The distance between the eastern point of Crete and the western mouth of the Nile is about three hundred and fifty miles; the time five days and four nights. This would give a somewhat less rate of progress _per diem_ than the last case; but then it is likely that Homer took the distance to be greater in that almost unknown sea (see Od. iii. 320.) than it really is; so that we have cause to view the two computations as in substance accordant. And even if they had clashed, the former would still be entitled to our acceptance. What, however, does appear to be the case is, that Homer mistook the course from Crete to Egypt. It is really S. W.: he has defined it by the wind Boreas, which never blows from a point westward, or at the very uttermost never from one materially westward, of N. So that the course must have been about S. Now, as Homer knew the position of Crete, this would show that he brought Egypt too much to the westward, by shortening the eastern recess or arm of the Mediterranean; an error in exact conformity, I conceive, with all his operations in imagining the geography of the east. But this by the way. The third test of sea-distances is supplied by the pretended passage of Ulysses, on a mast, from a point just out of sight of Crete[571] to Thesprotia[572]. He arrives on the tenth night. The distance exceeds, by about one half, the voyage from Troas to Phthia. The time is nearly four times as long. But then some allowance may be made for delay on the score of the irregular winds (ὀλοοὶ ἄνεμοι) which prevailed. We may therefore justly calculate the rate of a floating or drift-passage at about one half that of a sailing passage, or two miles an hour instead of four. And here our direct evidence closes. [571] Od. xiv. 301. [572] Ibid. 310-15. At an intermediate point between these, we may place the mode of passage by raft, which brought Ulysses from Ogygia. For merchant ships were built broad in the beam; and the raft was as broad as a merchant ship[573]. Thus constructed, and with its flat bottom, it must have been very greatly slower than an ordinary sailing vessel, and I venture to put it by conjecture as low as two and a half miles an hour. [573] Od. v. 249-51.