my companions. In this respect, as compared with natural
daylight, there is the same difference as between truth and
falsehood, but if the reader have ever travelled through the dark
Valley, he will have learned to be thankful for any light that he
could get--if not from the sky above, then from the blasted soil
beneath. Such was the red brilliancy of these lamps that they
appeared to build walls of fire on both sides of the track,
between which we held our course at lightning speed, while a
reverberating thunder filled the Valley with its echoes. Had the
engine run off the track,--a catastrophe, it is whispered, by no
means unprecedented,--the bottomless pit, if there be any such
place, would undoubtedly have received us. Just as some dismal
fooleries of this nature had made my heart quake there came a
tremendous shriek, careering along the valley as if a thousand
devils had burst their lungs to utter it, but which proved to be
merely the whistle of the engine on arriving at a stopping-place.

The spot where we had now paused is the same that our friend
Bunyan--a truthful man, but infected with many fantastic
notions--has designated, in terms plainer than I like to repeat,
as the mouth of the infernal region. This, however, must be a
mistake, inasmuch as Mr. Smooth-it-away, while we remained in the
smoky and lurid cavern, took occasion to prove that Tophet has
not even a metaphorical existence. The place, he assured us, is
no other than the crater of a half-extinct volcano, in which the
directors had caused forges to be set up for the manufacture of
railroad iron. Hence, also, is obtained a plentiful supply of
fuel for the use of the engines. Whoever had gazed into the
dismal obscurity of the broad cavern mouth, whence ever and anon
darted huge tongues of dusky flame, and had seen the strange,