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At Latzenberg, near Weissenstein in Carniola, there is another ice-cave, described by Rosenmüller. It is entered by a long dark passage in which are pillars of ice arranged like the pipes of an organ, varying from the thickness of a man's body to the size of a straw. All these are said to melt in winter.
Shelter from the weather and warmth to dry their clothes was imperative, so Wild hastened the excavation of the ice-cave in the slope which had been started before I left.
By the continual freezing of the spray, this great ice-cave reaches higher and higher during winter time. Immense icicles, some fifty feet long, hang down the sides of the rock immediately over the precipice. The trees on the island above were bent down with the weight of the frozen spray, which hung in masses from their branches.
It was long past midnight when the descending moon warned them to turn their steps towards the ice-cave where they had left their slumbering companions. "The frost is sharp to-night," remarked Rooney as they were about to enter. Angut turned round, and cast a parting glance on sea and sky.
The Chanoine Carrel, of Aosta, whose name is so well and so favourably known to Alpine men, sent a brief account of an ice-cave in his neighbourhood to the Bibliothèque Universelle of Geneva in the year 1841, and, as far as I know, there is no other account of it.
"'Whiter than the snow, clearer than the ice-cave, more solemn than the choir. They will come at last. That was what he said, even as he entered there." And the low dove-like tone and tender calm face continued upon Ebbo the spell that the chant had left. He dozed as though still lulled by its echo. The star and the spark in the stubble!
Several of us cast about, right and left, but no sign of water was found. But water must be had, so we all started off deliberately to hunt it up. We had not gone many hundred yards before we chanced upon an ice-cave beneath some rocks, vast masses of ice, with crystal pools of water near. This was good luck, indeed, and put a new and a brighter face on the situation.
Had it been my first experience of an ice-cave, it would doubtless have seemed very remarkable, as it did to Liotir, who, by the way, had steadily disbelieved the possibility of natural ice in summer except in the glaciers; but as I had now seen so many, several of them much more wonderful than this, I did not care to stay longer than was absolutely necessary for measurements and investigation.
As he spoke the sound of child-voices arrested them, and one was heard to utter the name of Nunaga. The two men paused to listen. They were close to the entrance to the ice-cave, which was on the side of the berg opposite to the spot where the games were being held, and the voices were recognised as those of Pussi and Tumbler.
As we have seen, there is a second ice-cave opening out of the principal one, at a depth of 190 feet below the surface; and with respect to this second cave imagination may run riot. Rosset told me that he had noticed, the year before, a strong source of water springing out of the side of a rock, at some little distance from the glacière; but he could not reach it then, and could not find it now.
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