were the wonder-land of the eastern Greeks. Like Prospero's island, they were thought to harbour very strange beasts. In Sicily dwelt a band of gigantic brethren, who lived, while they had nothing better to eat, on the milk, cheese, and mutton supplied by their flocks, but who were always glad to mend their fare by devouring strangers unlucky enough to come into their neighbourhood. This ill luck befell Ulysses and his ship's crew—sole survivors of the Ithacan flotilla—on their return from Troy. Contrary winds had driven them far from their course: want of water compelled them to land on the Sicilian shore. In quest of spring or brook, they go to the cavern of the Cyclops. He, fortunately for them, is not just then at home; but his servants, Silenus and the Satyrs, are within, and after a short parley with their unexpected visitors, they consent to supply their need, and even to sell the Greek captain some of their master's goods, tempted by the quite irresistible bribe of a flask of excellent wine. It may be as well to say at once what had brought such strange domestics into the Cyclops' country, and thus the reader will see why they were so glad to taste wine again, and why they acted dishonestly in selling the lambs and kids. The Satyrs had lost their lord and master Bacchus, who had been carried off by Tyrrhenian pirates. So they left their homes in Arcadian highland or Thessalian woods, and went to sea in quest of him, lovers of the wine-cask as they were. Probably these hairy and unkempt folks were imperfectly versed in navigation, or they may have had a drunken steersman, or the winds may have been as perverse as they were to
