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 As we neared the first island a sound of hammering fell on my ears, and looking before me I saw that the island was peopled by dark and mighty men, cat-headed and dog-headed, who moved immense red-hot masses of metal about as easily as though they were small balls. I requested Niav to hurry by this place, but before we had passed it one of the smiths, seeing that we were hurrying onward, seized a huge mass of the glowing metal in his hands and hurled it after us. The iron fell into the sea, which hissed and boiled and sent up a high column of steam, but we were unhurt.

"The next island we came to was surrounded by a rampart of fire. A terrible bellowing smote our ears as we approached, and on the shore we saw a weird, gigantic animal—like nothing I, at least, had ever seen before—which rushed madly to and fro. It had a head like a lion, and its body resembled that of a horse, and when it caught sight of us it stood upright on its hind legs and pawed the air; then the bones and flesh inside the skin began to turn and twist about, first one way,