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AEneas grieved at recollecting some of his own companions who had perished in the storm. At that moment he beheld Palinurus, his pilot, who fell overboard and was drowned. He addressed him and asked him the cause of his misfortune. Palinurus replied that the rudder was carried away, and he, clinging to it, was swept away with it.

This ceremony the Greeks called moving εϗ δεξια εν δεξια, from the right to the right, which was the direction of the motion, and the Romans applied to it the term dextrovorsum, or dextrorsum, which signifies the same thing. Thus Plautus makes Palinurus, a character in his comedy of "Curculio," say, "If you would do reverence to the gods, you must turn to the right hand."

But the Sibyl rebuked him for the wish thus to transgress the laws of Pluto; but consoled him by informing him that the people of the shore where his body had been wafted by the waves should be stirred up by prodigies to give it due burial, and that the promontory should bear the name of Cape Palinurus, which it does to this day.

The victim was the famous pilot Palinurus, and the poet tells us that his fate was brought about by the action of Som'nus, the god of sleep.

There is a beautiful allusion to the story of Palinurus in Scott's "Marmion," Introduction to Canto I., where the poet, speaking of the recent death of William Pitt, says: "O, think how, to his latest day, When death just hovering claimed his prey, With Palinure's unaltered mood, Firm at his dangerous post he stood; Each call for needful rest repelled, With dying hand the rudder held, Till in his fall, with fateful sway, The steerage of the realm gave way."

And now dewy Night had just reached heaven's mid-cone; the sailors, stretched on their hard benches under the oars, relaxed their limbs in quiet rest: when Sleep, sliding lightly down from the starry sky, parted the shadowy air and cleft the dark, seeking thee, O Palinurus, carrying dreams of bale to thee who dreamt not of harm, and lit on the high stern, a god in Phorbas' likeness, dropping this speech from his lips: 'Palinurus son of Iasus, the very seas bear our fleet along; the breezes breathe steadily; for an hour rest is given.

Palinurus replied, "Tell me not of smooth seas or favoring winds, me who have seen so much of their treachery. Shall I trust Aeneas to the chances of the weather and the winds?" And he continued to grasp the helm and to keep his eyes fixed on the stars. But Somnus waved over him a branch moistened with Lethaean dew, and his eyes closed in spite of all his efforts.

It was then uncertain whether Aden or Sokotra would be chosen as a coaling station for India, and Lieutenant Wellsted was sent in the Palinurus to take a survey of it; but doubtless the harbourless condition of the island, and the superior position of Aden in that respect, caused the decision in favour of Aden.

They looked to their Abbot amid the tumult, with such looks as landsmen cast upon the pilot when the storm is at the highest looks which express that they are devoid of all hope arising from their own exertions, and not very confident in any success likely to attend those of their Palinurus.

The Romans saw that to retain a footing in Africa they must first have control of the sea. Though the fleet that brought back the remains of the army of Regulus was destroyed, another of two hundred and twenty ships was made ready in three months, only, however, to meet a similar fate off Cape Palinurus on the coast of Lucania. After this defeat an embassy was sent to Rome to ask terms of peace.