Some of the concerns employ two or three thousand workmen, and half as many horses. The cost of horses is the heaviest item of expense, as the loss is very great, and to this must be added the cost of keeping the animals. It often happens that the hay, provisions, and everything else must be carried two or three hundred miles, and consequently the capitalist who goes into the mining business in Siberia, must have a long and deep and well-filled purse to start with. In these mining establishments, the work is very severe. The bell is rung at half past two in the morning, and a man must be at his post by three. He gets half an hour each for breakfast and tea, and an hour for dinner; he works until nine o’clock at night, and takes his supper when he gets through. If he is in debt to his employer, and the latter generally manages to have him so, he works every day—Sundays, Saints’ days, and all—through the season. The task set is for five men and two horses to break up and cart away two cubic fathoms of earth per day, and they may quit work whenever they have done it. Or they may work “extra,” and get pretty high wages for it, and altogether a man can earn not far from thirty dollars a month by making long and late hours. [Sidenote: HOW THE MINERS ARE PROVIDED FOR.] It is absolutely necessary, for the interest of the employer, that he should give his men good and abundant food, provide them with comfortable lodgings, and have a hospital for those who become ill. Sometimes two or more establishments unite to hire a surgeon, and in this case he makes a daily round to see if any one needs his services. The proprietors also maintain stores where they supply their workmen, and it is not considered respectable to charge any profit on the goods beyond enough to pay the cost of transportation and handling. The workmen are a thriftless lot, generally, and rarely save anything. When their season is over, they proceed to the large towns, and there waste their substance in riotous living. The spring comes and finds them without a copeck, and possibly in debt, from which their only exit is by hiring out to a gold miner, and getting the advance of a month’s pay which custom has established. XI. A DAY IN POMPEII. A VISIT TO POMPEII.—NEAPOLITAN HACKMEN.—AN INTERESTING ADVENTURE.—HOW TO AVOID A QUARREL.—BEGGARS.—BEGGARY AS A FINE ART.—A PICTURESQUE SCENE.—MAKING MACARONI.—TRICKS OF AN OLD ROOSTER.—POMPEII.—ITS HISTORY.—DISCOVERY OF THE BURIED CITY.—A SCENE IN THE STREETS.—AN ANCIENT BAKERY.—HOW THE MILLS WERE TURNED.—INVESTIGATING AN OVEN.—A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.—PRESENT CONDITION OF THE HOUSES.—ADVERTISING IN OLD TIMES.—POMPEIIAN PERSONALS.—A PICTURE OF THE DESTRUCTION.—OBSCENE OBJECTS IN THE CITY.