In spite of seeing such dangers outside, we decided finally that we must escape from our prison. We used fire as a weapon, set the forest at the tail-end aflame and after twelve days found that the whale was going to die. Just in time we propped open his mouth with huge beams and the next day when he expired, out we went on our good ship and felt once more the wind in our sails. Fair weather did not last long. A terrible northern gale descended and froze all the sea to a depth of six fathoms. Scintharus, who was now our ship-master, saved us by directing us to excavate a cave-home in the ice. In it we lived for thirty days, building a fire and cooking the fish we cut out of the ice. When food gave out, we dug out the boat and sailed over the ice as though it were the sea until on the fifth day we came to open water. Now we kept coming to various islands. We got water at one and at the next one milk, for this island had grapes whose juice was milk, and its earth was cheese. It was easy to subsist there! Next we passed the Isle of Cork where the city is built on a cork foundation and the men have feet of cork so that they can run over the waters as they will, buoyed up by their own life-preservers! Happiest of all our stays was that on the Island of the Blessed. Here it is always spring. Every month the vines yield grapes and the trees fruit. It is a land flowing with milk and wine. Glass trees furnish goblets which fill automatically at the banquet. Baked loaves of bread are plucked from trees. Beside the table are two springs, one of laughter, one of joy, and with draughts from these the banqueters start their revels. Famous men dwell there. I saw Socrates surrounded by fair young men arguing with Nestor and Palamedes. Plato preferred to live in his own Republic. The followers of Aristippus and Epicurus were considered the best of companions, but Diogenes the Cynic had reformed, married Lais and taken to dancing. The Stoics had not yet arrived for they were still toiling up the steep hill of virtue. Conversation with Homer was one of the greatest pleasures, especially as he settled the matter of his birthplace by declaring himself a Babylonian and solved the Homeric question by affirming that he had written all the lines attributed to him. Beside literary talks, there were games for the Dead. Even the Island of the Blessed could not be free from wars, for the Wicked invaded it and had to be expelled by force. Homer wrote a new epic on the fight of the dead heroes. The Island had its scandals too all due again to Helen. For she bewitched Scintharus’ son and tried to elope with him, but was caught. That episode caused our expulsion from the Island of the Blessed. Before we left, Homer wrote a couplet for Lucian which he had carved on a stele of beryl and Odysseus secretly gave him a letter for Calypso.