The Orpiment Mines of Chitral 153 



My guide now disappeared into the hole at 

 the end of the chamber, and I had to follow. 

 There was no room to crawl, and the only 

 mode of progression was to lie down full length 

 and work oneself along with one's toes. As 

 the air was very foul and full of sulphurous 

 dust, I made up my mind not to visit any 

 more orpiment mines in future, and if it had 

 been possible to turn round and retire I think 

 I should have done so. After traversing some 

 forty feet, which seemed as many miles, in this 

 painful manner, we at length reached another 

 chamber in which it was possible to sit up. 

 Here at last was the orpiment, and it was 

 really almost worth the trouble of coming to 

 see. Except where the roof had been black- 

 ened by the smoke of our torches the miners 

 do their work in the dark for the sake of the 

 purer air the walls of the mine appeared a 

 scintillating, dazzling mosaic of gold and rubies. 

 The light from our torches was thrown back 

 from an infinite number of glittering points, 

 in which every shade of red and yellow, from 

 the deepest ruby to the most brilliant scarlet, 

 and from old gold to the palest sulphur, were 

 intermingled to form an indescribable blaze of 

 colour. After admiring this subterranean splen- 

 dour for a while, and breaking off a few specimens 



