under the same circumstances.

The ancient "Peregrina" mine was different from "Pingueico." Here we
entered by a level opening and walked down most of the two thousand
feet, much of it by narrow, slimy, slippery, stone steps, in some places
entirely worn away by the bare feet of the many generations of peons
that as slaves to the Spaniards of colonial days used to carry the ore
up on their backs from the very bottom of the mine. "Peregrina"
mountain was almost another Mammoth Cave, so enormous are the caverns
that have been "stoped out" of it in the past four centuries. In many a
place we could see even with several candles only the ground underfoot
and perhaps a bit of the nearest sidewall; the rest was a dank,
noiseless, blank space, seeming square miles in extent. For three hours
we wandered up and down and in and out of huge unseen caves, now and
then crawling up or down three or four hundred foot "stopes" on hands
and knees, by ladders, stone steps, or toe-holes in the rock. Through it
all it was raining much of the time in torrents--in the mine, that is,
for outside the sun was shining brightly--with mud underfoot and streams
of water running along much of the way; and, unlike the sweltering
interior of "Pingueico," there was a dank dungeon chill that reached the
marrow of the bones. Even in the shafts which we descended in buckets,
cold water poured down upon us, and, far from being naked, the miners
wore all the clothing they possessed. Here the terror of the peons was
an old American mine-boss rated "loco" among them, who went constantly
armed with an immense and ancient revolver, always loaded and reputed of
"hair trigger," which he drew and whistled in the barrel whenever he
wished to call a workman. A blaze crackling in the fireplace was
pleasant during the evening in the manager's house, for "Peregrina" lies
even higher above the sea than "Pingueico"; but even here by night or day
the peons, and especially the women, went barefoot and in thinnest garb.