Charley Drake now arrived on a visit to us, and we went up to see the great Government _fête_ at the Adelsberg Caves. On that one day the Government lights this ninth wonder of the world with a million candles. The remarkable stalactite caverns and grottoes are of the most curious and fantastic shapes, and about seven miles of them are open; then the torrent that rushes into them plunges underground, and comes up again in another part of the Karso, that wild and desolate stony tract of land above Trieste, which is about seventy-five miles each way, and contains some seventy-two Slav villages. It is a mysterious, unnatural, weird land, full of pot-holes, varying from two hundred to two thousand feet deep, abounding in _castellieri_--prehistoric ruins--waters that disappear and reappear, that bound into the earth at one spot and rush out again some miles distant; and this is supposed to be the safeguard of Trieste against disastrous earthquakes. [Sidenote: _Fiume_.] Books might be written about it; but the passing stranger in a train would only say, that when God Almighty had finished making the earth, He had thrown all the superfluous rocks there. Then in these mysterious and wonderful caverns there is a large hall like a domed ball-room, formed by nature, and here Austrian bands play at one of the Whitsun _fêtes_, and the peasants flock down from all parts in their costumes. It is a thing to be seen once in one's life. Richard nearly lost his life here (not on this occasion) by insisting on swimming down the stream, which is ice cold, and wanting to let himself be carried under the mountains to see where he would come out. It was a foolhardy thing, and fortunately he was so cramped before he neared the hole where the water disappears, that he had to be pulled out. I need not say that I was not there, or he would never have been allowed to go in. However, he discovered fish without eyes, which he sent to the Zoological Gardens. From here we drove on to Fiume, about an eight-hour drive--ten with a rest--where we were kindly received by Mr. and Mrs. Smith, _née_ Lever. From their house we visited all the neighbourhood, little thinking that fifteen years later we should come back to Abbazia for Richard's health, and we had the pleasure of making acquaintance with Mr. Whitehead and family of torpedo fame. We then went to Pola, the great naval station, the Spithead of the Austrians. The general world may not know that it has a Colosseum almost, if not quite, as good as that at Rome, with temples, ancient gates, and any amount of ruins. "CAPTAIN BURTON'S DISCOVERIES IN ISTRIA. "(Anthropological Report.) "Tizu, February 18, 1874. [Sidenote: _Castellieri_.]