The travellers had now fairly entered on the dreary bog of Allen. No human form or habitation met their sight. Its only vegetable productions were a little heath, sedgy grass, or bog myrtle, which were crossed here and there by a half-starved cow or sheep; but they sometimes proceeded miles without even seeing one of these, to remind them that the world contained other living beings besides those in the boat. The road seemed to shake as the horses passed over this
"Boggy Syrtis, neither sea
Nor good dry land;"
and they almost feared that the breaking of the thin stratum of earth, that seemed to separate the waters above from the waters below, might precipitate them
"Into this wild abyss,
The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd
Confusedly——"
Their passage through this dismal region seemed intolerably slow, as no object marked their progress, but one unbroken sea of black lifeless matter encompassed them on every side, from which the eye perceived no escape. When the sun set, the heavens, like the earth, seemed dark and uninhabited; no cloud travelled over its gloomy face, but one even fall of misling rain made the aspect of the ethereal regions as unvaried as that of the land they overhung. The passengers long looked in vain to leave this abode of desolation,—
"Where wilds, immeasurably spread,
Seem length'ning as you go."
CHAPTER XVIII.
Lights! more lights! more lights!
Timon of Athens.