258 ACCUMULATED HORRORS. 



bulk we ran the gauntlet through this infernal crew, and at 

 length, when almost exhausted, reached our door. But 

 entrance was even then not easy, for our portal was barricaded 

 by thick silken ropes stretched across it in all directions. 

 Unable to break, we contrived to sever them with our pocket- 

 knife ; but (horror of horrors !) no sooner were the cords 

 divided, than rapidly descending by one of them which hung 

 loose above our head, a spider, big as a baboon, alighted on 

 our shoulders, and made 1 her long hairy legs meet around our 

 neck. By a desperate effort we threw off our disgusting 

 burthen, and, opening the house-door, shut it with all possible 

 celerity ; but one of the spider's arms, stretched out to renew 

 her grasp, crackled like a lobster's claw as we jammed it 

 betwixt door and door-frame. As we entered our parlour a 

 deafening buzz was our first salutation, and the daylight, 

 obscured as it was without, could here scarcely penetrate at all 

 by reason of a swarm of gigantic flies, which, unable to find 

 room in the window, were crowding in double and triple ranks 

 around it. Hastily retreating, we descended to the kitchen ; 

 but here how shall we proceed ? AVe had escaped with life 

 from the hideous assemblage through which we had achieved 

 a passage. "We had managed to avoid the fangs of the mur- 

 derous bloated creature which had fastened upon our door, and 

 then fastened upon us. We had shut her out, and we had 

 shut in the swollen sickening blue-bottles ; but what we had 

 left behind was nothing to what awaited us - - an appalling 



