But our last excursion must be directed, by way of Upsala, to the iron-mines of Danemora.

The little village of Danemora is embosomed in woods.  It contains a small church and a few scattered houses of various dimensions.  The neighbourhood abounds in the usual indications of a mining locality.  Madame Pfeiffer arrived in what is called “the nick of time,” and just opportunely, to witness the blasting of the ore.  From the wide opening of the largest mine it is possible to see what passes below; and a strange and wonderful sight it is to peer down into the abyss, four hundred and eighty feet deep, and observe the colossal entrances to the various pits, the rocky bridges, the projections, arches, and caverns excavated in the solid rock.  The miners appear so many puppets; their movements can hardly be distinguished, until the eye has grown accustomed to the darkness and to their diminutive size.

At the given moment a match was applied to four trains of gunpowder.  The man who lighted them immediately sprang back, and hid himself behind a wall of rock.  In a minute or two came the flash; a few stones were hurled into the air; and immediately afterwards was heard a loud detonation, and the shattered mass fell in fragments all around.  Echo caught up the tremendous explosion, and carried it to the furthest recesses of the mine; while, to enhance the terror of the scene, one rock was hardly shivered before another crash was heard, and then a third, and immediately afterwards a fourth.

[Iron-mine of Danemora:  page179.jpg]

The other pits are still deeper, one of them being six hundred feet beneath the ground; but as they are smaller in their openings, and as the shafts are not always perpendicular, the gaze is soon lost in the obscurity, which produces a dismal effect upon the spectator.  The iron obtained from the Swedish mines is of excellent quality, and large quantities are annually exported.

* * * * *

Madame Pfeiffer now began her homeward journey, and, by way of Hamburg and Berlin, proceeded to Dresden.  Thence she returned to Vienna on the 6th of October, after an absence of six months.

CHAPTER IV.—­LAST TRAVELS.

Madame Pfeiffer set out on what proved to be her final expedition, on the 21st of May 1856.  She proceeded to Berlin, thence to Amsterdam, Leyden, Rotterdam; visited London and Paris; and afterwards undertook the voyage to the Cape of Good Hope.  Here she hesitated for a while in what direction she should turn her adventurous steps before she pushed forward to the goal of her hopes—­Madagascar.  At length she decided on a visit to the Mauritius; and it is at this part of her journey that we propose to take up her record.

[Port Louis, Mauritius:  page183.jpg]