Chapter 19

They Go Down Into The Catacombs

With a dull flambeau, we now descended some narrow stone steps, to
view Oh-Oh's collection of ancient and curious manuscripts, preserved
in a vault.

"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