When we were got about two hundred stadia from the nest, we met with some surprising prodigies. A cheniscus came, and sitting on the prow of our ship, clapped his wings and made a noise. Our pilot Scintharus had been bald for many years, when on a sudden his hair came again. But what was still more wonderful, the mast of our ship sprouted out, sent forth several branches, and bore fruit at the top of it, large figs, and grapes not quite ripe. We were greatly astonished, as you may suppose, and prayed most devoutly to the gods to avert the evil which was portended. We had not gone above five hundred stadia farther before we saw an immensely large and thick wood of pines and cypresses; we took it for a tract of land, but it was all a deep sea, planted with trees that had no root, which stood, however, unmoved, upright, and, as it were, swimming in it. Approaching near to it, we began to consider what we could do best. There was no sailing between the trees, which were close together, nor did we know how to get back. I got upon one of the highest of them, to see how far they reached, and perceived that they continued for about fifty stadia or more, and beyond that it was all sea again; we resolved therefore to drag the ship up to the top boughs, which were very thick, and so convey it along, which, by fixing a great rope to it, with no little toil and difficulty, we performed; got it up, spread our sails, and were driven on by the wind. It put me in mind of that verse of Antimachus the poet, where he says-- "The ship sailed smoothly through the sylvan sea." We at length got over the wood, and, letting our ship down in the same manner, fell into smooth clear water, till we came to a horrid precipice, hollow and deep, resembling the cavity made by an earthquake. We furled our sails, or should soon have been swallowed up in it. Stooping forward, and looking down, we beheld a gulf of at least a thousand stadia deep, a most dreadful and amazing sight, for the sea as it were was split in two. Looking towards our right hand, however, we saw a small bridge of water that joined the two seas, and flowed from one into the other; we got the ship in here, and with great labour rowed her over, which we never expected.