As soon as the ships had been calked and repaired, and fresh food had been taken in, James Brayer gave the word to sail; and the fleet set out, with the feeble shouts of the good old men in their ears, from the Island of Macreons.
Two days after this the fleet touched at the Island of Ruach, which Pantagruel found to be the strangest, in one thing, of any he had yet seen.
That one thing was wind.
In other words, the people of Ruach lived on wind. They had nothing else to live on; they ate nothing, they drank nothing, but wind. The very houses they built were always as near windmills as they could build them. In their gardens they never grew cabbages, peas, beans, radishes,—only three different kinds of anemones, or wind-flowers. When they felt hungry, and there happened to be no wind stirring, the common people of the island, to start a breeze, used fans of feathers, or of paper, or of linen, as their means allowed. As for the rich, they lived by the whirl of their windmills,—the finest and the strongest wind, they declared, they could ever eat. Whenever they had a feast, the Ruachians would spread their tables under one windmill, and, if the table was long enough, it was made to stretch under two. While they were eating, or rather drinking, in the wind from the great-winged mills, the guests would be discussing among themselves the excellence, beauty, and rarity of their various kinds of wind. One would smack his lips, and whistle out,—they all whistled instead of talking:—
"Ah! how delightful this south-west breeze!"
Another: "How refreshing this south-east?"
Another: "But do taste a little of this western, I beg you! How healthful!"
Another: "How choice this east-by-north!"
Another: "Will none of you join me in this exquisite south?" and so forth.