to them, "Raise up the mast and set the sail and
face what comes like men."

After days and weeks on the "wide wild western sea" they sailed by
the coast of Spain and came to Sicily, the "three-cornered island,"
and after numerous adventures they reached home once more. And they
limped ashore weary and worn, with long, ragged beards and sunburnt
cheeks and garments torn and weather-stained. No strength had they
left to haul the ship up the beach. They just crawled out and sat down
and wept, till they could weep no more. For the houses and trees were
all altered, and all the faces which they saw were strange; and their
joy was swallowed up in sorrow while they thought of their youth and
all their labour, and the gallant comrades they had lost. And the people
crowded round and asked them, "Who are you that sit weeping here?"

"We are the sons of your princes, who sailed away many a year ago.
We went to fetch the Golden Fleece and we have brought it back." Then
there was shouting and laughing and weeping, and all the kings came
to the shore, and they led the heroes away to their homes and bewailed
the valiant dead. Old and charming as is the story of the Argonauts,
it is made up of travellers' tales, probably told to the Greeks by
the Phoenicians of their adventures on unknown seas.

The wanderings of Ulysses by the old Greek poet Homer shows us that,
though they seldom ventured beyond the Mediterranean Sea, yet the
Greeks were dimly conscious of an outer world beyond the recognised
limits. They still dreamt that the earth was flat, and that the ocean
stream flowed for ever round and round it. There were no maps or charts
to guide the intrepid mariners who embarked on unknown waters.

The siege of Troy, famous in legend, was over, and the heroes were
anxious to make their way home. Ulysses was one of the heroes, and
he sailed forth from Asia Minor into the AEgean Sea. But contrary winds
drove him as far south as Cape Malea.

"Now the gatherer of the clouds," he says, in telling his story,
"aroused the North Wind against our ships with a terrible tempest,
and covered land and sea alike with clouds, and down sped night from
heaven. Thus the ships were driven headlong, and their sails were torn
to shreds by the might of the wind. So we lowered the sails into the
hold in fear of death, and rowed the ships landward apace."

Throughout all ages Cape Malea has been renowned for sudden and violent
storms, dreaded by early m