The black hole, when we entered it, proved to be not quite so dark as it had appeared from above. Rays of light occasionally penetrated it through chinks in the outer rock. But, by the time we had got some little way further down, these rays began to fade. Then, just as we seemed to be lowering ourselves into total darkness, we were desired to stand on a narrow landing-place opposite the ladder, and wait there while the miner went below for a light. He soon reascended to us, bringing not only the light he had promised, but a large lump of damp clay with it. Having lighted our candles, he stuck them against the front of our hats with the clay, in order, as he said, to leave both our hands free to us to use as we liked. Thus strangely accoutred, like Solomon Eagles in the Great Plague, with flame on our heads, we resumed the descent of the shaft; and now, at last, began to penetrate beneath the surface of the earth in good earnest. The process of getting down the ladders was not very pleasant. They were all quite perpendicular, the rounds were placed at irregular distances, were many of them much worn away, and were slippery with water and copper-ooze. Add to this, the narrowness of the shaft, the dripping-wet rock shutting you in, as it were, all round your back and sides against the ladder--the fathomless-looking darkness beneath--the light flaring immediately above you, as if your head was on fire--the voice of the miner below, rumbling away in dull echoes lower and lower into the bowels of the earth--the consciousness that if the rounds of the ladder broke, you might fall down a thousand feet or so of narrow tunnel in a moment--imagine all this, and you may easily realize what are the first impressions produced by a descent into a Cornish mine. By the time we had got down seventy fathoms, or four hundred and twenty feet of ladders, we stopped at another landing-place, just broad enough to afford standing-room for us three. Here, the miner, pointing to an opening yawning horizontally in the rock at one side of us, said that this was the first gallery from the surface; that we had done with the ladders for the present; and that a little climbing and crawling were now to begin.