salt, lumps of which rolled to my feet. I had a
lighted torch beside me, and with this I examined
the fall to see if there was any opening for
escape, but there was none, the recess being
blocked up to the roof. I thought I might call
the attention of my fellow-miners to my position
by blowing my horn, but the only result of my
doing so was to cause another fall. I laid it
down to think over my position, and calculate
my chance of escape. I hoped that, as they
would be certain to miss me within a few hours,
there might be something in the slip to attract
their attention. Hour after hour passed over
without my hearing a sound except that caused
by the earth crumbling down as it settled into a
firmer mass. The torch I had extinguished long
since, to save myself from being suffocated by
the smoke, and instead of it I had lighted a
candle, but this melted away in a few minutes
owing to the air being so hot. I was now in
total darkness. The air was filled with particles
of salt, which stung my eyes and made the inside
of my mouth, and nose, and my throat, smart
painfully, besides exciting a sensation of intense
thirst. As for hunger, it was long before I felt
it, and when I did I had a ready means at hand
of assuaging it, in the box of tallow, which,
disgusting as it would have been at any other
time, was a treasure to me now. There was
another comforting circumstance, that air made
its way to the little hollow in which I was
confined; where from I could not tell, but it was
sufficient in quantity to prevent me from being
suffocated, though breathing was a matter of
great difficulty and pain. I soon began to feel
sleepy, and stretched myself on the ground,
but whether I slept only a few minutes or
several hours I have no idea; and so the early
part of my imprisonment passed away.

"All this time nothing had occurred to show
that anybody had discovered the place where I
was buried, though I was sure I must have
been missed long since. Then, for the first
time, I was seized with a hopeless dread. I
became intensely cold, my heart almost ceased
to beat, and my tongue and the roof of my
mouth became dry and hard, as if it had been
burnt with a red-hot iron. I curled myself in a
heap on the ground, and for a time was
insensible. When I again grew conscious, my
sufferings were much aggravated. A burning heat
was gnawing at my body from head to foot. The
feeling is indescribable, and cannot be imagined.
I knew that the salt was getting into my blood,
and that I must soon go raving mad if I could
not keep it out of my lungs. I ate as much of
the tallow as I could, or rather I put it in my
mouth and let it run down my throat. This
relieved me very much, and I then tore a piece off
my dress and fastened it across my mouth and
nose, which added to the difficulty of breathing,
but kept the larger particles of salt from entering
my lungs. I also found that the air was
better when I was standing than when I was
lying down, and from thenceforth I stood with
my back resting against the side of the cave, as
much as my strength allowed me. Before this
I had tried to remove the earth nearest the roof,
but I could find nothing to encourage me to
persevere, and the exertion was so painful, and the
clouds of salt dust raised were so thick,
notwithstanding that I placed every handful I took out
carefully at the bottom of the heap, that I
desisted, thinking it better to bear my sufferings
as patiently as I could till my situation was
discovered, than to render it worse by vain efforts
to escape from it. But as they continued to
increase I determined to make another attempt,
whatever the consequence might be. I groped
about till I found the hole I had made, and began
to rake out the earth with my hands, but with less
precaution than before, for I had now become
desperate, and would gladly have died to have been
released from my misery. The salt forced itself
through the cloth over my face, penetrated to
my lungs, and caused me such torture as no
words can describe. I dashed myself against
the sides of my prison, I beat my head against
the rock, but I was unconscious of pain from so
doing; life seemed raging within me with greater
strength and intensity than I had ever felt before,
and it seemed to me that I could move a mountain
by my own strength alone. I thrust my
head and shoulders into the hole I had made,
and tried to burrow my way through like a mole,
and when I could endure this no longer, I threw
myself on the ground and rolled and writhed.
In imagination I screamed and cried, but in.
truth I could utter no sound. I prayed, oh!
how fervently I prayed, for death, but it
would not come. Then I swallowed some of
my provisions, and this gave me relief for a
time, but only for a time, for the same tortures
began again very soon, followed by a repetition
of my frantic attempts at self-destruction. If I
could have abstained from the only thing that
gave me relief, my torments must soon have
been at an end; but the very intensity of my
pain forced me, against my will, to resort to it.
Thus my sufferings went on ebbing and flowing,
but, like the rising tide, always mounting.

"I was in this dreadful condition, when I
heard the sound of music. At first I thought
it must be my imagination, that I was at last
going mad. Then, as it continued, I remembered
the concert in honour of the director. I searched
about for my horn, and when the music was
silent, I raised it to my lips and tried to sound
it, I might as well have attempted to rend the
rock asunder which cut me off from the light;
my dry and cracked lips would not fit
themselves to the instrument, and the little air my
lungs were still capable of expelling wasted
itself soundlessly. In my madness I beat it
furiously against the ground, I bit and gnawed
it, and, finally, I dashed it down, and seizing
handfuls of the dirt, I thrust it into my mouth
in vain efforts to choke myself. Again and
again the music was renewed, but at last it
ceased altogether, and I knew that I was once
more alone in the mine.

"I afterwards learnt that, during the concert,
one of the miners in wandering through the old
workings, noticed a mark on the rock where I