besides,
men whose duty it was to serve out the victuals, to keep the ship's
accounts, &c.

The usual day's sail of a ship of the ancients was five hundred stadia, or
fifty miles; and the course run over, when they sailed night and day,
double that space.

We have confined ourselves, in this account of the ships of the ancients,
principally to those particulars that are connected with the construction,
equipment, &c. of those employed for commercial purposes, and shall now
proceed to a historical sketch of the progress of discovery among the
Greeks, from the earliest records to the era of Herodotus, the father of
geographical knowledge.

The first maritime expedition of the Greeks, of which we have a particular
narration, and certainly one of the most celebrated in ancient times, is
the Argonautic expedition. As we purpose to go into some length on the
subject of this expedition, it may be proper to defend ourselves from the
charge of occupying too much space, and giving too much attention to an
enterprize generally deemed fabulous, and so obscured by fable and
uncertainty, as to be little capable of illustration, and little conducive
to the improvement of geographical knowledge. This defence we shall borrow
from a name deservedly high among those who have successfully illustrated
ancient geography, for the happy and successful mutual adaptation of great
learning and sound judgment, and not less worthy of respect and imitation
for his candour and liberality: we allude to Dr. Vincent, the illustrator
of the Voyage of Nearchus, and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.

"The reality of the Argonautic expedition, (he observes in the Preliminary
Disquisition to the latter work), has been questioned; but if the
primordial history of every nation but one is tinctured with the fabulous,
and if from among the rest a choice is necessary to be made, it must be
allowed that the traditions of Greece are less inconsistent than those of
the more distant regions of the earth. Oriental learning is now employed in
unravelling the mythology of India, and recommending it as containing the
seeds of primaeval history; but hitherto we have seen nothing that should
induce us to relinquish the authority we have been used to respect, or to
make us prefer the fables of the Hindoos or Guebres, to the fables of the
Greeks. Whatever difficulties may occur in the return of the Argonauts,
their voyage to Colchis is consistent: it contains more real