Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/341

Rh come up again! I'd rather it was they than me!" "Aye, that's our countrywomen; they's not afeared of nothing! I'd like to see some o' they Brazzys put into that 'ere kibble."

We were dressed in brown Holland trousers, blouse, belt, and miner's cap, and a candle was stuck on our heads with a dab of clay. The party to go down consisted of Mr. Gordon, Richard, Mr. E, and Mr. John Whitaker, an engineer. There are two ways of going down, by ladders and by a bucket. The ladders are nearly a thousand yards long. If you see lights moving like sparks at enormous distances beneath, it is apt to make you giddy. Should your clothes catch in anything, should you make a false step, you fall into unknown space. The miners consider this safe. They do it in half an hour, running down like cats, do their day's work, and run up again in three-quarters of an hour; but to a new-comer it is dreadfully fatiguing, and may occupy four hours—to a woman it is next to impossible.

The other way is easy, but considered by the miners excessively unsafe. It is to be put into an "iron bucket called a kibble, which is like a huge gypsy-pot (big enough to hold two ordinary-sized people thinly clad), suspended by three chains. It is unwound by machinery, and let down by an iron rope or chain as the lifts are in London. It takes about twenty minutes, and is only used for hauling tons of stone out of the mine or hauling up wounded men. The miners said to me, "We make it a point of honour to go down by the ladders; for the fact is, on the