days, both with sails and oars.

During the progress of these preparations, small parties of Trojans
were coming in continually, day by day, to join him; being drawn
successively from their hiding-places among the mountains, by hearing
that the Greeks had gone away, and that AEneas was gradually assembling
the remnant of the Trojans on the shore. The numbers thus collected at
AEneas's encampment gradually increased, and as AEneas enlarged and
extended his naval preparations to correspond with the augmenting
numbers of his adherents, he found when he was ready to set sail, that
he was at the head of a very respectable naval and military force.

When the fleet at last was ready, he put a stock of provisions on
board, and embarked his men,--taking, of course, Anchises and Ascanius
with him. As soon as a favorable wind arose, the expedition set sail.
As the vessels moved slowly away, the decks were covered with men and
women, who gazed mournfully at the receding shores, conscious that
they were bidding a final farewell to their native land.

[Illustration: WANDERINGS OF AENEAS.]

The nearest country within reach in leaving the Trojan coast, was
Thrace--a country lying north of the Egean Sea, and of the Propontis,
being separated, in fact, in one part, from the Trojan territories,
only by the Hellespont. AEneas turned his course northward toward this
country, and, after a short voyage, landed there, and attempted to
make a settlement. He was, however, prevented from remaining long, by
a dreadful prodigy which he witnessed there, and which induced him to
leave those shores very precipitously. The prodigy was this:

They had erected an altar on the shore, after they had landed, and
were preparing to offer the sacrifices customary on such occasions,
when AEneas, wishing to shade the altar with boughs, went to a myrtle
bush which was growing near, and began to pull up the green shoots
from the ground. To his astonishment and horror, he found that blood
flowed from the roots whenever they were broken. Drops of what
appeared to be human blood would ooze from the ruptured part as he
held the shoot in his hand, and fall slowly to the ground. He was
greatly terrified at this spectacle, considering it as some omen of
very dreadful import. He immediately and instinctively offered up a
prayer to the presiding deities of the land, that they would avert
from him the evil influences, whatever they might be, which the omen
seemed to p