sea rose, darkness came on, and before we knew it we could no longer even get our canvas in. Committing ourselves to the gale and giving up, we drove for seventy-nine days. On the eightieth day, however, the sun came out suddenly and at no great distance we saw a high, wooded island ringed about with sounding surf, which, however, was not rough, as already the worst of the storm was abating.[1]
Putting in and going ashore, we lay on the ground for some time in consequence of our long misery, but finally we arose and told off thirty of our number to stay and guard the ship and twenty to go inland with me and look over the island. When we had gone forward through the wood about three furlongs from the sea, we saw a slab of bronze, inscribed with Greek letters, faint and obliterated, which said: “To this point came Hercules and Dionysus.” There were also two footprints in the rock close by, one of which was a hundred feet long, the other less—to my thinking, the smaller one was left by Dionysus, the other by Hercules.[2] We did obeisance and went on, but had not gone far when we came upon a river of wine, just as like as could be to Chian.[3] The stream was large and full; so that in places it was actually navigable. Thus we could not help having much greater faith in the inscription on the slab, seeing the evidence of Dionysus’ visit. I resolved
