第253页 / 共788页

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.