According to the notions of an English seaman, this kind of
navigation would soon bring the vessel on which it might be
practised to an evil end. The Greek, however, is unaccountably
successful in escaping the consequences of being "jammed in," as it
is called, upon a lee-shore.
These seamen, like their forefathers, rely upon no winds unless
they are right astern or on the quarter; they rarely go on a wind
if it blows at all fresh, and if the adverse breeze approaches to a
gale, they at once fumigate St. Nicholas, and put up the helm. The
consequence of course is that under the ever-varying winds of the
Aegean they are blown about in the most whimsical manner. I used
to think that Ulysses with his ten years' voyage had taken his time
in making Ithaca, but my experience in Greek navigation soon made
me understand that he had had, in point of fact, a pretty good
"average passage."
Such are now the mariners of the Aegean: free, equal amongst
themselves, navigating the seas of their forefathers with the same
heroic, and yet child-like, spirit of venture, the same half-
trustful reliance upon heavenly aid, they are the liveliest images
of true old Greeks that time and the new religions have spared to
us.
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