THE MEN FROM TROY
have to be pleasant to some of these tribesmen and let them have a lot of their own way.
"And then, when I turned round, one of them, the man I told you about, that is, was by me in the trench, and we started to chat. He had his spear in his hand and his short sword by his side, and he carried his shield on his arm. A wonderful bit of work that shield was, covered with all sorts of queer figures; regular native work, that takes about a hundred years to finish. They don't care: they've plenty of time and nothing to do. There was a man with thunderbolts in his hand sitting on a throne, and a naked woman coming out of the sea, and a little chap hammering away like a blacksmith, and a fellow with the sun behind him shooting with a bow and arrows; all of them his native gods, I suppose. He
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