THE LABYRINTH OF THE WORLD
17
immediately under the clouds. Gazing down The gate from here, J see on the earth a town seemingly of en"**^cÂŽ fine and beautiful, and very broad, but I could in every direction perceive its boundaries and limits. And it was built in the shape of a circle, and provided with walls and ramparts ; and instead of a ditch there was a dark, deep valley, which, as it seemed to me, had neither banks For only above the city was there nor bottom. light ; everywhere around it there was sheer darkness.
{The
Now
Situation
of the World.)
saw that the
city itself was divided into countless streets, squares, houses, bigger and 2.
I
smaller buildings
;
and
it
was crowded with
To the east I saw a people as if with insects. kind of gateway, from which a narrow street led to another gate that looked westward. From the second gate only one entered into the various I counted six streets of the city. principal
from east to west side by side, and in the centre of them there was a large, round square or market-place ; behind it there stood to the west, on a rocky, abrupt hillock, a high and splendid castle, at which almost all the inhabitants of the town gazed. streets all running
{The Gate of Entrance and Separation.
the
Gate of
)
3. And my guide, Impudence, said to me Here, pilgrim, thou hast this dear world which :
"
thou wast 80 desirous to behold.
I
have, there-
fore, first led thee to this height that
thou mayest