Summer Cruise in the Mediterranean on board an American frigate

by Nathaniel Parker Willis

We descended by a long flight of artificial stairs, and stood upon the bridge. The wildness of the scene is indescribable. A lamp or two glimmered faintly from the lofty parapet from which we had descended; the depth and breadth of the surrounding cave could only be measured by the distance of the echoes of the waters, and beneath us leaped and foamed a dark river, which sprang from its invisible channel, danced a moment in the faint light of our lamps, and was lost again instantly in darkness. It brought with it, from the green fields through which it had come, a current of soft warm air, peculiarly delightful after the chilliness of the other parts of the cavern; there was a smell of new-mown hay in it which seemed lost in the tartarean blackness around.

Our guides led on, and we mounted a long staircase on the opposite side of the bridge. At the head of it stood a kind of monument, engraved with the name of the emperor of Austria, by whose munificence the staircase had been cut and the conveniences for strangers provided. We turned hence to the right, and entered a long succession of natural corridors, roofed with stalactites, with a floor of rock and mud, and so even and wide that the lady under my protection had seldom occasion to leave my arm. In the narrowest part of it, the stalactites formed a sort of reversed grove, with the roots in the roof. They were of a snowy white, and sparkled brilliantly in the light of the torches. One or two had reached the floor, and formed slender and beautiful sparry columns, upon which the names of hundreds of visitors were written in pencil.

The spars grew white as we proceeded, and we were constantly emerging into large halls of the size of handsome drawing-rooms, whose glittering roofs, and sides lined with fantastic columns, seemed like the brilliant frost-work of a crystallised cavern of ice. Some of the accidental formations of the stalagmites were very curious. One large area was filled with them, of the height of small plants. It was called by the guides the “English Garden.” At the head of another saloon, stood a throne, with a stalactite canopy above it, so like the work of art, that it seemed as if the sculptor had but left the finishing undone.

We returned part of the way we had come, and took another branch of the grotto, a little more on the descent. A sign above informed us that it was the “road to the infernal regions.” We walked on an hour at a quick pace, stopping here and there to observe the oddity of the formations. In one place, the stalactites had enclosed a room, leaving only small openings between the columns, precisely like the grating of a prison. In another, the ceiling lifted out of the reach of torch-light, and far above us we heard the deep-toned beat as upon a muffled bell. It was a thin circular sheet of spar, called “the bell,” to which one of the guides had mounted, striking upon it with a billet of wood.

We came after a while to a deeper descent, which opened into a magnificent and spacious hall. It is called “the ball-room,” and used as such once a year, on the occasion of a certain Illyrian festa. The floor has been cleared of stalagmites, the roof and sides are ornamented beyond all art with glittering spars, a natural gallery with a balustrade of stalactites contains the orchestra, and side-rooms are all around where supper might be laid, and dressing-rooms offered in the style of a palace. I can imagine nothing more magnificent than such a scene. A literal description of it even would read like a fairy tale.

A little farther on, we came to a perfect representation of a waterfall. The impregnated water had fallen on a declivity, and with a slightly ferruginous tinge of yellow, poured over in the most natural resemblance to a cascade after a rain. We proceeded for ten or fifteen minutes, and found a small room like a chapel, with a pulpit, in which stood one of the guides, who gave us, as we stood beneath, an Illyrian exhortation. There was a sounding-board above, and I have seen pulpits in old gothic churches that seemed at a first glance to have less method in their architecture. The last thing we reached was the most beautiful. From the cornice of a long gallery, hung a thin, translucent sheet of spar, in the graceful and waving folds of a curtain; with a lamp behind, the hand could be seen through any part of it. It was perhaps twenty feet in length, and hung five or six feet down from the roof of the cavern. The most singular part of it was the fringe. A ferruginous stain ran through it from one end to the other, with the exactness of a drawn line, and thence to the curving edge a most delicate rose-tint faded gradually down like the last flush of sunset through a silken curtain. Had it been a work of art, done in alabaster, and stained with the pencil, it would have been thought admirable.

The guide wished us to proceed, but our feet were wet, and the air of the cavern was too chill. We were at least four miles, they told us, from the entrance, having walked briskly for upward of two hours. The grotto is said to extend ten miles under the mountains, and has never been thoroughly explored. Parties have started with provisions, and passed forty-eight hours in it without finding the extremity. It seems to me that any city I ever saw might be concealed in its caverns. I have often tried to conceive of the grottos of Antiparos, and the celebrated caverns of our own country, but I received here an entirely new idea of the possibility of space under ground. There is no conceiving it unseen. The river emerges on the other side of the mountain, seven or eight miles from its first entrance.

We supped and slept at the little albergo of the village, and returned the next day to an early dinner.

Trieste.—A ball on board the “United States.” The guns were run out of the ports; the main and mizen-masts were wound with red and white bunting; the capstan was railed with arms and wreathed with flowers; the wheel was tied with nosegays; the American eagle stood against the mainmast, with a star of midshipmen’s swords glittering above it; festoons of evergreens were laced through the rigging; the companion-way was arched with hoops of green leaves and roses; the decks were tastefully chalked: the commodore’s skylight was piled with cushions and covered with red damask for an ottoman; seats were laid along from one carronade to the other; and the whole was enclosed with a temporary tent lined throughout with showy flags, and studded all over with bouquets of all the flowers of Illyria. Chandeliers made of bayonets, battle-lanterns, and candles in any quantity, were disposed all over the hall. A splendid supper was set out on the gun-deck below, draped in with flags. Our own and the “Constellation’s” boats were to be at the pier at nine o’clock to bring off the ladies, and at noon everything promised of the brightest.

First, about four in the afternoon, came up a saucy-looking cloud from the westernmost peak of the Friuli. Then followed from every point towards the north, an extending edge of a broad solid black sheet which rose with the regularity of a curtain, and began to send down a wind upon us which made us look anxiously to our ball-room bowlines. The midshipmen were all forward, watching it from the forecastle. The lieutenants were in the gangway, watching it from the ladder. The commodore looked seriously out of the larboard cabin port. It was as grave a ship’s company as ever looked out for a shipwreck.