seen Prince Jason and the Princess Medea, side
by side, stealing through the streets of Colchis,
on their way to the sacred grove, in the centre
of which the Golden Fleece was suspended to
a tree. While they were crossing the pasture
ground, the brazen bulls came towards Jason,
lowing, nodding their heads, and thrusting forth
their snouts, which, as other cattle do, they loved
to have rubbed and caressed by a friendly hand.
Their fierce nature was thoroughly tamed; and,
with their fierceness, the two furnaces in their
stomachs had likewise been extinguished, inso-
much that they probably enjoyed far more com-
fort in grazing and chewing their cuds than ever
before. Indeed, it had heretofore been a great
inconvenience to these poor animals, that, when-
ever they wished to eat a mouthful of grass, the
fire out of their nostrils had shrivelled it up,
before they could manage to crop it. How they
contrived to keep themselves alive is more than
I can imagine. But now, instead of emitting
jets of flame and streams of sulphurous vapor,
they breathed the very sweetest of cow breath.

After kindly patting the bulls, Jason followed
Medea's guidance into the Grove of Mars, where
the great oak trees, that had been growing for

[[331]]

p330 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p331w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p332

v?