Sec. i. Ccesareia to Myra. 319
A ship-captain familiar with the Levant informed me that he had known ships going west from Egypt keep well to the north, in order to avail themselves of the shelter of the Cretan coast. No ancient ship would have ventured to keep so much out to sea as to run intentionally from Egypt to Crete direct, and moreover the winds would rarely have permitted it ; but it is probable that this Alexandrian ship had sailed direct to Myra across the Levant. The steady westerly breezes which prevented ships frOm making the direct run from Sidon, were favour- able for the direct run from Alexandria. Probably this course was a customary one during a certain season of the year from Alexandria to Italy. Any one who has the slightest knowledge of " the way of a ship in the sea," will recognise that, with a steady wind near west, this was the ideally best course ; while if the breeze shifted a little towards the north, it would be forced into a Syrian port ; and, as we know from other sources, that was often the case.
As we saw (p. 298), Myra was one of the great harbours of the Egyptian service. It is, therefore, unnecessary and incorrect to say, as is often done, that the Alexandrian ship had been blown out of its course. The ship was on its regular and ordinary course, and had quite probably been making a specially good run, for in the autumn there was always risk of the wind shifting round towards the north, and with the wind N.W. the Alexandrian ships could only fetch the Syrian coast.
A voyage which Lucian, in his dialogue The Ship, de- scribes as made by a large Egyptian corn-ship, may be accepted as a fair description of what might occur in the first or second century ; and it illustrates well the course
320 The Voyage to Rome. Chap. XIV.
of both the Alexandrian and the Adramyttian ship. Lucian's Ship attempted to run direct from Alexandria to Myra. It was off the west point of Cyprus (Cape Akamas) on the seventh day of its voyage, but was thence blown to Sidon by a west wind so strong that the ship had to run before it On the tenth day from Sidon it was caught in a storm at the Chelidonian islands and nearly wrecked ; ten days from Sidon to the islands would correspond to fully thirteen from Caesareia to Myra. Thereafter its course was very slow ; it failed to keep the proper course to the south of Crete ; and at last it reached Piraeus on the seventieth day from Alexandria.
2. FROM MYRA TO FAIR HAVENS. (XXVII 7) AND WHEN WE HAD SAILED SLOWLY MANY DAYS, AND WERE COME WITH DIFFICULTY OFF CNIDOS, AS THE WIND DID NOT PERMIT our straight course ONWARDS, WE SAILED UNDER THE LEE OF CRETE, OFF Cape SALMONE ; (8) AND COASTING ALONG IT WITH DIFFI- CULTY, WE CAME UNTO A CERTAIN PLACE CALLED FAIR HAVENS, NIGH TO WHICH WAS A CITY LASEA.
From Myra the course of both the Adramyttian and the Alexandrian ship would coincide as far as Cnidos. But they found great difficulty in making the course, which implies that strong westerly winds blew most of the time. After a very slow voyage they came opposite Cnidos ; but they were not able to run across to Cythera (a course that was some- times attempted, if we can accept Lucian's dialogue The Ship, as founded on possible facts) on account of strong northerly winds blowing steadily in the yEgean, and threatening to force any ship on the north coast of Crete, which was dangerous from its paucity of harbours
Sec. 2. From Myra to Fair Havens. 321
Accordingly, the choice was open either to put in to Cnidos, and wait a fair wind, or to run for the east and south coast of Crete. The latter alternative was pre- ferred in the advanced season ; and they rounded the eastern promontory, Salmone (protected by it from a north-westerly wind), and began anew to work slowly to the west under the shelter of the land. They kept their course along the shore with difficulty until they reached a place named Fair Havens, near the city Lasea, which, as Smith has shown conclusively, is the small bay, two leagues east of Cape Matala, still bearing the same name (in the modern Greek dialect Ai/xewva? KaXov?) ; and there they lay for a considerable time. It is not stated in the narrative why they stayed so long at this point, but the reason is clear to a sailor or a yachtsman : as Smith points out, Fair Havens is the nearest shelter on the east of Cape Matala, whilst west of that cape the coast trends away to the north, and no longer affords any protection from the north or north-west winds, and therefore they could go no farther so long as the wind was in that quarter.