The Revolutionist Occupation of La-chi-mi 213 
inwards several degrees and were kept in position by 
another set of timbers, one wedged between each pair, the 
latter serving also to support the roof, which was con- 
sequently even more contracted in width than the floor. 
Along the side of the tunnel ran a gutter down which flowed 
the brine when the pumps were at work, and being now 
dry, the sandy bottom, even in the feeble light of the oil 
lamp, glittered as though covered with hoar-frost. 
After walking in a cramped position a distance of a 
hundred and twenty paces along a fairly level floor, and 
acquiring a severe crick in the neck as a result, we reached 
the first pump. From this point two passages branched off 
and we now descended rapidly by a steep flight of roughly- 
hewn steps into the bowels of the mountain. Meanwhile 
the height of the tunnel had contracted to four feet, and the 
atmosphere was close and hot. At the foot of the steps we 
reached a second level and espied close at hand a big pool 
of brine into which dipped the other end of the wooden 
tube we had just seen above. This tube, the bore of 
which was about four inches in diameter, was in reality the 
barrel of the pump, and the reason why the pump was at 
present out of action now became apparent, for the depth 
of brine was not sufficient to cover the lower end of the 
tube. 
From this level, where there was a second pump, another 
steep descent took us to a still lower level where there was 
another pool of brine and yet a third pump communicating 
directly with the main brine reservoir, sunk deep in the 
heart of the mountain as it seemed; but to this, the real 
brine well, which received percolating contributions no doubt 
from vast distances, the two pools above being artificial 
reservoirs dependent on the pumps, we did not descend. 
Thus the brine is pumped from level to level by relays 
of pumps, each operated by one man, until it reaches the 
gutter in the main tunnel and is run off to the several 
evaporating houses. 
We now returned to the upper world as I wished to 
ascertain how the pump worked—a very simple business, 
seeing that it consisted only of a barrel and plunger. This 
barrel was made, not of bamboo as one might have expected, 
but of a hollowed tree-trunk, perhaps pine, though the bark 
