could in case of a long and dangerous voyage.

We sailed on with a prosperous gale for a day and a night, but being
still in sight of land, did not make any great way; the next day,
however, at sun-rising, the wind springing up, the waves ran high,
it grew dark, and we could not unfurl a sail; we gave ourselves up
to the winds and waves, and were tossed about in a storm, which
raged with great fury for threescore and nineteen days, but on the
eightieth the sun shone bright, and we saw not far from us an
island, high and woody, with the sea round it quite calm and placid,
for the storm was over: we landed, got out, and happy to escape
from our troubles, laid ourselves down on the ground for some time,
after which we arose, and choosing out thirty of our company to take
care of the vessel, I remained on shore with the other twenty, in
order to take a view of the interior part of the island.

About three stadia from the sea, as we passed through a wood, we
found a pillar of brass, with a Greek inscription on it, the
characters almost effaced; we could make out however these words,
"thus far came Hercules and Bacchus:" near it were the marks of two
footsteps on a rock, one of them measured about an acre, the other
something less; the smaller one appeared to me to be that of
Bacchus, the larger that of Hercules; we paid our adorations to the
deities and proceeded. We had not got far before we met with a
river, which seemed exactly to resemble wine, particularly that of
Chios; {79} it was of a vast extent, and in many places navigable;
this circumstance induced us to give more credit to the inscription
on the pillar, when we perceived such visible marks of Bacchus's
presence here. As I had a mind to know whence this river sprung, I
went back to the place from which it seemed to arise, but could not
trace the spring; I found, however, several large vines full of
grapes, at the root of every one the wine flowed in great abundance,
and from them I suppose the river was collected. We saw a great
quantity of fish in it which were extremely like wine, both in taste
and colour, and after we had taken and eaten a good many of them we
found ourselves intoxicated; and when we cut them up, observed that
they were full of grape stones; it occurred to us afterwards that we
should have mixed them with some water fish, as by themselves they
tasted rather too strong of the wine.

We passed the river in a part of it which was fordable,