Aquafluens was still the most useful and the cheapest of all the giants, but his son Vaporifer was much stronger and more handy than his father. Nor was there any limit to what he could do if only they would give him plenty of heat and always let him have a wheel to turn.
Now, then, who do you think were these three giants? Perhaps you have already guessed from their names, and from their description. The first giant, Aquafluens, is the great giant of running water, which will always run down hill, but which comes to a standstill on level ground, and cannot go up hill, no matter what happens. It is this great giant which turned all the water-mills, which ground the corn, and sawed the wood, and did all manner of work. Ventosus, his brother, is the wind which bloweth whither it listeth, and sometimes, lashes the water into stormy waves. While as to that of Vaporifer, you surely understand that it is nothing else but steam. These three giants are real giants who are still doing their work day by day, and every day. There are no servants of man who have worked so cheaply, so untiringly, and so well.
TRAVELLERS' WONDERS
One winter's evening, as Captain Compass was sitting by the fireside, with his children all around him, little Jack said to him, "Papa, pray tell us some stories about what you have seen in your voyages. I have been vastly entertained, while you were abroad, with Gulliver's Travels, and the Adventures of Sinbad, the Sailor, and I think as you have gone round and round the world, you must have met with things as wonderful as they did."
"No, my dear," said the captain, "I never met with Lilliputians or Brobdingnagians, I assure you, nor ever saw the black loadstone mountains or the valley of diamonds, but, to be sure, I have seen a great variety of people, and have noticed their different manners and ways of living; and if it will be any entertainment to you, I will tell you some curious things that I have observed."
"Pray do, papa," cried Jack and all his brothers and sisters; so they drew close round him, and he began as follows:—