THE FIGHT. 117 



plunder, and above all, for the rape of Fuscan babies, to be- 

 come the future slaves of their own rising generation. Oh ! 

 for a Homer's pen to describe the universal ardour and the 

 individual prowess of our pigmy Amazons. By far more nu- 

 merous are the dusky Fuscans, though in discipline and 

 personal strength they are much inferior to the warlike 

 Rufians. Of the latter we have spoken, hitherto, as Lillipu- 

 tians, but now we have to treat of them as opposed to a tribe 

 of very inferior stature. 



The battle-field, an area of some four feet square, is strewed 

 with dead and dying. Sulphureous fumes exhale around. 

 Single combatants by thousands, each so eager in their re- 

 spective contests as to seem unconscious of all besides, have 

 spent their ammunition ; but with rancour undiminished, be- 

 hold them now, limb to limb, head to head, seized by each 

 other and held in savage grip now wrestling upright, now 

 rolling in the dust ; long does the dubious strife continue, till 

 a third, Rufian or Fuscan, comes to turn the balance and 

 throw death into the ascending scale. In another quarter, see 

 perhaps a dozen combatants of either party, all firmly linked 

 together in a living chain, dashing, writhing like a wounded 

 snake in serpentine convulsions, till snap goes a link beneath 

 a mortal blow ; but in an instant the dissevered portions re- 

 unite, and struggle on with double fury. 



Look now at that powerful long-limbed Rufian and the ac- 

 tive little Fuscan, her opponent : the latter springs like a cat o' 



