At this point Smith notices the precision of Luke's terminology. In v. 4 they sailed under the lee of Cyprus, keeping northwards with a westerly wind on the beam (yireTrKevaafiev) ; here they ran before a wind under the lee of Cauda (inrohpafiovTeq).
The sailors knew that their only hope was in the smoother water behind Cauda, and kept her up accord- ingly with her head to the wind, so that she would make no headway, but merely drifted with her right side towards the wind (" on the starboard tack ").
Here three distinct operations were performed ; and it is noteworthy that Luke mentions first among them,
Sec. 4. The Storm. 329
not the one which was the most important or necessary, but the one in which he himself took part, viz., hauling in the boat. In the light breeze it had been left to tow behind, and the squall had come down too suddenly to haul it in. While the other operations required skill, any one could haul on a rope, and Luke was pressed into the service. The boat was waterlogged by this time ; and the historian notes feelingly what hard work it was to get it in, v. 16.
While this was going on, ropes were got out, and the ship undergirded to strengthen her against the storm and the straining of her timbers. The scholars who discuss nautical subjects seem all agreed that under- girders were put longitudinally round the ship (i.e., horizontal girders passed round stem and stern). If any of them will show how it was possible to perform this operation during a storm, I shall be ready to accept their opinion ; but meantime (without entering on the question what " undergirders," viro^cofxara, were in Athenian triremes) I must with Smith believe that cables were passed underneath round the ship transversely to hold the timbers together. This is a possible opera- tion in the circumstances, and a useful one.
Luke mentions last what a sailor would mention first, the most delicate and indispensable operation, viz., leaving up just enough of sail to keep the ship's head to the wind, and bringing down everything else that could be got down. It is not certain that he fully understood this operation, but perhaps the Greek (yakaaavres to oicsvoi) might be taken as a technical term denoting the entire series of operations, slackening sail, but leaving some spread for a special purpose.
330 The Voyage to Rome. Chap. XIV.
This operation was intended to guard against the danger of being driven on the great quicksands of the African coast, the Syrtes. These were still far distant ; but the sailors knew that at this late season the wind might last many days. The wind was blowing straight on the sands ; and it was absolutely necessary, not merely to delay the ship's motion towards them, but to turn it in a different direction. In the Gulf of Messara, the wind had been an eddying blast under the mountains ; but further out it was a steady, strong east-north-easterly gale.
Dragging stones or weights at the end of ropes from the stern, which is the meaning elicited by some German commentators and writers on nautical matters, might be useful in other circumstances ; but how that meaning can be got from the Greek words (^aXdaravre^ to ovcet/o?), I confess that I cannot see. Moreover, as we have said, what the sailors wished was not merely to delay their course towards the Syrtes, but to turn their course in another direction.
Accordingly, the ship drifted, with her head to the north, steadied by .a low sail, making lee-way proportionate to the power of the wind and waves on her broadside. As Smith shows in detail, the resultant rate of motion would vary, according to the size of the ship and the force of the wind, between f and 2 miles per hour ; and the probable mean rate in this case would be about i£ miles per hour ; while the direction would approximate to 8° north of west. The ship would continue to drift in the same way as long as the wind blew the same, and the timbers and sails held ; and at the calculated rates, if it was under Cauda towards evening, it would on the fourteenth night be near Malta.