tor and Pollux, the
twin brothers, who were never accused of being chicken-hearted, although
they had been hatched out of an egg; and Theseus, who was so renowned
for killing the Minotaur, and Lynceus, with his wonderfully sharp eyes,
which could see through a millstone, or look right down into the depths
of the earth, and discover the treasures that were there; and Orpheus,
the very best of harpers, who sang and played upon his lyre so sweetly,
that the brute beasts stood upon their hind legs, and capered merrily
to the music. Yes, and at some of his more moving tunes, the rocks
bestirred their moss-grown bulk out of the ground, and a grove of forest
trees uprooted themselves, and, nodding their tops to one another,
performed a country dance.

One of the rowers was a beautiful young woman, named Atalanta, who had
been nursed among the mountains by a bear. So light of foot was this
fair damsel, that she could step from one foamy crest of a wave to
the foamy crest of another, without wetting more than the sole of her
sandal. She had grown up in a very wild way, and talked much about the
rights of women, and loved hunting and war far better than her needle.
But in my opinion, the most remarkable of this famous company were two
sons of the North Wind (airy youngsters, and of rather a blustering
disposition) who had wings on their shoulders, and, in case of a calm,
could puff out their cheeks, and blow almost as fresh a breeze as their
father. I ought not to forget the prophets and conjurors, of whom there
were several in the crew, and who could foretell what would happen
to-morrow or the next day, or a hundred years hence, but were generally
quite unconscious of what was passing at the moment.

Jason appointed Tiphys to be helmsman because he was a star-gazer, and
knew the points of the compass. Lynceus, on account of his sharp sight,
was stationed as a look-out in the prow, where he saw a whole day's sail
ahead, but was rather apt to overlook things that lay directly under his
nose. If the sea only happened to be deep enough, however, Lynceus could
tell you exactly what kind of rocks or sands were at the bottom of it;
and he often cried out to his companions, that they were sailing
over heaps of sunken treasure, which yet he was none the richer for
beholding. To confess the truth, few people believed him when he said
it.

Well! But when the Argonauts, as these fifty brave adventurers were
called, had prepared everythin