Let us now watch the men ascending the mine after work. This is what they call "coming to grass:" this does not refer to any animal propensity to graze, but simply to coming to the surface, which they always term "the grass "...Up and out they come, one by one, like bees out of a great hive-laden, however, with anything but honey! Observe them rising up out of different shafts, perspiring, dirty, and jaded, each with the remainder of his bunch of candles hanging at the bottom of his flannel jacket. Now they flock to the engine-house, where they leave their underground clothes to dry...They all wash themselves in. the warm water of the engine pool, and put on their decent "grass" clothes. About the same time the grassworkers, the maidens, and boys, and women, have stopped work and washed their faces... They now proceed homewards, past chimneys and heaps, and mining erections, and then across fields and commons, in different directions and different groups... The men look grave and fatigued, and speak little and curtly; the wives want to chatter, and must therefore chatter chiefly with one another...The lads talk and laugh, and sometimes stop and wrestle on a green soft spot, trying to practise the "Cornish hug," a famous wrestling manœuvre.* The bigger boys advance by playing leapfrog. Little urchins of tiny growth stand on their heads, or tumble head over heels; mothers scold and sisters laugh at them... The group now grows smaller and smaller at every cottage passed; and finally, down they come to the last family and the last man, who, having to proceed farther than the others, seems like the weary survivor of a vanished race, until he also at last disappears under a low door, and all the scene is silent as at morn. Cornwall: Mines and Miners. * Manœuvre (man-yu-ver), dexterous trick; in warlike tactics, to manœuvre means to cause to go through evolutions (movements of attack or defence). 66 † Cottage passed, or passed cottage. Passed" is here the perf. participle. The phrase may be resolved into the less elegant ex pression,-(cottage) that is passed; or, as (every cottage) is passed. NORTHERN EUROPE. COAST OF NORWAY. EVERY one who has looked at the map of Norway must have been struck with the singular character of its coast. On the map it looks so jagged, such a strange mixture of land and sea, that it appears as if there must be a perpetual struggle between the two, the sea striving to inundate the land, and the land pushing itself out into the sea, till it ends in their dividing the region between them...On the spot, however, this coast is very sublime. The long straggling promontories are mountainous towering ridges of rock, springing up in precipices from the water; while the bays between them, instead of being rounded with shelving sandy shores, on which the sea tumbles its waves, as in bays of our coast, are, in fact, long narrow valleys, filled with sea, instead of being laid out in fields and meadows... The high rocky banks shelter these deep bays (called fiords) from almost every wind; so that their waters are usually as still as those of a lake. It is difficult to say whether these fiords are the most beautiful in summer or in winter. In summer they glitter with golden sunshine; and purple and green shadows from the mountain and forest lie on them; and these are scarcely more lovely than the faint light of the winter noons and the snowy pictures of frozen peaks which then show themselves on the surface; then before the day is half over, out come the stars, the glorious stars, which shine like nothing that we have ever seen ... There the planets cast a faint shadow, as the young moon does with us; and these planets, and the constellations of the sky, are imaged on the waters so clearly that the fisherman, as he unmoors his boat for his evening task, feels as if he were about to shoot forth his vessel into another heaven, and to cleave his way among the stars. The Still as everything is to the eye, sometimes for a hundred miles together along these deep sea valleys, there is rarely silence. The ear is kept awake by a thousand voices... In the summer there are cataracts leaping from ledge to ledge of the rocks; and there is the bleating of the kids that browse there, and the flap of the great eagle's wings, as it dashes abroad from its eyrie* and the cries of whole clouds of sea-birds which inhabit the islets: and all these sounds are mingled and multiplied by the strong echoes, till they become a din as loud as that of a city...Even at night, when the flocks are in the fold, and the birds at roost, and the echoes themselves seem to be asleep, there is occasionally a sweet music heard, too soft for even the listening ear to catch by day...Every breath of summer wind that steals through the pine forests makes this music as it goes. stiff spiny leaves of the fir and pine vibrate with the breeze, like the strings of a musical instrument, so that every breath of the night-wind in a Norwegian forest wakens a myriad of tiny harps; and this gentle and mournful music may be heard in gushes the whole night through...This music, of course, ceases when each tree becomes laden with snow; but yet there is sound in the midst of the long winter night. There is the rumble of some avalanche, as, after a drifting storm, a mass of snow, too heavy to keep its place, slides and tumbles from the mountain peak... Nor is this all. Wherever there is a nook between the rocks on the shore, where a man may build a house, and clear a field or two;—wherever there is a platform beside the cataract where the sawyer may plant his mill, and make a path from it to join some great road, there is a human habitation, and the sounds that belong to it...Thence, in winter nights, come music and laughter, and the tread of dancers, and the hum of many voices. The Norwegians are a social and hospitable people; and they hold their gay meetings, in defiance of their arctic climate, through every season of the year. Feats of the Fiord. * Eyrie or aerie (é-ry), nest of an eagle or hawk, &c.; also, covey of birds. THE COPPER MINE OF FAHLUN. IN one part of Dalecarlia stands a town, which may well be called the Black Town. It is generally covered with a thick smoke, so thick, that often you could not see three steps before you. The approach to this gloomy place is - by a dark and dreary road, between walls and hills of brown slag*...It is a town of burnt metal through which you advance. The streets are black, the houses are black, all that you see is black. No, the water is yellow-green, and before you, where the way terminates, sulphurcolored flames ascend... The smoke has destroyed all wood and verdure: instead of grass and trees, there is deformity and desolation; and in place of the sweet smell of flowers, a constant sulphurous fume. Now you may think this a very disagreeable town; but the Swedes are very proud of it; indeed, it is the chief town in Dalecarlia...And as to the sulphurous smoke, though it makes one sneeze, and cough, and feel nearly suffocated at times, yet the people do not grumble; and when Queen Christiana visited this extraordinary place, and her courtiers expressed a fear that the strong fumes annoyed her, she answered in a cheerful tone, "God grant that such a smoke may never fail !"...For this is the town of Fahlun, which, from its large, celebrated, and valuable copper-mine, may be styled "the eighth wonder of the world." Amidst all the gloom, blackness, and desolation of Fahlun, the eye rests with pleasure on two handsome churches, with their lofty towers and copper roofs. As we advance along the strange and gloomy road, we hear the humming of the roaring flames, and see them as they blaze wild and changeable in the distance... Those flames rise from the ovens where the copper is roasted. How black the streets are! and how deserted and dull! Ah! now the wind has blown the smoke right in our faces; it makes us cough terribly, but we will hasten on... There you see is the huge mouth of the great copper mine. Is it not large? What an abyss! Yes; just like an underground giant opening * Slag, vitreous, cindery refuse of iron- (and other) works. an enormous mouth. And from this wide, deep, dark opening have been cast up for ages, treasures of noble metal...The wealth of Sweden comes from the bowels of the earth, and from the depths of the sea. The timber on her stately hills, the iron and copper in her mines, and the fisheries on her coasts-these are her riches... Now let us lean over this low fence round the mouth of the mine, and look down into the black gulf. We see nothing but a dark abyss; we hear nothing but the thunder of the blasting, and the hollow echoes repeating it. Yes, if you gaze steadfastly down you will see a light. There is another; and another: they move-can they be torches carried by men?...Yes; though the men appear like birds, or rather, ants. They are coming up from still deeper regions. It makes one giddy to look down. We go into the mine-house, which stands opposite to the descent...Here we put on a black blouse, a leathern belt, and a felt hat with a broad brim; which are to protect our clothes from smoke and soot. Now we go into the landing-room, in which a fire has burnt time out of mind: no one remembers when it was kindled... Through the hundreds of years during which the mine has been worked, this fire has burned upon its brink. Even once when the mine fell in, and no one could work, the miners would not allow the fire to go out...Here are the guides with their pine torches! We must also carry a lighted torch. And now we go down the dark, winding staircase... What a wonderful place it is! We are now 270 feet below the surface of the earth, but one may go very much deeper. This mine is like a town underground; with its astonishingly intricate passages, shafts, caverns, and halls. More than 1,200 miners were formerly employed at once in it, and it is said it would require eight days to go through all its rooms and passages... Some of these rooms have curious names. There is the Jewel, the Crown, the Sceptre, Prince Oscar's Path, the Black Knight, the Imperial Apple, the North Star, the Silver Region, the King's Hall, the Copper Dragon, &c., &c... See how the walls glitter when the guide strikes his torch against them! Look at the beautiful colors, red, gold, and green. When the great Gustavus Adolphus |