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does not offer the slightest ground for fear, except for gold trinkets, and painted faces, which will be affected by the quicksilver. This mine, with its numerous chambers, is said to comprise a circumference of about eighteen leagues, and considered the richest in Europe, producing annually more than twenty thousand quintals of quicksilver, and upwards of a thousand quintals of cinnabar. The whole is the property of the Austrian government, yields half a million of florins annually, and employs a thousand miners, who are clothed in an uniform, and receive a daily pay of twenty kreutzers, (eight pence,) and, for this small sum, they barter a portion of their existence, as they usually sink into premature graves, the victims of pulmonary diseases.

One of the most remarkable events in the annals of Idria, was the dreadful conflagration of 1803, to which the whole of the works fell a prey; such was its frightful magnitude, that the smoke rose nearly four hundred feet out of the earth, accompanied by successive shocks, resembling those of an earthquake. This terrific fire was only subdued by turning the channel of a river into the mine: the loss to the government was immense, and, what was still more distressing, numbers of the unhappy miners perished from asphyxia; and owing to the air being impregnated with the fumes of the quicksilver boiling in the bowels of the earth, about nine hundred of the survivors, infected by the pestilential exhalations, were afflicted with the most intense pains in their limbs, which came on regularly every

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day, always preceded by violent tremors, which could only be relieved by the sufferers throwing themselves on their faces upon the earth. After the fire was extinguished, the interior of the mines exhibited a scene of the most dazzling splendour: the sides of the walls being covered with particles of quicksilver, and many of the pits literally carpetted with the same glittering material.

CHAPTER XXII.

Departure for Trieste-The Karst-Bora-The town-Commerce-Voyage on the Adriatic - Pola-Cherso-Fiume-Hungarian governmentCommerce-Excursion to the Carnic Alps-Passage of the LeobelKlagenfurt Environs - Ascent of the Speick-kogel - Spikenard— Mountaineers-Chamoix-Marmots―Judenburg-Leoben - Napoleon -Excursion to the Styrian iron mines.

AFTER returning to Adelsberg, I continued my route to Trieste. The country now assumed a very different appearance from that of any other I have described, and though I have anathematized the sandy plains of North Germany, yet the wilderness over which I was now travelling, the Karst, was still more calculated to fatigue the eye, and weary the imagination. In the former, the stunted pine in some measure relieved the monotony with its verdure; but here, there was not even the scantiest shrub to afford shelter from the burning sun. Let my readers fancy a plain on the top of a vast mountain, upwards of a thousand feet above the level of the sea, and from thirty to forty miles in circumference, partly surrounded by a chain of alpine rocks nearly sterile to their base, the whole presenting

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one of the most dreary scenes of desolation, and the most striking memento of the Deluge that can be con→ ceived. Indeed, it appears as if not more than a few centuries had elapsed since the ocean had ceased to flow over it. In one place we see colossal stones worn into huge balls by the mighty waters of the deep, in another, large masses shooting up resembling those long exposed to the action of the sea, while those of lesser magnitude, driven by the force of the current, were heaped together, like a bulwark, ridge upon ridge, as the waters gradually decreased, all smooth and glossy from the friction of the vast mass of water beneath which they had been so long buried.

The only animation of the landscape in this inhospitable region, which extends with little intermission to Fiume and Pola on the Adriatic, was a few horses, black sheep, and goats, which appeared as if they existed on air, so scanty is the herbage that supports them; but this being of the most nutritious description, and principally composed of aromatic herbs, their flesh is much prized by the epicures of Trieste and Venice. The lambs are considered such a delicacy, that they are transported to Italy and Vienna, where they are very highly valued, and fetch enormous prices; indeed, bountiful nature, as if willing to give an equivalent for the scantiness of her productions, has invested them with every quality of excellence; for even the little corn produced is preferred to every other in the country for its richness, nutritious qualities, and agreeable flavour.

The horses that range over this district are

no less famous for their hardihood and sure-footedness, and generally belong to the imperial family, who have founded establishments for breeding them at Lipizza and Prostianick.

But however well animals may flourish in this rocky soil, man degenerates, if we may judge from the appearance of the swarthy, half-starved inhabitants, who seem like shadows of human beings returned to visit earth after being some time in their graves. This is principally referrible to the prevalence of the Bora wind, exposure to a most ungenial climate, and no doubt to the barrenness of the soil, and their extreme poverty.

Although the country wore the character of novelty, yet I began to grow weary long before I reached Trieste, to whose commerce I was solely indebted for all that gave animation to the road; namely, the waggons with merchandise; and although these are so heavily laden as to require from ten to twenty horses, such is the power of the Bora wind, that it frequently upsets them. Its visits are by no means periodical, and its violence appears incredible to those who have not witnessed its effects. I can at least testify its ability to overturn the carriage of a Landkutscher; for during one of my excursions in the vicinity of Trieste, it commenced one of its most furious gusts, when the combined efforts of the coachman and passengers were required to prevent both carriage and horses from becoming what an imaginative traveller would term a foot-ball for the wind. However, this is not the only inconvenience arising from the Bora: during its continuance

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