ng embarkation. In a word, the tidings soon spread
throughout the city, that the Greeks had at length become weary of the
protracted contest, and were making preparations to withdraw from the
field. These proceedings were watched, of course, with great interest
from the walls of the city, and at length the inhabitants, to their
inexpressible joy, found their anticipations and hopes, as they
thought, fully realized. The camp of the Greeks was gradually broken
up, and at last entirely abandoned. The various bodies of troops were
drawn off one by one to the shore, where they were embarked on board
the ships, and then sailed away. As soon as this result was made sure,
the Trojans threw open the gates of the city, and came out in
throngs,--soldiers and citizens, men, women and children together,--to
explore the abandoned encampment, and to rejoice over the departure of
their terrible enemies.

The first thing which attracted their attention was an immense wooden
horse, which stood upon the ground that the Greek encampment had
occupied. The Trojans immediately gathered, one and all, around the
monster, full of wonder and curiosity. AEneas, in narrating the story,
says that the image was as large as a mountain; but, as he afterward
relates that the people drew it on wheels within the walls of the
city, and especially as he represents them as attaching the ropes for
this purpose to the _neck_ of the image, instead of to its fore-legs,
which would have furnished the only proper points of attachment if the
effigy had been of any very extraordinary size, he must have had a
very small mountain in mind in making the comparison. Or, which is
perhaps more probable, he used the term only in a vague metaphorical
sense, as we do now when we speak of the waves of the ocean as running
mountain high, when it is well ascertained that the crests of the
billows, even in the most violent and most protracted storms, never
rise more than twenty feet above the general level.

At all events, the image was large enough to excite the wonder of all
the beholders. The Trojan people gathered around it, wholly unable to
understand for what purpose the Greeks could have constructed such a
monster, to leave behind them on their departure from Troy. After the
first emotions of astonishment and wonder which the spectacle awakened
had somewhat subsided, there followed a consultation in respect to
the disposal which was to be made of the prodigy. The opinions