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223 
A hundred years later and we come to Homer, whose geo- 
graphical knowledge in this direction only extended to the mouth 
of the Bay of Triton. There, as we have seen, he places a 
vegetarian people, so far civilised that they presented the 
phenomenon, strange to our poet, of not considering all foreigners 
as enemies, and were, on the contrary, absolutely kind to travellers. 
Hither then he brings his hero, Ulysses, and though his trans- 
lators—and those who have commented upon his poems—have long 
held this part of the Odyssey to be mere fictions of a poet’s fancy, 
yet, view it in the light of sober reality, and observe how his 
description exactly tallies with that of such a region as we know 
must have here existed. 
“For nine days,” says Ulysses, “I was borne by the wild winds 
across the deep. On the tenth we reached the land of the Lotos- 
eaters, who live on a vegetable diet. There we drew up our ships 
upon the shore, and provided ourselves with water, and my 
comrades partook of their mid-day meal beside their ships. Then 
I sent two of my men, and a third acting as herald, to gain 
acquaintance with the natives. These receive them hospitably, 
_ and give them lotos-berries to eat ; and,” says Homer, “after they 
__ had eaten the sweet fruit of the lotos, they were unwilling to report 
themselves or come back, but wished to live there with the lotos- 
_ eaters, and give up all thoughts of return home.” 
How many an English sailor, after weeks of hard sea-biscuit 
_ and putrid water, landing on an island in the Pacific among 
_ friendly natives, and tasting the bread-fruit, has longed to do the 
same. But Ulysses would have no beach combers : he took the three, 
q and by main force drove them on board, and put them in bonds, 
But the rest, he says, I ordered at once hurriedly to embark, lest 
_ any of them should eat the lotos, and neglect to return. 
Little, I trow, could our Poet Laureate, some twenty-five or 
thirty years ago, when he wrote the Lotos-eaters, know of the Bay 
of Triton and its pre-historic condition, yet, by a strange chance, 
his dream-like picture conveys to the mind probably no untrue 
idea of what must indisputably have been the climate in this sea- 
_enfolded region, 
