Part 9 (2/2)

THE FIRST GIANT.--THE ISLANDS OF GEESE AND GOSLINGS.--THE DANCING GIANTS.

The narrative of Pigafetta, the Knight of Rhodes, has much curious lore in regard to giants. At a place on the coast, formerly called Cape St.

Mary, the first of these giants appeared.

He was a leader of a tribe ”who ate human flesh.” The lively Knight of Rhodes informs us that this man, who towered above his fellows, ”had a voice like a bull.”

He came to one of the captains' s.h.i.+ps and asked--of course in sign language; for a man may have a ”voice like a bull” and yet fail to be understood in cannibal tongues--if he might come on board the s.h.i.+p and bring his fellows with him.

He left a quant.i.ty of goods on the sh.o.r.e. While he was negotiating at the s.h.i.+ps, his people on the sh.o.r.e, who seem to have been unusually wise and prudent, began to remove the stores of goods from exposure to danger to a kind of castle at some distance.

The officers of the s.h.i.+ps grew inpatient when they saw the tempting goods being thus removed. So they landed a hundred men to recover the goods, which they seemed to have deemed theirs after the ”right of discovery.”

The men began to run after the provident natives, when they became greatly surprised. The natives seemed to _fly_ over the ground, and leave them behind at a humiliating distance.

”They did more in one step than we could do at a bound,” says Pigafetta, Knight of Rhodes.

The giant people here showed that there was need to approach them with caution. Some time before, these ”Canibali” had captured a Spanish sea captain and sixty men, who had landed and pastured inland to make discoveries. They ate them all--a fearful feast!

Our voyagers probably had no desire to go too far inland in view of such a warning; so they returned and proceeded on their course toward the antarctic pole.

They discovered two small islands, which had more agreeable inhabitants than the land of Cape St. Mary. ”These islands,” says our good Knight Pigafetta, ”were full of geese and goslings and sea wolves.” He adds: ”We loaded five s.h.i.+ps with them for an hour.”

The Knight has also left us the following curious picture of the birds, which must have been very much surprised at being so rudely disturbed:

”The geese are black, and have feathers all over the body of the same size and shape; and they do not fly but live on fish, and they were so fat that we did not pluck them, but skinned them. They have beaks like that of a crow.

”The sea wolves of these islands are of many colors and of the size and thickness of a calf, and have a head like a calf, and ears small and round. They have teeth but no legs, but feet joining close to the body, which resemble a human hand. They have small nails to their feet, and skin between the fingers like geese.

”If these animals could run they would be very bad and cruel, but they do not stir from the waters, and swim and live upon fish.”

This seems to be a very admirable description of a sea wolf, O Knight of Rhodes!

A great storm came down upon the s.h.i.+ps here. But, marvelous to relate, the fiery body of good St. Anselmo or Anseline ”appeared to us, and immediately the storm ceased.”

The fleet sailed away again and came to Port St. Julian, the true land of the giants, of which place our Knight has some very interesting stories to tell.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The world according to the Ptolemy of 1548.]

The fleet entered the Port of St. Julian. It was winter, and for a long time no human beings appeared.

Suddenly one day a most extraordinary sight met the eyes of some of the adventurers. Our Knight's description of this being is very vivid. He says:

”One day, without any one's expecting it, we saw a giant who was on the sh.o.r.e of the sea, quite naked, and was dancing and leaping and singing, and, while singing, he put sand and dust on his head.” The Captain of one of the s.h.i.+ps, who first saw this extraordinary creature, said to one of the sailors:

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