‘We are now walking beneath the bed of the sea!—and ships are sailing over our heads!’ Several horses and waggons were met and passed after the fashion already described. On one occasion, the youth who drove the horse, walked in front, waving his candle in the air, and causing it to gleam upon a black pool in a low chasm on one side, which would otherwise have been invisible. He was totally without clothing, and of a fine symmetrical form, like some young Greek charioteer doing penance on the borders of Lethe for careless driving above ground. As he passed the pool of water, he stooped with his candle. Innumerable bubbles of gas were starting to the surface. The instant the flame touched them, they gave forth sparkling explosions, and remained burning with a soft blue gleam. It continued visible a long time, and gave the melancholy idea of some spirit, once beautiful, which had gone astray, and was for ever lost to its native region. It was as though the youth had written his own history in symbol, before he passed away into utter darkness. ‘You used to be fond,’ observed Flashley’s companion, with grim ironical composure, after one of these close encounters with horseflesh—‘You _used_ to be fond of horses.’ Flashley made no reply, beyond a kind of half-suppressed groan of fatigue and annoyance. ‘Well, then,’ said the other, appearing to understand the smothered groan as an acquiescence—‘we will go and look at the stables.’ He turned off at the next corner on the left, and led the way up a narrow and steep path of broken brick and sandstone, till they arrived at a bank of rock and coal, up which they had to clamber, Flashley’s guide informing him that it would save a mile of circuitous path. Arriving at the top, they soon came to a narrow door, somewhat higher than any they had yet seen. It opened by a long iron latch, and they entered the ‘mine stables.’ A strong hot steam and most oppressive odour of horses, many of whom were asleep and snoring, was the first impression. The second, was a sepulchral Davy-lamp hanging from the roof, whose dull gleam just managed to display the uplifting of a head and inquiring ears in one place, the contemptuous whisking of a tail in another, and a large eye-ball gleaming through the darkness, in another! The stalls were like a succession of narrow black dens, at each side of a pathway of broken brick and sand. In this way sixty or seventy horses were ‘stabled.’ ‘This is a prince of a mine!’ said the guide; ‘we have seven hundred people down here, and a hundred and fifty horses.’ They emerged at the opposite end, which led up another steep path towards a shaft (for the mine now had four or five) which was used for the ascent and descent of horses. They were just in time to witness the arrival of a new-comer,—a horse who had never before been in a mine.