Our path was a strange one, as we advanced through the rift. Rough stones of all sizes, holes here, and eminences there, impeded us at every yard. Sometimes, we could walk on in a stooping position--sometimes, we were obliged to crawl on our hands and knees. Occasionally, greater difficulties than these presented themselves. Certain parts of the gallery dipped into black, ugly-looking pits, crossed by thin planks, over which we walked dizzily, a little bewildered by the violent contrast between the flaring light that we carried above us, and the pitch-darkness beneath and before us. One of these places terminated in a sudden rising in the rock, hollowed away below, but surmounted by a narrow, projecting wooden platform, to which it was necessary to climb by cross-beams arranged at wide distances. My companion ascended to this awkward elevation without hesitating; but I came to an "awful pause" before it. Fettered as I was by my Brobdignag jacket and trowsers, I felt a humiliating consciousness that any extraordinary gymnastic exertion was altogether out of my power. Our friend, the miner, saw my difficulty, and extricated me from it at once, with a promptitude and skill which deserves record. Descending half way by the beams, he clutched with one hand that hinder part of my too voluminous nether garments, which presented the broadest superficies of canvas to his grasp (I hope the delicate reader appreciates the ingenious cleanliness of my periphrasis, when I mention in detail so coarse a subject as trowsers!). Having grappled me thus, he lifted me up in an instant, as easily as a small parcel; then carried me horizontally along the loose boards, like a refractory little boy borne off by the usher to the master's birch; or, considering the candle burning on my hat, and the necessity of elevating my position by as lofty a comparison as I can make--like a flying Mercury with a star on his head; and finally deposited me safely upon my legs again, on the firm rock pathway beyond. "You are but a light and a little man, my son!" says this excellent fellow, snuffing my candle for me before we go on; "only let me lift you about as I like, and you shan't come to any harm while I am with you!" Speaking thus, the miner leads us forward again. After we have walked a little further in a crouching position, he calls a halt, makes a seat for us by sticking a piece of old board between the rocky walls of the gallery, and then proceeds to explain the exact subterranean position which we actually occupy.