A GARDEN IN VENICE 



break, perhaps twenty yards in length, was drawn 

 up. This done with very hard labour, each length 

 as recovered was unscrewed for future use. Next, 

 the broken lengths were fished for, but uselessly, 

 and abandoned. So we had to begin again with 

 some loss of gear and much of labour, planting 

 a fresh length of tubes within a yard or so of the 

 fractured one. 



Another day we passed through peat which 

 gave us not a little trouble. This peat would 

 seem to be decayed and gave off gas. The gas 

 would light with a match and often blew up 

 without one, throwing mud and sand twenty feet 

 into the air. The explosion choked the whole 

 tube with debris. The force-pump was then put 

 in action, and it often took a day or two of hard 

 work to clear the main tube. At last at sixty 

 metres, say two hundred feet, we arrived. 



It was a most exciting moment. There was 

 the extracted heap of sand and mud and dirt all 

 around, and a dozen sandy or dirty men watching 

 with triumphant looks the drops of dirty water, 

 that all of themselves came up the tube and 



n 97 



