“Groups of peasant women were plying their hoes among the wheat....”
(page [55])
From Arta it is a pretty drive to the castle of Cap de Péra, an old fortress with portcullised gateway and peaked Moorish battlements, around which one can walk on a narrow ledge laid on stone brackets. Prickly pear and masses of crimson and white stocks run riot within the walls and cluster about the little chapel of the summit. Beyond the castle the road winds by a steep ascent to the lighthouse of the Cap de Péra—built upon the extreme eastern point of the island, whence a splendid view is obtained, the low coastline of Minorca being dimly discernible far out at sea.
At nine o’clock the following morning we set out for the stalactite caves of Arta—said to be the most wonderful ones in the world, with the exception of certain caverns in New South Wales. For an hour and a half we descended towards the coast through a plain of fig orchards and palmetto clumps—the latter portion of the route being a mere cart-track of surprising badness—and finally drew up under a grove of picturesque old Pinus maritima near the seashore—the finest trees we had yet seen in an island where good timber is rare.
Fifteen minutes’ walk along a cliff path, with a turquoise blue sea below, and the scent of pines and gorse filling the warm air, and we come to the entrance to the caves. A great cleft opens in the face of the cliff overhead—a natural ante-chamber to the caves, supported by Herculean pillars of live rock, and to this we ascend by a long flight of massive stone steps, as though to the portals of some grand old Egyptian temple. Following our guide we pass through an iron grille and descend through cool depths of grey rock till we seem to have reached the very heart of the hills.
So strange is the under world through which one is led for the next two hours that at times one doubts whether it is not all a dream. Now we wander through lofty halls hung from roof to floor with stony curtain folds, where tall stalagmitic palm-trees stand in groups—their rugged stems hard as marble, white as though bleached by long confinement in these sunless caves. Now we seem to be exploring a coral world in the depths of the sea, and half expect to meet startled fishes darting hither and thither among the fantastically sculptured grots and low-fretted arches through which we creep. Now we enter the great hall of columns, and wait in darkness upon a high rock-platform, while our invisible guide busies himself below with Bengal lights. Suddenly a vista of gigantic columns leaps out of black space, monstrous shadows retreat into a perspective of infinite extent, and—as though in some strange operatic scene—we find ourselves standing in a great vaulted crypt, Gothic in its indescribable richness of architectural detail, Egyptian in its gigantic proportions and massive grandeur. Still larger is the great cavern known as the Cathedral, the roof of which attains a height of a hundred and fifty feet; so weird and grand beyond belief is the effect created by this vast interior when lighted up—so wonderful is the mimicry of hangings and sculpture—so regular the slender turrets and fretted pinnacles that enrich the structure, that it is difficult to realise that the scene before one is Nature’s own handiwork.
Wending our way down the Devil’s Staircase we next descend to a spot below sea-level to visit the “lost souls”—a company of black and burnt-up looking little figures seated beside a salt-water pool that goes by the name of the Styx. Endless is the imagery suggested by the stalactite formations; some resemble isolated statues, others intricate groups of Hindu gods. There is an organ with musical pipes, there are strange echoes that live far away among the rock caverns of the roof, and huge lurking shadows that—startled by the light of our lanterns—glide swiftly out of their recesses and disappear into the darkness ahead. But always we return to the aisles of ghostly columns that distinguish these caves from all others I have ever seen.
Questioned as to the presumed age of these columns our guide throws up his hands in despair, and, leading us to a small stalagmite in process of formation, shows us a couple of copper sous embedded in its glassy surface; it is twenty years since they were placed there, and in that time the stalagmite has risen to the rims of the coins and they are now fixed in their place by the most delicate silver film. Allowing fifteen sous to the inch, a rough computation sets the rate of growth of this particular stalagmite at something between three and four thousand years to the foot—a period doubtless considerably exceeded in the case of the larger columns.