As I anticipated, the digging assumes an eccentric direction, producing in the sandy wall a few gaps in which the glass is laid bare. These peep-holes are none too satisfactory as regards my plans; while some of them permit of clear observation, the greater number are obscured by an earthy veil. Besides, they are not permanent. New ones open daily, while others close. These continual variations are due to the rubbish which, laboriously hoisted outside, rubs against the wall, plastering or denuding this point or that. I take advantage of these fortuitous openings to examine as best I may, when the light falls at a favourable angle, the interesting things happening inside the tube. I see over and over again, at my leisure, as often as I please and over a protracted period, what the exhausting inspection of the natural burrows showed me in rare and fleeting glimpses. The mother is always ahead, in the post of honour, at the working-face. Alone she toils and moils, with her clypeus; alone she scrapes and digs, with the harrow of her toothed arms: her mate never relieves her. The father is always in the rear, very busy too, but on another job. His task it is to carry the loosened soil outside and to clear up as the pioneer goes deeper and deeper. This labour of his is no slight affair, as we may judge from the mound which he throws up when plying his trade in the meadows. It is a big heap of earthen plugs, of cylinders mostly measuring an inch in length. You need only examine the pieces to see that the navvy handles blocks of Cyclopean dimensions. He does not carry off the excavated soil fragment by fragment; he ejects it in huge agglomerations. What should we think of a miner who was obliged to hoist to the surface, to a height of some hundreds of feet, an overpoweringly heavy hod of coal up a narrow, perpendicular shaft which could be climbed only by the use of his knees and elbows? The Minotaur father’s ordinary task is the equivalent of this feat of strength. He performs it with great dexterity. How does he manage to do it? Our bamboo tripod will tell us. From time to time, the denuded points of the tube afford me a glimpse of his doings. He is stationed at the digger’s heels, raking the loosened soil towards him by the armful. He kneads it, as its moisture enables him to do, he works it up into a plug which he thrusts back into the shaft. Then the plug begins to move. The load precedes him; and he pushes it from behind with his three-pronged fork. The work of transport would be a magnificent sight did the accidental peep-holes in the gallery lend themselves better to our curiosity. Unfortunately, they are few and small and none too clear.