ce grim and grotesque, and
more like the spirits of my friends than their incorporated substances.

Traversing the wild, rude corridors, we find that the path grows more
perilous, the way more intricate; we have words of warning from our
protectors, who often look back anxiously. They have begun to realize
what they have done in yielding to a woman's odd caprice.

In this level we are shown the spots from which famous masses of copper
have been removed, and are granted useful, but fleeting statistics
of weight; we are also so fortunate as to discover some chips of the
wonderful block, raised in '54, I think, which weighed five hundred
tons. Then we chance upon chasms, which, seen so dimly, though dreadful
enough in reality, are made a thousand times more so by the terrors of
imagination; we creep along the brinks of these, scarcely daring to look
down; above, the heavy boulders lie heaped in frightful confusion. When
we have crawled past these death-traps and stand in safety once more,
we throw down bits of stone, and seconds elapse before we hear the dull
_thump_ with which each signals its arrival in the depths. Along the
edges of some of these gloomy pits we cannot pick our way; therefore a
plank is thrown across, and, trusting to so slender a bridge, we pass,
one by one. A single false step were enough to dash one to atoms,--so
to be transformed to a bruised and mangled mass, to perform one's own
sepulture, and lie in a grander grave than will ever be hollowed by
mortal hands to hide our useless bodies.

The deeper one penetrates into these mines, the wilder, more dangerous
the paths. It is as though the upper regions were kept in "company"
order, but lower down we meet with the every-day roughnesses of
veritable miners'-life; we follow their hazardous, but familiar steps;
we behold all the hardships these toiling, burrowing workers undergo,
that the hidden coffers of Earth may yield their tribute of treasure to
Man, its self-appointed, arrogant master.

Occasionally we meet a passing miner. Grasping his ponderous tools, he
flits by like a phantom; even in the momentary glance, we can perceive
how livid his sunless labor has left him; he is blanched as a ghoul,
and moves as noiselessly, with feather-light step. Each with a motion
salutes the Captain; but they do not heed the little group of strangers
who have braved so many dangers to behold the wonders which to them
are as commonplace as the forge to a blacksmit