The way, hardly discernible in gloom, runs close by
the mouth of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, its noisome
smoke, and its hideous shapes, to terrify the adventurer. Thence he goes
on, amidst the snares and pitfalls, with the mangled bodies of those who
have perished lying in the ditch by his side. At the end of the long dark
valley, he passes the dens in which the old giants dwelt, amidst the bones
and ashes of those whom they had slain.
Then the road passes straight on through a waste moor, till at length the
towers of a distant city appear before the traveller; and soon he is in
the midst of the innumerable multitudes of Vanity Fair. There are the
jugglers and the apes, the shops and the puppet-shows. There are Italian
Row, and French Row, and Spanish Row, and Britain Row, with their crowds
of buyers, sellers, and loungers, jabbering all the languages of the earth.
Thence we go on by the little hill of the silver mine, and through the
meadow of lilies, along the bank of that pleasant river which is bordered
on both sides by fruit-trees. On the left side, branches off the path
leading to that horrible castle, the courtyard of which is paved with the
skulls of pilgrims; and right onwards are the sheepfolds and orchards of
the Delectable Mountains.
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