The horses easily perceived that some other hand than their master's held the lines, and they promptly became unmanageable. In vain Phaethon pulled at the reins; in vain he called the steeds by name. Up the sky they dashed, and then, first to the south, then to the north, they took their zigzag course across the heavens. What a sight it must have presented from below, this sun reeling crazily about the sky! Worst of all, however, the horses did not keep at the same distance from the earth. First they went down, down, until they almost touched the mountain tops. Trees, grass, wheat, flowers, all were scorched and blackened; and one great tract in Africa was so parched that nothing has since been able to grow upon it. Rivers were dried up, the snow on the mountain tops was melted, and, strangest of all, the people in the country over which the sun-chariot was passing were burned black. [Footnote: In this way the ancients explained the great desert of Sahara, and the dark color of the people of Africa.] Then, rising, the horses dragged the chariot so far from the earth that intense, bitter cold killed off much of the vegetation which the fierce heat had spared. Poor Phaethon could do nothing but clutch the seat and shut his eyes. He dared not look down, lest he lose his balance and fall; he dared not look about him, for there were, in all parts of the heavens, the most terrifying animals--a great scorpion, a lion, two bears, a huge crab. [Footnote: These terrifying animals which Phaethon saw in the sky were the groups of stars, the constellations to which the ancients gave the names of animals etc. We know the Big Dipper, or Great Bear, for we may see it in the north any clear night.] Vainly he repented of his rashness; sadly he wondered in what way his death would come. It came suddenly--so suddenly that poor Phaethon did not feel the pain of it. For Jupiter, when he saw the sun rocking about the heavens, did not stop to inquire who the unknown charioteer was; he knew it was not Apollo, and he knew the earth was being ruined--that was enough. Seizing one of his biggest thunderbolts, he hurled it with all his might, and Phaethon fell, flaming, from his lofty seat into the Eridanus River; while the horses, whom no thunderbolt could harm, trotted quietly back to their stalls. Clymene bewailed her son's death bitterly, and his companions, grieved that their taunts should have driven their comrade to his destruction, helped her to erect over his grave a stone on which were these words: "Lies buried here young Phaethon, who sought To guide his father's chariot of flame. What though he failed? No death ignoble his Who fared to meet it with such lofty aim."