THE GUINEA-FOWL 75 



down the affair to us, it was an animal such as had 

 never been seen before and will never be seen again. 

 Heaven, in its wrath, had sent it to ravage the fields. 

 It surpassed in size, they say, the strongest bulls. 

 From its bloodshot eyes lightning darted; from its 

 horrible mouth exhaled a fiery breath that instantly 

 withered the leaves of trees ; with a few blows of its 

 snout it uprooted oaks ; with its tusks, more formid- 

 able than the elephant's, it ripped up the earth and 

 sent great masses of rock flying like so much dust. 

 What become of the poor people when this brute 

 rushed at them in all its fury? They all fled, wild 

 with terror, their hands upraised to heaven, their 

 voices choked with fright." 



" There must be some exaggeration there," inter- 

 posed Louis. "A wild boar does not grow to such 

 a size and such strength." 



"Yes, ceftainly, there is exaggeration in this as 

 in many other stories in which the real facts, coming 

 down through long centuries, finally become greatly 

 magnified and take on most marvelous additions. 

 Let us bring things back to something like probabil- 

 ity. An enormous wild boar sets the country in a 

 panic. For a people unprovided with good weapons 

 and having no refuge but fragile huts of reed, it must 

 be a very dangerous situation. 



"To exorcise the common peril, Meleager calls to- 

 gether the best men in the neighborhood and places 

 himself at the head of the hunters, among whom are 

 to be found two of his uncles, his mother's brothers, 

 violent men and very jealous of the fame their 



