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Updated: June 12, 2025
Even at the very lip of the magnificent canyon the outlook is deceptive. Perhaps it is that the eye is caught by the flaring advertisements of the stalactite caves, or that baser emotions are awakened by the sight of cozy tea-gardens of one in particular, where a cascade tumbles headlong from the black rocks, and a tree-shaded lawn offers rest and coolness after hours passed in the hot sun.
"Epictetus" means "bought" or "acquired," and is simply a servile designation. He was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a town between the rivers Lycus and Meander, and considered by some to be the capital of the province. The town possessed several natural wonders sacred springs, stalactite grottoes, and a deep cavern remarkable for its mephitic exhalations.
The hall itself was vast, and newly finished in the rich culmination of Gothic work, with a fan tracery-vaulted roof, a triumph of architecture, each stalactite glowing with a shield or a badge of England, France, Mortimer, and Nevil lion or lily, falcon and fetterlock, white rose and dun cow, all and many others likewise shining in the stained glass of the great windows.
Our guides feigned ignorance of it; and it was not till after two days' wandering about, and after many debates, that they came to the decision, since I adhered to my purpose, to encounter the risk; when, to my great astonishment, they conducted me back to Calapnitan's cave; from which a narrow fissure, hidden by a projection of rock, led into one of the most gorgeous stalactite caves in the world.
From the roof innumerable stalactites, perfectly white, often several yards long and coming down to the delicacy of knitting-needles, hung in clusters; and wherever there was any continuous crack in the roof or wall, a graceful, soft-looking curtain of white stalactite fell, and often ended, much to our surprise.
As in a dream, she allowed him to lead her to the stalactite chair, and when she was seated therein, she endeavored to control the rapid beating of her heart, and to smile unconcernedly on the little group that surrounded her with shouts of mingled mirth and admiration. "Ye look just fine!" said Macfarlane with undisguised delight. "Ye'd mak' a grand picture, wouldn't she, Errington?"
We dug deep into several of them; but so careful had been the workmen, or perhaps those who afterwards ransacked these places, that not the smallest tear of metal remained: we found only ashes, pottery, and scoriae, as usual black and green, the latter worked sub-aerially; many of them had projections like stalactite.
Thus we passed onward in this world of solitude now stopping to admire the beauties of a single stalactite now wondering at the magnificence of a large room now creeping through narrow passages, hardly wide enough to admit the body of a man, and now walking in superb galleries, until we came to the largest room, called WASHINGTON HALL. This is certainly the most elegant room I ever saw.
The visit of their friend and fellow-traveller seemed to revive their old love of exploration as far as the limits of Trieste would admit, and among other excursions they went to see a great fete at the Adelsberg Caverns. These caves were stalactite caverns and grottoes not far from Trieste, and on the day of the fete they were lighted by a million candles.
'T is a waterspout!" cried Fuller, pointing excitedly at the cloud, which, driven on with furious force by an upper current of wind unfelt below, was now bellying in a marked and abnormal fashion, while from the lowest point of the convexity appeared a spiral column of dense vapor rapidly elongating itself toward the sea whose waters assumed a black and sullen aspect, disturbed by chopping counter currents of short waves, which gradually, as the waterspout neared them, fell into its rotary motion, rising at the centre of the whirlpool into a column of foaming water, a liquid stalagmite climbing to meet the stalactite bending to it from above.
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