112 A MARAUDING EXPEDITION. 



matter which sometimes puzzles the ingenuity of civilized cabi- 

 nets ; but, like bold border chieftains or honest freebooters, our 

 warlike pigmies always set at nought such empty preliminaries. 

 That moral sensitiveness is not theirs, which must wrap up 

 motives in a cloak, to hide them, if possible, even from them- 

 selves ; and as for their neighbours, since it never consorts 

 with their tactics to give notice of an incursion, they cannot 

 to them, of course, attempt to justify the making it. 



It was towards the close of a fine summer's day, that the 

 army of the Eufians, consisting of a large body of infantry, was 

 seen issuing from their capital.. Their march soon brought 

 them to an arid sandy plain, strewn with rocky fragments, be- 

 tween which they pursued their way in winding but unbroken 

 files, their polished brown corselets glistening like sparks of fire 

 in the glow of the declining sun. Marching with great rapidity, 

 considering their diminutive stature, they soon traversed this 

 desert-like tract without loss or accident, a matter for no small 

 congratulation, seeing the manifold dangers to which their ex- 

 posed route had rendered them liable. In the first place, that 

 which to our little Amazons appeared, as we have described 

 it, a rock-strewn plain, was none other than a public causeway, 

 used by the gigantic creatures who consider themselves the 

 lords of the land, and had one of these happened to pass by 

 during the transit of the Eufian army, his direful footfall 

 would have enveloped whole divisions in awful darkness, to 

 be followed by annihilation. 



