strings were loosened,
forth rushed the whistling blasts, like air out of a blown bladder,
whitening the sea with foam, and scattering the vessels nobody could tell
whither.

Immediately after escaping from this peril, a still greater one had
befallen him. Scudding before the hurricane, he reached a place which, as
he afterwards found, was called Laestrygonia, where some monstrous giants
had eaten up many of his companions, and had sunk every one of his
vessels, except that in which he himself sailed, by flinging great masses
of rock at them, from the cliffs along the shore. After going through such
troubles as these, you cannot wonder that King Ulysses was glad to moor
his tempest-beaten bark in a quiet cove of the green island, which I began
with telling you about. But he had encountered so many dangers from
giants, and one-eyed Cyclops, and monsters of the sea and land, that he
could not help dreading some mischief, even in this pleasant and seemingly
solitary spot. For two days, therefore, the poor weather-worn voyagers
kept quiet, and either stayed on board of their vessel or merely crept
along under cliffs that bordered the shore; and to keep themselves alive,
they dug shell-fish out of the sand, and sought for any little rill of
fresh water that might be running towards the sea.

Before the two days were spent, they grew very weary of this kind of life;
for the followers of King Ulysses, as you will find it important to
remember, were terrible gormandizers, and pretty sure to grumble if they
missed their regular meals, and their irregular ones besides. Their stock
of provisions was quite exhausted, and even the shell-fish began to get
scarce, so that they had now to choose between starving to death or
venturing into the interior of the island, where, perhaps, some huge
three-headed dragon or other horrible monster had his den. Such misshapen
creatures were very numerous in those days; and nobody ever expected to
make a voyage or take a journey without running more or less risk of being
devoured by them.

But King Ulysses was a bold man as well as a prudent one; and on the third
morning he determined to discover what sort of a place the island was, and
whether it were possible to obtain a supply of food for the hungry mouths
of his companions. So, taking a spear in his hand, he clambered to the
summit of a cliff, and gazed round about him. At a distance, towards the
centre of the island, he beheld the stately to