Young Nausicaa herself drove the wagon. She mounted it and took the
whip in her hands and started the mules, and they went through fields
and by farms and came to the river-bank.

The girls brought the garments to the stream, and leaving them in the
shallow parts trod them with their bare feet. The wagon was unharnessed
and the mules were left to graze along the river side. Now when they had
washed the garments they took them to the sea-shore and left them on the
clean pebbles to dry in the sun. Then Nausicaa and her companions went
into the river and bathed and sported in the water.

When they had bathed they sat down and ate the meal that had been put on
the wagon for them. The garments were not yet dried and Nausicaa called
on her companions to play. Straightway they took a ball and threw it
from one to the other, each singing a song that went with the game. And
as they played on the meadow they made a lovely company, and the
Princess Nausicaa was the tallest and fairest and noblest of them all.

Before they left the river side to load the wagon they played a last
game. The Princess threw the ball, and the girl whose turn it was to
catch missed it. The ball went into the river and was carried down the
stream. At that they all raised a cry. It was this cry that woke up
Odysseus who, covered over with leaves, was then sleeping in the shelter
of the two olive trees.

[Illustration]

He crept out from under the thicket, covering his nakedness with leafy
boughs that he broke off the trees. And when he saw the girls in the