Page:Lucian (IA lucianlucas00collrich).pdf/171

Rh possibilities without much of the picturesqueness of an Eastern tale. A burlesque resemblance is kept up throughout to the kind of incident which, in the mouths of the old bards, had passed for history. We read how they came to a brass pillar with an almost illegible inscription, marking the limit of the travels of Hercules and Bacchus, and found near it on a rock the prints of two footsteps, one "measuring about an acre"—plainly that of Hercules; the smaller one, of course, belonged to Bacchus: how they found rivers of native wine,—a manifest confirmation of the visit of the latter god to those parts: and how a whirlwind carried them, ship and all, up into the moon, where they made acquaintance with Endymion, and saw the earth below looking like a moon to them, which shows that Lucian was not so far wrong in his astronomy. How their ship was swallowed by a sea-monster, and they lived inside him a year and eight months, carrying on a small war against a previous colony whom they found established there: and effected their escape at last by lighting an enormous fire, so that the monster died of internal inflammation. After this they made their way to that hitherto undiscovered country, the 'Island of the Blest,' when they were bound in fetters of roses, and led before Rhadamanthus, the king. We have a glowing description of the city, with its streets of gold and walls of emerald, temples of beryl and altars of amethyst; where there was no day or night, but a perpetual luminous twilight; where it was always spring, and none but the south wind blew; and where the vines