The three duchies, with beautiful poetic names, Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, are comparatively unknown to strangers outside the borders of the Empire. Seamed by ranges of the Alps, cut by torrents, and clothed in rich forests, they include some of the most glorious parts of the country, and as they get better known will probably be as popular with tourists as the Tyrol or Switzerland. The two first-named average about 4000 square miles each, and the last over twice as much. In Carinthia the largest proportion of the inhabitants are Germans, and in Carniola all but 5 per cent are Slavs, known as Slovenes. In both countries the bulk of the people are of the Roman Catholic religion.
The title Duke of Carinthia first appears in the tenth century and is to be found in the chronicles of many of the local disturbances throughout succeeding centuries. The celebrated Margaret Maultasche, mentioned in the account of the Tyrol, received the province as part of her patrimony from her father the Duke, but it was taken from her by the King of Bavaria and handed over to the Austrian princes. On the death of Ferdinand of Austria in 1564 his third son, Charles, became Duke of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. When Buonaparte created the province of Illyria, these three countries were incorporated in it.
Carinthia is cut in two by the river Drave. Its capital is Klagenfurt. Carniola, which has always been closely connected with it, is traversed by the river Save. Its capital is Laibach.
The Slovenes of Carniola are very near akin to the Croatians, and the two languages are sufficiently alike for the people to understand one another without much difficulty. In uniting these provinces as Illyria, Buonaparte aroused national aspirations which still linger.
Carniola is desperately anxious to preserve alive her nationality and to cultivate her own tongue. The writer in the tenth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica says:
German influence in the province is now very slight and is still declining. Energetic efforts are being made to cultivate literature, science and the drama in the Slovene language. The Dramatic Association has brought out over a hundred original and translated pieces, many of which have been produced in the subsidized Slovene theatre at Laibach. The national Literary Association, which numbers over 46,000 members, distributes a quarter of a million volumes annually, while its encouragement promotes and maintains a national periodical press, which calls forth a succession of talented young writers. The anti-German and anti-Italian feeling is very strong, and has found expression in violent demonstrations of fraternity with the Czechs, and in an abortive effort to make the Russian language a subject of instruction in the public school, preliminary to elevating it to the rank of the Panslavist medium of intercommunication.
In both these provinces the mountains are honey-combed by caves, grottoes, and subterranean passages. The grottoes of Adelsburg are among the most remarkable in the world. The Terglou peak in Carniola rises to a height of 10,000 feet. The celebrated Tauern line, already mentioned as being one of the most recent of the State enterprises, runs through both countries. It leaves the main east and west line at Schwarzach. Its construction was the result of the law of 1901, which secured to the State the construction of a number of new lines and the linking up of others. Nine years passed before this particular line, which presented enormous difficulties, was completed; it pierces no less than three of the ranges of Alps. It may not be generally realised, we may remark in passing, how very large a portion of the Alpine system is included in Austria. Nearly one-quarter of the Austrian dominions is embraced by these mountains. They extend through the Rhaetian, Noric, Salzburg, Carnic, Dinaric, and Julian, and other chains, and the new railway traverses no less than three, the Tauern, Karawanken, and Julian chains. The tunnels cutting these mountains are respectively 8520 metres, 7976 metres, and 6399 metres in length.
Any one traversing this route would do well to spend some days at Salzburg, in order to see the town itself with its cathedral and fortress, and also to visit the Salzkammergut with its galaxy of lovely lakes, including the Attersee and Mondsee, or Gmunden, where is the Duke of Cumberland’s summer residence, and Ischl, where the emperor himself lives at the best season of the year. The railway after leaving Schwarzach passes by many a gorge and viaduct and embankment, across precipices and around hills, to Badgastein, the famous health resort, with its hotels and bathing establishments and wonderful scenery, at the foot of the Tauern range. It is after traversing this range that the railway descends into Carinthia, which can show some scenery as beautiful as any in Austria. The line touches at Mallnitz and runs high above the Möll valley dotted with huts and cottages, which show up like toy dwellings from the heights above. From the station Obervellach climbers can ascend the Great Glockner. Once again by tunnels and viaducts, and an ever-changing panorama of mountain and valley, it reaches Spittal-Millstättersee, the station for Millstättersee, a lake which bathes the wooded hills of the Millstätteralps. From Spittal to Villach the trains run over the lines of a private company, the Sudbahn. This railway deserves a special note. It is part of the line from Vienna to Trieste, and was engineered by Karl von Ghega, an Austrian who had visited America to study the problems connected with his craft. It was built at a time of great commotion and disturbance in the monarchy, 1848–50, and is amazing in itself with its tunnels and viaducts and cuttings and embankments even at this time, but when considered as a feat performed in the early days of railway-making is a positive marvel. Sixteen thousand men were employed on the making, and the blasting of rock-work was mistaken at Vienna for the cannon of an army of insurgents!
STYRIA: THE GRIMMING, FROM PÜRGG