"I am attached to the hotel, sir, and have received your despatch (exhibiting it). If you will please to step into this carriage we have in waiting for you, after pointing out your trunks, I will follow you with them."

We were amazed, and began to wonder whether or not the fellow might not be a clever English impostor, who had obtained our telegraphic despatch with a view of getting our luggage into his hands, and running away with it. Our doubts were, however, soon settled by a young Prussian lady of the party, who conversed with him in his native tongue, and found that he was a sort of chief clerk, or managing man, for the proprietors of the hotel, and was equally at home in the German, French, or English languages. We therefore committed our _impedimenta_ to his charge, were escorted by him to the carriage, when, as he helped us in, tumbled and travel-stained as we were, and pa.s.sed in the travelling-pouches and shawls, and stood in his spotless linen and polished boots, raising his French hat, as if he had just stepped from a ball-room or the opera,--I could not help feeling a little awkward at presuming to permit so gentlemanly-appearing a personage to perform a menial act; but our reflections were cut short by his rapid directions to the driver in his own tongue. The coach-door was clapped to, and we were soon whirling through the brilliantly-lighted streets on our way to the hotel.

Vienna appears to be a city that is having immense additions made to it; in fact, to have recently taken a fresh start in new and s.p.a.cious squares, wide streets, and new buildings. The different portions of it are known as the old and new cities. The new city streets are open, wide, and airy, with broad and handsome sidewalks; the streets of the old are narrow and crooked, with no sidewalk or curbstone. Our hotel--the Archduke Charles--is situated on a street scarcely wide enough for two vehicles to pa.s.s, and the noise (for it is always crowded) that comes up between the tall buildings is almost unbearable in warm weather, when open cas.e.m.e.nts are a necessity. Talk of the crooked streets of Boston! Why, some of the corkscrew pa.s.sages of the old city of Vienna will wind up an expert Bostonian into a most inexplicable tangle.

The large, new streets, however, will, in time, rival the Boulevards in beauty and attractiveness. Great blocks of buildings are built on the Parisian model, elegant restaurants and stores, with plate gla.s.s windows, rich displays of goods, and a profusion of gas-jets, give quite a Paris air to the scene; in fact, the improvements in the way of new buildings and new streets, not only here but in Munich and other cities, seem to be after the Paris, or Haussman model. The tourist can hardly help thinking that Louis Napoleon made his influence to be felt in more ways than one, and has taught the monarchs of some of these sleepy old empires a good lesson in widening, enlarging, and beautifying their capitals, making them attractive to visit and pleasant to live in, and to realize that it is money in their purses, or those of their subjects,--which is much the same,--to render their cities inviting to the hosts of travellers who traverse the continent, and to induce them to remain and spend money, or come again and spend more.

To _bona fide_ tourists there are now very few restrictions.

Custom-house examinations are a mere form; pa.s.sports, except in the intolerant Roman States, are never called for, and admissions to galleries, palaces, or collections, which require tickets from government officials, are granted to foreigners without restraint. One of our first sight-seeing excursions took us to the Imperial Library--a magnificent collection of books and ma.n.u.scripts, commenced in the thirteenth century, and which now contains nearly three hundred thousand books, and over sixteen thousand ma.n.u.scripts, including many rare literary curiosities, among which we saw Charlemagne's psalm book; a roll of hieroglyphics on skin, sent by Cortes from Mexico to the King of Spain; Ta.s.so's own ma.n.u.script of Jerusalem Delivered; the Latin Bible of 1462, on parchment; elegant illuminated ma.n.u.scripts and parchment volumes, whose exquisite penmanship and still brilliant colors make it hard to believe that the hands that laboriously fashioned them, in shady cloister and convent cell, have crumbled into undistinguishable dust hundreds of years ago.

One of the most magnificent collections of royal jewelry we have ever looked upon we saw at the Imperial Treasury, or Jewel House. Here were necklaces of diamonds as big as filberts, and of a brilliancy that others pale before; a bow-knot as large as a half sheet of commercial note-paper, that blazed like fire with clear, pure diamonds; great crowns; conquerors' wreaths in emeralds and diamonds; royal orders and decorations; magnificent chains and collars belonging to the dresses of various orders worn by the emperor. But it was not only the sparkling collection of gems of purest ray serene that attracted our attention--the curious historic relics that are preserved here are of great value and interest. Think of standing and looking upon the coronation robe, crown, and sceptre of the stout old Charlemagne himself; the great diamond worn by Charles the Bold; the robes and crown worn by Napoleon at his coronation at Milan; an elegant crucifix, with the wondrous carving and chasing of that renowned artificer, Benvenuto Cellini; a collection of curious watches of olden times, the "Nuremburg eggs" that we have so often read of. Besides the huge falchion of Charlemagne, we were shown the sword of Maximilian I., that of Francis I. of France, the scimeter that was once wielded by Tamerlane, and the celebrated iron crown of Lombardy.

I cannot begin to enumerate the stories of relics connected with the history of Austria; the wealth of cut and uncut jewels which we were hurried through by the thick-headed, stupid guide, who recited a description he had learned by rote in the most monotonous manner; who was utterly unable to answer the simplest question, and only went from one object to another that was in his programme of performance, commencing with his everlasting "_Dies is der_," and going on with a monotonous enumeration of facts, running his words and sentences together, like a state official repeating a formula. I ought not to omit mentioning that they have several sacred relics here, some of which cannot fail to excite a smile, and others such as tourists always expect to find in every collection. Among the first is what is said to be part of the table-cloth used at the Last Supper! The visitor is not expected to inquire if table-cloths were used in those days, or he might be answered, "Of course they were; else how came this piece here?" The piece of the true cross is here, of course, for no well-regulated collection of relics or cathedral is complete without it; while the tooth of St. John the Baptist and leg bone of St. Anne may cause some unbelieving Thomases to wonder how long these mortuary relics can be kept preserved from the crumbling touch of time.

I had no idea what an intensely curious exhibition a cabinet of minerals could be, till I stood within the great building containing the collection here, which is in a series of apartments in all as long as Quincy Market, in Boston, and most admirably arranged and cla.s.sified. It seemed as if the whole world had been ransacked for specimens in every nook and corner, from the frozen regions of the poles to the coral caves of the tropics; from the surface to the centre; and that geology might be studied here by ill.u.s.tration, and metallurgy and mineralogy thoroughly learned from specimens, so numerous are they, and so perfectly are the different varieties and branches arranged.

Here are marbles from every part of the world, even Greenland; copper from the slave-worked mines of Siberia, and the prolific pits of the Lake Superior country, in fragments, dust, ingots, and ma.s.ses; coal bearing the familiar names of our American mines, those of the great English pits, and specimens from China, j.a.pan, Bohemia, and New Zealand; gold in all its curious shapes, as found in rock that showed not its glitter, and in the smooth nuggets from California and Australia; the less precious, but not less useful iron, from every part of the globe; diamonds from Brazil; agates; malachite from the Ural Mountains; crystals from the Alps; amethysts, rubies, and uncut gems, plucked from streams or rocky prisons; silver ore from the mines of Potosi; solid lead from Great Britain, Spain, and America; tin, cinnabar, platina--till it seemed that every known metal, ore, rock, mineral, or gem, from every quarter of the world, had its representative specimen in this priceless collection.

Among the remarkable curiosities of the museum were the largest opal in the world,--as large as a man's fist, and weighing seventeen ounces,--too big for the breastpin of the most ambitious American expressman or negro minstrel; a great rock crystal, as big as a man's leg; a great bed or ma.s.s of crystals, four and a half feet in diameter; elegant specimens of uncut gems and diamond crystals; a large collection of aerolites, or meteoric stones, which have fallen in various parts of the world. Among the most curious of these is one ma.s.s looking like melted rock, weighing over five hundred pounds. Then there are curious fossil remains, bird tracks, and ferns, in stone, and various other interesting ill.u.s.trations of geology. A very costly wonder is a beautiful bouquet of flowers, made entirely of precious stones, for the Empress Maria Theresa,--the colors of leaves, buds, and petals all being preserved by different-colored gems,--a sparkling but scentless nosegay.

This superb collection is one of the wonders of Vienna, and must afford an admirable opportunity to students and others engaged in the study of mineralogy, &c., numbers of whom we saw in different departments, as we pa.s.sed through, making notes and examinations.

A museum where one having any taste for antiquities may positively luxuriate, is the Ambras Museum of ancient arms and armor, a real, authenticated historical collection,--armor that had actually been worn and fought in by men whose names figure in history hundreds of years ago. How the antiquary will thank the old Archduke Ferdinand, who made this collection in 1560, expressly for the purpose of interesting future ages, and left his own autographic ma.n.u.scripts (still preserved), authenticating them beyond a doubt.

Three large rooms of six in the museum are devoted to the collection of arms and armor. Here were the helmet of Francis I., of France, that may have been worn in his battle with his warlike opponent, the German emperor, Charles V., or at his meeting with Henry VIII. on the Field of the Cloth of Gold; the complete armor, for man and horse, of the Emperor Maximilian; the armor of Charles V.; that of Philip II.,--armor that he may have ridden in, side by side with his English wife, b.l.o.o.d.y Mary; the dinted armor of that fierce warrior, Don John of Austria, that may have shielded its owner in many a deadly encounter; a magnificent steel suit, fluted with gold, belonging to the Archbishop of Salzburg; the handsomely-wrought steel armor of Maurice, Elector of Saxony; a whole room full of armor suits and weapons used at tournaments during the middle ages; the elegant suit of Alexander Farnese, of Parma, made in 1592, of great beauty of workmanship, and which would put our artificers of the present day to their best skill to rival. Here are the battle-axe of Montezuma, emperor of Mexico; the horse-tail standards captured from the Turks, and elegant swords and weapons of Italian warriors, rich in ornament and chasing. Of these interesting memorials of ancient chivalry, there are nearly one hundred and fifty suits of armor, weapons, &c.--historical mementos of the manners of the middle ages.

CHAPTER XII.

On our first Sunday in Vienna we attended service at the Church of St.

Augustine, the chief features of the service being the splendid robes of the priests, and the magnificent music--the instrumental portion, in addition to the organ, being the full orchestra from the opera-house, led by its leader, baton in hand, and giving some of the compositions of the great composers in a style that made the lofty arches of the old church to seem filled with heavenly melody. In this church is Canova's superb monument to the Archd.u.c.h.ess Christiana, a marble pyramid thirty feet high, upon a broad marble pedestal, with two wide steps. In the centre of this pyramid, designed to represent the tomb, is a door, and grouped upon the steps, on their way towards it, are several life-sized allegorical figures, most exquisitely wrought. A female figure, in flowing drapery, bearing a flower-wreathed urn, with a child walking on either side of her, followed by another figure, Benevolence, supporting by the arm Old Age, a bent, decrepit, tottering old man leaning upon a staff, are the figures on one side; while upon the other reposes a lion, with an angel seated by his side, and half reclining upon his rugged mane. The white, flowing drapery of these figures is so beautifully wrought as to fairly rival reality, and the figure of Old Age, with tottering limbs, weary face, and relaxed muscles, a perfect masterpiece of art. The angel, reclining upon the lion, is a figure of exquisite beauty, while the grouping of the whole, and the natural positions of the figures, render the composition both apt and beautiful.

At the Capuchin Church we went down into the vault of the imperial family, under the guidance of a sandalled friar, torch in hand. Here rest the mortal remains of royalty, in seventy great metallic coffins or sarcophagi,--the oldest that of Ferdinand, 1610, and the most splendid being that of Joseph I., which has over two thousand pounds of silver about it, wrought into armorial bearings, crowns, death's heads, wreaths of flowers, and other designs. The rest are chiefly wrought from zinc into the forms of mortuary caskets, with appropriate designs.

While the group of visitors were tediously following the monotonous description of the friar, I unconsciously seated myself upon the end of one of these ornamented chests of human ashes, from which, when discovered, I was requested to rise by an indignant wave of the hand, and a look upon the friar's face that savored strongly of indignation, as he approached the spot with the party, and commenced his description.

Then it was I discovered that I had been making my seat of the funeral casket of the Duke of Reichstadt, son of the great Napoleon; and near by we saw that of the Emperor Francis, his grandfather.

From this gloomy chamber of dead royalty, we were glad once more to emerge to the busy street and to close the day's sight-seeing by a visit to a musical festival given in an immense garden just outside the city, called, I think, the New World Garden. The occasion being the Virgin's birthday, there was an extra attraction; first there was the splendid Strauss band, about seventy pieces, led by Strauss himself; then two large military bands, and these played alternately, and _such_ music!

The Strauss waltzes and dance music were given with a "voluptuous swell," precision, and beauty that were enchanting to listen to. They were liquid billows of harmony, and as inspiriting to the feet of the dancers as a draught of nitrous oxide to the imagination. The voluptuous waltz ceased, the military band would then burst forth with grand march or quickstep that would make one's very pulses thrill, and when this closed, the other band gave an overture or grand musical composition, which concluded, the lively dance music of Strauss again burst forth with its exhilarating strains.

There were three or four thousand persons present strolling through the pleasant walks and shady alleys, or sitting at the tables near the music pavilions eating ices, drinking light wines or beer, chatting, and listening to the music. The price of admission to the regular concerts of the Strauss band here is about eighteen cents! But to this entertainment, which was an extra occasion, or a sort of a fete day, the enormous fee of nearly thirty cents was demanded! The excellence of the music as well as the cheapness of the entertainment, was marvellous to us Americans.

It is a pleasant excursion to the Schonbrunn, or summer palace, and the gardens connected with it, about three miles from Vienna. These gardens on fine Sunday afternoons are thronged with people from the city, strolling through their shady alleys and beautiful walks. The shrubbery and landscape gardening here are great curiosities; long, straight avenues are laid out, with the trees on each side trimmed like hedges to the height of thirty or forty feet, presenting a perspective of an avenue as smooth and unbroken as if sliced out of a solid ma.s.s of green, with a keen blade; then the ma.s.ses of foliage are trimmed into niches for marble statues, graceful curves, and columns, and curious walks. The flower-gardens of the palace were beautiful, and the hot-houses rich in great palms and other tropical wonders; there were quite a number, some dozen or more, of these conservatories, each devoted to different varieties of plants, a description of which would be wearisome. As some of the royal family were at the palace we could not visit the interior, but pa.s.sing through the gardens, we ascended to the _Gloriette_, a sort of open temple with a colonnade of pillars, situated upon rising ground, and commanding a fine view of Vienna and the surrounding country, including the battle-fields of Aspern and Wagram.

The Imperial Picture Gallery of Vienna is a collection of paintings worth a journey over the ocean to see--rich in the masterpieces of the old masters, and containing in all about two thousand pictures, which are arranged in different apartments according to the school of art to which they belong. Here, again, we were bewildered with a wealth of beauty: here one begins to realize what wonders the painter's brush is capable of; what laborious finishers the old masters were; how very little advance, if any at all, has been made in the art; what skill must have been used in the manufacture and laying on of colors which, after the lapse of two or three hundred years, are as fresh, bright and effective as if but yesterday applied to the canvas.

It would be like enumeration by catalogue to give the list of pictures that we have pencilled notes of admiration against; but only think of seeing elegant pictures from the pencils of Paul Veronese, t.i.tian, Raphael, Guido, Correggio, Murillo, Rembrandt, Cuyp, Poussin, Vand.y.k.e, Rubens, Teniers, Albert Durer, Van Eyck, Andrea del Sarto, Gerard Dow, and Schneyders! Why, after going through this gallery, having seen that at Munich, it seemed as if we had seen the originals of half of all the engravings and copies of great works that we have ever looked upon; and as in other galleries, we found the longest time we could possibly give to it allowed us only a glance, comparatively speaking, at its treasures.

There was t.i.tian's Ecce h.o.m.o, a masterpiece of artistic skill that one wanted hours to study; the Entombment, and his beautiful figure of Danae; Correggio's elegant picture of Christ and the Woman of Samaria; Guido's Holy Family--a room entirely filled with the works of that industrious artist, Rubens, among which was his a.s.sumption of the Virgin, Loyola casting out Evil Spirits, and Xavier healing the Sick.

Teniers also had a room, among which his Peasants' Marriage, and Village Fete, were conspicuous; Albert Durer's Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Christians--a wonderful work, in which every form of torture and death seemed to have been represented; a student for the torture chamber of the Holy Inquisition might have obtained new ideas by studying it; Durer's magnificent picture of the Holy Trinity, surrounded by a crowd of saints, cherubs, and angels--a representation in which perfect finish in all the details of features and heavenly beauty was marvellously executed; Paul Veronese's Holy Family, and two splendid battle-pieces by Salvator Rosa.

In the modern gallery there were also many wonderfully beautiful works of art--a fearfully real picture of the Ma.s.sacre of the Innocents, by Charles Arrienti; a wonderfully funny one of Mischief-Makers in an Artist's Studio, by Joseph Danhauser--a picture that will make one laugh aloud; a fine picture, of the Adieu of a soldier of the Austrian _Landwehr_ to his wife and children--figures all of life-size, painted by Pierre Krafft; a sortie of a garrison against Turkish a.s.sailants--a great painting crowded with figures in the most spirited action, and all beautifully finished by the same artist.; Shnorr's Mephistophiles appearing to Faust--an elegant and effective composition; Grand Ca.n.a.l of Venice, by Schoefft--a lovely scene. And so it continued--great battle-pieces with life-like warriors, with weapons and mail strikingly like reality; lovely landscapes that filled one with admiration to gaze upon; religious subjects, on which the loftiest art and the sublimest conceptions were exhausted; wonderful trickery of art in some compositions; quiet beauty in others, that drew the beholder, again and again, back to gaze upon them, till, with aching limbs and fatigued vertebrae, we closed our first visit to this glorious collection, with the thought of how discouraging is the effort to attempt, in a day or two, that over which weeks, and even months, might be used with pleasure and intellectual profit.

Tourists, who are always buying something in every European capital they visit, find the beautiful fancy goods shops and Vienna goods potent attractions. It is in this city that all the beautiful leather-work, known as Russia leather, is manufactured, its deep-red stain and peculiar perfume as fascinating as the many-colored hues and glossy surface of fresh kid gloves, or the fragrance of the leaves of a new volume, to the purchaser. Travelling satchels of this material, which at home are an extravagant luxury, are here obtainable at less than half the American price. Then the leather is wrought in a hundred fanciful ways: it appears in trunks; portfolios soft, elegant, and portable; pocket-books smooth and elastic; work-boxes, hat-boxes, covered smelling-bottles, flasks, and canes; in watch-chains or portable inkstands, whip-stocks, boots and shoes, elegantly mounted horse harnesses; and, in fact, in about every way it can be used to court the eye and be of service.

The meerschaum pipe stores of Vienna must make a smoker half crazy with delight; and indeed, to those who do not use the weed, their windows are among the most attractive upon the great streets, from the ingenuity and skill displayed in the innumerable forms into which pipe bowls are carved. The most artistic skill and elaborate workmanship appear to have been expended upon these pipes, and the great pipe stores vie with each other in displaying in their windows specimens of delicate carvings and curious designs, beautiful amber mouth-pieces, tobacco-boxes, pouches, and the smoker's paraphernalia. An American rarely leaves Vienna without some of its meerschaums in his baggage. Gentlemen's clothing, excellently made to order, can be bought here at astonishingly low prices, and the ladies find fans, fancy goods, and laces to be not so dear as in Paris.

The prices at the leading hotels are rather high, but the cuisine is unexceptionable, and Vienna bread the best in the world. Once eaten, the traveller will establish it as his standard of excellence. It is snowy white, without flake, fine-grained, has a light, brown, crisp crust, no particle of flavor of yeast, gas, or acidity, but a fragrance of purity and sweetness, and the dyspeptic may devour the delicious, round breakfast rolls, almost in any quant.i.ty, with impunity. Most Americans are astonished to find what a luxurious repast can be made from mere bread and b.u.t.ter in Vienna.

Vienna appears more like London and Paris than other European capitals.

Its brilliant cafes, shops, and the elegant new Boulevards, recently completed, give it quite the air of Paris; and so also do the numerous amus.e.m.e.nts, out-of-door concerts, and musical entertainments, together with the general pleasure-seeking character of the people. Among the fine promenades just out of the city is one known as the Prater, near the River Danube, a favorite resort of fashion and aristocracy, where we saw a brilliant display of elegant carriages and gayly-dressed occupants; equestrians, out to display their elegant horses, and their own horsemanship; Austrian officers, in their rich uniforms, and pedestrians, out for an afternoon lounge and enjoyment of the gay scene.

We stopped _en route_ to Venice, by rail, at Adelsberg, about fifty miles from Trieste, and which we were told by certain Americans to be sure and visit, as its grotto, the Cave of Adelsberg, was one of the wonders of Europe; and, for once, we found the a.s.sertion to be correct, for, after a visit to it, we cla.s.sed in our mind as among the wonders we had seen, thus: the Alps, Milan Cathedral, and the Grotto of Adelsberg.

It is an odd experience to arrive in a foreign country at a railroad station at nine o'clock at night, and yourself and companion the only persons who leave the train, finding, on looking about you, after it has whizzed away into the darkness, that the five or six officials in attendance cannot understand a word of English, and that their language is equally unintelligible to you. However, travel sharpens one's wits, and by sign language, and the p.r.o.nouncing of the name of the hotel mentioned in our guide-book, "_Ungarish Krone_," we managed to make the somewhat stolid officials understand that we wished to go to that place.

But now a new difficulty seemed to arise, and an animated palaver took place, with the accompaniment of various shrugs, gesticulations, and contortions of visage, which really seemed to portend something serious, but which turned out to be that, as we had arrived on a train that very seldom set down any pa.s.sengers there, there was no means of conveyance to the hotel, and we must walk.

A guide, with a hand wagon bearing our luggage, accordingly started, and we trudged after him in the darkness. No, not darkness; for during our detention the moon had risen, and our journey to the old-fashioned, quaint-looking village, and through the court-yard of the Hungarian Crown Hotel, was less disagreeable than it might have been. Arrived at the hotel, a new difficulty arose. The landlord spoke only Italian and a patois of German, which was Dutch to us, and was vexed at being disturbed from a grand exhibition, which was in progress in his dining-room, of feats of jugglery, and elocutionary exercises by two itinerant performers.

Gratifying was it to have a young Italian girl at this Adelsberg hostelry come out from the crowd,--not one of whom seemed to speak English or French,--speak perfect English to us, and translate our wants to the landlord. And gratifying was it to our national pride to see what alacrity the announcement that we were Americans put into his step, and the speed of his preparations; for in less than half an hour we had been provided with an excellent apartment, and were sitting at a little supper table at one end of the _salle a manger_, enjoying tea, chops, and other creature comforts. At the same time, a magician was performing in the room to an audience of fifty or sixty, whose costume, conversation, and manners were to us the most interesting part of it. We also found ourselves to be somewhat of a curiosity to the auditors, while the young Italian who could converse with us in our own tongue, having formerly been lady's maid in an English family, found herself quite distinguished, on account of her accomplishment, among her friends, who crowded around her, and, as we afterwards learned, plied her with innumerable questions about the Americans and their distant country.

Being the only foreigners in the place desirous of visiting the cave the next morning, we were obliged to pay the same expense that would have been required of a party of a dozen. The cave is the property of the government, and there is a regular tariff of charges, according to the grade of illumination,--that is, the number of candles used in displaying the halls and grottos; for a goodly quant.i.ty are required to even partially display its wonders. The grand illumination, "utterly regardless," we declared against; so also did we the cheap third and fourth rate, but decided upon the second, involving an expense of about twelve dollars and a half, and six guides.

Our former experiences in caves, mines, ruins, and grottos have always necessitated a change of costume, a donning of rubber coats, overalls, old hats, or overshoes. Consequently we were a little incredulous at the a.s.sertion that, with the exception of tolerably stout shoes, nothing more than an ordinary costume was necessary. We entered this wonderful cavern directly from the road, walking into it as into an arched excavation in a hill-side. Four of our six guides had preceded us, and kept about a quarter of an hour in advance, with their satchels of candles and torches, to illuminate the great halls and chambers on our approach; while the other two, one of whom, to our joy, spoke French, accompanied us with torches, to guide us, and point out the curiosities and wonders of the place. The cavern is miles in extent. And let not the reader imagine any damp, dirty hole in the earth, with muddy soil and dripping roof, or a squeezing through of narrow, dangerous pa.s.sages, clambering over obstacles, or anything of the kind; for, with the exception of the damp sand of a shallow stream, for twenty yards near the very entrance, the walking was as dry and free from absolute discomforts as a city street.

Three hours' walk through the bowels of the earth revealed to us that there were as wondrous beauties below as above the earth; for we pa.s.sed through great natural Gothic pa.s.sages, almost as natural as if shaped by the builder's hands, forests and cl.u.s.ters of columns glittering with fantastic ornament. We emerged into a great dome-like apartment, big enough to set Boston State House down in its centre, and leave room to spare. This our guides had illumined with the candles placed in every direction, and the effect upon the glittering stalact.i.tes and stalagmites, frosted as they were with flashing crystals, was as if we stood in a vast hall of diamonds, sparkling around in every direction.

On we went, amid pillars, arches, and spires. Here was a great dome, one hundred and sixty-five feet high, the guides told us, spangled, as far up as we could see, with a perfect blaze of sparkling particles, reflecting back the light of the numerous candles, like a roof crusted with gems. Another great hall was shaped like a huge theatre. Right through the centre, where should be the parquet, rushed a swift, silent, black river--the Poick; a natural stone bridge formed the orchestra; beyond it, a great platform of rock, the stage; two semicircular ledges of rock opposite were the two rows of dress circle and boxes; only this great theatre was double, yes, treble the size of a real one.

Our guides had placed a double row of lights over the orchestral bridge, which were reflected on the black stream beneath. Another row represented the stage lights. Two more rows ran round stone balconies where we stood, while the illusion is heightened by an extemporized chandelier, made from hogshead hoops, filled with rows of candles, and swung out by means of a wooden crane into the centre.

The effect was magnificent and indescribable.

Another great hall was designated "Mount Calvary," and was a succession of gradual ascents, past stalact.i.te columns, by a winding pathway, to a summit where were three formations of the rock, which, by an effort of the imagination, might represent the group at our Saviour's crucifixion.

This magnificent hall, like the others, blazed with sparkling particles, was rich in white, marble-like columns, cl.u.s.tered pillars, wondrous arches, and semi-transparent sheets of cream-colored rock. Another hall, when lighted, seemed a realization of those "fairy grottos," "abode of elves," or "home of the sea-nymphs," which we see represented upon the stage of the theatre; for it was a wilderness of fret-work, pretty arches, open, lace-work sort of rock screens, slender spires, alabaster-like pillars, and all glittering and flashing with the alum-like, crystal-sparkling particles of the formation which is found in these caverns.

Pa.s.sing from hall to hall, we encounter numerous curious and astonishingly natural formations. There were statues, petrified waterfalls, a torrent in full career turned into alabaster; towers, one the leaning tower of Pisa, fifteen feet high, a very good representation; columns as transparent as an alabaster vase; ruined castles, thirty feet high, with battlements and turrets; a splendid pulpit, grand throne, a butcher's shop with joints hanging from its beams; and a prison with its grated window, all in white stone. Here we came to great white curtains of rock, a dozen yards high and half that width, no thicker than the hand, which when struck with a wooden mallet bounded like a cathedral bell; then we came to a place like the sea-beach, where it seemed as if the slow in-coming waves, as they washed upon the sands, had felt the stony touch that had transformed all--for there were the little rippling waves in solid alabaster, caught in their retreat, with all the little eddies and foam-whirls as they were sliding back to the surf that sent them in, and held solid and immovable. Upon one huge crag of rock sat quite a shapely eagle, and from another drooped a huge flag in snowy folds, and beneath it, rising as if to grasp it, reached up a t.i.tanic hand; then came a tall palm tree, next a broom of stone big enough for a giant; a lion's head looking over a jutting crag, and yew trees by the path side, besides many other objects, some most wonderfully natural in appearance, and others requiring the exercise of a lively imagination to see the representation.

The last grand apartment in this wonderful cave was the state ball-room, a beautiful circular-formed apartment, with its centre clear and un.o.bstructed, affording ample s.p.a.ce for dancers, who use it once a year, on Whit-Sunday, when a grand ball, with full orchestra, is given there.

This apartment contains a natural formation for the orchestra, an elegant rocky seat as a throne, and tiers of seats, rows of sparkling columns about its sides, and elegant rocky fret-work far above. The effect of the illumination here, as in other apartments, was dazzlingly beautiful.

After our three hours' walk, which was through a succession of natural wonders, we emerged again into daylight from this Aladdin cavern. The whole of the journey was, with the exception of a dozen yards, over walks as dry as a floor, and through pa.s.sages twenty feet and more wide, and from twenty to two hundred and more feet in height. This subterranean wonder, we were informed, and we also saw by the traveller's register, but comparatively few Americans see; but it is a sight that none should miss. It may be "done" by stopping over half a day on the railroad between Vienna and Venice, or can be reached by riding out from Trieste by rail, a distance of fifty miles.