as ever beheld by anybody, before or since the days
of Hercules, or than anything that remains to be beheld by travellers in
all time to come. It was a giant!

But such an intolerably big giant! A giant as tall as a mountain; so
vast a giant that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle, and
hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge eyes,
so that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which he was
voyaging. And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his great hands
and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules could discern
through the clouds, was resting upon his head! This does really seem
almost too much to believe.

Meanwhile, the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched
the strand. Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the
giant's visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features;
eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile long, and a mouth
of the same width. It was a countenance terrible from its enormity of
size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many
people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their
strength. What the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to
those who let themselves be weighed down by them. And whenever men
undertake what is beyond the just measure of their abilities, they
encounter precisely such a doom as had befallen this poor giant.

Poor fellow! He had evidently stood there a long while. An ancient
forest had been growing and decaying around his feet; and oak trees, of
six or seven centuries old, had sprung from the acorn, and forced
themselves between his toes.

The giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and,
perceiving Hercules, roared out, in a voice that resembled thunder,
proceeding out of the cloud that had just flitted away from his face.

"Who are you, down at my feet there? And whence do you come in that
little cup?"

"I am Hercules!" thundered back the hero, in a voice pretty nearly or
quite as loud as the giant's own. "And I am seeking for the garden of
the Hesperides!"

"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter. "That is a
wise adventure, truly!"

"And why not?" cried Hercules, getting a little angry at the giant's
mirth. "Do you think I am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads!"

Just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds