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 ! Dead! Silent! Powerless! A mere mountain of clay! Forgive my tears! Nay, I behold your own! Were we to drown the world with them, could the world blame us?

'But to resume: Shall we, my countrymen, suffer this wicked stranger to depart unharmed, and triumph in his treacherous victory, among distant communities of the earth. Shall we not rather compel him to leave his bones here on our soil, by the side of our slain brother's bones, so that, while one skeleton shall remain as the everlasting monument of our sorrow, the other shall endure as long, exhibiting to the whole human race a terrible example of Pygmy vengeance? Such is the question. I put it to you in full confidence of a response that shall be worthy of our national character, and calculated to increase, rather than diminish, the glory which our ancestors have transmitted to us, and which we ourselves have proudly vindicated in our warfare with the cranes.'

The orator was here interrupted by a burst of irrepressible enthusiasm; every individual Pygmy crying out that the national honour must be preserved at all hazards. He bowed, and making a gesture for silence, wound up his harangue in the following admirable manner:—

'It only remains for us, then, to decide whether we shall carry on the war in our national capacity—one united people against a common enemy—or whether some champion, famous in former rights, shall be selected to defy the slayer of our brother Antæus to single combat. In the 68