywhere the lights flashed and glittered, refracted in a thousand
colours; for here, too, seemed to be the caves of crystal-land, the
homes of the water sprites who dwelt where water had now become pure,
solid, and perfect for evermore, where water had become pure ice that
was not cold, where even the floor was white sparkling sand scattered
with gleaming shells, above which the water fays floated, and the sea
sprites played and chased fish in the ice grottoes.
Such were some of George Henty's impressions of the Grotto of Adelsberg,
and he concludes by saying that any traveller who has ever had the
opportunity of seeing that home of nature's wonders lit up as he had,
would surely bear him out in saying that, so far from exaggerating, he
has but touched upon a few of the varied and extraordinary beauties of
the place.