10. All these evil beings are very properly classed together under the general name of "creations of the Abyss," births of the nether world, the world of the dead. For the unseen world below the habitable earth was naturally conceived as the dwelling place of the departed spirits after death. It is very remarkable as characteristic of the low standard of moral conception which the Shumiro-Accads had attained at this stage of their development, that, although they never admitted that those who died ceased to exist altogether, there is very little to show that they imagined any happy state for them after death, not even as a reward for a righteous life, nor, on the other hand, looked to a future state for punishment of wrongs committed in this world, but promiscuously consigned their dead to the ARALI, a most dismal region which is called the "support of chaos," or, in phrase no less vague and full of mysterious awe, "the Great Land" (_Ki-gal_), "the Great City" (_Urugal_), "the spacious dwelling," "where they wander in the dark,"--a region ruled by a female divinity called by different names, but most frequently "Lady of the Great Land" (_Nin-ki-gal_), or "Lady of the Abyss" (_Nin-ge_), who may then rather be understood as Death personified, that Namtar (Pestilence) is her chief minister. The Shumiro-Accads seem to have dimly fancied that association with so many evil beings whose proper home the Arali was, must convert even the human spirits into beings almost as noxious, for one or two passages appear to imply that they were afraid of ghosts, at least on one occasion it is threatened to send the dead back into the upper world, as the direst calamity that can be inflicted. 11. As if all these terrors were not sufficient to make life a burden, the Shumiro-Accads believed in sorcerers, wicked men who knew how to compel the powers of evil to do their bidding and thus could inflict death, sickness or disasters at their pleasure. This could be done in many ways--by a look, by uttering certain words, by drinks made of herbs prepared under certain conditions and ceremonies. Nay, the power of doing harm sometimes fatally belonged even to innocent persons, who inflicted it unintentionally by their look--for the effect of "the evil eye" did not always depend on a person's own will.