29. All these celestials then, bowed down their heads in veneration; and all joined with their prostrate bodies to praise the dark goddess of Night, who is the refuge and resort of all. 30. The celestials said:--May that goddess protect us her protégés, who is immaculate and incomparable, and has the grey braids of Brahmá’s hairs, tied at the top of her _khattanga_ ensign, and the heads of the slain Daityas, strung to the neck-chain hanging on her breast; who wears the feathers of _Garuda_ on her head, and who after devouring the world, drinks off the deep also at the end. CHAPTER CXXXIV. THE STORY OF THE CARCASS CONTINUED. Argument:--Description of the body of the Goddess, and her food of the carcass, and drink of the blood. Vipaschit continued:--All this time I was looking at the carcass, that had fallen from above, and covered the whole surface of the earth under it. 2. I distinguished that part of its body which was its belly, and had hid in it the whole earth, with all its seven continents and immeasurable mountain. 3. I was then told by the god of fire, that there was no limitation of its arms and thighs, and of the extent of its head; and that it had fallen from beyond the polar region, which <is> inaccessible to mankind. 4. The Goddess who is so much lauded by the celestials, is the manifestation of vacuum, which of itself becomes dry (_i.e._ is naturally empty and void). 5. She is represented as accompanied by ghosts and furies, as followed by demons and hobgoblins, which walk in her train, and shine as stars and meteors in the open firmament. 6. Her long and muscular arms, are stretched to the skies as the tall pines of the forest; and her eyeballs flash forth with living fire, and scatter the solar beams all around. 7. The flashing weapons in her hands, were jangling in the sky; and her missiles were darting like flocks of birds flying from their aerial nests. 8. Her flaming body and flashing eyes and limbs, glistened with the glare of a bush of reeds set on fire, or as the sparkling of a flight of arrows in the midway air. 9. Her glittering teeth, shed the lustre of the beaming moon, and brightened the faces of the four quarters of heaven, with a milk white splendour; while her tall slender stature, reached to and touched the sky. 10. She stood supportless, like the stretching clouds of the evening sky; and was mounted on a dead body, as if she rested on the blessed seat of Brahmá. (_Brahma pada_ the throne of God, Elysium, Valhalla or Nirvána). 11. She shone in her brilliant form, like the crimson clouds of evening; and added to the ocean of the etherial expanse, the burning blaze of submarine fire. 12. She was flaunting in her decorations of human skeleton and bones, and flourishing her weapons of the mallet and others; and darting her arrows all around, as a mountain scatters its flowers all about.