A few notices remain to us of the time occupied in the performance of different voyages by ancient vessels, from which we may deduce the general fact, that though owing to their construction—being generally from three to four times as long as they were broad, with shallow keels, and rarely other than square sails—they could not have made much way _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.[55] 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;[56] 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:[57] 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. [Illustration: ANCIENT CARAVAN AND OTHER ROUTES. _Engraved for Lindsay’s History of Merchant Shipping._ _Stanford’s Geog. Estabt. 6 & 7 Charing Cross_ London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, & Searle.] FOOTNOTES: [1] See a good passage in Claudian’s “Rape of Proserpine,” on this subject; and Virgil, Georg. i. 136. [2] Noah’s Ark, B.C. 2348. [3] Gen. vi. 15. [4] Gen. vii. 16, 17. Cory, “Ancient Fragm.,” for traditions of the Ark in various lands. [5] The Scriptural narrative of a great flood, and of a great vessel to float upon it, has just met with a remarkable confirmation. At a meeting of the Society of Biblical Archæology, Sir Henry Rawlinson in the chair, on December 3, 1872, Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, read a paper, giving an account of his discovery, on cuneiform tablets (part of the so-called library of Ashur-ban-i-pal, king of Nineveh), of an unquestionable account of the Deluge. The name of the king under whom this event occurred cannot as yet be deciphered, nor can anything like a certain date be assigned to it; but Sir Henry Rawlinson accepted fully the truth of Mr. Smith’s decipherings. Of the inscription describing the Flood, there are fragments of three copies, containing duplicate texts. [6] Layard, First Series. Pls. 10, 12, 13, 15, 25, 27, 28. [7] Hügel, “Travels in Cashmir,” p. 27, with a picture, p. 247. [8] Pliny, vii. 57. Cf. also Lucan, Phars. iv. 131. Such vessels were called “boats sewn together,” Plin. xxiv. 65; and Virgil (Æn. vi. 448) gives the same title to Charon’s boat. [9] Layard, “Nineveh and Babylon,” pp. 522-524. [10] “Relaçion historica del Viage a la America Meridional,” 1748; Charnock, “Hist. Mar. Arch.” i. p. 12. [11] Herod. i. 1. [12] Gen. xlix. 13.