All around, followed by the rolling and
falling of the blasted masses. Repeated echoes announced the
fearful explosion in the interior of the pits: the whole left a
terrible impression on me. Scarcely had one mine ceased to rage,
when the second began, then the third, and so on. These blastings
take place daily in different mines.
The other pits are deeper, the deepest being 600 feet; but the
mouths are smaller, and the shafts not perpendicular, so that the
eye is lost in darkness, which is a still more unpleasant sensation.
I gazed with oppressed chest into the dark space, vainly
endeavouring to distinguish something. I should not like to be a
miner; I could not endure life without the light of day; and when I
turned from the dark pits, I cast my eyes thankfully on the cheerful
landscape basking in the sun.
I returned to Upsala on the same day, having made this little
journey by post. I can merely narrate the facts, without giving an
opinion on the good or bad conveniences for locomotion, as this was
more a pleasure-trip than a journey.
As I had hired no carriage, I had a different vehicle at every
station, and these vehicles consisted of ordinary two-wheeled wooden
carts.
