were a hundred and fifty sailors, picked men of Egypt. They
scanned the heavens and they scanned the earth, and their hearts were
stouter than lions. They foretold the storm or ever it came, and the
tempest when as yet it was not."

[Footnote 1: The average cubit was about 20-1/2 inches.]

A storm arose while they were out of sight of land, and rapidly
increased in violence, until the waves, according to the very restrained
estimate of the narrator, were eight cubits high--that is to say, about
thirteen or fourteen feet. To one who was accustomed to the waves of the
Nile this would be a great height; and the passage thus suggests that
the scribe was an untravelled man. A vessel of 150 cubits, or about 250
feet, in length might have been expected to ride out a storm of this
magnitude; but, according to the story, she went to pieces, and the
whole ship's company, with the single exception of the teller of the
tale, were drowned. The survivor managed to cling to a plank of wood,
which was driven by the wind towards the shores of an uncharted island,
and here at length he was cast up by the waves.

Not far from the beach there was a small thicket, and to this the
castaway hastened, sheltering therein from the fury of the storm. For
three days in deep despair he lay hidden, "without a companion," as he
said, "save my heart;" but at last the tempest subsided, the sun shone
in the heavens once again, and the famished mariner was able to go in
search of food, which, to his delight, he found in abundance.

The scene upon which he gazed as he plucked the fruit of the laden trees
was most mysterious, and all that he saw around him must have had an
appearance not altogether consistent with reality, for, indeed, the
island was not real. It had been called into existence, perhaps, at the
bidding of some god to relieve the tedium of an eternal afternoon, and
suddenly it had appeared, floating upon the blue waters of the ocean.
How long it had remained there, how long it would still remain, none
could tell, for at any moment the mind of the god might be diverted, and
instantly it would dissolve and vanish as would a dream. Beneath the
isle the seas moved, and there in the darkness the fishes of the deep,
with luminous, round eyes, passed to and fro, nibbling the roots of the
trees above them. Overhead the heavens stretched, and around about
spread the expanse of the sea upon which no living thing might be seen,
save only the do