were supported by upright logs and beams;
and further inwards, were pillars of coal left
standing, from which the surrounding mass
had been cut away. At the remote end of
this, sat the figure of a man, perfectly black
and quite naked, working with a short-
handled pickaxe, with which he hewed down
coals in front of him, and from the sides,
lighted by a single candle stuck in clay, and
dabbed up against a projecting block of coal.
From the entrance to this dismal work-place,
branched off a second passage, terminating
in another chamber, the lower part of which
was heaped up with great loose coals
apparently just fallen from above. The strong
vapour of gunpowder pervading the place,
and curling and clinging about the roof,
showed that a mass of coal had been under-
mined and brought down by an explosion.
To this smoking heap, ever and anon, came
boys with baskets, or little waggons, which
they filled and carried away into the narrow
dark passage, disappearing with their loads
as one may see black ants making off with
booty into their little dark holes and galleries
under ground.

The naked miner in the first chamber, now
crept out to the entrance, having fastened a
rope round the remotest logs that supported
the roof of the den he had hewed. These he
hauled out. He then knocked away the
nearest ones with a great mallet. Taking a
pole with a broad blade of iron at the end,
edged on one side and hooked at the other,
something like a halbert, he next cut and
pulled away, one by one, by repeated blows
and tugs, each of the pillars of coal which he
had left within. A strange cracking overhead
was presently heard. All stepped back and
waited. The cracking ceased, and the miner
again advanced, accompanied by Flashley's
guide; while, by some detestable necromancy,
our young visitor—alack! so very lately such
a dashing young fellow 'about town,' now
suddenly fallen into the dreadful condition of
receiving all sorts of knowledge about coals—
felt compelled to assist in the operation.

Advancing with great wedges, while Flashley
carried two large sledge hammers to be ready
for use, the miners inserted their wedges into
cracks in the upper part of the wall of coal
above the long chamber that had just been
excavated, the roof of which was now bereft
of all internal support. They then took the
hammers and began to drive in the wedges.
The cracks widened, and shot about in
branches, like some black process of
crystallisation. The party retreated several paces—
one wide flaw opened above, and down came a
hundred tons of coal in huge blocks and broad
splinters! The concussion of the air, and the
flight of coal-dust, extinguished the candles.
At this the two miners laughed loudly, and,
pushing Flashley before them, caused him to
crouch down on his hands and knees, and
again creep along the low passage by which
they had entered. A boy in harness drawing
a little empty waggon soon approached, with
a candle on his forehead, as usual. The
meeting being unexpected and out of order,
as the parties could not pass each other in
this place, Flashley's special guide and ' tutor '
gave him a lift and a push, by means of which
he was squeezed between the rough roofing
and the upper rail of the empty waggon, into
which he then sank down with a loud ' Oh! '
His tutor now set his head to the hinder
part of the waggon, the miner assumed the
same position with respect to the tutor—the
boy did the same by the miner—and thus, by
reversing the action of the wheels, the little
waggon, with its alarmed occupant, was driven
along by this three-horse power through the
low passage, with a reckless speed and
jocularity, in which the ridiculous and hideous
were inextricably mingled.

Arriving at the main horse-road, as Flashley
quickly distinguished by the wider space,
higher roofing, and candles stuck against the
sides, his mad persecutors never stopped, but
increasing their speed the moment the wheels
were set upon the rails, they drove the waggon
onwards with yells and laughter, and now
and then a loud discordant whistle in imitation
of the wailful cry of a locomotive; passing
' getters,' and ' carriers,' and ' hurryers,' and
' drawers,' and ' pushers,' and other mine-
people, and once sweeping by an astonished
horse—gates and doors swinging open before
them—and shouts frequently being sent after
them, sometimes of equivocal import, but
generally not to be mistaken, by those whom
they thus rattled by, who often received
sundry concussions and excoriations in that so
narrow highway beneath the earth.

In this manner did our unique cortège
proceed, till sounds of many voices a-head of them
were heard, and then more and more light
gleamed upon the walls; and the next minute
they emerged from the road-way, and entered
a large oblong chamber, or cavern, where
they were received with a loud shout of
surprise and merriment. It was the dining-hall
of the mine.

This cavern had been hewn out of the solid
coal, with intervals of rock and sandstone here
and there in the sides. Candles stuck in
lumps of damp clay, were dabbed up against
the rough walls all round. A table, formed of
dark planks laid upon low tressels, was in the
middle, and round this sat the miners, nearly
naked,—and far blacker than negroes, whose
glossy skins shine with any light cast upon
them,—while these were of a dead-black, which
gave their robust outlines and muscular limbs
the grimness of sepulchral figures, strangely
at variance with the boisterous vitality and
physical capacities of their owners. These, it
seemed, were the magnates of the mine—the
'hewers,' ' holers,' 'undergoers,' or 'pickers,'—
those who hew down the coal, and not the
fetchers and carriers, and other small people.

Before he had recovered from his recent
drive through the mine, Flashley was seated