We were
consigned for four months to a place foul beyond comparison. As to the dungeon
in which this Wronged One and others similarly wronged were confined, a dark
and narrow pit were preferable. Upon Our arrival We were first conducted along
a pitch-black corridor, from whence We descended three steep
flights of stairs to the place of confinement assigned to Us. The dungeon was
wrapped in thick darkness, and Our fellow prisoners numbered nearly a hundred
and fifty souls: thieves, assassins and highwaymen. Though crowded, it had no
other outlet than the passage by which We entered. No pen can depict that
place, nor any tongue describe its loathsome smell. Most of these men had
neither clothes nor bedding to lie on. God alone knoweth what befell Us in that
most foul-smelling and gloomy place!
- Baha’u’llah (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)
