It was a natural policy on the part of the emperors to change a prefect whenever his province was disturbed by rebellion, as we have seen in the case of Flaccus, who was recalled by Caligula. It was easier to send a new governor than to inquire into a wrong or to redress a grievance; and accordingly in the next year C. Balbillus was sent from Rome as prefect of Egypt. He reached Alexandria on the sixth day after leaving the Straits of Sicily, which was spoken of as the quickest voyage known. The Alexandrian ships were better built and better manned than any others, and, as a greater number of vessels sailed every year between that port and Puteoli on the coast of Italy than between any other two places, no voyage was better understood or more quickly performed. They were out of sight of land for five hundred miles between Syracuse and Cyrene. Hence we see that the quickest rate of sailing, with a fair wind, was at that time about one hundred and fifty miles in the twenty-four hours. But these ships had very little power of bearing up against the wind; and if it were contrary the voyage became tedious. If the captain on sailing out of the port of Alexandria found the wind westerly, and was unable to creep along the African coast to Cyrene, he stood over to the coast of Asia Minor, in hopes of there finding a more favourable wind. If a storm arose, he ran into the nearest port, perhaps in Crete, perhaps in Malta, there to wait the return of fair weather. If winter then came on, he had to lie by till spring. Thus a vessel laden with Egyptian wheat, leaving Alexandria in September, after the harvest had been brought down to the coast, would sometimes spend five months on its voyage from that port to Puteoli. Such was the case with the ship bearing the children of Jove as its figurehead, which picked up the Apostle Paul and the historian Josephus when they had been wrecked together on the island of Malta; and such perhaps would have been the case with the ship which they before found on the coast of Lycia, had it been able to reach a safe harbour, and not been wrecked at Malta. [Illustration: 056.jpg EGYPTIAN THRESHING MACHINE]