to run the risk of being lost off behind, and felt a selfish sense of
security that made the shooting of the shafts delightful and somewhat
similar to the coasting and sliding down balusters of our childhood.

We traversed many long galleries on different levels. Through some of
these ran the aqueduct which brought the fresh water in, and another
which conveyed the salt water out, twenty miles away. We were in the
bosom of a mountain of salt rock, which is constantly forming, and is
therefore a never-ending source of wealth. For centuries this mine has
been worked. The salt rock is quarried and carried out in the form of
rock-salt. Another method of obtaining salt is by conveying water into
the large, excavated chambers, drawing it off and boiling down when it
becomes impregnated. This water attracts and dissolves the saline
matter, but, as water cannot so affect the slaty portion of the rock, it
leaves it often in most fantastic shapes, sometimes as pillars or
depending, curtain-like sheets. These chambers kept full of water are
constantly changing their level on the withdrawal of the liquid. After
three or four weeks two feet of the roof will be found to have been
dissolved and two feet of _débris_ found upon the floor. Curiously
enough, this _débris_ in time acquires the property of the salt rock.
There are chambers above chambers, some of them five hundred yards in
circumference, and miles of galleries. One of these chambers, which was
illuminated, showed floor, walls, and ceiling of pure rock-salt, very
lovely in color, though not so brilliant as in the mine of Wieliczka,
which is likened to four subterranean cities, one below the other, hewn
from rose-colored rock. Samayana secured of our guide red, yellow, blue,
and purple specimens.

The miners are obliged to divest themselves of all clothing when at
their dangerous work, as any garment will so absorb the salt as to