Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/344

312 in manners to many London drawing-rooms. We each had two men to guide us about.

It was a stupendous scene of its kind. Caverns of quartz pyrites and gold, whose vaulted roofs, walls, and floors swarmed with blacks with lighted candles on their heads, looked excessively infernal. Each man had drill and hammer, and was singing a wild song and beating in time with his hammer. Each man bores eight palmes (pounds) a day, and is paid accordingly, though a slave. If he bores more, he is paid for his over-work. Some are suspended to the vaulted roof by chains, and in frightful-looking positions; others are on the perpendicular walls.

After seeing the whole of this splendid palace of darkness in the bowels of the earth, we sat on a slab of stone and had some wine. Richard said to Mr. Gordon, "Suppose this timber should ever catch fire, what would you do?" Mr. Gordon laughed, and said, "Oh, that is impossible; the whole place is dripping with water, and the wood is all damp, and it would not take; and we have no chance of firedamp and other dangers of explosion as in other mines—coal-mines, for instance. Oh, I'm not afraid of that."

At this time the mine was at its climax of greatness and perfection, perfectly worked and regulated, and paying enormously.

We mounted as we came. I found it a much more unpleasant sensation and more frightening to ascend