258 ACCUMULATED HORKOES. 



terer's 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 her long hairy legs meet around our 

 neck. By a desperate effort we threw off our disgusting bur- 

 then, 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 be- 

 twixt 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 ? We had escaped 

 with life from the hideous assemblage through which we had 

 achieved a passage. We had managed to avoid the fangs of 

 the murderous 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-bQttles ; but what 

 we had left behind was nothing, to what awaited us an ap- 



