But this was nothing to what followed; balls of the fiber of the maguey, or aloe plant, three feet in diameter, and steeped in pine pitch or resin, were swung out over the mouth of the shaft, and set on fire. When the first was in full blaze, it was detached, and allowed to fall into the abyss. Like a great comet with body of molten metal, and long tail of flame, rushing on a doomed planet, the monster projectile came down from the dizzy height above us, and passing the mouth of the tunnel in which we stood, with a roar more deafening than the loudest thunder, went bounding and crashing into the depths below, illuminating everything, for a moment, with the blinding, lurid glare, followed by a darkness and silence more profound than before. As soon as the tremendous echoes which were awakened by the first, had died away, a second was sent down, and others followed in quick succession. Most of our party were unable to control their nerves sufficiently to enable them to approach the edge and look up and down the tiro, holding by ropes to prevent them from becoming dizzy and falling headlong into the depths, but those who could do so, beheld a scene, the awful sublimity and grandeur of which beggars all the powers of language. [Sidenote: DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE MINE.] The remainder of the party now left, and I, in company with the superintendent, clothing myself in a miner’s suit, to keep off the water and mud, descended to the bottom of the mine, one thousand feet and more from the surface. We went down ladder after ladder, along gallery after gallery, through chambers like great churches in size, and others in which we could not stand erect, down steps cut in the rock, and so slippery with dripping water and soft clay, as to compel us to use an iron-shod staff to support ourselves, and through many a winding turning, until we stood at the bottom of the tiro, wet through with perspiration, and trembling with exhaustion. At the bottom of the tiro is a great pond of water, the reservoir into which all the drainings of the mine are gathered, and the buckets on the great cables, worked by the _malacates_ at the top, were constantly coming and going between it and the end of the tunnel six hundred feet above. These buckets will hold three to four hogsheads of water, and are made of rawhide, in the form of an ordinary Mexican water jar. An iron ring distends the mouth of the bucket, and when the vessel descends, the wet hide flattening down allows the water to rush in, and as the lifting commences, it falls back into its original form, filled to the brim with the dirty fluid. When the bucket reaches the level of the tunnel, it is hauled into the opening, and as the cable is slackened up, it flattens down again, and the water, escaping over the rim, runs off down the side of the tunnel.