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On the Scharfberg I had a hay-litter in a wooden shed and ate goat's cheese and bread and butter. I saw no sunset or sunrise, but had a night of wind and rain, and came down in the morning through white mist within a rugged guily ploughed up by the rain, to get a wholesome breakfast at St. Gilgen on the lake. More I need not say about the journey than that, on the fifth day after leaving Ebensee, having rested a little in the very beautiful city of Salzburg, I marched into the town of Hallein, at the foot of the Dürrnberg, the famous salt mountain, called Tumal by old chroniclers, and known for a salt mountain seven hundred and thirty years ago.

After a night's rest in the town, I was astir by five o'clock in the morning, and went forward on my visit to the mines. In the case of the Durrnberg salt mine, as I have already said, the miner enters at the top and comes out at the bottom. My first business, therefore, was to walk up the mountain, the approach to which is by a long slope of about four English miles.

I met few miners by the way, and noticed in them few peculiarities of manners or costume. The national dress about these regions is a sort of cross between the Swiss Alpine costume and a common peasant dress of the lowlands. I saw indications of the sugarloafed hat; jackets were worn almost by all, with knee-breeches and colored leggings. The clothing was always neat and sound, and the clothed bodies looked reasonably healthy, except that they had all remarkably pale faces. The miners did not seem bodily to suffer from their occupation.

As I approached the summit of the Dürrnberg, the dry, brownish limestone showed its bare front to the morning sun. I entered the offices, partly contained in the rock, and applied for admission into the dominion of the gnomes. My arrival was quite in the nick of time, for I had not to be kept waiting, as I happened to complete the party of twelve, without which the two guides do not start. It was a Tower of London business; and, as at the Tower, the demand upon our purses was not very heavy. One gulden-schein about tenpence is the regulated fee. Our full titles having been duly put down in the register, each of us was furnished with a miner's costume, and, so habited, off we set.

We started from a point that is called the Obersteinberghauptstollen; our guides only having candles, one in advance, the other in the rear.

We were sensible of a pleasant coldness in the air when we had gone a little way into the sloping tunnel. The tunnel was lofty, wide, and dry. Having walked downwards on a gentle decline for a distance of nearly three thousand feet through the half gloom

and among the echoes, we arrived at the mouth of the first shaft, named Freudenberg, The method of descent is called the "Rolle." It is both simple and efficacious. Down the steep slope of the shaft, and at an angle, in this case, of forty-one and a half degrees, run two smooth railways parallel with each other, and each of about the thickness of a scaffold pole; they are twelve inches apart, and run together down the shaft like two sides of a thick ladder without the intervening rounds. Following the directions and example of the foremost guide, we sat astride one behind the other on this wooden tramway, and slid very comfortably to the bottom, regulating our speed with our hands. The shaft itself was only of the width necessary to allow room for our passage. In this way we descended to the next chamber in the mountain, at a depth of a hundred and forty feet (perpendicular) from the top of the long slide.

We then stood in a low-roofed chamber, small enough to be lighted throughout by the dusky glare of our two candles. The walls and roof sparkled with brown and purple colors, showing the unworked stratum of rock-salt. We stood then at the head of the Untersteinberghauptstulm, and after a glance back at the narrow slit in the solid limestone through which we had just descended, we pursued our way along a narrow gallery of irregular level for a further distance of six hundred and sixty feet. A second shaft there opened us a passage into the deeper regions of the mine. With a boyish pleasure we all seated ourselves again upon a " Rolle". time upon the Johann-Jacob-berg-rolle, which is laid at an angle of forty-five and a half degrees and away we slipped to the next level, which is at the perpendicular depth of another couple of hundred feet.

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We alighted in another chamber, where our candles made the same half gloom, with their ruddy glare into the darkness, where there was the same sombre glittering upon the walls and ceiling. We pursued our track along a devious cutting, haunted by confused and giant shadows, suddenly passing black cavernous sideways that startled us as we came upon them, and I began to expect mummies, for I thought myself for one minute within an old Egyptian catacomb. After traversing a further distance of two thousand seven hundred feet we halted at the top of the third slide, the Königs-rolle. That shot us fifty-four feet deeper into the heart of the mountain. We had become quite expert at our exercise, and had left off considering, amid all these descents and traverses, what might be our real position in the bowels of the earth. Perhaps we might get down to Aladdin's gar den and find trees loaded with emerald and ruby fruits. It was quite possible, for there

was something very cabalistic, very strong of | of which all our lights did not serve to define. enchantment, in the word Konhauserankehr- The boat reached the place for embarcation, schachtricht, the name given to the portion and we, wandering ghosts, half walked and of the mine which we were then descending. Konhauser-return-shaft is, I think, however, about the meaning of that compound word. So far I had felt nothing like real cold, although I had been promised a wintry atmosphere. Possibly with a miner's dress over my ordinary clothing, and with plenty of exercise, there was enough to counteract the effects of the chill air. But our eyes began to ache at the uncertain light, and we all straggled irregularly along the smooth cut shaft level for another sixty feet, and so reached the Konhauser-rolle, the fourth slide we had encountered in our progress.

were half carried into its broad clumsy hulk, and took each his allotted seat in ghostly silence. There was something really terrible in it all; in the slow funereal pace at which we floated across the subterranean lake; in the dead quiet among us, only interrupted by the slow plunge of the oar into the sickly waters. In spite of all the lights that had been kindled we were still in a thick vapor of darkness, and could form but a dreamy notion of the beauty and the grandeur of the crystal dome within which we men from the upper earth were hidden from our fellows. The lights were flared aloft as we crept slugThat cheered us up a little, as it shot us gishly across the lake, and now and then were down another one hundred and eight feet flashed back from a hanging stalactite, but perpendicular depth to the Soolererzeugungs- that was all. The misty darkness about us werk-Konhauser-surely a place nearer than brought to the fancy at the same time fearful ever to the magic regions of Abracadabra. images, and none of us were sorry when we If not Aladdin's garden, something wonderful reached the other shore in safety. There a ought surely by this time to have been rich glow of light awaited us, and there we reached. I was alive to any sight or sound, were told a famous tale about the last archand was excited by the earnest whispering of ducal visit to these salt mines, when some thoumy fellow-adventurers, and the careful direc-sands of lighted tapers glittered and flashed tions as to our progress given by the guides and light-bearers.

With eager rapidity we flitted among the black shadows of the cavern, till we reached a winding flight of giant steps. We mounted them with desperate excitement, and at the summit halted, for we felt that there was space before our faces, and had been told that those stairs led to a mid-mountain lake, nine hundred and sixty feet below the mountain's top; two hundred and forty feet above its base. Presently, through the darkness, we perceived at an apparently interminable distance a few dots of light, that shed no lustre, and could help us in no way to pierce the pitchy gloom of the great cavern. The lights were not interminably distant, for they were upon the other shore, and this gnome lake is but a mere drop of water in the mountain mass, its length being three hundred and thirty, and its breadth one hundred and sixty

feet.

Our guides lighted more candles, and we began to see their rays reflected from the water; we could hear too the dull splashing of the boat, which we could not see, as old Charon slowly ferried to our shore. More lights were used; they flashed and flickered from the opposite ferry station, and we began to have an indistinct sense of a spangled dome, and of an undulating surface of thick, black water, through which the coming boat loomed darkly. More candles were lighted on both sides of the Konhauser lake, a very Styx, defying all the illuminating force of candles, dead and dark in its dim cave, even the limits

about him, and exhibited the vaulted roof and spangled lake in all their beauty. As we were not archdukes, we had our Hades lighted only by a pound of short sixteens.

We left the lake behind us, and then, traversing a further distance of seventy feet along the Wehrschachtricht, arrived at the mouth of the Konhauser Stiege. Another rapid descent of forty-five feet at an angle of fifty degrees, and we then reached Rupertschachtricht, a long cavern of the extent of five hundred and sixty feet, through which we toiled with a growing sense of weariness. We had now come to the top of the last and longest "slide" in the whole Dürrnberg. It is called the Wolfdietrichderg-rolle, and is four hundred and sixty-eight feet long, carrying us two hundred and forty feet lower down into the mountain. We went down this

slide" with the alacrity of school-boys, one after another keeping the pot boiling, and all regulating our movements with great circumspection, for we knew that we had far to go and we could never see more than a few yards before us.

Having gained the ground beneath in safety, our attention was drawn to a fresh water well or spring, sunk in this spot at great cost by order of the archduke, and blessed among miners. Amid all the stone and salt and brine, a gush of pure fresh water at our feet was very welcome to us all. The well was sunk, however, to get water that was necessary for the mining operations. We did not see any of these operations underground, for they are not exhibited; the show

trip underground is only among the ventilating shafts and galleries. Through the dark openings by which we had passed, we should have found our way (had we been permitted) to the miners. I have seen them working in the Tyrol, and their labors are extremely simple. Some of the rock-salt is quarried in transparent crystals, that undergo only the process of crushing before they are sent into the market as an article of commerce. Very little of this grain salt is seen in England, but on the continent it may be found in some of the first hotels, and on the tables of most families. It is cheaper than the loaf salt, and is known in Germany under the title of salzkorn, and in France, as selle de cuisine. In order to obtain a finer grained and better salt, it is necessary that the original salt-crystals should be dissolved, and for this purpose parallel galleries are run into the rock, and there is dug in each of them a dyke or cistern. These dykes are then flushed with water, which is allowed to remain in them undisturbed for the space of from five to twelve months, according to to the richness of the soil; and, being then thoroughly saturated with the salt that it has taken up, the brine is drawn off through wooden pipes from Hallein over hill and dale into the evaporating pans.

promised us a rapid journey. In another ininute, and we were whirring down an incline with a rush and a rattle, through the subterranean passage tunnelled into solid limestone which runs to the outer edge of the Dürrnberg. The length of this tunnel is considerably more than an English mile.

The reverberation and the want of light were nothing, but we were disagreeably sensible of a cloud of fine stone dust, and knew well that we should come out not only stone deaf, but as white as millers. Clinging to our seats with a cowardly instinct, down we went through a hurricane of sound and dust. At length we were sensible of a diminution in our speed, and the confusion of noises so far ceased, that we could hear the panting of our biped cattle. Then, straight before us, shining in the centre of the pitchy darkness, there was a bright blue star suddenly apparent. One of the poor lads in the whisper of exhaustion, and between his broken pantings for breath, told us that they always know when they have got half way by the blue star, for that is the daylight shining in.

A little necessary rest, and we were off again, the blue star before us growing gradually paler, and expanding and still growing whiter, till with an uncontrollable dash, and We had traversed the last level, and had a concussion, we are thrown within a few feet reached what is generally called the end of of the broad incomparable daylight. With the salt-mine; but we were still a long way how much contempt of candles did I look up distant from the pure air and the sunshine. at the noonday sun! The two lads, streamWe had travelled through seven galleries of ing with perspiration, who had dragged us an aggregate length of nearly two miles: we down the long incline were made happy by had floated across an earthy piece of water; the payment we all gladly offered for their had followed one another down six slides, and services. Then, as we passed out of the had penetrated to the depth of twelve hundred mouth of the shaft, by a rude chamber cut out feet into the substance of the mountain lime- of the rock, we were induced to pause and stone, gypsum, and marl. Having done all purchase from a family of miners who reside this, there we were in the very heart of the there a little box of salt crystals, as a memenDürrnberg, left by our guides, and entrusted to of our visit. Truly we must have been to the care of two lank lads with haggard among the gnomes, for when I had reached faces. We stood together in a spacious the inn I spread the brilliant crystals I had cavern, poorly lighted by our candles: there brought home with me on my bedroom winwas a line of tram-rail running through the dow sill, and there they sparkled in the sun middle of it and we soon saw the carriage and twinkled rainbows, changing and shifting that was to take us out of the mountain emerg- their bright colors as though there were a living from a dark nook in the distance. It was ing imp at work within. But when I got up a truck with seats upon it, economically ar- next morning and looked for my crystals, in ranged after the fashion of an Irish jaunting the place where each had stood, I found only car. The two lads were to be our horses, a little slop of brine. That fact may, I have and our way lay through a black hollow in no doubt, be accounted for by the philosoone side of the cavern, into which the tram-phers; but I prefer to think that it was somerail ran.

We took our seats, instructed to sit perfectly still, and to restrain our legs and arms from any straggling. There was no room to spare in the shaft we were about to traverse. Our car was run on to the tram-line, and the two lads, with a sickly smile, and a broad hint at their expected gratuity, began to pull, and

thing wondrous strange, and that I fared marvellously like people of whom I had read in German tales, how they received gifts from the good people who live in the bowels of tho earth, and what became of them. I have bad my experiences, and I do not choose to be sure whether those tales are altogether founded upon fancy.

THE LAW ABOUT BETTING ON PUBLIC ing, a soldier of high rank in the service has

AFFAIRS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

SIR, -Will you allow me to draw the attention of your readers and yourselves to a few evidences that show how careful our law has ever been to discountenance such silly and mischievous wagers as that which Mr. Cobden is making with General Brotherton?

Before quoting a case, I may mention that in the seventh year of Queen Anne's reign, so general do wagers of this kind appear to have become, and the mischief of them so apparent, that an act was passed actually prohibiting them under a penalty.

This act, it appears, only applied to the then existing war, and, after reciting that "Whereas several persons have of late years laid wagers and executed policies for payment of great sums of money upon contingencies relating to the present war, which practice has been found inconvenient to the public," it was enacted that after a certain day in 1709, all wagers relating to the war, and all policies of assurance for payment thereof, should be void, and all persons making such wagers should forfeit double the sum of such wager, one half to the Queen, the other to the prosecutor. This act expired with the war.

Perhaps the best known case in which a gambling agreement of the present kind was held void as contrary to sound public policy is the case of "Gilbert v. Sykes." This case is to be found in the 16th volume of East's Reports, and bears the following marginal note-" A wager by which the defendant received from the plaintiff 100 guineas on the 31st of May, 1802, in consideration of paying the plaintiff a guinea a day as long as Napoleon Bonaparte (then First Consul of the Republic) should live, which bet arose out of a conversation upon the probability of his coming to a violent death by assassination or otherwise, is void on the grounds of immorality and impolicy."

in some measure in his own power means of
provocation and opportunities of giving of-
fence, which might be made matters of excuse
for that very attempt at an invasion which is
the subject of his bet. He has no right to put
himself before the public in such a position
as to make it possible that the faintest shade
of such a suspicion should attach to him; and
however upright, highminded, and honorable
(as, thank God, we know them to be) our
soldiers are, it is not the less public policy
and public duty to restrain them from placing
themselves wantonly in the way of temptation.
It is not to the public advantage that any
subject, be he civil or military, should have a
large direct pecuniary interest in the invasion.
of his country being attempted.

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There is another case of still closer analogy, in which, although no judgment was given, the majority of the judges were against the validity of the wager. It is that of Forster v. Thackeray," cited in "Allen v. Hearn,” 1 Term Reports. That was a wager that war would be declared against France within three months. The opinion of the twelve judges was taken on the point whether the wager were void. The Courts of B. R. and C. P. were of opinion that it was, and the Court of Exchequer contra. No judgment was given."

Such wagers, then, appear to have been at one time prohibited by a penalty, and if, when occurring after that prohibition was removed, they were not always put a stop to, they were, at least, always questioned, and mostly discouraged. I am, Sir, yours,

A BARRISTER.

A CORRESPONDENT of the New York Observer objects to the title Reverend being applied to women. He says:

"Where is the scriptural or ecclesiastical authority for licensing and ordaining women to Lord Ellenborough, in his judgment, com- preach the gospel? I have endeavored to exments, on the one hand, on the adverse in-amine the Bible prayerfully on this subject; I terest which the loss of an annuity of 365 guineas a year, dependent upon the French ruler's life, might arouse in the mind of a subject of this country to the performance of his duty in case of an invasion by that ruler; and, on the other hand, upon the temptation to encourage so foul a crime as assassination, or, at all events, to countenance the idea of it. And he "Is it to be allowed to a subsays,

ject to say that the moral duties which bind man to man are in no hazard of being neglected when put in competition with individual interest?"

can find no authority or warrant for any such order of ministers or bishops; and, as far as I have examined ecclesiastical history, I still remain in the dark. I need more information, tiates, ministers, or bishops. It causes me to before I can fellowship any such order of licenfeel very unpleasant when I meet with such characters."

The Observer adds: "We are not enough in tion. But there is one of the qualifications of the advance of our friend to give him any informaapproved bishop, enumerated by Paul, which wo do not see how these feminine licentiates are to acquire viz., that a bishop must be the This general objection, sir, I think, may husband of one wife." " We fear this text was well be applied to the case before us. As I not duly considered by the association that lithink you said in your article of this morn-censed the candidates referred to. Ev. Post.

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LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 466.-23 APRIL, 1853.

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POETRY: Friend Sorrow, 215; On the Marriage of Napoleon III., 221; Haunted Ground, 225; Elegy written in a Railway Station, 236.

SHORT ARTICLES: Prediction, 254; Lamartine's Eastern Estate, 256.

AN EVENING CONTEMPLATION IN A

COLLEGE.

BY JOHN DUNCOMBE.

THE curfew tolls the hour of closing gates; With jarring sound the porter turns the key, Then in his dreary mansion slumbering waits,

And slowly, sternly, quits it, though for me. Now shine the spires beneath the paly moon, And through the cloisters peace and silence reign;

Save where some fiddler scrapes a drowsy tune, Or copious bowls inspire a jovial strain;

Save that in yonder cobweb-mantled room, Where sleeps a student in profound repose, Oppressed with ale, wide echoes through the gloom

The droning music of his vocal nose.

Within those walls, where through the glimmering shade

Appear the pamphlets in a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow bed till morning laid,

The peaceful fellows of the college sleep.

The tinkling bell proclaiming early prayers,

The noisy servants rattling o'er their head, The calls of business, and domestic cares,

Ne'er rouse these sleepers from their downy bed.

No chatting females crowd their social fire,
No dread have they of discord and of strife,
Unknown the names of husband and of sire,
Unfelt the plagues of matrimonial life.

Oft have they basked beneath the sunny walls,
Oft have the benches bowed beneath their

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How jocund are their looks when dinner calls! How smoke the cutlets on their crowded plate! Oh! let not Temperance, too disdainful, hear How long their feasts, how long their dinners, last:

Nor let the fair, with a contemptuous sneer,

On these unmarried men reflections cast!

The splendid fortune, and the beauteous face

(Themselves confess it, and their sires bemoan) Too soon are caught by scarlet and by lace;

These sons of science shine in black alone.

Forgive, ye fair, th' involuntary fault,
If these no feats of gayety display,
Where through proud Ranelagh's wide-echoing
vault

Melodious Frasi trills her quavering lay.

Say, is the sword well suited to the band?

Does 'broidered coat agree with sable gown? Can Mechlin laces shade a churchman's hand? Or Learning's votaries ape the beaux of town? Perhaps in these time-tottering walls reside

Some who were once the darlings of the fair, Some who of old could tastes and fashions guide, Control the manager, and awe the player.

But Science now has filled their vacant mind With Rome's rich spoils, and Truth's exalted

views,

Fired them with transports of a nobler kind,
And bade them slight all females- but the

muse.

Full many a lark, high towering to the sky Unheard, unheeded, greets the approach of light;

Full many a star, unseen by mortal eye, With twinkling lustre glimmers through the night.

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