Like the temples of Ellora, some of these curious structures have been hollowed out of single blocks of stone left standing in the centre of open courts excavated in the bosom of the rock, while others are completely subterranean. Though far inferior in magnificence and extent to those wonderful edifices, they are yet very remarkable. The courts, in which the three principal monolithic churches are respectively dedicated to our Saviour, to the Holy Virgin, and to St. Emmanuel, communicate with each other by narrow passages, the whole thus forming a continued series of excavations. The Church of St. Emmanuel is forty-eight feet long, thirty-two feet broad, and forty feet high, but it is surpassed in size by the Church of the Holy Virgin, where the rock-walls of the court are moreover perforated with sepulchral vaults and with cells for the habitation of monks. The town of Lalibala is situated in a beautiful country, 7,000 feet above the level of the sea, on the slope of the mighty Ascheten mountain, and commands a prospect of Alpine magnificence. Though it is now reduced to about 2,000 inhabitants, its eight rock-churches (five monolithic and subaërial, three subterranean), prove that it must once have been a place of considerable importance. Divine service is still performed in all these churches, which are the resort of numerous pilgrims, and to whose service above 500 priests, monks, and nuns are attached.
Though ancient Greece has no such huge rock-temples to boast of as India or Egypt, yet caverns played an important part in her ancient religious history. ‘Before the old tribes of Hellas erected temples to the divinities,’ says Porphyry, in his treatise De Antro Nympharum, ‘they consecrated caves and grottoes to their service; in the island of Crete to Zeus, in Arcadia to Artemis and to Pan; in the isle of Naxos to Dionysos.’
Caves were the site of some of the most celebrated Grecian oracles. The tripod of the Delphian pythoness stood over a subterranean hollow, from which the divine inspiration was supposed to ascend; and pilgrims from all parts of Hellas resorted to a cave in the neighbourhood of Lebadeia, a city of Bœotia, and named after Trophonios, a mythical personage who was supposed to have lived there for many years, and was subsequently deified as an oracular god. Those who repaired to this cave for information were required, after passing some preparatory days in a chapel dedicated to Fortune and to the ‘good genius,’ to anoint themselves with oil, to bathe in a certain river, and to drink of the water of two neighbouring springs called Lêthê and Mnêmosynê, the first of which made them forgetful of the past, while the second fixed in their memory all they heard and saw in the cavern. They were then clothed in a linen robe, took a honeyed cake in their hands, and, after praying before an ancient statue of Trophonios, descended into the subterranean chamber by a narrow passage. Here it was that the future was unfolded to them, either by visions or extraordinary sounds. The return from the cave was by the same passage, but the persons consulting were obliged to walk backwards. They generally came out astonished, melancholy, and dejected. The priests on their return placed them on an elevated seat, called the seat of Mnêmosynê or remembrance, and the broken sentences they uttered in their confused state of mind were considered as the answer of the oracle. They were then conducted to the chapel of the ‘good genius,’ where by degrees they recovered their usual composure and cheerfulness. There can be no doubt that the priests introduced themselves into the cave by secret passages, and worked upon the excited imagination of their dupes by terrible sounds and apparitions. During the palmy days of the oracle, the neighbourhood of the Cave of Trophonios was decorated with temples and statues; at present its very site is uncertain.
Like ancient paganism, Christianity not seldom celebrates her rites in caves hallowed by the memory of saints and anchorites. A stately church rises over the Grotto of the Nativity, at Bethlehem, and a magnificent pile has been constructed at Jerusalem over the rock-tomb in which our Saviour was buried. The grotto on Mount Carmel, to which the prophet Elijah retreated from the world, is now dedicated to divine worship, in the convent which bears his name; and the cave in which John the Evangelist is said to have written the Apocalypse during his exile in the island of Patmos has also been converted into a chapel.
One of the most celebrated rock-churches is the grotto of St. Rosolia, the patroness of Palermo. This illustrious lady was niece to King William the Good, and, as the legends inform us, no less remarkable for her beauty than for her virtues, which made her the admiration of all Sicily. Never was a princess more fitted to adorn society; but the world had so few attractions for a spirit that could only breathe in the pure regions of piety, that, at the age of fifteen, she retired to the solitary mountains, and, from the date of her disappearance, in 1159, was never more heard of for about five hundred years. The people thought she had been taken up to heaven, as the fitting abode for her more than human perfections; but in the year 1624, during the time of a dreadful plague, a holy man had a vision that the saint’s bones were lying in a cave near to the top of the Monte Pellegrino, and that if these were taken up with due reverence and carried in procession thrice round the walls of the city, they should immediately be delivered from the scourge. The bones were accordingly sought and found, thrice carried round the town, as the vision had described, and the plague suddenly ceased. From that time St. Rosolia was revered as the patron saint of Palermo, and the remote cave where she probably spent many years of her solitary life, became one of the most renowned sanctuaries of the Catholic Church, and the resort of innumerable pilgrims. The mountain is extremely high, and so steep that before the discovery of St. Rosolia it was looked upon as almost inaccessible; but a fine road, very properly termed La Scala, or the stair, has been cut out in the rock, and leads from terrace to terrace, over almost perpendicular precipices, to the entrance of the holy grotto, which is situated near the very top of the mountain, and commands a magnificent prospect. Within two miles of the foot of the mountain, the eye discerns the city of Palermo, with its beautiful villas and luxuriant gardens, and then, taking a wider range, glances to the north, over the dark blue sea bounded by the Lipari Islands and the ever-fuming cone of Stromboli; while to the east a large portion of Etna, although at the distance of almost the whole length of Sicily, towers like a giant above the minor mountain chains. A church and other buildings, forming a kind of court yard, where some priests reside, appointed to watch over the treasures of the place, and to receive the offerings of pilgrims that visit them, have been erected round the grotto.
As may easily be imagined, the history of rock-chapels has frequently been embellished with legendary tales. The chapel of Agios Niketas (St. Nicholas) in Crete, is at present merely a smoky-looking cave beneath a large detached mass of rock, lying on the slope of an abrupt mountain; but there are still the remains of a building which once extended far beyond the present limits. The roof of the cavern, although very uneven, is also elaborately ornamented with paintings, representing the remarkable events in the life of the Saviour and of St. Nicholas, and showing that considerable cost and artistic care have been bestowed upon it. Though it is now abandoned, an event that is said to have happened about four or five centuries ago gives this cave a special interest with the natives. The church was crowded with Christians from the adjacent villages on the eve of the festival of their patron saint Agios Niketas, so as to be ready (as is usual with the Greeks) for the matin service at daybreak. But the fires which the assembled party had lighted near it had been observed at sea by a Barbary corsair then cruising off the island, and guided him to the spot, where, under the darkness of the night, he landed his crew in a neighbouring cove. Thus unobserved, they stole up to the church, and, finding it full of the natives, closed the door and windows upon them, and waited for day, the better to secure their captives for embarkation. In this dreadful plight the unfortunate Cretans raised their voices in a general prayer to Saint Niketas. Their supplications were heard, for the priest soon after informed them that the saint had shown him a way of escape—through the back part of the cavern, by opening a small aperture communicating with another cavern that led finally out upon the mountain slope over the rock. Through this aperture they all silently crept unseen and unheard by the corsairs.
Another interesting legend is attached to a small rock-chapel situated beneath the ruins of the ancient Castle of Oberstein, on the Nahe. The Baron of Oberstein, having, in a fit of jealousy, hurled his younger brother from the balcony of the castle, fled from the scene of his crime. For years he wandered, a wretched outcast, from land to land; but wherever he went the curse of Cain was upon him, and left him no rest by night or day. At length he came to Rome, to confess his fratricide at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff, who comforted him with the assurance that he would recover his lost peace by returning to Oberstein and excavating with his own hands a rock-chapel for the interment of his brother on the spot where he fell.
Soon after the self-banished lord made his appearance at Oberstein in a hermit’s garb, and set to work upon the hard rock with indefatigable zeal. Never was labour performed with better will, and such, consequently, was the progress of the excavation that it seemed as if he were assisted by the angels in his penitential task. At the expiration of four years, the rock-chapel was completed, and the bones of the murdered man were conveyed with great ceremony to the tomb which had been prepared for their reception at the foot of the altar. As soon as they were lowered into the grave, the murderer bent over them; a smile of ineffable happiness was seen to illumine his emaciated features, and he dropped down dead upon the remains of his brother.
CHAPTER XVII.
ICE-CAVES AND WIND-HOLES.
Ice-caves of St. Georges and St. Livres—Beautiful Ice-stalagmites in the Cave of La Baume—The Schafloch—Ice Cataract in the Upper Glacière of St. Livres—Ice Cavern of Eisenerz—The Cave of Yeermalik—Volcanic Ice-caves—Æolian Caverns of Terni—Causes of the low temperature of Ice-caves.