130 FLINT'S NATURAL HISTOET. [Book XIX. 



than in this? To think that here is a plant which brings 

 Egypt in close proximity to Italy ! BO much so in J ict, that 

 Galerius 4 and Balbillus, 5 both of them prefects of Egypt made 

 ie passage to Alexandria from the Straits of Sicily, the one 

 n six days, the other in five ! It was only this very last sum- 

 mer, that Valerius Marianus, a senator of pr ffi tonan rank, 

 reached Alexandria from Puteoli in eight days, and that, too 

 with a verv moderate breeze all the time ! To think that 

 here is a plant which brings Gades, situate near the Pillars of 

 Hercules, within six days of Ostia, Nearer Spam within three, 

 the province of Gallia Narbonensis within two, and Africa 

 within one ! this last passage having been made by C. *la- 

 vius when legatus of Vibius Crispus, the proconsul, and that, 

 too 'with but little or no wind to favour his passage ! 



What audacity in man ! What criminal perverseness ! thus 

 to sow a thing in the ground for the purpose of catching the 

 winds and the tempests, it being not enough for him, forsooth, 

 to be borne upon the waves alone ! Nay, still more than tl 

 sails even that are bigger than the very ships themselves will 

 not suffice for him, and although it takes a whole tree to 

 make a mast to carry the cross-yards, above those cross-yards 

 sails upon sails must still be added, with others swelling at the 

 prow and at the stern as well-so many devices in fact to 

 challenge death! Only to think, in fine, that that which 

 moves to and fro, as it were, the various countries of the earth, 

 should spring from a seed so minute, and make its appearauc 

 in a stem so fine, so little elevated above the surface ot the 

 earth ! And then, besides, it is not in all its native strength 

 that it is employed for the purposes of a tissue ; no, it n 

 first be rent asunder, and then tawed and beaten, t 

 reduced to the softness of wool; indeed, it is only by such 

 violence done to its nature, and prompted by the extreme 

 audacity of man, and 6 * * * that it is rendered subser- 

 vient to his purposes. The inventor of this art 



Possibly Galerius Trachalus, Consul A.. 68, a relation of Galeria 

 Fund;ina, the wife of the Emperor Vitellius. 



* Guvnor of E ? vpt in the reign of Nero, A.D. 55 He i. mentioned 

 by Seneca, Quaest. Sat. B. iv. c. 2, and is supposed to have written a work 

 on Egypt and his journeys in that country. 



Or, as Sillig suggests, "after ill treatment such as this, that it arrives 

 at the sea." T!>e passage is evidently defective. 



