From the south-east corner of Hungary, where they form the boundary between it and Roumania, and stretching upwards in one unbroken chain to the provinces of Bukovina and Gallicia, rise the noble Carpathian mountains, embracing two-thirds of the Hungarian plains as with a stony girdle.

At the foot of the highest group of the Carpathian chain lies the Comitat of Gőmőr, a district of singular beauty and variety, in which are mountains on whose summits grow the Arctic lichen and the pine: whilst at their base, not only the vine, but tobacco, melons, and Indian corn flourish in great luxuriance. It is in this county, within a few miles of the mining town of Dobshau—into which name the Austrians have Germanised the more euphonious Hungarian one of Dobsina—that the newly-discovered caverns are situated which form the heading of this chapter.

The existence of an ice-cavern had for many years been suspected, a fissure having been observed to be constantly blocked with ice, although situated at the low elevation of 3500 feet, where snow rests on the ground during the winter months only. It was however left to a young Hungarian named Ruffiny, a youth of unwonted courage and enterprise, to be the first to enter these wondrous chambers, which Nature has fashioned for herself in the secret recesses of the earth.

Having provided himself with everything that could be devised to insure his safety in the perilous task he had undertaken, this bold and intrepid adventurer set out for the fissure, two young friends accompanying him.

Suspended to his girdle was a miner’s lamp and a stout rope many yards in length. To this rope a bell was attached, designed to serve as a means of communication if necessary with his companions above, whilst another rope was fixed to a windlass. In this way he entered the chasm, and working his way valiantly over blocks of ice, and a chaos of débris, which in the course of ages had found its way thither, he became lost for a time in the darkness of a new world.

We can readily imagine what must have been the feelings of this brave young explorer as he entered alone those grim, silent, and unknown regions, from which he might never return, for we may be sure he was fully alive to the danger his enterprise involved. Curiosity however, and a love of adventure which is found to animate some minds, led him onwards, his feeble lamp doing little more than to render the darkness visible, as he surmounted first this icy barrier, and then that, at one time sliding down slippery inclines, at another unwinding the rope which encircled his body and plunging into yawning depths, till he reached at length a vaulted chamber, and stood on what appeared to be a frozen lake.

What wonders of the Ice-world did not his glimmering lantern then unfold! Pausing a moment to feel quite sure that his senses did not deceive him, he clambered back with all speed to within some distance of the mouth of the cave, and shouted to his companions to follow.

Thus were these icy solitudes revealed to man, and a tablet erected on the outer rock just above the entrance records the names of these youthful heroes, together with the date on which the caverns were discovered.

It was a hot day, and the sun shining fiercely from his throne in heaven, when, having left our carriage at the foot of the Dusca, the mountain in which the caves exist, we commenced its ascent, and soon entered a cool forest of pines. Halfway up, through a natural opening in the forest, a beautiful view is obtained of the valley by which we had come and of the bold Spitzenstein rising abruptly out of it, near which—looking mere toys in the distance—lie the foresters’ houses.

Sauntering up a narrow zigzag path, between banks of moss interspersed with wild-flowers of every hue, we soon reach the plateau beneath which lies the cave. We are soon made aware of its proximity by a stream of cold air issuing from the chasm.

Descending to it by a flight of wooden steps which are carried over huge masses of fallen rock, we signal for a guide, whose voice, answering from the depths below, comes rolling upwards with a muffled echo, his approaching footsteps sounding like the hollow boom of cannon.

As we stood at the fissure waiting for him, it was curious to observe how, notwithstanding the warmth of the atmosphere, the outer face of the rock within a radius of thirty feet was covered with a thick coating of hoar-frost, having all the appearance of newly-fallen snow, each projecting shelf of rock being likewise fringed with long icicles.

But the guide—whose footsteps reverberating through corridor after corridor, and hall after hall, we have heard in one continuous roar for the last fifteen minutes—at last reaches us; and following him, we descend the narrow flight of stairs, which, together with the balustrade that we cling to for safety, is also covered with a thick crystalline coating as white as snow. This leads us to the “Small Saloon,” where we find ourselves standing on a floor of ice environed by numerous ice-formations, to each of which the guides—attributing to them a resemblance to common objects in the outer world—have given a name. Thus in the centre of this chamber two almost square pillars of ice, rising perpendicularly from the ground, are called “grabsteine” (gravestones), whilst the most prosaic and unimaginative person would have no need to be informed that a splendid heap of frozen matter issuing in one great volume from a cleft in the limestone rock above, and bearing down in graceful undulating waves till it seems to splash on the icy floor, is designated a waterfall, so closely does it resemble one in every detail—its silence and absence of motion alone telling that it is but a vast and compact body of ice, and does not actually flow. As the guide illumines this beautiful object with magnesium light, the effect is altogether startling and superb.

Leading out of this chamber is a narrow passage, hitherto unexplored beyond a distance of ninety feet, but which is supposed to communicate with other caverns. Following the guide, we now descend to the “Grand Saloon,” which is separated from the upper by a broad curtain of rock. As we proceed, the ice crunches beneath our feet, and we are obliged to walk with great caution, each step we tread being on ice as slippery as glass.

Reaching the “Grand Saloon,” we are awe-struck at its impressive grandeur, beauty, and extent. Its height however is not in any degree commensurate with its length and breadth, the former being only forty feet, whereas the two latter measure 370 feet and 180 feet respectively. The walls of this vast hall are studded with thousands of ice-structures varying from a half to one inch in diameter, and which, thickly set together, resemble clusters of anemones and other flowers, whose imprisoned colours, changing each moment, scintillate like diamonds and glow with an unnatural splendour in the brightness of the magnesium light. On examining the crystals themselves which create these varied forms, we find them to be hexangular, and generally attached to the rock by one point only.

These crystals, unlike the other glacial structures in the caverns which have a progressive growth, are said to be formed quite suddenly and entirely of vapour, the moist particles of which, floating in the cold air, get seized by the still colder surface of the rocks with which they come in contact and become instantly frozen.

On first entering this vast chamber, its roof appears to be supported by three huge columns of ice, each of which measures from twenty-five to thirty feet in circumference. The central column stands on a shelving bank of ice; those on either side rise like stalagmite from the ground itself; whilst the whole is reflected in the icy floor as in a mirror.

A death-like stillness reigns; no sound is heard save the unearthly echo of our own voices and the distant “drip, drip” of the water as it percolates through some rock; whilst the reverberation of the footsteps of another guide, lighting the lamps in a cavern below, reaches us like the thunder and rumble of an earthquake just beneath our feet. What billows of sound come swelling upwards, and passing by, go bounding off to remote corridors; and what strange articulations rise and fall upon the ear, and then wandering on, die away in the distance, till the mocking intonations, re-echoing our voices in various ways—according as the wave of sound now strikes upon a mass of solid ice and now against some hollow pilaster—seem to proceed from the hidden recesses of the rocks into which the light cannot penetrate, and we feel we must be in some nether spirit-world!

Nothing can exceed the beauty, transparency, and iridescence of the pillars and larger ice-fabrics in this cavern, and we feel lost amidst the variety of forms which water—that patient labourer—has been creating drop by drop for unknown ages; which still tips each tiny ice-stalactite with moisture, and will doubtless go on working till the “fashion of this world has passed away.” The three gigantic columns are hollow, and entering one of them through a narrow cleft we stood surrounded by an almost translucent curtain.

Resting by the side of the largest is a crystal cone resembling an Arab’s tent, which name it bears. Like the others, it is supposed to have originally formed a column, but to have been displaced and overturned at some epoch by a glacier-like movement, upon which it assumed its present shape.

Upon careful examination the ice in these caverns is found to consist of two kinds,—that which contains minute air-bubbles, and that which is completely transparent. In the former case it is opaque, and resembles alabaster—a phenomenon accounted for by the learned as follows.

When the water freezes quickly, the air gets seized before it can make its escape, the result being the formation of innumerable small air-bladders or cavities which cause the ice to look opaque. When, however, crystallisation takes place slowly, the air has time to disentangle itself from the freezing substance, and the result is perfect transparency.

The temperature of the caverns of course varies considerably according to the time of year, but no atmospheric current is perceptible in any part of them, and the feeling is one of perfect stagnation of the air. There is, however, one very remarkable phenomenon connected with their action upon the compass, which is hitherto unexplained; the disturbing influences being such that the movements of the magnetic needle when placed horizontally become completely hindered; whilst if held in any other position it invariably points downwards.

“We are as yet merely on the threshold of these wondrous caverns, and must move onwards,” exclaimed the guide, preceding us, and who seemed to think we had lingered here too long.

A descent of a hundred and fifty steps, partly cut in the ice, and partly made of wood where the ice-walls are too steep to admit of their being continued, and two small bridges spanning yawning chasms, usher us to what is termed the “Corridor,” the most weird and impressive portion of the whole of these Regions of the Night, a shadowy gulf where huge rock-fragments lie on the ground like prostrate Titans, over whom watch white and shining forms created by the irregular dripping of water down the sides of the rock,—a “ghastly resurrection,” whose icy draperies hang drooping over their frozen sides as they stand in fixed immovability.

This corridor, which is 700 feet in length, is formed on the outer side by a rugged and uneven wall of limestone rock; the inner wall being a solid mass of ice, which stretches upwards to the height of 60 or 70 feet, and covers the astonishing surface of 31,500 square feet of uninterrupted ice of the most varied kinds.

As the guide crawls on hands and knees to illuminate these several objects, what wondrous things the light reveals! what graceful draperies and fringes! what waterfalls, grottoes and fairy palaces, fashioned in the darkness of eternal night, present themselves to view in rapid succession, mingling strangely with the grim rock masses opposite, and consorting ill with the solitude of these funereal labyrinths!

“Es ist einer der grössten Naturmerkwürdigkeiten” (It is one of the greatest wonders in nature), remarked the guide, who evidently liked long words, as he lighted his magnesium wire opposite an immense rounded mass of ice, and allowed us to see its stratification.

Here the ice is seen to have been formed horizontally, inch by inch, and layer by layer. And looking at this great old-world palimpsest, we seem to read off in serial record the silent and persistent processes of nature which have for ages been building up these giant walls. Some of the layers are clear as crystal, others opaque like alabaster, whilst between many of them lie thin layers of dust, all alike defined with marvellous exactness.

In addition to these larger ice-creations are others suspended from them, of infinite beauty and variety; there being scarcely anything in nature which does not here possess its prototype: palms, ferns, flowers, strings of pearls, delicate filaments and garlands, all varying according as the water percolating through the limestone has been arrested in its fall by the different degrees of cold in the temperature.

The ice in these caverns would appear to be slowly but steadily on the increase; that which is formed in the winter by Wasserdampf—as our guide expressed it, and by which I fancy he must have meant vapour—never melting entirely even in summer.

The best time to view this masterpiece of nature is in May, before the ice begins to thaw, which it does to a slight extent always later in the season. The floors of the caverns are then wet, and many of the six-pointed crystals previously described, which form one of its most beautiful features, become detached from the rocks and melt in consequence of the increase in the temperature.

It is generally believed that these caverns run right through the mountain, and also that they are drained by a spring which, making its appearance near its base, is supposed, from the extreme lowness of the temperature, to be formed of melted ice.

It may be interesting to some persons to learn the conditions under which these remarkable ice-caves exist, and which are due, not so much to their elevation and northern aspect, as to the particular formation of the caves themselves. Had they extended through the mountain in an upward direction, the cold inner air during summer, in consequence of being more dense than the exterior atmosphere, would naturally press downwards towards the opening, and by creating a vacuum would permit the warm outer air to ascend, which possessing lower specific gravity, or, in other words, being lighter, would naturally have a tendency to rise, in which case by displacing the cooler air it would soon cause the ice to disperse. But inasmuch as the caverns slope throughout in a downward direction, the heavy external atmosphere of winter readily penetrating through the narrow entrance cools the inner air, and by reducing it to its own temperature not only hardens the ice which already exists within the caves, but favours the creation of more. On the other hand, during the summer months the cold inner air cannot escape upwards, neither can the lighter exterior air penetrate these icy labyrinths, the consequence being that their temperature is never so materially affected as to cause any great dispersion of the frozen matter.

In the clefts of the rocks the bones of the brown bear (Ursus Arctus) have been found, and these, with the exception of butterflies, two of which we saw frozen to the walls just within the entrance, are the only indications of life which have at any time been discovered in any portion of these caverns.

This region, like that of the Karst in Carniola, abounds in these subterranean phenomena, but, unlike that which we have been describing, neither possesses the conditions necessary to the formation of ice.

The existence of caverns in this district, as well as that of the Karst, may generally be determined by the presence of what are called dolinen, a Sláv word signifying a small dell. The Hungarian term tőbőr, however, is far more suggestive of their true nature, as well as external form, tőbőr signifying crateriform depressions or hollows. They are in fact funnel-shaped holes occasioned by the action of water which contains carbonic acid or fixed air, and which, in consequence of dissolving the porous limestone upon which it drops, causes the earth to fall in.

Dobsina lies embosomed in wooded mountains, which rise blue as the sky one above another. It is a clean little town, with curious old houses sloping outwards, the windows being so small and so high above the road, that each house wears the appearance of a miniature fortress.

A long row of houses skirts the principal street to the right, the left side being bounded by a stream in which women, standing knee-deep in the water or kneeling on its margin, are thumping and beating with brawny arms—as only Hungarians can—linen into premature decay.

Reaching the hotel—the best, if not the only one, the little place affords—we are conducted to our apartment across a narrow wooden balcony, which extends round the second story of the house. Our apartment can scarcely be said to be of the most luxurious description, containing as it does one chair and one table only, and being moreover wholly guiltless of carpet, but it is at any rate clean. Our modest dinner too is well cooked, though of a very limited menu, consisting merely of beef-steak and potatoes. Happening to pass the kitchen, I inquire of the clean Mädchen who evidently presides over that department, what her larder can furnish, and on being informed that the choice lies between a hendl (fowl)—a tough old bird, for I see it hanging up by its spurs to a door-nail—and “bif-stek” I choose the latter; upon which she demands laconically—

“Ángolhoné?” (English?)

“No!” I cried indignantly, remembering our experiences of “bif-stek à l’Anglaise” at Pest, and replied so brusquely to the poor little woman’s question that she was quite startled, and nearly fell backwards on to the stove—“Nein! nein! nicht rau, aber ganz braun.” (No! no! not raw, but thoroughly brown.)

We had brought with us a letter of introduction to one of the directors of the cobalt mines in the neighbourhood, but on calling at his house found he was not at home. Late in the evening however, just as we were returning to our “napi” he returned our visit, and proposed meeting us there at ten o’clock the next day.

Accordingly, hiring a leiterwagen the following morning—the only thing in the shape of a vehicle that could be obtained—we started on our excursion to the Femberg and Maria-Stollen mines. We had a hard climb before us, and the road, torn up by the torrents which during heavy rains scour the mountain steeps, was simply execrable. The roads would never seem to be mended, but, having once been made, to be left to the mercy of nature.

The mountains above Dobsina are absolutely honeycombed with mines of one kind and another; wherever we look, there are small openings which appear like little black dots on the steep declivities, and which, surrounded with heaps of earth, resemble gigantic ant-hills.

After an ascent of an hour’s duration, we reach the place of rendezvous; and, entering the mines by a narrow aperture, pursue the adit for about 1500 feet. The stone in which the precious metal is enclosed is of a pale, reddish-grey colour, of scarcely any lustre, and is found only in connection with Kalkspat, a white substance similar to alabaster, or a species of very compact and delicate quartz, which permeates the rock like a white artery. This vein the miners carefully follow, for it contains the object of their search, silver and nickel being also found in conjunction with the cobalt. As we proceeded the hollow sound of the pickaxe reached us from the lateral adits, where the miners with their feeble lamps were extracting the ore from the vein.

This mine was begun by the Romans, who for some reason or other abandoned it at about 350 feet from the entrance, probably driven from their occupation by the conquests of Attila.

It is easy to see the exact spot at which they left off working, their manner of excavating differing so entirely from that pursued in modern times. As we observed the marks of the Roman chisel which bit by bit had chipped away the hard rock—and which, though accomplished at the very least 1600 years ago, is still as fresh and well defined as if it were but the work of yesterday—we marvelled at the energy and perseverance of that great people.

The stone in which the cobalt is found, and which furnishes the exquisite colour so dear to artists, has to be sent to England or Saxony to be smelted, it being in these two countries alone that the process of separating this valuable metal from its various surroundings is understood.

It was hardly to be expected that we should survive the descent of the hill without an accident of some sort. In momentary fear of being precipitated on to the road, we were holding to the ladder-like sides of the leiterwagen with all our might, when a jolt of unusual violence snapped one of the straps by which the plank we were seated on was attached to the vehicle; whereupon, falling backwards, we subsided on to the bed of straw with which the leiterwagen was fortunately provided; and there, remembering that in lowliness there is safety, we remained for the rest of the journey.