It seemed some thick and monstrous growth of vegetation, and that they were wading through it.

They shrank closely together in the tangle of narrow streets as though for protection, conscious of the strangeness of it all, and how unrelated they were to it.
Children and babies sprawled on the sidewalk and under their feet.
Bareheaded and unkempt women gossiped in the doorways or passed back and forth with scant marketings in their arms.

There was a general odor of decaying fruit and fish, a smell of staleness and putridity.
Big hulking men slouched by, and ragged little girls walked gingerly through the confusion with foaming buckets of beer in their hands.
There was a clatter and garble of foreign tongues and brogues, shrill cries, quarrels and wrangles, and the Pit pulsed with a great and steady murmur, like the hum of the human hive that it was.
"Phew! I 'll be glad when we 're out of it," Fred said.
He spoke in a whisper, and Joe and Charley nodded grimly that they agreed with him.

They were not inclined to speech, and they walked as rapidly as the crowd permitted, with much the same feelings as those of travelers in a dangerous and hostile jungle.
And danger and hostility stalked in the Pit.

The inhabitants seemed to resent the presence of these strangers from the Hill.