Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/340

308 and my appearance especially created mirth, as my skirt up to my waist was heavy with mud, my hat torn to ribbons, with the rain running down the tatters. A big bath was prepared for each of us. We changed our clothes, and sat down to a comfortable and excellent dinner, thankful to be in the hospitable shelter of the Casa Grande again. Here we tarried for a fortnight, and thoroughly explored Morro Velho this time.

Among other things, I determined to go down into the mine, which has the reputation of being the largest, deepest, and richest gold-mine in Brazil. We had been very anxious to visit its depths when we were at Morro Velho before, but Mr. Gordon had put us off until our return.

It was considered rather an event for a lady to go down the mine, especially as Mrs. Gordon, the Superintendent's wife, who had been at Morro Velho nine years and a half, had never been down. However, she consented to accompany me. She said, "I have never yet taken courage; I am sure if I don't do it now, I never shall." So the end of it was that a crowd of miners and their families and blacks collected along the road and at the top of the mine to see us descend. One lady staying in the house with us (Casa Grande) could not make up her mind to go; and when I asked Chico, he wrung his hands, and implored me not to go, weeping piteously. As we went along we could hear the miners' delighted remarks, and their wives wondering: "Well, to be sure now, to think of they two going down a mile and a quarter in the dark, and they not obliged to, and don't know but that they may never