Page:LuciansTrueHistory (Hickes).djvu/147

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
TRUE HISTORY.
99

make our beds of the leaves of trees, and burn as much wood as we will: we chase after the birds that fly about us, and go out upon the gills of the monster to catch after live fishes: here we bathe ourselves when we are disposed, for we have a lake of salt water not far off, about some twenty furlongs in compass, full of sundry sorts of fish, in which we swim and sail upon it in a little boat of mine own making. This is the seven-and-twentieth year of our drowning, and with all this we might be well enough contented if our neighbours and borderers about us were not perverse and troublesome, altogether insociable and of stern condition. Is it so, indeed, said I, that there should be any within the whale but yourselves? Many, said he, and such as are unreconcilable towards strangers, and of mon-