Pagina 253 di 788

At each step there lie in wait for you, like the dens of wolves,

little lakes, half overgrown with grass, so deep that men cannot

find their bottom; in them it is very probable that devils dwell.

The water of these wells is iridescent, spotted with a bloody

rust, and from within continually rises a steam that breathes

forth a nasty odour, from which the trees around lose their bark

and leaves; bald, dwarfed, wormlike, and sick, hanging their

branches knotted together with moss, and with humped trunks

bearded with filthy fungi, they sit around the water, like a

group of witches warming themselves around a kettle in which they

are boiling a corpse.