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 islands no one might arrest us, thinking we were putting in on another errand.

Forging ahead, we had passed out of the fragrant atmosphere when of a sudden a terrible odour greeted us as of asphalt, sulphur, and pitch burning together, and a vile, insufferable stench as of roasting human flesh: the atmosphere was murky and foggy, and a pitchy dew distilled from it. Likewise we heard the noise of scourges and the wailing of many men. The other islands we did not touch at, but the one on which we landed was precipitous and sheer on all sides; it was roughened with rocks and stony places, and there was neither tree nor water in it. We crawled up the cliffs, however, and went ahead in a path full of thorns and calthrops, finding the country very ugly. On coming to the enclosure and the place of punishment, first of all we wondered at the nature of the region. The ground itself was all sown with sword blades and calthrops, and around it flowed three rivers, one of mud, the second of blood and the inmost one of fire. The latter was very large, and impossible to cross: it ran like water and undulated like the sea, and it contained many fish, some similar to torches, and some, a smaller variety, to live coals. They called them candlefish. There was a single narrow way leading in, past all the rivers, and the warder set there was Timon of Athens. We got through, however, and with Nauplius for our conductor we saw many kings undergoing punishment, and many commoners too. Some of them we even recognized, and we saw Cinyras 335