George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life

by George Manville Fenn

Chapter Eleven.

A Land of Mystery.

Henty, having been interested in mining early in life, was at any time eager to seize upon an opportunity to plunge into the bowels of the earth, and not long after he commenced as war correspondent to the Standard, that is, at the termination of the Italo-Austrian campaign, he took occasion when at Trieste to run up into the hill country for a few days and visit the three great sights of Carniola, namely, the Grotto of Adelsberg, the Lake of Zirknitz, and the quicksilver mines of Idria.

Here the man who had studied mining in his youth with the possibility of succeeding to his father’s industrial occupation was in his element, and showed himself ready to study the country with an open and receptive mind. He was eager at once to investigate the mountainous and sterile country covered by the Alps and Tyrol, the vast forests and their timber, the transport, the burning of charcoal, and the general cheerlessness of a land of desolation often covered with huge boulders and scaurs of white stone. Quite the geologist here, he notes the hard white limestone of the secondary formation, quarried extensively, being excellent for building, and known through Italy as Istrian marble. He speaks of it as being the same stone which extends through Carniola and through Dalmatia into Greece, and here he seems to revel in a kind of exciting pleasure as he finds himself in a limestone formation somewhat similar to that of our own Derbyshire, asking to be explored and tempting him to excursions, honeycombed as it is with fissures and caverns.

Probably in no tract of country of equal size in the world are there so many singular freaks of nature. Rivers of navigable size and depth issue from its mountains—rivers which far surpass the subterranean streams of Central France—and these, after running for a few miles, enter a cavern and lose themselves as suddenly and mysteriously as they appeared.

It is a land of mystery and wonder, and, as if the spirit were moving within him to store up his mind with the natural wonders for attractive stories to come, such as would in some form or another fascinate readers yet unborn, Henty, with great eagerness, embraced the opportunity here offered to explore a wild land of savage sterility, where, as if to be in keeping with the “crag, knoll, and mound confusedly hurled, the fragments of an earlier world,” terrible tempests sweep with irresistible force. In the fury which rages in this inhospitable region, horses and wagons are not infrequently hurled over precipices, and a foot passenger, surprised in one of the tempestuous mountain squalls, is forced to seek for shelter beneath the parapets that have been built along the road.

Here he found that he was in a country where the railroads were protected by strong stone walls ten or twelve feet high, or equally lofty wooden palisading supported on both sides by massive struts, so as to afford some shelter to the passing trains which, when the gales are at their worst, are quite unable to pursue their journey.

Here, too, the engineering difficulties encountered in the construction of one of the lines had the deepest interest for Henty as a mining engineer, for not only was he face to face with the difficulties of the making of the railroad, but also with those of obtaining a supply of water at the various stations. Where the line ran, all was aridity and desolation. The water was below, requiring the help of powerful engines to raise it, and aqueducts over the surface to bear it along, one of these water-bridges being twenty-five miles in length. It was a very giant-land for a writer of fiction to fill with adventure.

Passing through this country of desolation, he at last reached the well-named village of Adelsberg, which in a state of nature might very well have supplied the crags where the eagles built. This he found a comfortable well-to-do village, Swiss-like in appearance, with its chalet style of architecture; but he was bent on the works of nature, and drove out to the famed Lake of Zirknitz, a piece of water that has obtained fame through its peculiar habit of quitting its bed once a year for a few weeks and so supplying the natives of those parts with an opportunity for growing a crop of coarse grass and millet before its return. This is all a suggestion of the peculiar workings of the subterranean waters below, and the regularity is more or less wonderful.

About midsummer the waters of the lake begin to shrink, growing lower and lower, and so rapidly that, after about twenty days in July, the lake is empty, remaining so till September or October, according to the season. This is the rule; but as there is no rule without an exception, the lake sometimes remains full for three or four years together, to the great loss of the people of the stony neighbourhood, who depend upon the little crop of buckwheat and millet which they are able to grow in the muddy bed. They also look forward to another harvest given to them when the water dries away; for, strange to state, at this time a plentiful supply of fish that flourish in the depths of the lake is left high and dry, and forms a portion of the natives’ food.