Spiers: Memoranda of an autumn tour in 1836

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CONT. AUG. 18. THUR.

wisp of straw in his hand which he waves swiftly backwards & forwards until on arriving at utter darkness, out bursts a flame which renders visible an immensity of vaulted space above us. As soon as one wisp of straw is approaching its consumption, another is taken from the bundle and fifty such were used in the course our progress. If this journal should ever be read by others than myself, I will here mention that I shall not make any apology for copying into it extracts from writers whose descriptions give a better idea of any scenes than I can hope to afford. I shall mark them in quotations which avoids the fault of premeditated plagiarism. The handicraftsman who works up his gold with jewels does not profess the manufacture of the material, but its arrangement. "Behold me then, seated in the boat, - shot from the light of day, - gazing, now upon the roof and its crystallisations, now upon the water, reflecting the glittering flambeau, - ow straining my sight to penetrate into the farther darkness, and now upon the signal baissez la tête, crouching down to avoid having my brains knocked out. Sometimes the stream was rapid - sometimes it was slow, - sometimes the channel was narrow, and sometimes it widened into a lake; at one place the roof was as high as the dome of St Peter's or higher for aught I know to the contrary, for I could not see it: at another place so low as almost to graze the boat." After some distance thus passed, the boat ran up a sloping bank, where we alighted, and proceeded alone with one guide & the bundle of straw, the boatman returning with his vessel. There was necessity now looking below as well as above and around for our path lay over masses of stone & rocks & mud which required all our caution & the assistance of a third supporter, our baton to prevent accident in climbing over

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