Homewards.
The homeward voyage was regulated by the same
experience. Remaining on the coast of India from
the end of September, or beginning of October, to the
early part of December, two months of the finest
weather were thus obtained for the discharge of the
vessels and the disposal of their cargoes, as also for
taking on board the return lading in exchange. The
13th of January was fixed as the latest date for
leaving the coast; and it is here worthy of remark,
that the original order for the fleets of Portugal,
fifteen centuries afterwards, was subject to a similar
regulation. Quitting the coast of India on or about
the 10th of January, they would easily reach Aden in
twenty or thirty days, where they would most probably
remain until they could derive the benefit of the
Gunseen winds, which, from about the middle of March,
blow steadily from the south for fifty or sixty days,
and thus have a fair wind to carry them to Berenice.
Thus the winds prevailing in the Gulf at different
seasons of the year were as valuable to the ancient
ships as the true monsoons in the Indian Ocean.
The vessels engaged in the trade with India. It is much to be regretted that no descriptions exist of the character of these fleets, of the men by whom they were navigated, or of their merchant owners. It seems, however, a reasonable conjecture that they were in many respects similar to the vessels the Romans employed in the grain trade between Alexandria and Egypt, of which St. Paul's ship may be considered as a type. In all likelihood they were chiefly owned by the merchants of Rome and of Alexandria, and commanded by men from the Grecian and other maritime states of the Roman empire; the crew, on the other hand, were probably
