ld not distinguish by the sensation.

The tun touched the ground, or rather the snow--the dirty trodden,
eternal snow, down to which no sunbeam reaches, which no summer warmth
from above ever melts. A hollow sound was heard from within the dark,
yawning cavern, and a thick vapour rolled out into the cold air. The
stranger entered the dark halls; there seemed to be a crashing above
him: the fire burned; the furnaces roared; the beating of hammers
sounded; the watery damps dripped down--and he again entered the tun,
which was hoven up in the air. He sat with closed eyes, but giddiness
breathed on his head, and on his breast; his inwardly-turned eye
measured the giddy depth through the tun: "It is appalling," said he.

"Appalling!" echoed the brave and estimable stranger, whom we met at
Danemora's great gulf. He was a man from Scania, consequently from the
same street as the Sealander--if the Sound be called a street
(strait). "But, however, one can say one has been down there," said
he, and he pointed to the gulf; "right down, and up again; but it is
no pleasure at all."

"But why descend at all?" said I. "Why will men do these things?"

"One must, you know, when one comes here," said he. "The plague of
travelling is, that one must see everything: one would not have it
supposed otherwise. It is a shame to a man, when he gets home again,
not to have seen everything, that others ask him about."

"If you have no desire, then let it alone. See what pleases you on
your travels. Go two paces nearer than where you stand, and become
quite giddy: you will then have formed some conception of the passage
downward. I will hold you fast, and describe the rest of it for you."
And I did so, and the perspiration sprang from his forehead.

"Yes, so it is: I apprehend it all," said he: "I am clearly sensible
of it."

I described the dirty grey snow covering, which the sun's warmth never
thaws; the cold down there, and the caverns, and the fire, and the
workmen, &c.

"Yes; one should be able to tell all about it," said he. "That _you_
can, for you have seen it."

"No more than you," said I. "I came to the gulf; I saw the depth, the
snow below, the smoke that rolled out of the caverns; but when it was
time I should get into the tun--no, thank you. Giddiness tickled me
with her long, awl-like legs, and so I stayed where I was I have felt
the descent, through the spine and the soles of the feet, and that as
well as any one: the desc