Page:The Works of John Locke - 1823 - vol 03.djvu/359

 9. You will not indeed always light on the very page you want, because of the breaches, that are made in different editions of books, and that are not always equal in proportion; but you are never very far from the place you want; and it is better to be able to find a passage, in turning over a few pages, than to be obliged to turn over a whole book to find it, as it happens when the book has no index, or when the index is not exact.

.] "Pratum, ficta mortuorum habitatio, est locus prope Memphin, juxta paludem, quam vocant Acherusiam," &c. This is a passage out of D. Siculus, the sense whereof is this: the fields, where they feign that the dead inhabit, are only a place near Memphis, near a marsh called Acherusia, about which is a most delightful country, where one may behold lakes and forests of lotus and calamus. It is with reason that Orpheus said, the dead inhabit these places, because there the Egyptians celebrate the greatest part, and the most august, of their funeral solemnities. They carry the dead over the Nile, and through the marsh of Acherusia, and there put them into subterraneous vaults. There are a great many other fables, among the Greeks, touching the state of the dead, which very well agree with what is at this day practised in Egypt. For they call the boat, in which the dead are transported, Baris; and a certain piece of money is given to the ferryman for a passage, who, in their language, is called Charon. Near this place is a temple of Hecate in the shades, &c. and the gates of Cocytus and Lethe, shut up with bars of brass. There are other gates, which are called the gates of truth, with the statue of justice before them, which has no head. Marsham. $$\tfrac{259}{626}$$.