_14th._ Sir Humphry again went out shooting in the morning, and I went to see the caves of St. Kanzian, with a lad, who spoke a little German, as a guide. These caves are situated about four miles from Zirknitz, and are merely large and deep natural caverns, through which a small river runs, which again appears about half a mile further, in a beautiful fertile valley, through which it flows for a short distance, when it passes under a natural bridge of rock, on the other side of which it disappears, and does not again rise till near Adelsberg. Although it has here no particular name, it is probably the same as the Laibach river, and may take its rise from the lake of Zirknitz. The natural bridge under which it flows before its disappearance, is a fine arch of rock, from thirty to forty feet in height, covered with trees on the top, between which are seen the remains of an old church, dedicated to St. Kanzian. _15th._ Sir Humphry's sport yesterday not having proved so good as he expected, he went to-day, on his pony, up to the mountains with the innkeeper, to see if he could not shoot a _Steinhuhn_, or alpine partridge, and I went with my guide of yesterday to see the grotto of Heiligen-kreutz, where, he told me, a little white fish with four feet and two red fins on its neck, had been lately found. From this description I knew it to be the proteus, the inhabitant of the Magdelena grotto at Adelsberg; and the hope of finding this animal in the caves at the other end of the lake of Zirknitz, induced me to go thither. We coasted round the lake, passing through many little hamlets on its banks, till we arrived at the end of it, when we turned up a side valley, which brought us to the foot of the mountain of Heiligen-kreutz. We here found two small huts, in one of which was an old man, who agreed to be our guide to the grotto, and who furnished us with large pieces of fir-wood for torches. After an ascent of half an hour up the mountain, we came to a great hole, which was the entrance of the cavern. Here the guide put a bit of ignited fungus or tinder into a handful of dry moss, and whirling it round with rapidity, soon produced a flame, at which we lighted our torches. We then scrambled down into the hole, and entered a long and lofty passage, the floor of which was covered with great stones and masses of rock, over which it was with great difficulty that we could proceed, and the roof and sides presented nothing but dark and rugged rock, unadorned by stalactites. After advancing for some hundred yards through this passage, we came to a running stream of water of considerable breadth, but only six or eight inches deep. We walked through this for some time, till it fell with a deafening noise into a large hole on one side of the cave, probably into some deep cavern below. The passage then turned to the left, and conducted us into a small round vault, from the roof and sides of which hung a considerable number of stalactites. This the old