The air in it was damp and comparatively warm, water dripped from the roofs of the galleries into little pools here and there on the floors, and the ladders in the main shaft were slippery with mud. Why it should thaw in this mine and freeze in the mine of Algachí, only four miles away, I could not understand, nor did Mr. Nésterof seem to be able to give me a satisfactory explanation. In the mine of Algachí there was no water, and the galleries for seventy-five or a hundred feet together were lined with frost-crystals and ice. In the mine of Pokrófski there was no ice at all, and the shaft and galleries were dripping with moisture. The air in the Pokrófski mine seemed to be pure, and our candles everywhere burned freely. Only a few men were at work, and they seemed to be engaged in hauling up ore in small buckets by means of a cable and a primitive hand-windlass.
After climbing up and down slippery ladders until I was covered with mud, and walking in a bent posture through
low galleries until my back ached, I told Mr. Nésterof that I was satisfied, and we returned, tired and bathed in perspiration, to the tool-house. The convict who had accompanied us through the mine blew out his tallow candle, and without taking the trouble completely to extinguish the wick laid it, still all aglow, in a small wooden box,
