on a wind, they were capable of considerable speed when the wind was right aft. Thus Pliny states that a merchant-ship passed from Messina to Alexandria in six days; another from the Pillars of Hercules to Ostia in seven; another from the nearest port of Spain in four; another from Narbonne in three, and another from Africa in two.[1] So, too, Arrian relates that the ship in which he sailed on the Euxine accomplished five hundred stadia (or, as is more probable, three hundred stadia) before mid-day;[2] and St. Luke tells us that he ran from Rhegium to Puteoli (one hundred and eighty-two miles) by the second day after he had started:[3] but, in all these cases, we may be quite sure that the sailors had (as St. Luke distinctly states was his case) a good stiff breeze abaft.
