LXVI.
THE WIELICZKA SALT MINES.
THE GREAT WIELICZKA SALT MINES, THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD.—THEIR HISTORY.—EXTENT AND PRODUCT.—DESCENT INTO AND EXPLORATION OF THEM.—WHAT IS TO BE SEEN.—MINERS AT WORK BLINDFOLDED.—WONDERFUL CHAMBERS.—GLOOM CONVERTED INTO SPLENDOR.—BANQUETS IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH.—THE INFERNAL LAKE.—HUMAN DEMONS.—AWFUL APPARITIONS.—EXTRAORDINARY NARRATIVES.
The Wieliczka salt mines in Galicia, Austrian Poland, are probably the largest and most productive on the globe. They are generally called the Cracow mines, though they are ten miles from the ancient capital of Poland—perhaps because Wieliczka (pronouncedVyalitchka) is so much harder for the tongue to master. They are connected with the mines of Bohemia,—this town is some eighteen miles east of Wieliczka,—and extend over a space two miles long, and nearly one mile broad, with a depth varying from six hundred to eleven hundred feet. The time of their discovery is unknown; but it is held that salt was obtained from them in small quantities as early as the eighth century. That they were worked in the beginning of the twelfth century, when they belonged to Poland, there can be no manner of doubt. Less than two hundred years later, they had grown so productive, that Casimir the Great established rules respecting them. In 1656 they were ceded to Austria, and twenty-seven years after recovered by John Sobieski. Austria again obtained possession of them at the first dismemberment of Poland, and has held them from 1772 to the present time, except for the six years preceding 1815. They have been a great source of wealth to the empire, and from them the Polish monarchs have drawn their principal revenues. So important were they considered, that, at each royal election, the Polish nobles stipulatedthat the salt of Wieliczka should be furnished to them at cost. The mines have never yielded so abundantly as at present; the annual product being, I have understood, about six hundred thousand tons, which, at ten dollars a ton—the usual market rate—creates a revenue of some six million dollars. As many as fourteen or fifteen hundred men, and as many as six or seven hundred horses, are generally employed in extracting the salt, which is found in lenticular masses inclined at a high angle. The salt varies very much in purity. Some of it, calledgreen salt, has six or seven per cent. of clay; another kind (spiza) is mixed with sand, and the third and best sort (szybik) lies at the lower levels in unadulterated and beautifully transparent crystals. The Bohemian mines employ six or seven hundred workmen, and yield from two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand tons of salt yearly. The figures I give, I obtained on the spot, and they may therefore be regarded as accurate.
ENTERING A SALT MINE.
A few years ago I made a special journey from Vienna, in order to go through the Wieliczka mines, in which I had felt a great interest ever since the geography of my boyish days had introduced me to their acquaintance. I had no trouble in procuring a ticket of admission at the Château of Wieliczka; and, well supplied with kreuzers for the workmen, I changed my clothes, and announced myself ready for the descent. There are ten or twelve shafts, but I asked to enter by the one the miners generally used. This is rather primitive,—material improvements having been made in some of the others,—or rather the means of descent are primitive. I was assigned to the charge of two miners, who were as stout, and hardy, and grim-looking as if they had toiled in the bowels of the earth—as no doubt they had—nearly all their lives. They were provided with torches, and they handed me one, at the same time showing me a place in the cap I had put on into which I could thrust the torch for convenience in carrying it. At the top of the shaft was a kind of windlass for letting us down, the construction of which I did not examine. A long vertical iron bar was in the centre of the shaft, and about thisbar was a steel ring, to which iron baskets or chairs were fastened by chains.
DESCENDING IN DARKNESS.
In these we took our seats, our legs hanging down, while we held to the chains above. At a given signal, the steel ring slipped along the bar, and we went smoothly and steadily down. The sensation very closely resembled that of descending a well. The darkness of the pit, which the feeble light of our torches made still darker, and the flickering shadows lent a certain gloomy picturesqueness to our perpendicular journey.
I might describe the anxiety and apprehension which I felt lest the chains should break, or I should be thrown out of my narrow seat into the great blackness below; but, as I did not have any such feeling, and as I question seriously if men of nerve or experience have it either, I will not try to render myself the hero of an imaginary situation.
I had supposed we should go to the lowest depths of the mines, but we stopped when we had descended four or five hundred feet, and got out. I learned then that the mines were full of wooden bridges and staircases by which the different levels were reached, and that by these communication was kept up with distant quarters. Some of the other shafts, as I was informed, are much deeper, requiring to be on a level with the galleries where the excavations are working. I had been taken down that particular one in order that I might see the entire arrangement and construction of the mines.
DESCENDING THE SHAFT.
DESCENDING THE SHAFT.
CHAPEL.SCENES IN THE GREAT WIELICZKA SALT MINES AT GALICIA AUSTRIA.
CHAPEL.
SCENES IN THE GREAT WIELICZKA SALT MINES AT GALICIA AUSTRIA.
A TORTUOUS ROUTE.
My guides were Poles; but I soon found that they spoke German, of which I had sufficient knowledge to ask ordinary questions, and understand the answers thereto. We set out on the second part of our journey, one of my conductors in front, and one behind; each of us carrying a torch in the left hand, at a forward point of elevation, so as to furnish as much light as possible. We threaded several passages which seemed to be veined with quartz, but which, on examination, I discovered to be the green salt. We went over bridges, down staircases, to the right and to the left, passingvarious chambers and avenues, until my head became completely turned, and I could not have retraced my way to save my soul. I observed, however, that our general course was downward; and finally we arrived at a large chamber, represented to be seven hundred feet below the surface. This chamber had been abandoned because all the salt in the stratum had been obtained; but it had been arranged like a chapel, containing an altar, several crosses, and some images of saints, all made of rock salt. When the light of the torches was reflected on these natural objects, the effect was superb. The crystals glittered like diamonds, and only a little imagination was needed to transform the rude vault into an apartment of Aladdin’s palace.
After I had sufficiently admired the chapel, we resumed our excursion over more bridges, down more steps, and through more passages, until we came to what the guides termed a river. It was not a very remarkable stream, reminding me, in its smallness, of the renowned Rubicon, or the Manzenares, when the latter does not happen to be altogether dry. Such as it was, however, we stepped into a rude little boat and crossed over, where we were soon on another bridge, and crawled down another staircase of the most rickety and tumble-down description.
I was surprised that we had met so few workmen, and mentioned my surprise to the stalwart fellows with me. They informed me that the part of the mine through which we had passed had been worked out, and that the miners had gone farther down, following the strata containing the salt. In half an hour or less, we encountered a number of miners hewing out a new passage. They were naked above the waist, and some of them wore the garb of southern savages, the high temperature rendering clothing uncomfortable, if not superfluous. They used picks and crowbars, and, in the beginning of their excavations, would lie down on their backs, and strike out the salt with their implements, covering their eyes with pieces of leather, to prevent injury from the falling fragments. It is not often that men can work well withtheir eyes blinded, but there they succeeded better without seeing than with seeing. As they increased the cavity to sufficient height, they stood up and labored in the regular way.
There was now no lack of miners, who were visible on every hand, delving hard, steadily, and silently. Their toil is excessively monotonous and severe. As most of them have done nothing else, and as they are densely ignorant, they are not tortured by brighter memories, nor haunted by pictures of the possible. Their earnings are miserably small—not more, I believe, on an average, than thirty to forty cents a day, and working about twelve hours out of the twenty-four. Out of these wages they usually have families to support; for it is as true in Austria as in every other land, that extreme poverty incites to marriage and prolific paternity.
CROSSING UNDERGROUND RIVERS.
The one so-called river which we had crossed was an introduction to a number of others, all of them small, and more like pools than streams. The two workmen generally pushed a little boat over with poles, though they sometimes used oars very much in the same fashion as the Lethe and the Styx in the Mammoth Cave are crossed. These pools or rivers are formed by percolations of water through the strata, and in them the miners have not unfrequently been drowned.
SALT DIGGING.
SALT DIGGING.
IN THE WIELICZKA SALT MINES.
IN THE WIELICZKA SALT MINES.
Our onward progress soon brought us to a large open space—it must have been a hundred feet high, and nearly two hundred in length and breadth—called the Chamber of Letow; and about half a mile farther is another of still greater dimensions, known as the Chamber of Michelawic. These chambers, which were excavations, were decked out in all the splendor of rock salt. There were chairs, candlesticks, chandeliers, statues, thrones, columns, and altars composed of the chief staple; and when lamps were lighted in the natural hall, the rays of light were reflected from thousands of points, and the whole interior shone in sparkling splendor. It recalled to my mind the Crystal Saloon, as it is styled, in the New Palace at Potsdam, when it is illuminated on some special occasion.
A WONDERFUL SCENE.
I had brought with me from Cracow some small fireworks, such as red lights, serpents, and Catharine wheels, for the purpose of burning them in the mines; and this was evidently one of the places for their use. I handed some of them to the guides, and in a few seconds the cavern, more than eight hundred feet under ground, was ablaze with different colors, and showers of radiance. To produce a greater effect, all the lights were extinguished, and then another pyrotechnic exhibition began. The result was marvellous. One would have imagined that the moon, and stars, and sun, had all burst through the earth, that divided us from the upper air, and were gleaming and flashing under our very eyes. The rock salt was as so many prisms, revealing all the lines of the rainbow, and coruscating like a vault studded with jewels.
Such glorious radiance I had never witnessed under ground, nor had I deemed such radiance possible there. The extraordinary contrast between the pitchy darkness and the magnificence of the illumination can hardly be expressed in words. It was as a sudden plunge from a Memphian night into a tropical noon, and the first effect was almost blinding. I have witnessed, in my time, numberless exhibitions of fireworks on a grand scale, but none of them furnished so splendid a spectacle as the few pieces burned in the depths of Wieliczka. So much for accessories. Rock salt has its æsthetic as well as material uses; and, confronted with common lamps and common fireworks, it assumes the beauties of Dreamland and the shining glories which theological rhapsodists have associated with the Celestial Kingdom.
The Chamber of Michelawic is consecrated, I was told, to St. Anthony, and I think the saint would show his much boasted power,—not to speak of his kindness,—if he would relieve the poor devils who so implicitly believe in him from their need of wasting toil in those dreary caverns. On the 3d of every July, grand mass is celebrated in the chamber,—then regarded as a chapel,—and is followed by a banquet, in which the principal officials of Cracow and the directors of the mines participate. At that date the workmen are given apartial holiday, and receive trifling sums of money, that are quite enough to render them happy, and to make them wish that every day of the year were the 3d of July.
VISIT OF THE IMPERIAL FAMILY.
Now and then some of the members of the imperial family of Austria make a visit to the mines, the superintendent being notified beforehand of the important event. Great preparations are then made. The main passages and different chambers of Wieliczka are brilliantly illuminated; the miners are relieved from work; festivals are held in the villages, and presents are given to the people in the name of the House of Hapsburg. One of these royal visits had been made a few weeks before mine, and many of the peasants were still speaking of it in terms approaching ecstasy. How merely relative is everything we give the name of pleasure to! The poor Poles and Austrians, relieved from twelve hours of their customary labor, and given a few unexpected kreuzers, are made happier than many men would be in the midst of material blessings, and surrounded by the answered wishes of their hearts.
One of the principal sights in the mines is the Infernal Lake, a body of water seven or eight hundred feet long, some four hundred broad, and fifty deep. Above and around it is a vast cavern, that might be the abode of the gnomes and goblins once supposed to inhabit the inner parts of the earth. The atmosphere of the place is oppressive, and its every suggestion superlatively dismal. It is infernal in seeming as well as in name; and if the Hahnemannic principle be true, that “like cures like,” melancholy spirits, after a visit there, would be converted to cheerfulness and content. The deep gloom of the vault at once prompted the benefit it would derive from fireworks; and so I sent a number of serpents whizzing through the thick air, and ignited blue and red lights, until I had wrought a perfect transformation. The scene was strikingly theatrical, only far more vivid and impressive than anything could be on the stage. If I had heard a chorus of imps, or had seen blue, yellow, and green devils, of the most improved spectacular pattern, dancing inhorrid measures on empty space, I do not think I should have been surprised. Assuredly there could be no evil spirits anywhere if they were not there. Never could they find a more inviting region for the display of their malignity, or a more attractive rendezvous for the perfection of their schemes against the human kind.
A boat was ready for our embarkation upon the inky bosom of the lake, and we rowed out upon it with our gleaming torches, and our voices returning to us in the dreariest echoes. I was still thinking of the charms of the demons, when, of a sudden, the strongest and wildest sounds burst from the cavern. I strained my eyes, but in the thickness of the darkness I could descry no forms.
Groans, and shrieks, and horrid laughter rose, and reverberated through the vault, until—had I been the least superstitious—I should have become convinced that I had reached the Orthodox Tophet at last. The sounds were as weird as mysterious; but I concluded that it must be part of the exhibition, for which I was expected to pay at the usual rate, and I soon discovered that I was right.
THE INFERNAL LAKE.
It is the habit of the workmen, when strangers make a visit to the Infernal Lake, to go out in boats, distribute themselves at different points, and set up this diabolical yelling, that a proper impression may be made upon the visitors. That they acquitted themselves handsomely of their task I can testify; for a more discordant and abominable sound it has never been my fortune to hear.
The howls of the miners finally lessened in volume,—probably from exhaustion,—and I could distinguish, at the end of the wild refrain, the words “Gluck Auf! Gluck Auf!” (Welcome! Welcome!) There was something singularly sardonic in the idea of being welcomed to that dreary depth. Such a welcome the demons of the fabled Pit would extend, I should suppose, to the doomed and damned. The effect of the cheery words was more dispiriting than if they had been of evil omen.
While we were rowing grimly about on the lake, “GluckAuf” assumed a fiery form in letters of flame, about a hundred feet in front of us. This seemed to be done by magic; but a little reflection taught me that lamps must have been hung in the shape of an arch over a narrow part of the cave, and that, while we were otherwise occupied, the workmen had lighted the lamps. The very moment the illumination was made, the harsh chorus began again, louder and more lugubrious than ever. I set off the last of my stock of fireworks, and amid the sulphurous blaze and the infernal din we floated back to the shore, when I was informed that the entertainment was over.
CHORUS OF DEMONS.
In a few minutes the chorus of demons appeared in the shape of hard-featured, muscular, ill-looking miners, asking for kreuzers, in consideration of the efficient aid they had lent to the depressing performance. As I have said, I was well supplied, and I could play the part of My Lord Bountiful with very little expense. Three or four kreuzers were enough to make the stolid faces of the miners brighten as if they had fallen into the possession of pecuniary independence. What they could purchase with such a trifle, I could not comprehend, for I felt that I should be no better off, in my own judgment, with fifty times the amount I had bestowed as gratuities upon the gnomes of Wieliczka.
My two guides denounced the begging unfortunates for their mercenary conduct in a vile Polishpatois, which must have consisted chiefly of curses. I am sure they mentioned mercenary conduct, which must have been an ironical expression, since none of the wretches, in asking fortrinkgeld, received, at the highest, more than four or five cents. The rebuke reminded me of the familiar instance of the parsimonious father who handed his boy a penny, accompanied by the precaution that he should not make a beast of himself, or of the over-thrifty husband, who, having been asked for a little money by his wife, wished to know what had become of the dollar and a half he had given her a month before.
STOLIDITY OF THE MINERS.
The majority of the miners are Poles, unable either to read or write, to whom labor in the mines has been an inheritance—theirsole one, indeed. Many of them have never been five miles from home, nor do they expect to be. They are rooted to the spot by the necessity of toil and their narrow circumstances. Some of the workmen are Austrians, and they are usually more intelligent, or rather less ignorant, than the others. After a few years of service, they often leave Wieliczka, seek a larger field of labor and a better kind of employment. But the Poles, possessing a certain kind of stupid contentment, appear to have no ambition, and no future. I ascribe this partially to their loss of nationality, than which no greater calamity can befall a people. It robs them of their individuality, impairs their energy, and depreciates their self-esteem. They feel that they are deprived of what they have a right to enjoy, and that they are likely to be despised for a misfortune for which they are not directly responsible.
Nearly all the miners reveal in their features and expression the hard fate that has attended them. They have all the marks of undevelopment, all the traces of an animal and undisciplined nature. Mind, in the strict sense, is omitted in their composition. They are merely machines of flesh and blood, obeying physical instincts, and impelled by the law of self-preservation.
Years ago, the Austrian government used to condemn political prisoners to a term of service in the mines, sometimes extending through life; but of late this practice has been abandoned, and now all who work are regularly paid, and free to go or stay, as they like.
Going out of the mines, I followed almost the same course that I had coming in. Altogether I spent some six hours under ground, and might have spent weeks there, had I been inclined to exercise, since the combined length of its excavations and passages is said to exceed three hundred miles.
Accidents are uncommon in the mines, not averaging more than thirty a year, and few of these are fatal. They occur either from falls, or from being run over by the cars drawn to and fro by horses. These cars run on tracks from the place where the salt is dug out, to the mouth of the shaft, andthence the salt is drawn up by machinery to the surface of the earth. I had made my entrance through the parts that had been excavated and abandoned, that way having been selected to give me a clear idea of the progress of the work, and the gradual deepening of the mines. I observed afterwards, at the lower levels, where hundreds of men were actively employed, how the salt was thrown into the cars, and then carried by the railway to the principal shafts.
Wieliczka is impregnated with tales and traditions, natural and supernatural. Of the latter the peasants relate many, and believe them sincerely.
THE MIRACULOUS SIGN.
One of these is, that a miner, who had been sent to Cracow, found, on his return, an image of the Virgin, which, as the narrative runs, had been stolen by the devil from the cathedral of that city, and dropped by the wayside; St. Paul, or some other saint, having detected the theft, started in pursuit of the diabolical thief. A poor workman picked up the image, which was of wood, and knowing it to be sacred, carried it back to the church in the midst of a storm. When he had reached the edifice, summoned the priest, and given it into the holy man’s hands, the inanimate image suddenly shone with celestial light, sped through the air, and took its accustomed place at the altar. The awe-struck priest and peasant fell upon their knees in prayer, and when the latter arose, there was an illuminated cross on his forehead. By inspiration he understood that whenever this symbol was visible, it was to indicate good fortune; and going back to the mines, the cross proved to be very beneficial in pointing out the richest veins of salt. The man walked under ground, and whenever his forehead kindled with the divine token, it was a certain sign that the spot on which he stood would yield richly. He received handsome presents, and numerous sums of money from the government, and so excited the envy of his former fellow-workmen, that they entered his cabin one night, and knocked out his brains. His murderers disappeared mysteriously the next day, and it was supposed, in the Galician village, that they were carried off by demons.
The image in the cathedral was heard to wail at the time the crime was committed, which was probably intended as a warning, though it did not do any good to the victim, at least in this world, however much it may have benefited him in the next.
I cannot see the moral of this monkish story, unless it be that persons who find things should not return them. If the miner had taken the image home, and split into kindling-wood, he might have lived much longer, and died peaceably in bed at a ripe old age.
STORY OF A POLISH REBEL.
During one of the periodic Polish revolutions in Warsaw, a prominent nobleman, resident in the city, and the leader of the insurrection, had volunteered to proceed to St. Petersburg, and assassinate the czar. The government spies detected the plot before it was mature, and went to the dwelling of the Polish conspirator to arrest him. He had been apprised of the discovery, and knowing that he would instantly be executed, he had been wise enough to flee from the town. He was sought for everywhere, for the authorities considered him extremely dangerous, and felt confident, from his character, that the emperor would not be safe while the desperate noble lived. All the subtle detective machinery of Russia was set in motion to hunt up the fugitive Pole, but all to no purpose; and the emissaries of the government, after a year of unexampled activity, abandoned further effort. Potzoporousky, the name of the arch rebel, feeling that he would not be secure anywhere on the surface of the continent, conceived the happy idea of going below it. He proceeded in disguise to Wieliczka, claimed to be a native of Vienna, and was hired as a miner, at thirty kreuzers a day. He labored most faithfully, and was considered an excellent workman, strangely preferring, as was thought, to remain in the mines, even when he might have been enjoying the sunlight. Nobody ever dreamed of looking for Potzoporousky a thousand feet under ground; and there he remained for fifteen months. Then he applied for his last week’s pay, saying he had met with an injury that would prevent him from working for a littlewhile, hurried to Vienna, thence to Constantinople, and finally to Smyrna. There he resumed his correspondence with some of the former conspirators, and had perfected a plan for a new revolution, when he was seized with cholera, and died.
MURDER OF A SUPERINTENDENT.
During the latter part of the eighteenth century, a scientist of Radour was implicated in a conspiracy to defraud the Russian government of several millions of roubles by means of forged army orders, and sentenced to ten years’ exile in Siberia. He asked, as a special favor, that he might be sent, instead, to Wieliczka, where, he affirmed, his scientific knowledge would be of use in separating the green salt from the clay, with which the directors of the mines were then having considerable trouble. Prompted by interest, the government granted his request, and, the fifth day after he had entered upon the service, he induced one of the superintendents to visit a new passage in process of excavation, crushed his skull with a lump of rock salt, put on his garments, and escaped. He had always been regarded as a purely intellectual man, absorbed in his studies, and his deliberate taking of another man’s life only shows how sweet liberty is to all of us, and of what desperate deeds we may be guilty to regain the freedom we have lost.
From 1825 to 1851, one of the most vigorous and enduring miners was Johann Gerbreitz, a German, who, in all that time, is said never to have missed a single day’s work. He was a great favorite, on account of his kindness of heart and uniform good temper, especially with the women of the village, who, whether young or old, manifested a great deal of fondness for him. When in his thirtieth year he married Elisa Dosbrinski, a cobbler’s daughter, regarded as one of the prettiest girls in the town. They lived together so very happily that they were considered a model pair. They were never known to have even those slight differences which are not uncommon to the most sympathetic and harmonious couples. They seemed wholly devoted to each other, and though Johann had been something of a flirt before he became a Benedick, nothingof the kind could be charged upon him afterwards. Everybody declared he was a manly and noble fellow, and that his serenity could not be ruffled.
In his fortieth year a fragment of rock fell upon him, and killed him instantly. His wife was wild with grief at her bereavement, and all her neighbors lamented, sorely too, because Johann was a loss to the village that could not be supplied. The children of Wieliczka had learned to look for his smile, and little acts of kindness,—he was a Rip Van Winkle of Austria, without Rip’s infirmities,—and literally cried for him when he appeared in the streets.
HOW A WOMAN KEPT A SECRET.
After the poor fellow’s corpse had been brought to the stricken home, it was discovered, to the amazement of the whole town, that Johann was a woman; and it is to be presumed that he had never been anything else. The secret of his sex had been most carefully preserved, and it would never have been thought, from any outward indication, that it had been shared even by his spouse. This is an excellent proof, if proof were wanting, that women can keep a secret, and that there are some things which even the busybodies of a village cannot find out. The story of the man-woman Johann Gerbreitz is still told at Wieliczka, along with many other curious histories, of which specimens have already been given.
Like the great capitals, the mining town of Galicia has its comedies and tragedies, its lyrics and its epics, perhaps trifling in themselves, but of wondrous moment in its too partial eyes.