the Save, where that glorious and abundant river rises, as it were, in the very bosom of beauty, leaping from its subterraneous reservoirs in the snowy mountains of Terglou and Manhardt in thundering cataracts amongst cliffs and woods into the pure and deep cerulean lakes of Wochain and Wurzen, and pursuing its course amidst pastoral meadows so ornamented with plants and trees as to look the garden of Nature.  The subsoil or strata of this part of Illyria are entirely calcareous and full of subterranean caverns, so that in every declivity large funnel-shaped cavities, like the craters of volcanoes, may be seen, in which the waters that fall from the atmosphere are lost:  and almost every lake or rives has a subterraneous source, and often a subterraneous exit.  The Laibach river rises twice from the limestone rock, and is twice again swallowed up by the earth before it makes its final appearance and is lost in the Save.  The Zirknitz See or Lake is a mass of water entirely filled and emptied by subterraneous sources, and its natural history, though singular, has in it nothing of either prodigy, mystery, or wonder.  The Grotto of the Maddalena at Adelsberg occupied more of our attention than the Zirknitz See.  I shall give the conversation that took place in that extraordinary cavern entire, as well as I can remember it, in the words used by my companions.

Eub.—­We must be many hundred feet below the surface, yet the temperature of this cavern is fresh and agreeable.

The Unknown.—­This cavern has the mean temperature of the atmosphere, which is the case with all subterraneous cavities removed from the influence of the solar light and heat; and, in so hot a day in August as this, I know no more agreeable or salutary manner of taking a cold bath than in descending to a part of the atmosphere out of the influence of those causes which occasion its elevated temperature.

Eub.—­Have you, sir, been in this country before?

The Unknown.—­This is the third summer that I have made it the scene of an annual visit.  Independently of the natural beauties found in Illyria, and the various sources of amusement which a traveller fond of natural history may find in this region, it has had a peculiar object of interest for me in the extraordinary animals which are found in the bottom of its subterraneous cavities:  I allude to the Proteus anguinus, a far greater wonder of nature than any of those which the Baron Valvasa detailed to the Royal Society a century and half ago as belonging to Carniola, with far too romantic an air for a philosopher.

Phil.—­I have seen these animals in passing through this country before; but I should be very glad to be better acquainted with their natural history.

The Unknown.—­We shall soon be in that part of the grotto where they are found, and I shall willingly communicate the little that I have been able to learn respecting their natural characters and habits.