There was just a moment of suspense and suppressed excitement, when, with a sharp cry, the miner loosened his hold, and by the impulse of our own weight we shot, with a velocity not to be described, two hundred and forty-feet into the earth. The miner acting as a brake brought us up gently enough, so that we felt scarcely anything of a shock. Cecilia, to be sure, left her breath about two-thirds of the way up, and suffered some inconvenience till she accumulated more, and the curate forgot to loosen his hold on Elise for an unpardonable length of time, while he gathered his wits, and I could feel that he was blushing when he came to his senses. It was in adjusting our attire that we discovered the necessity and value of our leathern aprons. Had we been plunged into a pool of water we should have sizzled. They were hot from the friction. They speedily became our dearest of friends and possessions, for we had three more of these shafts to slide down, and we grew faint at the bare thought of losing them. Cecilia, after our second slide, suggested, in a language the gentlemen did not understand, that she would like her turn at being embraced, since she always lost her breath at the start and was afraid. This remark met with no response, as neither Elise nor I wanted 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 become hard and brittle, tearing the skin painfully. They must be relieved every few hours, and, though short-lived, they work for a pittance an American laborer would scorn.
Descending a flight of steps after shooting the third shaft, we came upon a scene which filled us with wonder. There, far down in the earth, lay a tiny tranquil lake of inky blackness, its borders outlined with blazing torches. At the extreme end were the entwined letters "F.J." (Franz Joseph), gleaming in candle-lights, and over our heads the miners' greeting, "Glück auf!" traced in fire. On the pink salt-rock roof—the miners call it der Himmel—rested the fearful weight of the superincumbent mountain. It was an awful thought, and the curate did not hesitate an instant in seizing Elise's outstretched hand, as if she were seeking, and he glad to give, a bit of comfort in this strangely-impressive place. We entered a little boat waiting to take us across the Salz Sea to the opposite shore. There was not a sound, save the dipping of the oar. We tasted the black water. The Dead Sea cannot be salter. We were hushed and oppressed, as if each felt the weight of the great mountain-mass over us.
The miners were not at work on that day, but like gnomes they were silently coming and going in the shadows, never omitting the "Glück auf!" as they met and parted. There were long, weary stairs to climb. Finally we came to a little car running on a narrow inclined track. In this we went rapidly through galleries and dry chambers, and finally were propelled into the daylight with an unexpected velocity. We had become quite accustomed to our attire, but declined the proposition of the photographer, who wished to turn his camera upon us for the benefit of friends in America, and we gained the dressing-room with much more composure than we had felt when leaving it.
It is believed that these mines were worked in the first century; and many a grave has been opened in excavating which gave up bones and copper ornaments once belonging to Celtic salt-miners of the third and fourth centuries. Towers erected in the thirteenth century are still strongholds. The whole region, too, is full of salt-springs. The lofty mountains and rich valleys, the sequestered lakes and blue-gray rivers with their waterfalls, and the old castles, quaint costumes, and legends, make it a tempting country for such ease-loving travellers as were we five, and for the intrepid Alpine climber it offers almost as much as any part of Switzerland.
That night we drove into Mozart's birthplace just as the Salzburg chimes were playing an evening hymn of his composing. The curate and Elise seemed to have found something down in the salt-mine of which they did not choose to talk, and, as we bade each other good-night, Cecilia said, "I'm glad I did it, but I wouldn't go down there again: would you?" and Sarnayana and I thought we wouldn't; but the others looked as if ready to repeat the excursion the following day.
P.S.—Elise and the curate are to be married, and the parish is to have a shepherdess. Cecilia, Samayana, and I have no doubt of its being a love-match. She never could marry him after seeing him in a salt-mine costume if she didn't love him. MARGERY DEANE.
ANTHONY CALVERT BROWN.
First, as my grandfather used to tell, there were the woods and the Oneida Indians and the Mohawks; then the forest was cleared away, and there was the broad, fertile, grassy, and entrancingly-beautiful Mohawk valley; then came villages and cities and my own unimportant existence, and at about the same time appeared the Oneida Institute. This institution of learning is my first point. The Oneida Institute, located in the village of Whitesboro, four miles from Utica, in the State of New York, consisted visibly of three elongated erections of painted, white-pine clapboards, with shingle roofs. Each structure was three stories high and was dotted with lines of little windows. There was a surrounding farm and gardens, in which the students labored, that might attract attention at certain hours of the day, when the laborers were at work in them; but the buildings were the noticeable feature. Seated in the deep green of the vast meadows on the west bank of the willow-shaded Mohawk, these staring white edifices were very conspicuous. The middle one was turned crosswise, as if to keep the other two, which were parallel, as far apart as possible. This middle one was also crowned with a fancy cupola, whereby the general appearance of the group was just saved to a casual stranger from the certainty of its being the penitentiary or almshouse of the county.