In these lead mines, as in most vein-mining, there are more shafts than
in collieries, and hardly any attempt at artificial ventilation, except
at rises, winzes and cul-de-sacs. I found accordingly that, though their
depth does not exceed three hundred feet, suffocation must often have
anticipated the other dreaded death. In nearly every shaft, both up-take
and down-take, was a ladder, either of the mine, or of the fugitives,
and I was able to descend without difficulty, having dressed myself in a
house at the village in a check flannel shirt, a pair of two-buttoned
trousers with circles of leather at the knees, thick boots, and a
miner's hat, having a leather socket attached to it, into which fitted a
straight handle from a cylindrical candlestick; with this light, and
also a Davy-lamp, which I carried about with me for a good many months,
I lived for the most part in the deeps of the earth, searching for the
treasure of a life, to find everywhere, in English duckies and guggs,
Pomeranian women in gaudy stiff cloaks, the Walachian, the Mameluk, the
Khirgiz, the Bonze, the Imaum, and almost every type of man.
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