History of the big bonanza

by Dan De Quille

Our underground streets are not wanting in life. As we pass along the highways and byways of the lower levels, we meet with the people of the place at every turn. One mine connects with another, and so we have streets 3 miles long. There are employed in a single mine from 500 to 700 men; a number sufficient to populate a town of considerable size. Men meet and pass us—all going about their business, as on the surface—and frequently a turn brings us in sight of whole groups of them. We seem to have been suddenly brought face to face with a new and strange race of men. All are naked to the waist, and many from the middle of their thighs to their feet. Superb, muscular forms are seen on all sides and in all attitudes, gleaming white as marble in the light of the many candles. We everywhere see men who would delight the eye of the sculptor. These men seem of a different race from those we see above—the clothes-wearers. Before us we have the Troglodytes—the cave-dwellers. We go back in thought to the time when the human race housed in caverns; not only far up the Nile, as the ancients supposed, but in every land, at a certain stage of their advancement in the arts of life.

Not infrequently, while travelling along a lonely passage in some remote section of the mine, we are suddenly confronted by a man of large stature, huge, spreading beard, and breast covered with shaggy hair, who comes sliding down out of some narrow side-drift, lands in our path, and for a moment stands and gazes curiously upon us, as though half inclined to consider us intruders upon his own peculiar domain. We seem to have before us one of the old cave-dwellers and we should not be at all surprised to see him cut a caper in the air, brandish a ponderous stone ax, and advance upon us with a wild whoop.[whoop.]

The only clothing worn by the men working in the lower levels of a mine are a pair of thin pantaloons or overalls, stout shoes, and a small felt hat or a cap such as cooks are often seen to wear. Not a shirt is seen. From the head to the hips each man is as naked as on the day he was born. All are drenched with perspiration, and their bodies glisten in the light of the candles as though they had just come up through the waters of some subterranean lake.

In places, in some of the mines, the heat is so great that the men do not even wear overalls, but are seen in the breech-clout of the primitive races. Instead of a breech-clout, some of the miners wear a pair of drawers with the legs cut off about the middle of the thighs. Something must be worn on the head to keep the falling sand and dirt out of the hair, and shoes must be worn to protect the feet from the sharp fragments of quartz which strew the floors of the levels. One may be well acquainted with a miner as he appears upon the streets, yet for a time utterly fail to recognize him as found attired in the underground regions of a mine.

When about their work in the mine, the miners have little to say, and in going about in the several levels group after group may be passed and nothing said by any one, except some question may be asked by the foreman of the level or the superintendent of the mine, who are the usual guides of those who visit these underground regions.

Underground the men all have their respective levels, and there alone they belong. The miner who works on the 1400-foot level may not venture down upon the 1,500, nor up to the 1300. Those who are working on one level of a mine knows no more of what is going on in the level above or below—when there is anything of special importance being done—than they do of the developments that are being made in the mine of another company. The foreman of one level does not intrude upon the domain of a brother foreman. When, for instance, he has shown a visitor through his own level, he conducts him to the next and turns him over to the foreman or “boss” in charge of that portion of the mine.

In small or newly-opened mines this is of course different, as there but little is to be seen, and there is generally but a single officer in charge.[charge.]

No fighting is allowed among the miners while in the lower levels. No matter how angry they may become, not a blow must be struck. The penalty for a violation of this rule is the immediate discharge of both parties to the quarrel.

It very frequently happens that two men who have had a serious misunderstanding while in the mine, repair to some quiet place when they come to the surface and have their fight out, friends on both sides being present and the rules of the prize ring being observed.

Fights growing out of wrangles in the mines are always thus settled with fists; knives or pistols are never used on such occasions. However, there is much less quarrelling in the mines than would be supposed, the large number of men and their various and antagonistic nationalities being considered. The fact that nearly all are members of the same society,—the Miners Union—doubtless has much to do with keeping peace among all the large underground families along the Comstock lode.