IN the story of Proteus, as told by Menelaus to 

 Telemachus in the Odyssey, there is much to rouse 

 the attention of anyone who desires to raise the veil 

 under which the face of nature is hidden. 



Menelaus and his companions have given up all hope 

 of ever again reaching home when the story opens. 

 They have been driven to a desert island in the 

 Egyptian waters of the Mediterranean Sea. They have 

 been detained there until they are in actual want of 

 food. The night is fast closing in. No longer able 

 to bear the sight of his foodless ships and hunger-bitten 

 companions, Menelaus has escaped in the evening twi- 

 light to a distant and lonely part of the shore, whither 

 Eidothea, the daughter of Proteus, has gone to meet 

 him. He, dazzled and startled by the bright and sudden 

 apparition, can only listen. She, without a pause, 

 hastens to tell how, every day at noon, on the beach 

 close by, her father (who is a seer to whom Neptune 

 has entrusted the care of a herd of seals or sea-calves), 

 may be seen counting his wards, or else sleeping for a 

 short time, sleep always following the counting unless 

 the numbers are found to be wrong, how while asleep 

 he mav be mastered and made to tell all his master 



