upon them,
and I began to expect mummies, for I thought myself for one minute within
an old Egyptian catacomb. After traversing a further distance of two
thousand seven hundred feet we halted at the top of the third slide, the
Konigsrolle. That shot us fifty-four feet deeper into the heart of the
mountain. We had become quite expert at our exercise, and had left off
considering, amid all these descents and traverses, what might be our
real position in the bowels of the earth. Perhaps we might get down to
Aladdin's garden and find trees loaded with emerald and ruby fruits. It
was quite possible, for there was something very cabalistic, very strong
of enchantment in the word Konhauserankehrschachtricht, the name given to
the portion of the mine which we were then descending.
Konhauser-return-shaft is, I think, however, about the meaning of that
compound word.

So far we had felt nothing like real cold, although I had been promised a
wintry atmosphere. Possibly with a miner's dress over my ordinary
clothing, and with plenty of exercise, there was enough to counteract the
effects of the chill air. But our eyes began to ache at the uncertain
light, and we all straggled irregularly along the smooth cut shaft level
for another sixty feet, and so reached the Konhauser-rolle, the fourth
slide we had encountered in our progress.

That cheered us up a little, as it shot us down another one hundred and
eight feet perpendicular depth to the
Soolererzeugungswerk-Konhauser--surely a place nearer than ever to the
magic regions of Abracadabra. If not Aladdin's garden, something
wonderful ought surely by this time to have been reached. I was alive to
any sight or sound, and was excited by the earnest whispering of my
fellow adventurers, and the careful directions as to our progress given
by the guides and light-bearers.

With eager rapidity we flitted among the black shadows of the cavern,
till we reached a winding flight of giant steps. We mounted them with
desperate excitement, and at the summit halted, for we felt that there
was space before our faces, and had been told that those stairs led to a
mid mountain lake, nine hundred and sixty feet below the mountain's top;
two hundred and forty feet above its base. Presently, through the
darkness, we perceived at an apparently interminable distance a few dots
of light, that shed no lustre, and could help us in no way to pierce the
pitchy gloom of the great cavern. The lights