Chapter C: F. Gordon-Cumming (2)

The most interesting part to us was the fourth or southern tract. It is known as the Thikku-hverar, thick caldrous (hot springs), perhaps in the sense opposed to thin or clear water. Amongst its “eruptiones flatuum,” the traveller feels that he is walking

“_Per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso._”

There are at least fifty items in operation over this big lime-kiln; some without drains, others shedding either by sinter-crusted channels eastward or westward through turf and humus to the swampy stream. It shows an immense variety, from the infantine puff to the cold turf-puddle; from Jack-in-the-box to the cave of blue-green water; surrounded by ledges of silex and opaline sinter (hydrate of silica), more or less broad: the infernal concert of flip-flopping, spluttering, welling, fizzing, grunting, rumbling, and growling never ceases. The prevalent tints are green and white, but livelier hues are not wanting. One “gusherling” discharges red water; and there is a spring which spouts, like an escape pipe, brown, high and strong. The “Little Geysir,” which Mackenzie places 106 yards south of the Strokkr, and which has been very churlish of late years, was once seen to throw up ten to twelve feet of clean water, like the jet of a fire-play. The “Little Strokkr of older travellers, a wonderfully amusing formation, which darts its waters in numerous diagonal columns every quarter of an hour,” is a stufa or steam-jet in the centre of the group, but it has long ceased its “funning.”

_Ultima Thule; or, a Summer in Iceland_ (London and Edinburgh, 1875).

FOOTNOTE:

[11] More exactly the two divisions are each about twenty feet long; the smaller is twelve and the greater is eighteen feet broad; the extreme depth is thirty feet.

THE RAPIDS OF THE DANUBE

(_TURKEY_)

WILLIAM BEATTIE

A short way below Grein commences the rapid called “Greiner-schwall,” where the river, suddenly contracting its channel, and walled in by rugged precipices, assumes a new aspect of foam and agitation; while the roar of its downward course breaks deeper and harsher on the ear. This rugged defile is the immediate inlet to the Strudel and Wirbel--the Scylla and Charybdis of the Danube. This is by far the most interesting and remarkable region of the Danube. It is the fertile theme of many legends and traditions; and in pages of history and romance affords ample scope for marvellous incidents and striking details. Not a villager but can relate a hundred instances of disasters incurred, and dangers overcome, in this perilous navigation--of lives sacrificed and cargoes sunk while endeavouring to weather the three grand enemies of the passage--whirlpools, rocks, and robbers. But, independently of these local traditions, and the difficulties and dangers of the strait--the natural scenery which here arrests the eye is highly picturesque, and even sublime. It is the admiration of all voyagers on the Upper Danube, and keeps a firm hold of the memory long after other scenes and impressions have worn off. Between Ulm and the confines of the Ottoman Empire, there is only one other scene calculated to make anything like so forcible an impression on the tourist; and that is near the cataracts of the Iron Gate--a name familiar to every German reader.

After descending the Greiner-schwall, or rapids of the Grein above mentioned, the river rolls on for a considerable space, in a deep and almost tranquil volume, which, by contrast with the approaching turmoil, gives increased effect to its wild, stormy, and romantic features. At first, a hollow, subdued roar, like that of distant thunder strikes the ear and rouses the traveller’s attention. This increases every second, and the stir and activity which now prevail among the hands on board shows that additional force, vigilance, and caution are to be employed in the use of helm and oars. The water is now changed in its colour--chafed into foam, and agitated like a seething cauldron. In front, and in the centre of the channel, rises an abrupt, isolated, and colossal rock, fringed with wood, and crested with a mouldering tower, on the summit of which is planted a lofty cross, to which, in the moment of danger, the ancient boatmen were wont to address their prayers for deliverance. The first sight of this used to create no little excitement and apprehension on board; the master ordered strict silence to be observed--the steersman grasped the helm with a firm hand,--the passengers moved aside--so as to leave free space for the boatmen, while the women and children were hurried into the cabin, there to await, with feelings of no little anxiety, the result of the enterprise. Every boatman, with his head uncovered, muttered a prayer to his favourite saint; and away dashed the barge through the tumbling breakers, that seemed as if hurrying it on to inevitable destruction. All these preparations, joined by the wildness of the adjacent scenery, the terrific aspect of the rocks, and the tempestuous state of the water, were sufficient to produce a powerful sensation on the minds even of those who had been all their lives familiar with dangers; while the shadowy phantoms with which superstition had peopled it, threw a deeper gloom over the whole scene.

Now, however, these ceremonies are only cold and formal; for the danger being removed, the invocation of guardian saints has become less fervent, and the cross on the Wörther Isle, we fear, is often passed with little more than the common sign of obeisance.

Within the last fifty years the rocks in the bed of the river have been blasted, and the former obstruction so greatly diminished, that in the present day, the Strudel and Wirbel present no other dangers than what may be caused by the ignorance or negligence of boatmen; so that the tourist may contemplate the scene without alarm, and enjoy, in all its native grandeur, the picture here offered to his eye and imagination--

Frowning o’er the weltering flood,
Castled rock and waving wood,
Monkish cell and robbers’ hold--
Rugged as in days of old,
From precipices, stern and grey,
Guard the dark and dreaded way.

The tourist who has happily escaped the perils of the Strudel rapids, has still to encounter, in his descent, the whirlpool of the Wirbel, which is distant from the former little more than five hundred fathoms. Between the two perils of this passage in the Danube there is a remarkable similarity--_magna componere parvis_--with that of the Faro of Messina; where the hereditary terrors of Scylla and Charybdis still intimidate the pilot, as he struggles to maintain a clear course through the strait:

“There, in foaming whirls Charybdis curls,
Loud Scylla roars to larboard;
In that howling gulf, with the dog and wolf,
Deep moored to-night, with her living freight,
That goodly ship is harboured!”

The cause of the whirlpool is evident at first sight. In the centre of the stream is an island called the Hansstein, about a hundred and fifty yards long, by fifty in breadth, consisting of primitive rock, and dividing the river--which at this point descends with tremendous force--into the two separate channels of the Hössgang and the Strudel already mentioned. In its progress to this point, it meets with that portion of the river which runs smoothly along the northern shore, and breaking it into a thousand eddies, forms the Wirbel. This has the appearance of a series of foaming circles, each deepening as it approaches the centre, and caused by the two opposite streams rushing violently against each other. That such is the real cause of the Wirbel is sufficiently proved by the fact, that, in the great autumnal inundation of 1787, when the flood ran so high as to cover the Hansstein, the Wirbel, to the astonishment of the oldest boatmen and natives of the country, had entirely disappeared. For the obstacle being thus counteracted by the depth of the flood, and the stream being now unbroken by the rock, rushed down in one continuous volume, without exhibiting any of those gyratory motions which characterize the Wirbel.

The sombre and mysterious aspects of the place, its wild scenery, and the frequent accidents which occurred in the passage, invested it with awe and terror; but above all, the superstitions of the time, a belief in the marvellous, and the credulity of the boatmen, made the navigation of the Strudel and the Wirbel a theme of the wildest romance. At night, sounds that were heard far above the roar of the Danube, issued from every ruin. Magical lights flashed through their loop-holes and casements--festivals were held in the long-deserted halls--maskers glided from room to room--the waltzers maddened to the strains of an infernal orchestra--armed sentinels paraded the battlements, while at intervals the clash of arms, the neighing of steeds, and the shrieks of unearthly combatants smote fitfully on the boatman’s ear. But the tower in which these scenes were most fearfully enacted was that on the Longstone, commonly called the “Devil’s Tower,” as it well deserved to be--for here, in close communion with his master, resided the “Black Monk,” whose office it was to exhibit false lights and landmarks along the gulf, so as to decoy the vessels into the whirlpool, or dash them against the rocks.

Returning to Orsova, we re-embarked in boats provided by the Navigation Company, and proceeded to encounter the perils of the Eisen Thor--the Iron Gate of the Danube--which is so apt to be associated in the stranger’s imagination with something of real personal risk and adventure. The “Iron Gate” we conjecture, is some narrow, dark and gloomy defile, through which the water, hemmed in by stupendous cliffs, and “iron-bound,” as we say, foams and bellows, and dashes over a channel of rocks, every one of which, when it cannot drag you into its own whirlpool, is sure to drive you upon some of its neighbours, which, with another rude shove, that makes your bark stagger and reel, sends you smack upon a third! “But the ‘gate’?” “Why the gate is nothing more or less than other gates, the ‘outlet’; and I dare say we shall be very glad when we are ‘let out quietly.’” “Very narrow at that point, s’pose?” “Very. You have seen an iron gate?” “To be sure I have.” “Well, I’m glad of that, because you can more readily imagine what the Iron Gate of the Danube is.” “Yes, and I am all impatience to see it; but what if it should be locked when we arrive?” “Why, in that case, we should feel a little awkward.” “Should we have to wait long?” “Only till we got the key, although we might have to send to Constantinople for it.” “Constantinople! well, here’s a pretty situation! I wish I had gone by the ‘cart.’” “You certainly had your choice, and might have done so--the Company provide both waggon and water conveyance to Gladova; but I dare say we shall find the gate open.” “I hope we shall; and as for the rocks and all that, why we got over the Wirbel and Strudel and Izlay and twenty others, and s’pose we get over this too. It’s only the gate that puzzles me--the Handbook says not a word about that--quite unpardonable such an omission! Write to the publisher.”

By this time we were ready to shoot the rapids; and certainly, at first appearance, the enterprise was by no means inviting. The water, however, was in good volume at the time; and although chafed and fretted by a thousand cross, curling eddies, which tossed their crests angrily against our bark, we kept our course with tolerable steadiness to the left, and without apparent danger, unless it might have arisen from sheer ignorance or want of precaution. More towards the centre of the channel there would certainly have been some risk; for there the river is tortured and split into numberless small threads of foam, by the rocky spikes which line the channel, and literally tear the water into shreds, as it sweeps rapidly over them--and these, more than the declivity itself, are what present a more formidable appearance in the descent. But when the river is full, they are not much observed, although well-known by their effects in the cross-eddies, through which, from the channel for boats being always intricate and irregular, it demands more caution and experience to steer. The entire length of these rapids is rather more than seventeen hundred yards, with a perpendicular fall of nearly one yard in every three hundred, and a velocity of from three to five yards in every second. Boats, nevertheless, are seen from time to time, slowly ascending, close under the left bank of the river, dragged by teams of oxen. “But the Iron Gate?” said an anxious voice, again addressing his fellow-tourist. “I see nothing like a gate--but of course we have to pass the gorge first?” “We have passed both,” said his friend, “and here is Gladova.” “Passed both! ‘Tell that to the marines!’ I know a gorge when I see it, and a gate when I see it; but as yet we’ve passed neither.” “Why, _there_ they are,” reiterated the other, pointing to the stern; “those white, frothing eddies you see dancing in the distance--those _are_ the ‘Iron-Gate!’ and very luckily we found the ‘key.’”[12] The inquirer now joined heartily in the laugh, and taking another view of the “Gate” we glided smoothly down to the little straggling, thatch-clad village of Gladova.

_The Danube_ (London, 1844).

FOOTNOTE:

[12] At the Iron Gate the Danube quits the Austrian Dominions and enters those of Turkey. The country on the south continues for some time mountainous, then hilly, and by degrees sinks into a plain: on the north is the great level of Wallachia. In its course towards the Black Sea, the Danube divides, frequently forming numerous islands, especially below Silistria. Its width where undivided now averages from fifteen hundred to two thousand yards, its depth above twenty feet. Before reaching its mouth, several large rivers flow into it, as the Alt, Sereth, and Pruth. On its junction with the last-mentioned river it divides into several branches, which do not again unite, and it at last terminates its long course by issuing through seven several mouths into the Black Sea.

THE MAMMOTH CAVE

(_UNITED STATES_)

BAYARD TAYLOR

There was no outbreathing from the regions below as we stood at the entrance to the cave, the upper atmosphere having precisely the same temperature. We advanced in single file down the Main Avenue, which, from the increased number of lamps, showed with greater distinctness than on our first trip. Without pausing at any of the objects of interest on the road, we marched to the Giant’s Coffin, crawled through the hole behind it, passed the Deserted Chambers, and reached the Bottomless Pit, the limit of our journey in this direction the previous day.

Beyond the Pit we entered upon new ground. After passing from under its Moorish dome the ceiling became low and the path sinuous and rough. I could only walk by stooping considerably, and it is necessary to keep a sharp look-out to avoid striking your head against the transverse jambs of rock. This passage is aptly called the Valley of Humiliation. It branches off to the right into another passage called Pensico Avenue, which contains some curious stalactitic formations, similar to the Gothic Gallery. We did not explore it, but turned to the left and entered an extremely narrow, winding passage, which meanders through the solid rock. It is called Fat Man’s Misery, and any one whose body is more than eighteen inches in breadth will have trouble to get through. The largest man who ever passed it weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, and any gentleman weighing more than that must leave the best part of the cave unexplored. None of us came within the scope of prohibition (Nature, it seems, is opposed to corpulence), and after five minutes’ twisting we emerged into a spacious hall called the Great Relief. Its continuation forms an avenue which leads to Bandits’ Hall--a wild, rugged vault, the bottom of which is heaped with huge rocks that have fallen from above. All this part of the cave is rich in striking and picturesque effects, and presents a more rude and irregular character than anything we had yet seen.

At the end of Bandits’ Hall is the Meat-Room, where a fine collection of limestone hams and shoulders are suspended from the ceiling, as in a smoke-house, the resemblance, which is really curious, is entirely owing to the action of the water. The air now grew perceptibly damp, and a few more steps brought us to the entrance of River Hall. Here the ceiling not only becomes loftier, but the floor gradually slopes away before you, and you look down into the vast depths and uncertain darkness, and question yourself if the Grecian fable be not indeed true. While I paused on the brink of these fresh mysteries the others of the party had gone ahead under the charge of Mat; Stephen, who remained with me, proposed that we should descend to the banks of the Styx and see them crossing the river upon the Natural Bridge. We stood on the brink of the black, silent water; the arch of the portal was scarcely visible in the obscurity far above us. Now, as far below, I saw the twinkle of a distant lamp, then another and another. “Is it possible,” I asked, “that they have descended so much further?” “You forget,” said Stephen, “that you are looking into the river and see their reflected images. Stoop a little and you will find that they are high above the water.” I stooped and looked under an arch, and saw the slow procession of golden points of light passing over the gulf under the eaves of a great cliff; but another procession quite as distinct passed on below until the last lamp disappeared and all was darkness again.

Five minutes more and the roughest and most slippery scrambling brought us to the banks of the Lethe River, where we found the rest of the party.

The river had risen since the previous day, and was at the most inconvenient stage possible. A part of the River Walk was overflowed, yet not deep enough to float the boats. Mat waded out and turned the craft, which was moored to a projecting rock, as near to us as the water would allow, after which he and Stephen carried us one by one upon their shoulders and deposited us in it. It was a rude, square scow, well plastered with river mud. Boards were laid across for the ladies, the rest of us took our seats on the muddy gunwales, the guides plied their paddles, and we were afloat on Lethe.

After a ferriage of about one hundred yards, we landed on a bank of soft mud besides a small arm of the river, which had overflowed the usual path. We sank to our ankles in the moist, tenacious soil, floundering laboriously along until we were brought to a halt by Echo River, the third and last stream. This again is divided into three or four arms, which, meandering away under low arches, finally unite.

As we stood on the wet rocks, peering down into the black translucence of the silent, mysterious water, sounds--first distant, then near, then distant again--stole to us from under the groined vaults of rock. First, the dip of many oars; then a dull, muffled peal, rumbling away like the echoes of thunder; then a voice marvellously sweet, but presently joined by others sweeter still, taking up the dying notes ere they faded into silence, and prolonging them through remoter chambers. The full, mellow strains rose until they seemed sung at our very ears, then relapsed like ebbing waves, to wander off into solitary halls, then approached again, and receded, like lost spirits seeking here and there for an outlet from the world of darkness. Or was it a chorus of angels come on some errand of pity and mercy to visit the Stygian shores? As the heavenly harmonies thickened, we saw a gleam on the water, and presently a clear light, floating above its mirrored counterfeit, swept into sight. It was no angel, but Stephen, whose single voice had been multiplied into that enchanting chorus.

The whole party embarked in two small boats, and after a last voyage of about two hundred yards, were landed beyond the waters, and free to explore the wonderful avenues of that new world of which Stephen is the Columbus. The River Hall here terminates, and the passages are broken and irregular for a short distance. A few minutes of rough travel brought us to a large circular hall with a vaulted ceiling, from the centre of which poured a cascade of crystal water, striking upon the slant side of a large reclining boulder, and finally disappearing through a funnel-shaped pit in the floor. It sparkled like a shower of pearls in the light of our lamps, as we clustered around the brink of the pit to drink from the stores gathered in those natural bowls which seem to have been hollowed out for the uses of the invisible gnomes.

Beyond Cascade Hall commences Silliman’s Avenue, a passage about twenty feet wide, forty or fifty in height, and a mile and a half in length.

Our lamps were replenished and we entered El Ghor, which is by far the most picturesque avenue in the cave. It is a narrow, lofty passage meandering through the heart of a mass of horizontal strata of limestone, the broken edges of which assume the most remarkable forms. Now there are rows of broad, flat shelves overhanging your head; now you sweep around the stern of some mighty vessel with its rudder set hard to starboard; now you enter a little vestibule with friezes and mouldings of almost Doric symmetry and simplicity; and now you wind away into a Cretan labyrinth most uncouth and fantastic, whereof the Minotaur would be a proper inhabitant. It is a continual succession of surprises, and, to the appreciative visitor, of raptures. The pass is somewhat more than _a mile and a half in length_, and terminates in a curious knot or entanglement of passages leading to two or more tiers of avenues.

We were now, according to Stephen’s promises, on the threshold of wonders. Before proceeding further we stopped to drink from a fine sulphur spring which fills a natural basin in the bottom of a niche made on purpose to contain it. We then climbed a perpendicular ladder, passing through a hole in the ceiling barely large enough to admit our bodies, and found ourselves at the entrance of a narrow, lofty passage leading upwards. When all had made the ascent the guides exultingly lifted their lamps and directed our eyes to the rocks overhanging the aperture; there was the first wonder, truly! Clusters of grapes gleaming with blue and violet tints through the water which trickled over them, hung from the cliffs, while a stout vine, springing from the base and climbing nearly to the top, seemed to support them. Hundreds on hundreds of bunches clustering so thickly as to conceal the leaves, hang forever ripe and forever unplucked in that marvellous vintage of the subterranean world. For whose hand shall squeeze the black, infernal wine from grapes that grow beyond Lethe?

Mounting for a short distance, this new avenue suddenly turned to the left, widened, and became level; the ceiling is low, but beautifully vaulted, and Washington’s Hall, which we soon reached, is circular, and upwards of a hundred feet in diameter. This is the usual dining-room of parties who go beyond the rivers. Nearly five hours had now elapsed since we entered the cave, and five hours spent in that bracing, stimulating atmosphere might well justify the longing glances which we cast upon the baskets carried by the guides. Mr. Miller had foreseen our appetites, and there were stores of venison, biscuit, ham, and pastry, more than sufficient for all. We made our midday, or rather midnight meal sitting, like the nymph who wrought Excalibur

“Upon the hidden bases of the hills,”

buried far below the green Kentucky forests, far below the forgotten sunshine. For in the cave you forget that there is an outer world somewhere above you. The hours have no meaning: Time ceases to be; no thought of labour, no sense of responsibility, no twinge of conscience intrudes to suggest the existence you have left. You walk in some limbo beyond the confines of actual life, yet no nearer the world of spirits. For my part, I could not shake off the impression that I was wandering on the _outside_ of Uranus or Neptune, or some planet still more deeply buried in the frontier darkness of our solar system.

Washington Hall marks the commencement of Elindo Avenue, a straight hall about sixty feet wide, twenty in height, and _two miles_ long. It is completely encrusted from end to end with crystallizations of gypsum, white as snow. This is the crowning marvel of the cave, the pride and the boast of the guides. Their satisfaction is no less than yours, as they lead you through the diamond grottoes, the gardens of sparry efflorescence, and the gleaming vaults of this magical avenue. We first entered the “Snow-ball Room,” where the gnome-children in their sports have peppered the grey walls and ceiling with thousands of snow-white projecting discs, so perfect in their fragile beauty, that they seem ready to melt away under the blaze of your lamp. Then commences Cleveland’s Cabinet, a gallery of crystals, the richness and variety of which bewilder you. It is a subterranean conservatory, filled with the flowers of all the zones; for there are few blossoms expanding on the upper earth but are mimicked in these gardens of Darkness. I cannot lead you from niche to niche, and from room to room, examining in detail the enchanted growths; they are all so rich and so wonderful that the memory does not attempt to retain them. Sometimes the hard limestone rock is changed into a pasture of white roses; sometimes it is starred with opening daisies; the sunflowers spread their flat discs and rayed leaves; the feathery chalices of the cactus hang from the clefts; the night-blooming cereus opens securely her snowy cup, for the morning never comes to close it; the tulip is here a virgin, and knows not that her sisters above are clothed in the scarlet of shame.

In many places the ceiling is covered with a mammary crystallization, as if a myriad bubbles were rising beneath its glittering surface. Even on this jewelled soil which sparkles all around you, grow the lilies and roses, singly overhead, but clustering together towards the base of the vault, where they give place to long, snowy, pendulous cactus-flowers, which droop like a fringe around diamonded niches. Here you see the passion-flower, with its curiously curved pistils; there an iris with its lanceolate leaves; and again, bunches of celery with stalks white and tender enough for a fairy’s dinner. There are occasional patches of gypsum, tinged of a deep amber colour by the presence of iron. Through the whole length of the avenue there is no cessation of the wondrous work. The pale rock-blooms burst forth everywhere, crowding on each other until the brittle sprays cannot bear their weight, and they fall to the floor. The slow, silent efflorescence still goes on, as it has done for ages in that buried tropic.

What mostly struck me in my underground travels was the evidence of _design_ which I found everywhere. Why should the forms of the earth’s outer crust, her flowers and fruits, the very heaven itself which spans her, be so wonderfully reproduced? What laws shape the blossoms and the foliage of that vast crystalline garden? There seemed to be something more than the accidental combinations of a blind chance in what I saw--some evidence of an informing and directing Will. In the secret caverns, the agencies which produced their wonders have been at work for thousands of years, perhaps thousands of ages, fashioning the sparry splendours in the womb of darkness with as exquisite a grace, as true an instinct of beauty as in the palm or the lily, which are moulded by the hands of the sun. What power is it which lies behind the mere chemistry of Nature, impregnating her atoms with such subtle laws of symmetry? What but Divine Will, which first gave her being, and which is never weary of multiplying for man the lessons of His infinite wisdom?

At the end of Elindo Avenue the floor sinks, then ascends, and is at last blocked up by a huge pile of large, loose rocks. When we had reached the foot, the roof of the avenue suddenly lifted and expanded, and the summit of the Rocky Mountains, as they are called, leaned against a void waste of darkness. We climbed to the summit, about a hundred feet above, whence we looked down into an awful gulf, spanned far above our heads by a hollow dome of rock. The form of this gigantic hall was nearly elliptical. It was probably 150 feet in height, by 500 in length, the ends terminating near the roof in the cavernous mouths of other avenues. The guides partly descended the hill and there kindled a brilliant Bengal light, which disclosed more clearly the form of the hall, but I thought it more impressive as its stupendous proportions were first dimly revealed by the light of our lamps. Stephen, who discovered this place, gave it the name of the Dismal Hollow.

Scrambling along the ridge of the Rocky Mountains, we gained the entrance to the cavern opening on the left, which we followed for about two hundred yards, when it terminated in a lofty circular dome, called Crogan’s Hall. The floor on one side dropped suddenly into a deep pit, around which were several cushions of stalagmite, answering to short stalactites, hanging from the ceiling far above. At the extremity of the hall was a sort of recess, formed by stalactitic pillars. The wall behind it was a mass of veined alabaster. “Here,” said Stephen, “is your Ultima Thule. This is the end of the Mammoth Cave, nine miles from daylight.” But I doubt whether there is really an end of the cave any more than an end of the earth. Notwithstanding the ground we had traversed, we had left many vast avenues unexplored, and a careful search would no doubt lead to further discoveries.

We retraced our steps slowly along Elindo Avenue, stopping every few minutes to take a last look at the bowers of fairy blossoms. After reaching Washington’s Hall we noticed that the air was no longer still, but was flowing fresh and cool in our faces. Stephen observed it also, and said: “There has been a heavy rain outside.” Entering the pass of El Ghor again at Martha’s Vineyard, we walked rapidly forward, without making a halt, to its termination at Silliman’s Avenue. The distance is reckoned by the guides at a little more than a mile and a half, and we were just forty minutes in walking it. We several times felt fatigue, especially when passing the rougher parts of the cave, but the sensation always passed away in some unaccountable manner, leaving us fresh and buoyant. The crossing of the rivers was accomplished with some labour, but without accident. I accompanied Stephen on his return through the second arch of Echo River. As I sat alone in the silent, transparent darkness of the mysterious stream, I could hear the tones of my boatman’s voice gliding down the caverns like a wave, flowing more and more faintly until its vibrations were too weak to move the ear. Thus, as he sang, there were frequently three or four notes, each distinctly audible, floating away at different degrees of remoteness. At the last arch there was only a space of eighteen inches between the water and the rock. We lay down on our backs in the muddy bottom of the boat, and squeezed through to the middle branch of Echo River, where we found the rest of the party, who had gone round through Purgatory.

After again threading Fat Man’s Misery, passing the Bottomless Pit and the Deserted Chambers, we at last emerged into the Main Avenue at the Giant’s Coffin. It was six o’clock, and we had been ten hours in the cave.

When we heard the tinkling drops of the little cascade over the entrance, I looked up and saw a patch of deep, tender blue set in the darkness. In the midst of it twinkled a white star--whiter and more dazzling than any star I ever saw before. I paused and drank at the trough under the waterfall, for, like the Fountain of Trevi at Rome, it may be that those who drink there shall return again. When we ascended to the level of the upper world we found that a fierce tornado had passed along during the day; trees had been torn up by the roots and hurled down in all directions; stunning thunders had jarred the air, and the wet earth was fairly paved with leaves cut off by the heavy hail--yet we, buried in the heart of the hills, had heard no sound, nor felt the slightest tremour in the air.

The stars were all in their places as I walked back to the hotel. I had been twelve hours under ground, in which I had walked about twenty-four miles. I had lost a day--a day with its joyous morning, its fervid noon, its tempest, and its angry sunset of crimson and gold; but I had gained an age in a strange and hitherto unknown world--an age of wonderful experience, and an exhaustless store of sublime and lovely memories.

_At Home and Abroad_ (New York, 1864).

STROMBOLI

(_SICILY_)

ALEXANDRE DUMAS

As we advanced, Stromboli became more and more distinct every moment, and through the clear evening air we could perceive every detail; this mountain is formed exactly like a hay-mow, its summit being surmounted by a peak; it is from this summit that the smoke escapes, and, at intervals of a quarter of an hour, a flame; during the daytime this flame does not apparently exist, being lost in the light of the sun; but when evening comes, and the Orient begins to darken, this flame becomes visible and you can see it dart forth from the midst of the smoke which it colours, and fall again in jets of lava.

Towards seven o’clock we reached Stromboli; unfortunately the port is in the east, and we came from the west; so that we had to coast along the whole length of the island where the lava descended down a sharp slope into the sea. For a breadth of twenty paces at its summit and a hundred and fifty at its base, the mountain at this point is covered with cinders and all vegetation is burned.

The captain was correct in his predictions: we arrived half an hour after the port had been closed; all we could say to make them open to us was lost eloquence.

However, the entire population of Stromboli had run to the shore. Our _Speronare_ was a frequent visitor to this harbour and our sailors were well known in the island.... It was in Stromboli that Æolus held bound the _luctantes ventos tempestatesque sonoras_. Without doubt, at the time of the song of Æneas, and when Stromboli was called Strongyle, the island was not known for what it really is, and hid within its depths the boiling masses and periodical ejaculations which make this volcano the most obliging one in the world. In sooth, you know what to expect from Stromboli: it is not like Vesuvius or Etna, which make the traveller wait sometimes three, five or even ten years for a poor little eruption. I have been told that this is doubtless owing to the position they hold in the hierarchy of fire-vomiting mountains, a hierarchy that permits them to be aristocratic at their own pleasure: this is true enough; and we must not take it amiss if Stromboli allows her social position to be assailed an instant, and to have understood that it is only a little toy volcano to which one would not pay the slightest attention if it made itself so ridiculous as to put on airs.

Moreover, it did not keep us waiting. After scarcely five minutes’ expectation, a heavy rumbling was heard, a detonation resembling twenty cannon fired in succession, and a long jet of flame leaped into the air and fell again in a shower of lava; a part of this shower fell again into the crater of the volcano, while the other, rolling down the slope hurried like a brooklet of flame to extinguish itself, hissing, into the sea. Ten minutes later the same phenomenon was repeated, and at every succeeding ten minutes throughout the night.

I admit that this was one of the most curious nights I ever spent in my life; neither Jadin nor I could tear ourselves away from this terrible and magnificent spectacle. There were such detonations that the very atmosphere seemed excited, and you imagined the whole island trembling like a frightened child; it was only Milord that these fire-works put into a state of exaltation impossible to describe; he wanted to jump into the water every moment to devour the burning lava which sometimes fell ten feet from us, like a meteor precipitating itself into the sea.

As for our boatswain, he was so accustomed to this spectacle, that, after asking if we needed anything and upon our reply in the negative, he retired between decks and neither the lightnings that illuminated the air nor the thunders that shook it had power to disturb his slumbers.

We stayed here until two o’clock; finally, overcome with fatigue and sleep, we decided to retire to our cabin. As for Milord, nothing would persuade him to do as we did and he stayed all night on deck, growling and barking at the volcano.

We woke in the morning at the first movement of the _Speronare_. With the return of daylight the mountain lost all its fantastic appearance.

We constantly heard the detonations; but the flame had become invisible; and that burning lava stream of the night was confused in the day with the reddish ashes over which it rolls.

Ten minutes more and we were again in port. This time we had no difficulty in entering. Pietro and Giovanni got off with us; they wished to accompany us on our ascent.

We entered, not an inn (there are none in Stromboli), but a house whose proprietors were related to our captain. As it would not have been prudent to have started on our way fasting, Giovanni asked permission of our hosts to make breakfast for us while Pietro went to hunt for guides,--a permission not only accorded to us with much grace but our host also went out and came back in a few moments with the most beautiful grapes and figs that he could find.

After we had finished our breakfast, Pietro arrived with two Stromboliotes who consented, in consideration of half a piastre each, to serve as guides. It was already nearly eight o’clock: to avoid a climb in the greatest heat of the day, we started off immediately.

The top of Stromboli is only twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea; but its slope is so sharp that you cannot climb in a direct manner, but must zigzag eternally. At first, on leaving the village, the road was easy enough; it rose in the midst of those vines laden with grapes that make the commerce of the island and from which the fruit hangs in such great quantity that any one may help himself to all he wants without asking the permission of the owner; however, upon leaving the region of the vineyards, we found no more roads, and we had to walk at random, looking for the best ground and the easiest slopes. Despite all these precautions, there came a moment when we were obliged to scramble on all fours: there was nothing to do but climb up; but this place once passed, I vow that on turning around and seeing it, jutting almost perpendicularly over the sea, I asked in terror how we could ever descend; our guides then said that we would come down by another road: that pacified me a little. Those who like myself are unhappy enough to have vertigo when they see a chasm below their feet will understand my question and still more the importance I attached to it.

This break-neck spot passed, the ascent became easier for a quarter of an hour; but soon we came to a place which at the first glance seemed impassable; it was a perfectly sharp-pointed angle that formed the opening of the first volcano, and part of which was cut out perpendicularly upon the crater while the other fell with so sharp a slope to the sea that it seemed to me if I should fall perpendicularly on the other side I could not help rolling from top to bottom. Even Jadin, who ordinarily climbs like a chamois without ever troubling about the difficulties of the ground, stopped short when we came to this passage, asking if there was not some way to avoid it. As you may imagine, this was impossible.

The crater of Stromboli is formed like a vast funnel, from the bottom and the centre of which is an opening through which a man can enter a little way, and which communicates with the internal furnace of the mountain; it is through this opening, resembling the mouth of a canon, that the shower of projectiles darts forth, which, falling again into the crater, sweeps with it down the inclined slope of stones the cinders and lava that, rolling to the bottom, block up that funnel. Then the volcano seems to gather its forces together for several minutes, compressed as it is by the stoppage of its valve; but after a moment its smoke trembles like a breath; you hear a deep roaring run through the hollow sides of the mountain; then the cannonade bursts forth again, throwing up two hundred feet above the summit new stones and new lava, which, falling back and closing the orifice of the passage anew, prepare for a new outburst.

Seen from where we were, that is from top to bottom, this spectacle was superb and terrifying; at each internal convulsion that the mountain essayed, you felt it tremble beneath you, and it seemed as if it would burst asunder; then came the explosion, similar to a gigantic tree of flame and smoke that shook its leaves of lava.

Finally, we reached the extremity of this new lake of Sodom, and we found ourselves in an oasis of vines, pomegranates and olives. We had not the courage to go any farther. We lay down in the grass, and our guides brought us an armful of grapes and a hatful of figs.

It was marvellous to us; but there was not the smallest drop of water for our poor Milord to drink, and we perceived him devouring the skin of the figs and grapes. We gave him part of our repast, and for the first, and probably for the last, time in his life he dined off figs and grapes.

I have often a desire to put myself in the place of Milord and write his memoirs as Hoffmann wrote those of his cat, Murr. I am convinced that he must have had, seen from the canine point of view, (I beg the Académie’s pardon for the expression) extremely new impressions of the people and countries that he has visited.

A quarter of an hour after this halt we were in the village, writing upon our tablets this judicious observation--that the volcanoes follow but do not resemble each other: we were nearly frozen when ascending Etna, and we were nearly roasted when descending Stromboli.

Jadin and I each extended a hand towards the mountain and swore that notwithstanding Vesuvius, Stromboli was the last volcano whose acquaintance we would make.

_Le Capitaine Aréna: Impressions de Voyage_ (Paris, 1836).

THE HIGH WOODS

(_SOUTH AMERICA_)

CHARLES KINGSLEY

In the primeval forest, looking upon that which my teachers and masters, Humboldt, Spix, Martius, Schomburgk, Waterton, Bates, Wallace, Gosse, and the rest, had looked already, with far wiser eyes than mine, comprehending somewhat at least of its wonders, while I could only stare in ignorance. There was actually, then, such a sight to be seen on earth; and it was not less, but far more wonderful than they had said.

My first feeling on entering the high woods was helplessness, confusion, awe, all but terror. One is afraid at first to venture in fifty yards. Without a compass or the landmark of some opening to or from which he can look, a man must be lost in the first ten minutes, such a sameness is there in the infinite variety. That sameness and variety make it impossible to give any general sketch of a forest. Once inside, “you cannot see the woods for the trees.” You can only wander on as far as you dare, letting each object impress itself on your mind as it may, and carrying away a confused recollection of innumerable perpendicular lines, all straining upwards, in fierce competition, towards the light-food far above; and next on a green cloud, or rather mist, which hovers round your head, and rises, thickening and thickening to an unknown height. The upward lines are of every possible thickness, and of almost every possible hue; what leaves they bear, being for most part on the tips of the twigs, give a scattered, mist-like appearance to the under-foliage. For the first moment, therefore, the forest seems more open than an English wood. But try to walk through it, and ten steps undeceive you. Around your knees are probably Mamures, with creeping stems and fan-shaped leaves, something like those of a young cocoanut palm. You try to brush among them, and are caught up instantly by a string or wire belonging to some other plant. You look up and round: and then you find that the air is full of wires--that you are hung up in a network of fine branches belonging to half-a-dozen different sorts of young trees, and intertwined with as many different species of slender creepers. You thought at your first glance among the tree-stems that you were looking through open air; you find that you are looking through a labyrinth of wire-rigging, and must use the cutlass right and left at every five steps. You push on into a bed of strong sedge-like Sclerias, with cutting edges to their leaves. It is well for you if they are only three, and not six feet high. In the midst of them you run against a horizontal stick, triangular, rounded, smooth, green. You take a glance along it right and left, and see no end to it either way, but gradually discover that it is the leaf-stalk of a young Cocorite palm. The leaf is five-and-twenty feet long, and springs from a huge ostrich plume, which is sprawling out of the ground and up above your head a few yards off. You cut the leaf-stalk through right and left, and walk on, to be stopped suddenly (for you get so confused by the multitude of objects that you never see anything till you run against it) by a grey lichen-covered bar, as thick as your ankle. You follow it up with your eye, and find it entwine itself with three or four other bars, and roll over with them in great knots and festoons and loops twenty feet high, and then go up with them into the green cloud over your head, and vanish, as if a giant had thrown a ship’s cable into the tree-tops. One of them, so grand that its form strikes even the Negro and the Indian, is a Liantasse. You see that at once by the form of its cable--six or eight inches across in one direction, and three or four in another, furbelowed all down the middle into regular knots, and looking like a chain cable between two flexible iron bars. At another of the loops, about as thick as your arm, your companion, if you have a forester with you, will spring joyfully. With a few blows of his cutlass he will sever it as high up as he can reach, and again below, some three feet down; and, while you are wondering at this seemingly wanton destruction, he lifts the bar on high, throws his head back, and pours down his thirsty throat a pint or more of pure cold water. This hidden treasure is, strange as it may seem, the ascending sap, or rather the ascending pure rain-water which has been taken up by the roots, and is hurrying aloft, to be elaborated into sap, and leaf, and flower, and fruit, and fresh tissue for the very stem up which it originally climbed; and therefore it is that the woodman cuts the Watervine through first at the top of the piece which he wants, and not at the bottom; for so rapid is the ascent of the sap that if he cut the stem below, the water would have all fled upwards before he could cut it off above. Meanwhile, the old story of Jack and the Bean-stalk comes into your mind. In such a forest was the old dame’s hut; and up such a bean-stalk Jack climbed, to find a giant and a castle high above. Why not? What may not be up there? You look up into the green cloud, and long for a moment to be a monkey. There may be monkeys up there over your head, burly red Howler, or tiny peevish Sapajou, peering down at you; but you cannot peer up at them. The monkeys, and the parrots, and the humming-birds, and the flowers, and all the beauty, are upstairs--up above the green cloud. You are in “the empty nave of the cathedral,” and “the service is being celebrated aloft in the blazing roof.”

We will hope that as you look up, you have not been careless enough to walk on; for if you have you will be tripped up at once: nor to put your hand out incautiously to rest it against a tree, or what not, for fear of sharp thorns, ants, and wasps’ nests. If you are all safe, your next steps, probably, as you struggle through the bush between the tree-trunks of every possible size, will bring you face to face with huge upright walls of seeming boards, whose rounded edges slope upward till, as your eye follows them, you will find them enter an enormous stem, perhaps round, like one of the Norman pillars of Durham nave, and just as huge; perhaps fluted, like one of William of Wykeham’s columns at Winchester. There is the stem: but where is the tree? Above the green cloud. You struggle up to it, between two of the broad walls, but find it not so easy to reach. Between you and it, are a half-a-dozen tough strings which you had not noticed at first--the eye cannot focus itself rapidly enough in this confusion of distances--which have to be cut through ere you can pass. Some of them are rooted in the ground, straight and tense; some of them dangle and wave in the wind at every height. What are they? Air-roots of wild Pines, or of Matapalos, or of Figs, or of Seguines, or of some other parasite? Probably: but you cannot see. All you can see is, as you put your chin close against the trunk of the tree and look up, as if you were looking up against the side of a great ship set on end, that some sixty or eighty feet up in the green cloud, arms as big as English forest trees branch off; and that out of their forks a whole green garden of vegetation has tumbled down twenty or thirty feet, and half climbed up again. You scramble round the tree to find whence this aërial garden has sprung: you cannot tell. The tree-trunk is smooth and free from climbers; and that mass of verdure may belong possibly to the very cables which you meet ascending into the green cloud twenty or thirty yards back, or to that impenetrable tangle, a dozen yards on, which has climbed a small tree, and then a taller one again, and then a taller still, till it has climbed out of sight and possibly into the lower branches of the big tree. And what are their species? What are their families? Who knows? Not even the most experienced woodman or botanist can tell you the names of plants of which he only sees the stems. The leaves, the flowers, the fruit, can only be examined by felling the tree; and not even always then, for sometimes the tree when cut refuses to fall, linked as it is by chains of liane to all the trees around. Even that wonderful water-vine which we cut through just now may be one of three or even four different plants.