Being arrived at the end of this doleful and execrable lane, I came into a large open, barren plain, thro’ which ran a river, whose water was as black as my hat: Coming to the banks of this wonderful river, an old ill-look’d wrinkl’d fellow in a tatter’d boat, which did not seem to be worth a groat, making towards the shoar, beckon’d, and held out his right-hand to me: Knowing nothing of his business or character, I could not imagine what he meant by doing so; but upon second thoughts, thinking he had a mind to have his fortune told, _You must understand, old gentleman_, says I to him, _that there are three principal lines in a man’s hand, the first of which is called by the learned_ Ludovicus Vives, _Secretary to_ Tamerlain _the magnificent, the_ linea boetica, _line of life; the second, the_ linea hepatica, _or liver line; the third and last, the_ linea intercalaris, _so call’d by_ Sebastian Munster _and_ Erra Pater, _because it crosses the two aforesaid lines in an equicrural parabola_. Hold your impertinent stuff, says the old ferryman, _erra_ me no _erra paters_, but speak to the point, and give me my fare, if you design to come over. By this I perceiv’d my mistake, and knew him to be _Charon_: So I dived into my pockets, but alas! I found all the birds were flown, if ever any had been there, which you may believe, gentlemen, was no small mortification to me. Get you gone for a rascally scoundrel as you are, says _Charon_, some son of whore of a fiddler, or player, I warrant you; go and take up your quarters with those pennyless rogues that are sunning themselves on yonder hillock. To see now how a man may be mistaken by a fair outside! when I came up to ’em, I found them a parcel of jolly well-look’d fellows, who, one would have thought were wealthy enough to have fined for sheriffs: I counted, let me see, six princes of the empire that were younger brothers, ten _French_ counts, fourteen knights of _Malta_, twelve _Welsh_ gentlemen, sixteen _Scotch_ lairds, with abundance of chymists, projectors, insurers, noblemens creditors, and the like; that were all wind-bound for want of the ready _rhino_. Two days we continued in this doleful condition; and as Dr. _Sherlock_ says of himself, in relation to the 13th chapter of the _Romans_, _here I stuck, and had stuck till the last conflagration, if it had not been for bishop_ Overall_’s Convocation-Book_; e’en so here we might have tarry’d world without end, if an honest teller of the _Exchequer_, and a clerk of the _pay-office_, had not come to our relief; who understanding our case, cry’d out, _Come along, gentlemen, we have money enough to defray twenty such trifles as this; God be prais’d, we had the good luck to die before the parliament looked into our accounts_. With that they gave _Charon_ a broad-piece each of ’em, so our whole caravan consisting of about 70 persons in all, that had not a farthing in the world to bless themselves, ferry’d over to the other side of the river.