But the most remarkable part of the story is that relating to her freight, as it is stated that one or two of the launches belonging to this ship, built, it may be presumed to attend upon her, were able themselves to carry three thousand talents (about eighty tons); and these tenders are said to have put on board of the _Alexandrian_ “sixty thousand measures of corn, ten thousand jars of Sicilian salt fish, twenty thousand talents’ weight of wool, and of other cargo twenty thousand talents, all of which was in addition to the provisions required for the crew.” It is further stated that she was sent to Alexandria, partly because Hiero discovered he had no harbours in Sicily that could contain her, and partly because he had heard that at that time there was a dearth of corn in Egypt. She bore upon her the following curious inscription: “Hiero, the son of Hierocles the Dorian, who wields the sceptre of Sicily (sends this ship), bearing in her the fruits of the earth—a rich gift to all Greece and her islands. Do thou, O Neptune! preserve in safety this ship over the blue waves.” There is no more reason for doubting the existence of this ship than there is for questioning the vessel constructed by the Egyptian king; though, in each case, there may be some exaggeration in the description preserved. Vessels not differing much from her in form may be seen on the Mississippi and traverse the stormy lakes of America; they even trade along her shores, exposed to the boisterous waves of the Atlantic; and hence it may be reasonably inferred that, though not well adapted for sea-going purposes, Hiero’s ship may have made, in perfect safety, voyages to both Greece and Alexandria. [Sidenote: Greek ships.] Although the Greeks were for many centuries well known alike for their intellectual abilities and for their zeal as merchants and traders, Herodotus speaks with some contempt of their geographical knowledge in the time of Xerxes, and says they were so ignorant of the position and distance of places, that they could with difficulty be prevailed upon to advance as far as Delos,[177] and that all the countries beyond that island and in the vicinity of Ionia were avoided by them. “They believed,” he adds, “that it was as far from Ægina to Samos as from Ægina to Gibraltar.” [Sidenote: Habits of piracy.]