of experience and knowledge.

Besides the chief pilot, there was a subordinate one, whose duty it was to
keep a look out at the prow, to manage and direct the sails and rowers, and
to assist the principal pilot by his advice: the directions of the
subordinate pilot were conveyed to the rowers by another officer, who seems
to have answered to the boatswain of our men of war. The rowers were
enabled to pull all at once, or to keep time, by a person who sung and
played to them while they were employed. During the night, or in difficult
navigations, the charge of the sounding lead, or of the long poles, which
were used either for the same purpose, or to push the ship off, when she
got a-ground, was committed to a particular officer. There were, 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