We turned about, and retraced our steps in silence for a while.
"Don't take it amiss, master," says he presently, "if I'm a little bit downhearted at the prospect of having a lady's society; but I've had so much of that sort of thing these last ten years that I shouldn't be sorry if I never saw another female."
"How's that?" says I.
"Why, master," says he, "I'm married."
"And you can quit your wife without regret?" says I.
"It ain't a wife I'm quitting without regret," says he; "it's twenty or thirty."
I asked him to explain this matter; which he did forthwith, telling me that all the slaves in those mines were women, and that when one wounded herself, or fell sick by overwork, so that to save her life it was necessary she should lay up for a time, she was forthwith married to him. This strange custom perplexed me until I came to perceive the motive.
"Have you any children?" says I.
"Children!" says he; "Lord love you, I've got sixty if I've got one. But you can't expect a father to be very partial to his children when there so many of 'em. I give you my word, I don't know Jack from Jill; and they're all orange-tawney."