The second part of the land of the dead, called Tartarus, the leaders of the people also minutely described. According to their description, this abode of the wicked presents the horrid view of precipices, caverns, and abysses, more frightful than those we see on earth. Those caverns communicate to each other in the profundities of the earth, through the medium of sinuosities vast and dark, and of subterraneous canals, in which waters flow; the ones cold, and the others warm: also in several of those canals flow torrents of fire, and in others the filthiest mire. The vastest of those caverns is in the center; and into it four main rivers ebb, to spring out again. The first is the Acheron, which forms beneath the earth a shoreless marsh, wherein the souls assemble. The second is the Pyriphlegeton, which rolls torrents of burning sulphur. The third is the Cocyte; and the fourth is the Styx. In this horrible abode divine justice tortures the criminals. At the gate of the Tartarus the frightful Tisiphon, whose gown is reeking with blood, watches day and night. The gate is also defended by a strong tower, backed by three walls, which are surrounded by the burning waves of the Phlegeton river, that rolls huge stones on fire. There are incessantly heard the rattle of chains dragged by wretched victims; their groans; and the strokes of lashes that tear their flesh. There is seen an hydra with a hundred heads, whose mouths are ever gaping for new victims to be devoured. There a vulture is constantly feeding on the ever re-growing entrails of a criminal. Other victims carry a heavy rock to the summit of a mountain, where they must set it; but, vain are their efforts, it rolls down to the bottom of the valley. Other criminals, tied to a wheel, relentlessly revolving, are not permitted the slightest rest in their torture. Others, placed near refreshing waters, and near trees loaded with fruit, are ever devoured with unquenchable thirst and hunger. If they stoop to drink the water flies from their mouth, and a stinking mire sticks to their lips. If they lower a limb to cull a fruit, the limb slips from their hand.