Page:The Other Life.djvu/214

 "There are also thick forests in which the infernal spirits wander like wild beasts, and where also are subterranean dens into which those can flee who are pursued by others. There are also deserts where everything is barren and sandy. Into these are cast those who in the world have been more cunning than others in practicing deceit."

"In some hells there is an appearance as of ruins of houses and cities after fires, in which ruins the infernal spirits dwell and conceal themselves. In the milder hells there is an appearance of rude cottages, in some cases contiguous, having the aspect of a city with lanes and streets. Within the houses are infernal spirits engaged in continual quarrels, enmities, blows, and fightings; in the streets and lanes robberies and depredations are committed."

This weird region of fantasy and shadow, where the light is lurid and ghastly, and the fierce alternations of heat and cold are terrible, is haunted also, by correspondence with the evil shades of its inhabitants, by innumerable species of birds and beasts of prey and myriads of hideous and venomous reptiles, which represent outwardly in form and character the evil lusts and cruelties of the