But the scene round me was the very reverse of moody meditation. The captain was a thorough Italian trierarch, ostentatious, gay, given to superstition, and occasionally a little of a free thinker. His ship was to him child, wife, and world; and at every maneuver he claimed from us such tribute as a father might for the virtues of his favorite offspring; perpetual luck was in everything that she did; she knew every headland from Cyprus to Ostia; a pilot was a mere supernumerary; she could run the whole course without the helm, if she pleased. She beat the _Liburnian_ for speed; the _Cypriot_ for comfort; the _Sicilian_ for safety; and every other vessel on the seas for every other quality. All he asked was to live in her, while he lived at all, and to go down in her when the Fates were at last to cut his thread, as they did those of all captains, whether on sea or land. [Sidenote: A Motley Crowd] The panegyric of the good ship _Ganymede_ was in some degree merited; she carried us on boldly. For a sea in which the winds are constant when they come, but in which the calms are as constant as the winds, nothing could have been more perfectly adapted than the ancient galley. If the gale arose, the ship shot along like the eagle that bore her Trojan namesake—light, strong, with her white sails full of the breeze, and cleaving the surge with the rapidity of an arrow. If the wind fell we floated in a pavilion, screened from the sun, refreshed with perfumes burning on poop, brow, and masts, surrounded with gilding and, the carvings and paintings of the Greek artists, drinking delicious wines, listening to song and story, and in all this enjoyment gliding insensibly along on a lake of absolute sapphire encircled and varied by the most picturesque and lovely islands in the world. The _Ganymede_ had been under especial orders from Rome for my transmission; but the captain felt too much respect for the procurator not to trespass on the letter of the law so far as to fill up the vacancies of his hold with merchandise, in which Florus drove a steady contraband trade. Having done so much to gratify the governor’s distinguishing propensity, he next provided for his own; and loaded his gallant vessel mercilessly with passengers, as much prohibited as his merchandise. While we were yet in sight of land, I walked a lonely deck; but when the salutary fear of the galleys on the station was passed, every corner of the _Ganymede_ let loose a living cargo.