The Subterranean World

by G. Hartwig

The French geologist, Faujas de Saint-Fond, who, in the year 1798 minutely explored the Mount, relates that one day the torches that were carried before him discovered at some distance a dark object stretched out upon the floor, which on a closer inspection proved to be a corpse. It was a shrivelled mummy, completely dressed, the hat lying close to the head, the shoes separated from the feet, and a rosary in its hand. From the dress Faujas conjectured it to be the body of a workman, and perhaps more than half a century might have passed since the poor man died in the quarry which had probably given him bread for many a year. The dry air, and the total absence of insects in these subterranean vaults, explained the mummy-like preservation of the corpse.

In the year 1640 four Franciscan monks resolved, for the greater glory of God and of their tutelary saint, to construct a chapel in a deserted part of the caverns. Taking with them a thick pack of thread, they attached one end of it to a spot where the trodden path ceased, and penetrating deeper and deeper into the unknown vaults as long as their thread lasted, finally came to a larger cavity or hall, which had probably not been visited for centuries, but which in consequence of their misfortune has since become one of the show-places of the quarry. At the entrance one of them drew with a piece of coal a still existing sketch of his convent on the wall, and wrote underneath the date of the discovery which was to be so fatal to him and his companions. What must have been their dismay when, wishing to retrace their steps, they discovered that, by some accident, the thread which alone could lead them out of the labyrinth had been severed, and that they were left without guide or compass in the inextricable maze of the caverns. The prior, alarmed at their prolonged absence, and knowing that they had visited the quarries, ordered them to be sought for. But such is the vast extent of the excavations that it was only after seven days that their corpses were found, lying closely together, their faces downwards and their hands folded, as if their last moments had been spent in prayer.

The caverns of St. Peter’s Mount, generally devoted only to the pacific labours of the quarryman or to unbroken silence, have once been the scene of a bloody fight; and as the quiet waters of the Todtensee, on the heights of the Grimsel, have witnessed a sanguinary battle between the French and the Russians, so these subterranean vaults have once resounded with the din of fire-arms and the shouts of embittered enemies.

During the siege above mentioned, which brought Maestricht into the power of the French Republic, some sharpshooters of the besieging army took up their position in the quarries. The Austrians, who occupied Fort St. Pierre, on the back of the mountain, and had already made several successful sorties, formed the plan of penetrating into the caverns from the interior of the fort, in the hope of surprising the enemy who occupied their entrances. But as the torches which lighted their silent march betrayed their intentions, the Frenchmen cautiously and slowly advanced upon them, surprised them with a sudden volley of musketry, and drove back into the depths of the caverns all those who were not made prisoners or killed.

To the geologist the quarries of St. Peter’s are particularly interesting, as the calcareous tuff of which they are composed is extremely rich in valuable petrifactions. Here, among others, was found, in 1770, the famous skull of the Mososaurus Hoffmanni, a giant lizard twenty feet long, which before the discovery of the still more colossal Ichthyosauri in England and Bavaria was considered as the most remarkable fossil known, and now forms one of the chief ornaments of the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.

There are no subterranean animals peculiar to the caverns of St. Peter’s, such as have been found in large natural caves; but foxes and martens not seldom find here a secure retreat, and many a bat hibernates in their warm recesses.

Near the small village El Massara, which, like all the hamlets on the Nile, stands in a grove of date-palms, are situated the quarries which furnished materials for the temples and pyramids of Memphis. After having first traversed a wide plain of sand, the visitor reaches the foot of the Mokattam mountain. Here the ground is everywhere covered with enormous heaps of rubbish from the quarries, which look more like an attempt to cut the whole mountain into blocks and carry it away than simple excavations for building materials. At first sight the traveller might indeed almost fancy that all the eighteen thousand towns of ancient Egypt must have been dug out of these stupendous excavations. Here he may see the mountain cut through from top to bottom, and open spaces as large as the squares of a great capital on a level with the plain, while there the rock has been hollowed out into enormous halls, their roofs reposing on titanic pilasters. In one spot the rocky wall has been cut rectangularly, after which it runs parallel to the river for a distance of about fifteen hundred feet, and then again projects at a right angle towards the plain, so that in the space between the wings there would be room enough for a small town, yet all the stone which once filled this vast cavity has been sawn from the rock and carried over the Nile. Here and there enormous masses of stone, like those which in winter roll from the high Alps into the valleys, have fallen from the overhanging rock. Many bear evident traces that the hand of man originally severed them from the mountain; but their size was such as to baffle even the perseverance and mechanical skill of the Egyptians. No power could remove them from the spot, and thus they remained to be worn away by time, which as yet, however, has hardly left a trace of its passage upon their chiselled sides.

From the mounds of rubbish that lie before the openings of the quarries there is a magnificent view of the long line of pyramids which mark, to the west, the extreme limits of the fertile land. Here, indeed, is a place for meditation, for nowhere do stones preach a more impressive sermon!

The quarries of Haggar Silsilis, in a wild mountainous country between Assuan and Edfu, are on a still grander scale. Passages as broad as streets, running on both sides between walls fifty or sixty feet high, now stretching straight forward, now curving, extend from the eastern bank of the river into the heart of the mountain, where spaces have been hollowed out large enough to embrace the Roman Colosseum! To the north numberless Cyclopean caverns have been hewn out, and enormous colonnades stretch along the foot of the mountain. The rough-hewn irregular roof rests upon immense square, or many-sided, pillars, frequently eighty or a hundred feet in circumference. Enormous blocks, already completely separated from the rock, rest on smaller ones, ready to be transported, while in other parts the labours of the quarrymen were suddenly arrested by the invasion of the foreign conqueror who put a stop to the dominion of the priests. The Bedouin, astonished at these vast works, so alien to his roving habits, exclaims at their aspect, with a wondering mien, ‘Wallah! if these unbelievers had lived until now, they would have carried away the whole mountain and levelled it with the ground!’

Syracuse, the proud city that vied with Rome itself, and the remembrance of whose magnificence and glory, both in arts and arms, will live as long as classical literature, is now reduced to a heap of rubbish, for her remains deserve not the name of a city. But though even her ruins have mostly disappeared, ‘etiam periere ruinæ,’ yet the vast quarries which furnished the materials for her palaces and temples still bear witness to her ancient grandeur.