20 



Four days after leaving Madeira we steamed 

 in between two barren islands, rising high from 

 the sea, San Antonio and San Vincent. 



We had passed the fabled Sargasso Sea of 

 the ancients, where such masses of seaweed were 

 said to grow that ships were held fast until freed 

 by a favouring wind. It was here that Sataspes 

 is supposed to have been held fast and forced to 

 re burn to Egypt, from where he had started to 

 sail round Africa. Sataspes had been condemned 

 to crucifixion by Xerxes for the rape of the daughter 

 of Zopyrus, but his mother, the sister of Darius, 

 interceded with Xerxes, and the sentence was 

 changed to the African journey. Sataspes, after 

 passing out of the Mediterranean and w r hcn near 

 the Fortunate Islands, is supposed to have met 

 the seaweed of Sargasso, but, yearning for the 

 ilcsh-pots of Egypt, had sailed back there with 

 this story. 



The wind was blowing half a gale as we steamed 

 into San Vincent harbour, a somewhat open road- 

 stead, depending on the mountain heights of the 

 two neighbouring islands for its shelter. In the 

 middle of the harbour is a small island and light- 

 house. Even here the seas were breaking in spray 

 100 feet up its steep rocks. At San Vincent were 

 lying a dozen ships of all nations, and four ships, 

 too, that will never sail the seas again ; for they 

 are the wrecks of vessels torpedoed in the Great 

 War. San Vincent has become one of the world's 

 main coaling and cable stations, for it lies on the 

 great sea-way to South America. We were in 

 quarantine for a supposed case of small-pox, 



