PAUL'S VOYAGE TO ROME.

With Aristarchus and certain Prisoners under charge of Julius, a Centurion of the Augustan Cohort.

Cæsarea. Paul sailed thence on a vessel bound for Adramyttium, touching at

Sidon, where he visited his friends. Thence to leeward of

Cyprus (i.e. on the N. side), under the shores of Cilicia and Pamphylia, to

Myra (a city of Lycia), where they were transhipped to an Alexandrian corn vessel bound for Italy, which coasted along the southern shore of Asia Minor (130 miles in "many days") to

Cnidus, the extreme S.W. promontory; where the wind and current from the Archipelago caught and drove the ship southward to

Crete, where they rounded Cape Salmone, and got under the shelter of its southern coast, and sailed along it to

Fair Havens, near which, inland, was Lasea, and where Paul advised them to winter; the harbour, however, being incommodious they tried to reach

Phenice, which had a harbour, sheltered towards the N.W. and S.W.; but theywere caught by the wind Euroclydon from the N. W.; and under shelter of

Clauda (an island to S. of Crete) they prepared for a tempest by striking sail, undergirding the ship, turning her head to wind, and lying to, so as to avoid being driven on the "Syrtes" to the N. of Libya. So they drifted slowly W. by N., at the rate of 36 miles in 24 hours, till the fourteenth day, i.e. thirteen and a half days, till midnight = 486 miles; and St. Paul's Bay is 480 miles from Clauda in an exact line W. by N. Second day, "they lightened the ship;" third day, they "cast out the tackling;" fourteenth night, they drew near to land in the neighbourhood of rocks; fourteenth day, they ran the ship aground in a creek of

Melita (Malta), where they landed by swimming, or on portions of wreck. Here the viper fastened on Paul's hand; and he healed Publius (the chief man of the island) of fever and dysentery. After three months, they sailed in an Alexandrian corn ship by

Syracuse (Sicily), where they stayed three days; and, making a circuit, they came to

Rhegium (Italy), and after one day they reached

Puteoli (Pozzuoli), in the Bay of Naples, where they rested seven days; thence they went by the Appian Way to

Appii Forum, where brethren from Rome met him, with whom they came to

Rome, and Paul remained in custody of a soldier for two full years in his own hired house.