Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/327

Rh A vast area of roof had been left supported by quadrangular piles of crossed logs, which were so black from lapse of time that they were hardly recognizable as wood, and in many cases so soft that I could take pinches of rotten fiber out of them with my fingers. This part of the mine the ustávshchik said was regarded as very dangerous, and he did not think it prudent to go any farther. From the point where we turned to retrace our steps black, irregular caverns could still be seen stretching away in every direction—some upward, some horizontally, and some downward at a steep angle into an abyss of darkness. It was evident that the ore had been followed wherever it went and scooped out in the cheapest and most expeditious manner possible, without regard to safety, and with little attention to timbering. It was the most dangerous-looking place I had ever seen.

From these great caverns, of the time of Catherine II., we proceeded to the deepest part of the mine by descending a shaft cut through the solid rock at an angle of about forty-five degrees and not provided with ladders. A heavy and rusty chain had been festooned against one side by means of staples driven into holes drilled in the rock, and clinging to this chain we cautiously descended the shaft, with a stream of water running ankle-deep around our legs and tumbling in cascades into the depths of the mine. On the lowest level that we reached, a party of convicts was at work blasting out a new gallery with dynamite. A perpendicular climb of 300 or 400 feet up slippery ladders in another shaft brought us once more to the surface, and when, wet, muddy, and breathless, I stepped from the end of the last ladder upon the floor of the tool-house I was so exhausted that I could hardly stand on my feet.

After having visited and inspected the gloomy mine and the wretched, dilapidated log prison of Kadáiya, Mr. Frost and I proceeded across an apparently interminable series of bare, snowy mountain ridges to the mining settlement of Górni Zerentúi, which is situated in a wide, treeless valley