“This way, this way, my masters,” cried Oh-Oh, aloft, swinging his dim torch.  “Keep your hands before you; it’s a dark road to travel.”

“So it seems,” said Babbalanja, wide-groping, as he descended lower and lower.  “My lord this is like going down to posterity.”

Upon gaining the vault, forth flew a score or two of bats, extinguishing the flambeau, and leaving us in darkness, like Belzoni deserted by his Arabs in the heart of a pyramid.  The torch at last relumed, we entered a tomb-like excavation, at every step raising clouds of dust; and at last stood before long rows of musty, mummyish parcels, so dingy-red, and so rolled upon sticks, that they looked like stiff sausages of Bologna; but smelt like some fine old Stilton or Cheshire.

Most ancient of all, was a hieroglyphical Elegy on the Dumps, consisting of one thousand and one lines; the characters,—­herons, weeping-willows, and ravens, supposed to have been traced by a quill from the sea-noddy.

Then there were plenty of rare old ballads:—­
    “King Kroko, and the Fisher Girl.” 
    “The Fight at the Ford of Spears.” 
    “The Song of the Skulls.”

And brave old chronicles, that made Mohi’s mouth water:—­
    “The Rise and Setting of the Dynasty of Foofoo.” 
    “The Heroic History of the Noble Prince Dragoni; showing
        how he killed ten Pinioned Prisoners with his Own Hand.” 
    “The whole Pedigree of the King of Kandidee, with that of his
        famous horse, Znorto.”

And Tarantula books:—­
    “Sour Milk for the Young, by a Dairyman.” 
    “The Devil adrift, by a Corsair.” 
    “Grunts and Groans, by a Mad Boar.” 
    “Stings, by a Scorpion.”

And poetical productions:—­
    “Suffusions of a Lily in a Shower.” 
    “Sonnet on the last Breath of an Ephemera.” 
    “The Gad-fly, and Other Poems.”

And metaphysical treatises:—­
    “Necessitarian not Predestinarian.” 
    “Philosophical Necessity and Predestination One Thing and The
        Same.” 
    “Whatever is not, is.” 
    “Whatever is, is not.”

And scarce old memoirs:—­
    “The One Hundred Books of the Biography of the Great and
        Good King Grandissimo.” 
    “The Life of old Philo, the Philanthropist, in one Chapter.”

And popular literature:—­
    “A most Sweet, Pleasant, and Unctuous Account of the Manner
        in which Five-and-Forty Robbers were torn asunder by
        Swiftly-Going Canoes.”

And books by chiefs and nobles:—­
    “The Art of Making a Noise in Mardi.” 
    “On the Proper Manner of Saluting a Bosom Friend.” 
    “Letters from a Father to a Son, inculcating the Virtue of Vice.” 
    “Pastorals by a Younger Son.” 
    “A Catalogue of Chieftains who have been Authors, by a Chieftain,
        who disdains to be deemed an Author.” 
    “A Canto on a Cough caught by my Consort.” 
    “The Philosophy of Honesty, by a late Lord, who died in disgrace.”