100 SPRINGS, RIVKR9, CANALS, LAKES, 



Ill this last pit, about 17 years since, there fell a flash of 

 lightning, about the* time of fishing, which stunned a multitude of 

 large fishes, so as they filled 28 one-horse carts with them. These 

 fish are not properly thunder struck, but only stunned with the vio- 

 lence and sulphureous vapour of the lightning, which makes them 

 rise and swhn as dead on the top of the water; but if they be takeu 

 up and put in fresh water, they soon recover, otherwise they die ; 

 (his is no uncommon accident in this lake. 



The fishing being thus ended, a signal is given, by tolling the Ml 

 in the chapel of St. John the Baptist, near the town of Cirkuiz. 

 Upon which all the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages and of 

 Cirkniz, without regard either to age or sex, go mostly quite naked 

 into the lake, and look for fish among the weeds and sedge, and 

 in the smaller pits ; and many creep into the subterraneous caverns 

 and passages, and find many large fishes there. 



There are, besides these, some other pits in the lake, in which 

 tlicy fish likewise, as also in Mala-karlouza and Velka-karlou/a ; in 

 both these they go far under ground with lighted torches and find 

 fish. In Velka-bobnarza one may go in at great holes, and descend 

 many fathoms under ground. These two names Velka and Mala- 

 bobnarza signify in the Carniolan tongue the greater and leaser 

 drummer; nor is it without reason that these pits are so called: for 

 when it thunders, there is heard m these two pits as it were the 

 sound of many drums beating. 



The two pits Narte and Piauze are never emptied, but always 

 remain fenny, when the rest of the lake is quite dry. It is believed, 

 that in these pits the fish lay their spawn, and therefore it is pro- 

 hibited to fish in them. In them is an incredible number of horse- 

 leeches. These often stick to the people in the fishing time, some 

 of them being dispersed all over the lake, and the method they 

 lake to get them off is to get some other person to make water upon 

 the leech, which makes it let go its hold. 



There are in the mountain near the lake, but something higher 

 than it, two great and terrible stony caves, which, though far dis. 

 taut from each other, have yet the same effect, viz. when it thuu- 

 ders, these two caves emit water with a wonderful and incredible 

 force, and with it sometimes a great quantity of ducks with some 

 fish. It is not to be wondered that the lake fills so fast, for consi- 

 dering the violence with which the water rushes, it is like a great 



