is very much resembled
the savor which travelers in summer perceive at their approach to that
beautiful village of the Hague, arising from those delicious canals
which, as they consist of standing water, do at that time emit odors
greatly agreeable to a Dutch taste, but not so pleasant to any other.
Those perfumes, with the assistance of a fair wind, begin to affect
persons of quick olfactory nerves at a league's distance, and increase
gradually as you approach. In the same manner did the smell I have just
mentioned, more and more invade us, till one of the spirits, looking out
of the coach-window, declared we were just arrived at a very large
city; and indeed he had scarce said so before we found ourselves in the
suburbs, and, at the same time, the coachman, being asked by another,
informed us that the name of this place was the City of Diseases. The
road to it was extremely smooth, and, excepting the above-mentioned
savor, delightfully pleasant. The streets of the suburbs were lined
with bagnios, taverns, and cooks' shops: in the first we saw several
beautiful women, but in tawdry dresses, looking out at the windows; and
in the latter were visibly exposed all kinds of the richest dainties;
but on our entering the city we found, contrary to all we had seen in
the other world, that the suburbs were infinitely pleasanter than the
city itself. It was indeed a very dull, dark, and melancholy place. Few
people appeared in the streets, and these, for the most part, were old
women, and here and there a formal grave gentleman, who seemed to be
thinking, with large tie-wigs on, and amber-headed canes in their hands.
We were all in hopes that our vehicle would not stop here; but, to our
sorrow, the coach soon drove into an inn, and we were obliged to alight.

CHAPTER III

The adventures we met with in the City of Diseases.

We had not been long arrived in our inn, where it seems we were to spend
the remainder of the day, before our host acquainted us that it was
customary for all spirits, in their passage through that city, to pay
their respects to that lady Disease, to whose assistance they had owed
their deliverance from the lower world. We answered we should not
fail in any complacence which was usual to others; upon which our host
replied he would immediately send porters to conduct us. He had not long
quitted the room before we were attended by some of those grave persons
whom I have before described in large t