The Cruise of the Branwen

THE CRUISE OF THE BRANWEN contrary. We ran into so strong a gale that we were glad enough to anchor in Messina harbour just before seven o'clock on the evening of the 18th. We started again about two the next afternoon, with the desolate coast hills of southern Italy upon our left, and ran eastward on a heavy ground-swell right across the mouth of the Adriatic and slanting slightly southwards to Patras, where we anchored and slept sound that Friday night. The captain was away again at six on the morning of the 21st, so that we awoke within the western waters of the Gulf of Corinth. Hellas at last! We might indeed have been the comrades of Odysseus, judging by the stern welcome old Poseidon gave us in our voyage to the shores of Greece. The Branwen had shown herself a fine little sea boat. But she took the waves as a steeplechaser takes a hedge, and shook herself before she plunged again into the smother ; and I at any rate had spent the Jast thirty hours or so upon my back praying for the dawn. But that was the last of the bad weather-for the time. The sun shone gloriously all the afternoon, and when we had steamed slowly through that queer rift in the rocks which is the Corinth Canal, the coast of Attica smiled before us above a brilliant sea. Short as our voyage had been, so far, it had been full of suggestiveness, full of surprises. The Mediterranean coasts had seemed astonishingly barren, rocky, sterile, without sign of life or cultivation between the various ports. But the sea itself was mysterious, romantic, breathing 4-2