I heard the story of her unhappy fate while in St. Petersburg, and afterwards in Paris. It was recalled to me in the latter city by a painting in the Russian department of the great Exposition of 1867. The most attractive picture in the Russian collection was the one which represented her death. It was not a large picture, but fearfully realistic in its character.
DROWNED IN A CELL.
It showed the interior of her cell, and the torrent of water flowing in through a small grated window near its roof. It was pouring in like a miniature cascade. It had covered the floor up to the very edge of the rude pallet which formed her bed. Its sheep-skin covering was hanging over its edge; rats by the dozen were climbing up this coverlet and crouching around the unhappy woman, who knelt on the couch, her hands clasped, and her face turned upward. There was a dim light in the cell, just enough to render the scene as gloomy as possible. The attitude and features indicated agony and despair at the nearness of a horrible death, from which there was little hope of relief.
XLVII.
ANIMALS UNDER GROUND.
HORSES IN MINES.—EFFECT OF AN EVEN TEMPERATURE ON HORSES AND MULES.—EFFECT OF DEPRIVATION OF LIGHT.—WALKING IN DARKNESS.—RATS IN MINES.—A MONKEY IN A SILVER MINE.—THE CONSTERNATION HE CREATED.—WHAT HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE.—HIS UNHAPPY FATE.—A MONKEY AT SEA.—HIS PRANKS.—DEMOCRATIC HABITS.—HOW HE LOST HIS LIFE.—HIS LAST PERFORMANCE.—DOGS IN MINES, AND THE EFFECT OF UNDERGROUND CONFINEMENT.—JOY AT REACHING DAYLIGHT AGAIN.—TWO DOGS AT SEA, AND WHAT THEY DID.—A DOG SAILOR, AND WHAT HE DID.—HIS UNHAPPY END.
As a general thing, miners do not devote much of their time under ground to the care of pet animals. The horses and mules that are kept below are not regarded as pets, but as a part of the working force, and are required to do their whole duty. They are cared for just as well as animals of their kind in similar occupations above ground. Their stables are comfortable, and from their location the beasts can hardly be expected to suffer from cold, though they may sometimes find the heat rather severe. In many localities horses and mules that have been kept a long time under ground, in an unvarying temperature of seventy degrees or more, lose their hair, or a large portion of it. They never suffer from rain or snow, because there can be no storms hundreds or thousands of feet under ground; and they need no protection against cold where there is no cold. Sometimes they become blinded from constant deprivation of the light of day. They very soon learn to walk along certain ways and levels in complete darkness, though they manifest a decided preference for light rather than for its opposite.
The presence of rats in mines has been referred to elsewhere. In some mines they are rarely or never seen, while in others they are numerous. The facilities for good living for rats are not abundant, and they certainly have small encouragement to stay in the levels and tunnels, when they might do much better, and live much happier, above ground. Generally they have no means of exit, as they cannot easily go out of the shaft; and the shaft is the only means of egress.