As soon as we became accustomed to the place, we moved off after the foreman of the mine. We walked through the miry tram-ways under the low, black arches, now stepping aside to let an invisible horse and car, "grating harsh thunder," pass us in the murky darkness; now through a door-way, momently closed to keep the foul and clear airs separate, until we came to the great furnace of the mine that draws off all the noxious vapors from this nest of Beelzebub. Then we went to the stables where countless horses are stalled--horses that never see the light of day again, or if they do, are struck blind by the apparition; now in wider galleries, and new explorations, where we behold the busy miners, twinkling like the distant lights of a city, and hear the thunder-burst, as the blast explodes in the murky chasms. At last, tired, oppressed, and sickened with the vast and horrible prison, for such it seems, we retrace our steps, and once more enter the iron parachute. A touch of the magic lever, and again we fly away; but now upwards, upwards to the glorious blue sky and air of mother earth. A miner with his lamp accompanies us. By its dim light we see how rapidly we spin through the shaft. Our car clashes again at the top, and as we step forth into the clear sunshine, we thank GOD for such a bright and beautiful world up stairs! "Do you know," said I, "Picton, what we would do if we had such a devil's pit as that in the States?" "Well?" answered the traveller, interrogatively. "We would make niggers work it." "I dare say," replied Picton, drily and satirically; "but, sir, I am proud to say that our government does not tolerate barbarity; to consign an inoffensive fellow-creature to such horrible labor, merely because he is black, is at variance with the well-known humanity of the whole British nation, sir." "But those miners, Picton, were black as the devil himself." "The miners," replied Picton, with impressive gravity, "are black, but not negroes." "Nothing but mere white people, Picton?" "Eh?" said the traveller. "Only white people, and therefore we need not waste one grain of sympathy over a whole pit full of them." "Why not?" "Because they are not niggers, what is the use of wasting sympathy upon a rat-hole full of white British subjects?" "I tell you what it is," said Picton, "you are getting personal." We were now rolling past the dingy tenements again. Squalid-looking, care-worn women, grimy children: "To me there's something touching, I confess, In the grave look of early thoughtfulness, Seen often in some little childish face, Among the poor;"--