ng series
of menageries which have passed over the dark river in the ages now
forgotten; the hanging gardens of Babylon, where the picnicking element
of Hades flock week after week, chuting the chutes, and clambering
joyously in and out of the Trojan Horse, now set up in all its majesty
therein, with bowling-alleys on its roof, elevators in its legs, and
the original Ferris-wheel in its head; the freak museums in the densely
populated sections of the large cities, where Hop o' my Thumb and Jack
the Giant Killer are exhibited day after day alongside of the great
ogres they have killed; the opera-house, with Siegfried himself singing,
supported by the real Brunhild and the original, bona fide dragon
Fafnir, running of his own motive power, and breathing actual fire and
smoke without the aid of a steam-engine and a plumber to connect him
therewith before he can go out upon the stage to engage Siegfried in
deadly combat.

For the information contained in this last item alone, even if the book
had no other virtue, it would be worthy of careful perusal from the
opening paragraph on language, to the last, dealing with the descent
into the Vitriol Reservoir at Gehenna. The account of the feeding of
Fafnir, to which admission can be had on payment of ten oboli, beginning
with a puree of kerosene, followed by a half-dozen cartridges on the
half-shell, an entree of nitro-glycerine, a solid roast of cannel-coal,
and a salad of gun-cotton, with a mayonnaise dressing of alcohol and a
pinch of powder, topped off with a demi-tasse of benzine and a box of
matches to keep the fires of his spirit going, is one of the most
moving things I have ever read, and yet it may be said without fear of
contradiction that until this guide-book was prepared very few of the
Stygian tourists have imagined that there was such a sight to be seen.
I have gone carefully over Dante, Virgil, and the works of Andrew Lang,
and have found no reference whatsoever in the pages of any of these
talented persons to this marvellous spectacle which takes place three
times a day, and which I doubt not results in a performance of Siegfried
for the delectation of the music lovers of Hades, which is beyond the
power of the human mind to conceive.

The hand-book has an added virtue, which distinguishes it from any other
that I have ever seen, in that it is anecdotal in style at times where
an anecdote is available and appropriate. In connection with this same
Fafnir, as s