WONDERFUL CAVERNS.
XI.—THE GROTTOES OF ADELSBERG
bout twenty miles north-east of Trieste, which stands at the north of the Adriatic Sea, is the little town of Adelsberg. It is a market town, and would have no more claim to notice than thousands of similar places in Europe, had it not chanced to have been built within a mile of one of the natural wonders of the world.
Thousands of years ago, when Europe was covered with dense forests, and savage man was struggling for existence with savage man and yet more savage beast, living in rude huts and ignorant of any kind of civilisation, Nature was hard at work deep below the slopes of those Adelsberg mountains. Age after age, with her simple tools of water, lime, and carbonic acid, she dug, scooped, carved, and built, fashioning by slow degrees vaulted chambers, halls with lofty domes, arches, and galleries, all gleaming like frosted silver set with diamonds, far more wonderful than Aladdin's palace, or the marble halls of the Arabian Nights. And all the while, even when Christianity and civilisation spread over the country, no one thought of the beautiful world down below those grassy slopes; though now and again some one might wonder why a deep basin in the hills, where according to tradition a lake once existed, should have been turned into dry pasture, with only the little river, Poyk or Pinka, running through it; or some more inquiring mind might have been puzzled to know why that little river should suddenly bury itself in the ground and vanish utterly from sight.
At last some enterprising being, a boy most likely, climbed into the fissure down which the waters went, most probably in the summer-time when the stream was low, and there discovered a cavern nearly three hundred feet long, now known as the Old Grotto. For ninety years this was one of the sights of the country; and then a large piece of stalactite was broken from the end, and the entrance to a far more superb cavern, known as the New Grotto, lay bare.
This New Grotto is ten times larger than the old one. It is furnished with stalactites and stalagmites of huge size and of every imaginable shape, forming arches, pillars, cornices, and fringes of exquisite beauty. The roof and walls are covered with lacework and pendants of crystals, to which great fissures, leading into narrow galleries, form backgrounds of dense shadow. The ornamental work was effected from outside by damp lime and carbonic acid, but the actual excavator was simply the river Poyk, which in time drained the lake and carried its waters through soft spots in the rock below. Every little drop that poured in did something of the digging process, and when the snows on the mountains melted, and great floods came to help, the river was able to tear away the rocks above, beside, and beneath its channel. Sometimes, for a long time together, it found itself imprisoned and could get no further, and then it would whirl round and round, boiling with anger and beating against its rocky walls, until it had hewn out quite a lofty chamber. Then sooner or later it would reach some softer formation which would yield, and the great volume of water would rush through, tearing down everything in its way, until it last it found itself once again in the sunshine.
Now, with its work in the Adelsberg Grottoes done, the river Poyk is taking a well-earned rest, and flows gently through the Grottoes, reflecting in its waters the lofty bridges and vaulted roofs hewn out by its former toil. Not that the Poyk has grown lazy! It only desires fresh worlds to conquer; after enjoying a little run in the daylight, it changes its name to the Laybach, and again plunges into the Grottoes of Reifnitz, where with all its old energy it is working as hard as ever to make the Laybach Caves as celebrated as those of Adelsberg.
Various animals live in these caverns, of which the most celebrated is the 'Proteus,' a creature which has greatly perplexed naturalists. At first sight it looks like a lizard, but its movements are those of a fish. The head, lower part of the body, and tail resemble an eel, but it has no fins, and its breathing organs are quite unlike those of fishes. Round its neck is a ruffle, which seems to help it to breathe, although it has perfect lungs and can breathe, as well as move, equally comfortably on land and in water. The front feet are like hands, and each has three fingers, whilst the back limbs have only two. The eyes are very tiny, like those of the rat or mole; its mouth is well set with teeth, proving it to be a beast of prey, and its organs of smell are fully developed. A great authority has declared its spine to be like those of the monster animals of pre-historic ages known as Saurians. The most extraordinary part of the Proteus' history is that it seems perfectly able to live without food. It has never been seen to eat in captivity, and one has been kept alive for years by occasionally changing the water in which it lives. These animals were originally discovered in the Grottoes of Laybach, and later on at Adelsberg, being rare in dry seasons, but plentiful after heavy rains.