On going a short way from the
sea I found the cave, which was as Homer described
it,
 Odyss. 5, 55 ff. 
and found Calypso herself working wool. When



 

she had taken the letter and read it, she wept a long
time at first, and then she asked us in to enjoy her hospitality, gave us a splendid feast and enquired about
Odysseus and Penelope—how she looked and
whether she was prudent, as Odysseus used to boast
in old times.
 Odyss. 5, 201 ff. We made her such answers as we
thought would please her. 
After that, we went back to the ship and slept
beside it on the shore.
 
Early in the morning
we put to sea in a rising wind. We were stormtossed for two days, and on the third we fell in with
the Pumpkin-pirates. They are savages from the
neighbouring islands who prey on passing sailors.
They have large boats.of pumpkin, sixty cubits long;
for after drying a pumpkin they hollow it out, take
out the insides and go sailing in it, using reeds for
masts and a pumpkin-leaf for a sail. They attacked
us with two crews and gave us battle, wounding
many of us by hitting us with pumpkin-seeds instead
of stones. After fighting for a long time on even
terms, about noon we-saw the Nut-sailors coming up
astern of the Pumpkin-pirates. They were enemies
to one another, as they showed by their actions; for
when the Pumpkin-pirates noticed them coming up,
they neglected us and faced about and fought with
them. But in the meantime we hoisted our canvas
and fled, leaving them fighting.

 
It was evident that
the Nut-sailors would win, as they were in greater



 

numbers—they had five crews—and fought from
stouter ships. Their boats were the halves of empty
nutshells, each of which measured fifteen fathoms in
length.
When we had lost them from sight, we attended
to the wounded, and thereafter we kept under arms
most of the time, always looking for attacks. And we
did not look in vain.

 

In fact, the sun had not yet
gone down when from a desert island there came out
against us about twenty men riding on huge dolphins,
who were pirates like the others. The dolphins
carried them securely and plunged and neighed like
horses. When they were close by, they separated
and threw at us from both sides with dry cuttle-fish
and crabs’ eyes. But when we let fly at them with
spears and arrows, they could not hold their ground,
but fled to the island, most of them wounded.