308 LEA^^S FROM THE 



dile rejoiced, stretched at his ease on the margin. 

 Straightway did the priests approach him. Some opened 

 his mouth, one acolyte popped in the cake, another 

 crammed do'svn the meat, and the whole was finished by 

 pouring down the wine ; when Suchos plunged into the 

 pond and swam over to the other side to take his siesta. 

 If many pilgrims visited his shrine with similar offerings 

 in the course of a day, the deity must have occasionally 

 afforded the awful spectacle of 'a drunken monster,' 

 second only to that of Lablache's Caliban. 



What a wondrous piece of acting that is ! The brutal 

 passion — the cunning ignorance — the monster lower than 

 the man but higher than the brute — something between 

 a chimpanzee and humanity, with a strong dash of his 

 devilish dam in him, are brought out as no actor but 

 that great artist could portray them ; and when the 

 mass warms up under the influence of Trinculo's bottle 



but words cannot convey the personification : go 



and see him. Why will not some gifted master write a 

 Sicilian opera, i£ Acis and Galatea will not suffice, and 

 present Lablache as Pol}^ihemus? All Europe would 

 crowd to behold the incarnation of the Cyclops. 



But my pen is running away with me as usual, and 

 must be brought back to these well-fed and well-ap- 

 pointed crocodiles, which were looked up to with some 

 faith as oracles of divination. If the crocodile sponta- 

 neously took the cake, or other food offered, it was a 

 good omen : but if the offering was unheeded or rejected, 

 the worst might be expected. There was a dark story 

 that the priests concluded, from such a rejection, that 

 Ptolemy's death was near. 



Geoffi'oy seemed to think that the SucJios was a mild 

 and inoffensive species, whose more gentle nature led the 

 Egyptians to deify and tame it ; but, to say nothing of 

 the fugitive characters relied on by him as constituting 

 specific difference — characters which can hardly be viewed 



