A. D, 73, 185 



thouf and tuns ^ or about twice the burthen of one of our firft-rate {hips of war. 

 As there is nowhere elfe fo complete a pidlure of an antient merchant 

 fhip, I have extraded the following defcription of this ftupendous vefTel, 

 with an account of her tedious paflage, wherein we have a good view of 

 the navigation of the beft of the Mediterranean feamen of thofe days. 



Heron, the commander of the Ifis, failed from the Pharos of Alexan- 

 dria with a moderate breeze, and on the feventh day got fight of Aca- 

 mas, the weft point of Cyprus, where he met with a gale of wind from 

 the weft, which drove him out of his courfe as far as Sidon. Thence 

 he proceeded with a heavy gale through the channel between Cyprus 

 and the continent, and in ten days reached the Chelidonian iflands on 

 the coaft of Pamphylia, where there never fails to be a heavy fea when 

 the wind is at fouth-fouth-weft. There they were in great danger of 

 being loft, till feeing a hght upon the coaft of Lycia, they thereby knew 

 where they were : and at the fame time a bright ftar, one of the Diol- 

 curi (Caftor and Pollux), fettling upon the top (or maft-head) pointed 

 the way out to fea, when they were almoft aground. Thence failing 

 through the yEgjean fea, they put into the Pirseus, the port of Athens, 

 on the feventieth day after their departure from Egypt. Had they been 

 able to keep their proper courfe to the fouthward of Crete and the Pe- 

 loponnefus, they fliould have been in Italy long before that time. 



One of the many Athenians, who went to gaze upon this wonderful 

 fhip, got the following account of her from her carpenter. She was one 

 hundred and twenty cubits (i 80 feet) long, her breadth above the fourth 

 part of her length, and her depth from the upper deck to the loweft 

 part of the hold at the pump-well, twenty-nine cubits *. The reft of the 

 defcription, which is without meafurement, is all in the language of ad- 

 miration at the prodigious maft and yard (no mention of more than one 

 of either) the number of hides over one another in the fail, a failor go- 

 ing up the ropes and running out to the yard-arm. Upon the upper 

 part of the ftern there was a golden figure of a goofe ; and where the 

 prow (or head) ftretched out, there was on each fide a figure of the 

 goddels Ifis. The ornaments, the paintings, the flame-coloured parafion 

 of the fail, the anchors, the engines for turning round (feemingly an- 

 fwerable to the winlafs and capftan in modern ftiips) and the lodging 

 rooms, or cabins, at the ftern, all ftruck the viiitors with aftonifhment, 

 who compared the number of people onboard her to an army. They 

 were moreover told, that her cargo of wheat would be fufficient to feed 

 all the people of Attica for a whole year, (but that muft be merely 

 failor's rodomontade) and that the annual profit made by her owner was 

 about twelve Attic talents, or ^2,325 fterlingf. 



* Here the carpenter has exaggerated in what f Some farther notices concerning the (hipping 

 the flrangers could not fee, for the honour of his of the ?iitient Greeks and Romans mjy be found 

 {hip : and it is from this exaggerated dimenfion in Ifidort Orig. L. xis, cc I, 2, 3. — Non. Marcel, 

 that her burthen comes to ie about 4,000 tuns. J: proprktate fermonunt, c. 1 ^.—Fu/gcn/ius tk prij'co 



Jermime. 



Vol. I. A a 



