e gets
by degrees to the bottom. They said it was very easy, only one must
step boldly, so that the foot should not come between and get crushed;
and then one must remember that there is no railing or balustrade
here, and directly outside these stairs there is the deep abyss into
which one may fall headlong. The deepest shaft has a perpendicular
depth of more than a hundred and ninety fathoms, but for this there is
no danger, they say, only one must not be dizzy, nor get alarmed. One
of the workmen, who had come up, descended with a lighted pine-branch
as a torch: the flame illumined the dark rocky wall, and by degrees
became only a faint streak of light which soon vanished.

We were told that a few days before, five or six schoolboys had
unobserved stolen in here, and amused themselves by going from step to
step on these machine-like rocking stairs, in pitchy darkness, but at
last they knew not rightly which way to go, up or down, and had then
begun to shout and scream lustily. They escaped luckily that bout.

By one of the large openings, called "Fat Mads," there are rich copper
mines, but which have not yet been worked. A building stands above it:
it was at the bottom of this that they found, in the year 1719, the
corpse of a young miner. It appeared as if he had fallen down that
very day, so unchanged did the body seem--but no one knew him. An old
woman then stepped forward and burst into tears: the deceased was her
bridegroom, who had disappeared forty nine years ago. She stood there
old and wrinkled; he was young as when they had met for the last time
nearly half a century before.[T]

[Footnote T: In another mine they found, in the year 1635, a corpse
perfectly fresh, and almost with the appearance of one asleep; but
his clothes, and the ancient copper coins found on him, bore witness
that it was two hundred years since he had perished there.]

We went to "The Plant House," as it is called, where the vitriolated
liquid is crystallized to sulphate of copper. It grew up long sticks
placed upright in the boiling water, resembling long pieces of
grass-green sugar. The steam was pungent, and the air in here
penetrated our tongues--it was just as if one had a corroded spoon in
one's mouth. It was really a luxury to come out again, even into the
rarefied copper smoke, under the open sky.

Steaming, burnt-out, and herbless as the district is on this side of
the town, it is just as refreshing, green, and fertile on th