98 



GIANTS, AND PIGMIES. 



in Ethiopia. Some say that they were no more than one foot 

 high, and that they built their houses with egg shelh. 

 Aristotle says that they lived in holes under the earth, and 

 that they came out in the harvest time with hatchets to cut the 

 grain, as if it were a forest. They rode on goats and lambs of 

 proportionable stature, to make war upon certain birds, called 

 cranes (Gr. Geranoi), which came yearly from Scythia to 

 plunder them. The latter were originally governed by Oerana, 

 a princess who was changed into a crane, for boasting that she 

 was tairer than Juno. The battles of the " Pigmies and 

 Cranes " were disastrous to the former. The Pigmies were 

 exterminated. These wars are pictorially represented on ancient 

 vases, and they are often referred to by classical writers. Thus 

 Homer, in his Iliad, Book in., lines 3, 4, 5, 6, compares the 

 mustering of the Greeks to battle against Troy : 



* * * * * " As when the Cranes 

 Fleeing the wintery storms, send forth on high. 

 Their dissonant clamours, while o'er the ocean stream. 

 They steer their course and on their pinions bear. 

 Battle and death to the Pigmaean race. — Derh^s Translation. 



MORAL. 



" Pigmies are pigmies still, though perched on Alps, 

 And pyramids art pyramids in vales." — Pope. 



