I was blindfolded, and taken to the lime room first.  I think it must have been situated at a great distance from the room we left, for he led me down several flights of stairs, and through long, low passages, where it was impossible to stand erect.  At length we entered a room where the atmosphere seemed laden with hot vapor.  My blinder was removed, and I found myself in a pleasant room some fifteen feet square.  There was no furniture of any kind, but a wide bench, fastened to the wall, extended round three sides of the room.  The floor looked like one solid block of dark colored marble; not a crack or seam to be seen in it, but it was clouded, highly polished, and very beautiful.  Around the sides of the room, a great number of hooks and chains were fastened to the wall, and a large hook hung in the center overhead.  Near the door stood two men, with long iron bars, some two inches square, on their shoulders.

The priest directed me to stand upon the bench, and turning to the men, he bade them raise the door.  They put down their bars, and I suppose touched a concealed spring, for the whole floor at once flew up, and fastened to the large hook over head.  Surprised and terrified, I stood wondering what was to come next.  At my feet yawned a deep pit, from which, arose a suffocating vapor, so hot, it almost scorched my face and nearly stopped my breath.  The priest pointed to the heaving, tumbling billows of smoke that were rolling below, and; asked, “How would you like to be thrown into the lime?” “Not at all,” I gasped, in a voice scarcely audible, “it would burn me to death.”  I suppose he thought I was sufficiently frightened, for he bade his men close the door.  This they did by slowly letting down the floor, and I could see that it was in some way supported by the chains attached to the walls but in what manner I do not know.

I was nearly suffocated by the lime smoke that filled the room, and though I knew not what was in reserve for me, I was glad when my blinder was put on, and I was led away.  I think we returned the same way we came, and entered another room where the scent was so very offensive, that I begged to be taken out immediately.  Even before my eyes were uncovered, and I knew nothing of the loathsome objects by which we were surrounded, I felt that I could not endure to breathe an atmosphere so deadly.  But the sight that met my eyes when my blinder was removed, I cannot describe, nor the sensations with which I gazed upon it.  I can only give the reader some faint idea of the place, which, they said, was called the fasting room, and here incorrigible offenders fasted until they starved to death.  Nor was this all.  Their dead bodies were not even allowed a decent burial, but were suffered to remain in the place where they died, until the work of death was complete and dust returned to dust.  Thus the atmosphere became a deadly poison to the next poor victim who was left to breathe the noxious effluvia of corruption and