Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/78

56 fancy. In the generality of giants, the bones of the legs do not enlarge in proportion: being unable, on this account, to support the heavy weight of the body, the inferior extremities become crooked and enfeebled. It was thus that the legs of the giant described by Haller were weak and mis-shapen; and those of our giant come under the same description. Notwithstanding they are, comparatively speaking, small, his feet may be brought in competition with those of Pedro Cano. The total weight of his body is fourteen arrobas and a half, or three hundred and sixty-two pounds.

Basilio Huaylas, the Peruvian giant, is represented in Plate III. As it would be difficult, from the singularity of his proportions, to form any clear judgment of his size, without a figure of comparison, a musician is introduced, holding a harp, as pourtrayed in the original painting from which the subjects are taken.

One of the reasons which have been adduced, to throw doubts on the existence of gigantic nations, is the want of the productions requisite to their support. To each individual an apple would be a cherry, and a melon an apple. It would therefore be necessary that they should possess the revenues of the Emperor Maximinus, whose ordinary meal consisted of forty pounds of meat, as many of bread, and thirty-six bottles of wine; and that the rest of the inhabitants of the earth should be employed in administering to their insatiable appetites, as happened to the countrymen of a certain glutton, named