proved but a foretaste of worse things in store.
The Mines had been talked of as a place of refuge, and when the _hour_
at which we lunched (when luncheons were) was reached the dead walls of
the city were placarded with great posters, inviting all women and
children who desired perfect security to take up their residence in the
caverns of De Beers! The drastic nature of the prophylactic was objected
to; it was feared by the quidnuncs that the treatment might prove more
injurious in its ultimate effects than the ills it was intended to ward
off. But this element was silenced, and soon was witnessed a procession
of people with bundles of bedding and crockery on their shoulders
wending their way (in a thunderstorm) to their deep-level homes. From
all parts of the city streams of families were converging towards the
"Kimberley" and the "De Beers" mines. There were a few bejewelled dames
whose ideal of good form and adoration of the convenances would not
allow them to entertain such a "fall"; it was asking too much; what
would Mrs. Grundy say? There was again a timid set whose notions of a
pilgrimage to the bowels of the earth were peculiar; who associated with
it all the dangers attending a balloon adventure--_plus_ the probability
of asphyxiation. But as time wore on the crowds grew thicker and
thicker, until the outstanding minority began to feel lonely, then to
waver, and finally to take their places as martyrs in the "Lift" that
was to lower them into regions infernal. It was a striking _ensemble_
that mustered at the mouth of the mines. All grades of society were
there, and specimens of almost every European nation, mingled with the
Kafir the Zulu, the Hottentot and the countless shades and depths of
duskiness that make up the coloured classes. The process of lowering the
"Lift" began at four o'clock. It was tedious work. Only eight or nine
persons could be let down at a time, and some of the trippers had so
many rugs, mattresses, cushions, antimacassars, and like lumber along
with them as to make the downward flight of eighteen hundred feet a
pleasure-trip distinctly _modern_. With exemplary patience the emigrants
waited, until it suddenly dawned on them--so slow was the progress
made--that there was every possibility of the dread hour of twelve
anticipating them. And then the pushing and the shoving commenced. It
was past eleven, and there were yet hundreds to go down when "house
full" was shouted. Arrangements were h