LANDING AT THE ISLE OF PICTURES.
"What brings all you good people here?" asked Pantagruel of a cripple, who was getting along as fast as he could hobble.
"Our great Fair, mighty Giant. Our Fair is held here every year."
"Have you anything there worth the trouble of walking to see?"
"Oh, yes! Your Highness. Many wonderful things are brought here by the great merchants of Asia and Africa; yes, and from all parts of the world, too."
"We are in time, then, to see these wonderful things," said the Giant.
Once at the Fair, Pantagruel and his friends were delighted with the number and variety of the finest tapestry pictures ever brought together. There was nothing on the earth—whether men, country, cities, palaces, farm-houses, mountains, ravines, valleys, lakes, trees, flowers, birds, rivers, beasts, fishes—that was not to be found worked in tapestry by skilful hands at that most wonderful of Fairs. Everybody bought a picture,—Friar John, Epistemon, Eusthenes, Carpalim, Panurge,—everybody, even Gymnaste, who had never before in all his days seen tapestry. And it was here, while Pantagruel was standing, deep in thought, before a bit of tapestry Epistemon had bought, that Xenomanes came up and tried in every way to catch his eye. All those around were too busy in making good bargains for themselves with the merchants to help him; so, after half a dozen efforts, he shook his white head gravely, and walked away.
It was Gymnaste who bought the largest and finest tapestry of all, representing the "Life and Feats of Achilles," in seventy-eight pieces, eight yards long and six yards wide, all made of Phrygian silk, embossed with gold and silver.
"Is that fit for a rough fellow like thee, Gymnaste?" asked Panurge, with his nose turned up in scorn.
"Thou knowest better than that, Panurge! It is a present from our noble lord to his royal father, which I have bought on his order."