ntaeus was the Pygmy people's friend;
for there was more strength in his little finger than in ten million of
such bodies as this. If he had been as ill-natured to them as he was
to everybody else, he might have beaten down their biggest city at one
kick, and hardly have known that he did it. With the tornado of his
breath, he could have stripped the roofs from a hundred dwellings and
sent thousands of the inhabitants whirling through the air. He might
have set his immense foot upon a multitude; and when he took it up
again, there would have been a pitiful sight, to be sure. But, being
the son of Mother Earth, as they likewise were, the Giant gave them his
brotherly kindness, and loved them with as big a love as it was possible
to feel for creatures so very small. And, on their parts, the Pygmies
loved Antaeus with as much affection as their tiny hearts could hold. He
was always ready to do them any good offices that lay in his power;
as for example, when they wanted a breeze to turn their windmills, the
Giant would set all the sails a-going with the mere natural respiration
of his lungs. When the sun was too hot, he often sat himself down, and
let his shadow fall over the kingdom, from one frontier to the other;
and as for matters in general, he was wise enough to let them alone,
and leave the Pygmies to manage their own affairs--which, after all, is
about the best thing that great people can do for little ones.

In short, as I said before, Antaeus loved the Pygmies, and the Pygmies
loved Antaeus. The Giant's life being as long as his body was large,
while the lifetime of a Pygmy was but a span, this friendly intercourse
had been going on for innumerable generations and ages. It was written
about in the Pygmy histories, and talked about in their ancient
traditions. The most venerable and white-bearded Pygmy had never heard
of a time, even in his greatest of grandfathers' days, when the Giant
was not their enormous friend. Once, to be sure (as was recorded on
an obelisk, three feet high, erected on the place of the catastrophe),
Antaeus sat down upon about five thousand Pygmies, who were assembled at
a military review. But this was one of those unlucky accidents for which
nobody is to blame; so that the small folks never took it to heart, and
only requested the Giant to be careful forever afterwards to examine the
acre of ground where he intended to squat himself.

It is a very pleasant picture to imagine Antaeus standi