We took to our horses again, and went southward towards the very
plain between Troy and the tents of the Greeks, but we rode by a
line at some distance from the shore. Whether it was that the lay
of the ground hindered my view towards the sea, or that I was all
intent upon Ida, or whether my mind was in vacancy, or whether, as
is most like, I had strayed from the Dardan plains all back to
gentle England, there is now no knowing, nor caring, but it was not
quite suddenly indeed, but rather, as it were, in the swelling and
falling of a single wave, that the reality of that very sea-view,
which had bounded the sight of the Greeks, now visibly acceded to
me, and rolled full in upon my brain. Conceive how deeply that
eternal coast-line, that fixed horizon, those island rocks, must
have graven their images upon the minds of the Grecian warriors by
the time that they had reached the ninth year of the siege!
conceive the strength, and the fanciful beauty, of the speeches
with which a whole army of imagining men must have told their
weariness, and how the sauntering chiefs must have whelmed that
daily, daily scene with their deep Ionian curses!
And now it was that my eyes were greeted with a delightful
surprise.
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