violently. Looking up into his curious burrow, Captain Jan
shouted--"Hallo! Jim!"

"Hallo, Captain Jan."

"Here's a gentleman wants to know how many children you've had."

"How many child'n, say 'ee? Why, I've had nineteen, sur, but there's
eleven of 'em gone dead. Seven of 'em did come in three years and a
half--_three doubles and a single_--but there's only eight of 'em alive
now!"

I afterwards found that, although this man and his brother were
exceptions, the miners generally had very large families.

While we were talking, a number of shots were heard going off in various
directions. This was explained by Captain Jan. All the forenoon the
miners employ their time in boring and charging the blast-holes. About
mid-day they fire them and then hasten to a clear part of the mine to
eat luncheon and smoke their pipes while the gunpowder smoke clears
away. This it does very slowly, taking sometimes more than an hour to
clear sufficiently so as to let the men resume work.

Immediately after the shots were heard, the men began to assemble. They
emerged from the gloom on all sides like red hobgoblins--wet and
perspiring. Some walked out of darkness from either end of the level;
some stalked out from diverging levels; others slid, feet first, from
holes in the roof and sides, and some rose, head-foremost, from yawning
gulfs in the floor. They all saluted Captain Jan as they came up, and
each stuck his candle against the wall and sat down on a heap of wet
rubbish, to lunch. Some had Cornish pasty, and others a species of
heavy cake--so heavy that the fact of their being able to carry it at
all said much for their digestive organs--but most of them ate plain
bread, and all of them drank water which had been carried down from the
realms of light in little canteens. Frugal though the fare was, it
sufficed to brace them for the rest of the day's work.

After a short talk with these men Captain Jan and I continued our
descent of the ladders--down we went, ever downwards, until at last we
reached the very bottom of that part of the mine--1230 feet below the
surface.

Here we found only two men at work, with whom Captain Jan conversed for
a time while we rested, and then proceeded to ascend "to grass" by the
same ladder-ways. If I felt that the descent was like never getting to
the bottom, much more did the ascent seem like never getting to the top!

I may remark here that the bottom which we had reached was