Onwards towards the east he marched with his great army. To conciliate the tribes through which he passed, he adopted Persian dress. This annoyed his Greek countrymen, but, "as they admired his other virtues, they thought he might be suffered to please himself a little and enjoy his vanity."

Arrived at the modern boundary between Persia, Afghanistan, and Russia, he and his men pushed on across Afghanistan, by the caravan route that had long existed from the shores of the Caspian, by modern Herat, Kandahar,[1] which still bears the conqueror's name, and Kabul to India. Their way lay through deep snow, deeper than they had ever seen before; and by the time they had reached the mountains of Kabul it was midwinter.

[Footnote 1: Kandahar = Alexandria in a modern form.]

Between Alexander and India still lay the lofty range of the Hindu Koosh or Indian Caucasus. But before going south toward India, he turned northwards to explore the unknown country which lay about the river Oxus. They found the Oxus, a mighty stream, swollen with melting snows. There were no boats and no wood to build them, so Alexander pioneered his men across in "life-preservers" made out of their leather tent coverings and stuffed with straw. This river impressed the Greeks even more than the Euphrates and Tigris, as it impressed many an explorer and poet since these early days. Let us recall Matthew Arnold's famous description of the Oxus, now seen for the first time by the Greeks.

"But the majestic river floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land, Into the frosty starlight, and there moved

* * * * *

Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin To hem his watery march and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had, In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, A foil'd circuitous wanderer—till at last The long'd for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea."

Here in this valley the Greeks met more determined opposition than they had yet encountered since entering Asia, and over two years were occupied in reducing this single district (now Bokhara and Turkestan) to submission, though it was only some three hundred and fifty miles square, and in one single year Alexander had conquered a kingdom over one thousand miles in width.

It was not till the spring of 327 B.C. that he was ready to cross the Hindu Koosh and begin the great expedition into India. The night before the start Alexander discovered that his troops were now so heavily laden with spoils that they were quite unfit for the long march. So in the early morning, when they were all ready to start, he suddenly set fire to his own baggage, and, giving orders that all his men were to do the same, the army started for the passes of the lofty mountain range. And—

"... as a troop of pedlars from Kabul Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, That vast sky neighbouring mountain of milk snow; Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries— In single file they move, and stop their breath, For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows."

The banks of the river of Kabul were reached at last. Sending part of the army by the now famous Kyber Pass toward the Indus, Alexander himself undertook to subdue the mountain tribes and get control of the Chitral passes. The shepherds of this region opposed him vigorously, but swiftly and pitilessly the King of Asia sacked their peaceful homes, and city after city fell to him as he advanced towards the boundaries of Kashmir.

At last the valley of the Indus was reached. A bridge of boats was hastily thrown over, and Alexander and his army passed to the other side.

Porus, the ruler of the country between the Indus and the river Hydaspes (Jehlam), sent presents of welcome to the invader, including three thousand animals for sacrifice, ten thousand sheep, thirty elephants, two hundred talents of silver, and seven hundred horsemen. The new king was also greeted with presents of ivory and precious stones. Even from far Kashmir came greetings to Alexander, whose fame was spreading rapidly. He now entered the Punjab, the "Land of the Five Rivers." But on the other side of the river Hydaspes a different reception awaited him.

There the king (Porus) had assembled a sturdy, well-disciplined troop to dispute the passage of the river, which still separated the new King of Asia from his territory. But under cover of a mighty thunderstorm Alexander contrived to cross, though the river was rushing down yellow and fierce after the rains. Secretly the Greeks put together their thirty-oared galleys hidden in a wood, and utterly surprised Porus by landing on the other side. In their strange wanderings the Greeks had fought under varying conditions, but they had never faced elephants before. Nevertheless, they brilliantly repulsed an onslaught of these animals, who slowly retreated, "facing the foe, like ships backing water, and merely uttering a shrill, piping sound." Despite the elephants the old story was repeated, civilised arms triumphed over barbarians, and the army of Porus was annihilated, his chariots shattered, and thirty-three thousand men slain.

The kingdom beyond the Hydaspes was now Alexander's. Ordering a great fleet of rafts and boats to be built for his proposed voyage to the mouth of the Indus, he pushed on to complete the conquest of the Five Stream Land, or the Punjab—the last province of the great Persian Empire. This was India—all that was known at this time. The India of the Ganges valley was beyond the knowledge of the Western world—the Ganges itself unknown to the Persians. And Alexander saw no reason to change his mind.

"The great sea surrounds the whole earth," he stoutly maintained.

But when he reached the eastern limit of the Punjab and heard that beyond lay a fertile land "where the inhabitants were skilled in agriculture, where there were elephants in yet greater abundance and men were superior in stature and courage," the world stretched out before him in an unexpected direction, and he longed to explore farther, to conquer new and utterly unknown worlds!

But at last his men struck. They were weary, some were wounded, some were ill; seventy days of incessant rain had taken the heart out of them.

"I am not ignorant, soldiers," said Alexander to the hesitating troops, "that during the last few days the natives of this country have been spreading all sorts of rumours to work upon your fears. The Persians in this way sought to terrify you with the gates of Cilicia, with the plains of Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates, and yet this river you crossed by a ford and that by means of a bridge. By my troth, we had long ago fled from Asia could fables have been able to scare us. We are not standing on the threshold of our enterprise, but at the very close. We have already reached the sunrise and the ocean, and unless your sloth and cowardice prevent, we shall thence return in triumph to our native land, having conquered the earth to its remotest bounds. I beseech you that ye desert not your king just at the very moment when he is approaching the limits of the inhabited world."

But the soldiers, "with their heads bent earthwards," stood in silence. It was not that they would not follow him beyond the sunset; they could not. Their tears began to flow, sobs reached the ears of Alexander, his anger turned to pity, and he wept with his men.

"Oh, sir," at last cried one of his men, "we have done and suffered up to the full measure of the capacity of mortal nature. We have traversed seas and lands, and know them better than do the inhabitants themselves. We are standing now almost on the earth's utmost verge, and yet you are preparing to go in quest of an India unknown even to the Indians themselves. You would fain root out, from their hidden recesses and dens, a race of men that herd with snakes and wild beasts, so that you may traverse as a conqueror more regions than the sun surveys. But while your courage will be ever growing, our vigour is fast waning to its end. See how bloodless be our bodies, pierced with how many wounds and gashed with how many scars! Our weapons are blunt, our armour worn out! We have been driven to assume the Persian dress! Which of us has a horse? We have conquered all the world, but are ourselves destitute of all things."

The conqueror was at last conquered. The order to turn back was reluctantly given by the disappointed king and leader. It was received with shouts of joy from the mixed multitudes of his followers, and the expedition faced for home. Back they marched through the new lands where no less than two thousand cities had owned his sway, till they came to the banks of the river where the ships were building. Two thousand boats were ready, including eighty thirty-oared galleys.

It was now September 326 B.C.

Nearchus from Crete was made Admiral of the new fleet, which at dawn one October morning pushed out upon the river Hydaspes and set sail downstream towards the unknown sea, Alexander standing proudly on the prow of the royal galley. The trumpets rang out, the oars moved, and the strange argosy, "such as had never been seen before in these parts," made its way down the unknown river to the unknown sea. Natives swarmed to the banks of the river to wonder at the strange sight, marvelling specially to see horses as passengers on board! The greater part of the army followed the ships on land, marching along the shores. At last the waters of the Hydaspes mingled with those of the Indus, and onwards down this great river floated the Persian fleet. Alexander had no pilots, no local knowledge of the country, but with his "unquenchable ambition to see the ocean and reach the boundaries of the world," he sailed on, "ignorant of everything on the way they had to pass." In vain they asked the natives assembled on the banks how far distant was the sea; they had never heard of the sea! At last they found a tide mixing its salt waters with the fresh. Soon a flood-tide burst upon them, forcing back the current of the river, and scattering the fleet. The sailors of the tideless Mediterranean knew nothing of the rise and fall of tides. They were in a state of panic and consternation. Some tried to push off their ships with long poles, others tried to row against the incoming tide; prows were dashed against poops, oars were broken, sterns were bumped, until at last the sea had flowed over all the level land near the river mouth.

Suddenly a new danger appeared! The tide turned and the sea began to recede. Further misfortunes now befell the ships. Many were left high and dry; most of them were damaged in some way or another. Alexander sent horsemen to the seashore with instructions to watch for the return of the tide and to ride back in haste so that the fleet might be prepared.

Thus they got safely out to sea on the next high tide.

Alexander's explorations were now at an end. Leaving Nearchus to explore the seacoast at the mouth of the Indus, he left the spot near where the town of Hyderabad now stands, and turned his face toward the home he was never to reach. We must not linger over his terrible coast journey through the scorching desert of Beluchistan the billows of sand, the glare of the barren sea, the awful thirst, the long hungry marches of forty miles a day under the burning Eastern sun.



Our story is one of discovery, and we must turn to Nearchus, Admiral of the fleet, left behind at the mouth of the Indus to explore the coast to the Persian Gulf, where he was to meet Alexander if possible. Shortly after the fleet had emerged from the mouth of the Indus a violent south-west monsoon began to blow and Nearchus was obliged to seek shelter in a harbour, which he called the port of Alexander, but which to-day is known as Karachi, the most western seaport of India. The waters of the Indian Ocean were quite unknown to the Greeks, and they could only coast along in sight of land, anchoring at different points for the men to land and get water and food. Past the wild barren shores of Beluchistan they made their way; the natives subsisted on fish entirely even as they do to-day—even their huts being made of fish bones and their bread of pounded fish.

They had but one adventure in their five months' cruise to the Persian Gulf, but we have a graphic account of how the terrified Greeks met a shoal of whales and how they frightened the whales away. Here is the story. One day towards daybreak they suddenly saw water spouting up from the sea, as if being violently carried upwards by whirlwinds. The sailors, feeling very frightened, asked their native guides what it meant. The natives replied that it was caused by whales blowing the water up into the air. At this explanation the Greek sailors were panic-stricken and dropped the oars from their hands. Nearchus saw that something must be done at once. So he bade the men draw up their ships in line as if for battle and row forward side by side towards the whales, shouting and splashing with their oars. At a given signal they duly advanced, and when they came near the sea-monsters they shouted with all their might and blew their trumpets and made all possible noise with their oars. On hearing which, says the old story, "the whales took fright and plunged into the depths, but not long after came to the surface again close to the sterns of the vessels and once more spouted great jets of water. Then the sailors shouted aloud at their happy and unlooked-for escape," and Nearchus was cheered as the saviour of the fleet. It is not uncommon to-day for steamers bound from Aden to Bombay to encounter what is called a "school of whales" similar to those which alarmed the fleet of Nearchus in the year 323 B.C.

The expedition was completely successful and Nearchus pioneered his fleet to the mouth of the Euphrates.

But the death of Alexander the Great and the confusion that followed set back the advance of geographical discovery in this direction for some time.



Alexandria—one of the many towns founded by Alexander—had become the world centre of the learned from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Its position was unrivalled. Situated at the mouth of the Nile, it commanded the Mediterranean Sea, while by means of the Red Sea it held easy communication with India and Arabia. When Egypt had come under the sway of Alexander, he had made one of his generals ruler over that country, and men of intellect collected there to study and to write. A library was started, and a Greek, Eratosthenes, held the post of librarian at Alexandria for forty years, namely, from 240-196 B.C. During this period he made a collection of all the travels and books of earth description—the first the world had ever known—and stored them in the Great Library of which he must have felt so justly proud. But Eratosthenes did more than this. He was the originator of Scientific Geography. He realised that no maps could be properly laid down till something was known of the size and shape of the earth.

By this time all men of science had ceased to believe that the world was flat; they thought of it as a perfect round, but fixed at the centre in space. Many had guessed at the size of the earth. Some said it was forty thousand miles round, but Eratosthenes was not content with guessing. He studied the length of the shadow thrown by the sun at Alexandria and compared it with that thrown by the sun at Syene, near the first cataract of the Nile, some five hundred miles distant, and, as he thought, in the same longitude. The differences in the length of these two shadows he calculated would represent one-fiftieth of the circumference of the earth which would accordingly be twenty-five thousand miles. There was no one to tell him whether he had calculated right or wrong, but we know to-day that he was wonderfully right. But he must know more. He must find out how much of this earth was habitable. To the north and south of the known countries men declared it was too hot or too cold to live. So he decided that from north to south, that is, from the land of Thule to the land of Punt (Somaliland), the habitable earth stretched for some three thousand eight hundred miles, while from east to west—that is, from the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar) to India—would be some eight thousand miles. All the rest was ocean. Ignoring the division of the world into three continents, he divided it into two, north and south, divided by the Mediterranean and by a long range of mountains intersecting the whole of Asia.

Then the famous librarian drew a map of the world for his library at Alexandria, but it has perished with all the rest of the valuable treasure collected in this once celebrated city. We know that he must have made a great many mistakes in drawing a map of his little island world which measured eight thousand miles by three thousand eight hundred miles. It must have been quaintly arranged. The Caspian Sea was connected with a Northern Ocean, the Danube sent a tributary to the Adriatic, there was no Bay of Biscay, the British Isles lay in the wrong direction, Africa was not half its right size, the Ganges flowed into the Eastern Ocean, Ceylon was a huge island stretching east and west, while across the whole of Asia a mountain chain stretched in one long unbroken line. And yet, with all his errors, he was nearer the truth than men three centuries later.



CHAPTER VI

PYTHEAS FINDS THE BRITISH ISLES

For some centuries past men had been pushing eastward, and to west, vast lands lay unexplored, undreamt of, amongst them a little far-off island "set in a silver sea." Pytheas was the first explorer to bring the world news of the British Isles.

About the time that Alexander was making his way eastward through Persia, Pytheas was leaving the Greek colony of Marseilles for the west and north. The Phoenicians, with their headquarters at Carthage, had complete command of the mineral trade of Spain—the Mexico of the ancient world. They knew where to find the gold and silver from the rivers—indeed, they said that the coast, from the Tagus to the Pyrenees, was "stuffed with mines of gold and silver and tin." The Greeks were now determined to see for themselves—the men of Carthage should no longer have it all their own way. Where were these tin islands, kept so secret by the master-mariners of the ancient world?

A committee of merchants met at Marseilles and engaged the services of Pytheas, a great mathematician, and one who made a study of the effect of the moon on the tides. All sorts of vague rumours had reached the ears of Pytheas about the northern regions he was about to visit. He would discover the homes of the tin and amber merchants, he would find the people who lived "at the back of the north wind," he would reach a land of perpetual sunshine, where swans sang like nightingales and life was one unending banquet.

So Pytheas, the mathematician of Marseilles started off on his northern trip. Unfortunately, his diary and book called The Circuit of the Earth have perished, and our story of geographical discovery is the poorer. But these facts have survived.

The ships first touched at Cadiz, the "Tyre of the West," a famous port in those days, where Phoenician merchants lived, "careless and secure" and rich. This was the limit of Greek geographical knowledge; here were the Pillars of Hercules, beyond which all was dim and mysterious and interesting. Five days' sail, that is to say, some three hundred miles along the coast of Spain, brought Pytheas to Cape St. Vincent.

He thought he was navigating the swift ocean river flowing round the world. He was, therefore, surprised to find as he rounded the Cape that the current had ceased, or, in his own words, the "ebb came to an end." Three days more and they were at the mouth of the Tagus. Near this part of the coast lay the Tin Islands, according to Greek ideas, though even to-day their exact locality is uncertain. Pytheas must have heard the old tradition that the Cassiterides were ten in number and lay near each other in the ocean, that they were inhabited by people who wore black cloaks and long tunics reaching to the feet, that they walked with long staves and subsisted by their cattle. They led a wandering life; they bartered hides, tin, and lead with the merchants in exchange for pottery, salt, and implements of bronze.

That these islands had already been visited by Himilco the Carthaginian seems fairly certain. He had started from Cadiz for the north when Hanno started for the south. From the Tin Islands his fleet had ventured forth into the open sea. Thick fogs had hidden the sun and the ships were driven south before a north wind till they reached, though they did not know it, the Sargasso Sea, famous for its vast plains of seaweed, through which it was difficult to push the ships.

"Sea animals," he tells us, "crept upon the tangled weed." It has been thought that with a little good fortune Himilco might have discovered America two thousand years before the birth of Columbus. But Himilco returned home by the Azores or Fortunate Islands, as they were called.

Leaving the Tin Islands, Pytheas voyaged on to Cape Finisterre, landing on the island of Ushant, where he found a temple served by women priests who kept up a perpetual fire in honour of their god. Thence Pytheas sailed prosperously on up the English Channel till he struck the coast of Kent. Britain, he announced, was several days' journey from Ushant, and about one hundred and seventy miles to the north. He sailed round part of the coast, making notes of distances, but these are curiously exaggerated. This was not unnatural, for the only method of determining distance was roughly based on the number of miles that a ship could go in an hour along the shore. Measuring in this primitive fashion, Pytheas assures us that Britain is a continent of enormous size, and that he has discovered a "new world." It is, he says, three cornered in shape, something like the head of a battleaxe. The south side, lying opposite the coast of France, is eight hundred and thirty-five miles in length, the eastern coast is sixteen hundred and sixty-five miles, the western two thousand two hundred and twenty-two—indeed, the whole country was thought to be over four thousand miles in circumference. These calculations must have been very upsetting to the old geographers of that age, because up to this time they had decided that the whole world was only three thousand four hundred miles long and six thousand eight hundred broad.

He tells us that he made journeys into the interior of Britain, that the inhabitants drink mead, and that there is an abundance of wheat in the fields.

"The natives," he says, "collect the sheaves in great barns and thrash out the corn there, because they have so little sunshine that an open thrashing-place would be of little use in that land of clouds and rain." He seems to have voyaged north as far as the Shetland Islands, but he never saw Ireland.

Having returned from the north of the Thames, Pytheas crossed the North Sea to the mouth of the Rhine, a passage which took about two and a half days. He gives a pitiable account of the people living on the Dutch coast and their perpetual struggle with the sea. The natives had not learnt the art of making dykes and embankments. A high tide with a wind setting toward the shore would sweep over the low-lying country and swamp their homes. A mounted horseman could barely gallop from the rush and force of these strong North Sea tides.

But the Greek geographers would not believe this; they only knew the tideless Mediterranean, and they thought Pytheas was lying when he told of the fierce northern sea. Pytheas sailed past the mouth of the Elbe, noting the amber cast upon the shore by the high spring tides. But all these interesting discoveries paled before the famous land of Thule, six days' voyage north of Britain, in the neighbourhood of the frozen ocean. Grand excitement reigned among geographers when they heard of Thule, and a very sea of romance rose up around the name. Had Pytheas indeed found the end of the world? Was it an island? Was it mainland? In the childhood of the world, when so little was known and so much imagined, men's minds caught at the name of Thule—Ultima Thule—far-away Thule, and weaved round it many and beautiful legends. But to-day we ask: Was it Iceland? Was it Lapland? Was it one of the Shetland Isles?



"Pytheas said that the farthest parts of the world are those which lie about Thule, the northernmost of the Britannic Isles, but he never said whether Thule was an island or whether the world was habitable by man as far as that point. I should think myself"—the speaker is Strabo, a famous Greek traveller who wrote seventeen books of geography—"I should think myself that the northern limit of habitude lies much farther to the south, for the writers of our age say nothing of any place beyond Ireland, which is situate in front of the northern parts of Britain." Pytheas said that Thule was six days' sail north of Britain. "But who in his senses would believe this?" cries Strabo again. "For Pytheas, who described Thule, has been shown to be the falsest of men. A traveller, starting from the middle of Britain and going five hundred miles to the north, would come to a country somewhere about Ireland, where living would be barely possible."

The first account of the Arctic regions likewise reads like pure romance to the ignorant and untravelled. "After one day's journey to the north of Thule," says Pytheas, "men come to a sluggish sea, where there is no separation of sea, land, and air, but a mixture of these elements like the substance of jelly-fish, through which one can neither walk nor sail." Here the nights were very short, sometimes only two hours, after which the sun rose again. This, in fact, was the "Sleeping Palace of the Sun."

With all this wealth of discovery, Pytheas returned home by the Bay of Biscay to the mouth of the Gironde; thence he sailed up the Garonne, and from the modern town of Bordeaux he reached Marseilles by an overland journey.



CHAPTER VII

JULIUS CAESAR AS EXPLORER

Our next explorer is Julius Caesar. As Alexander the Great had combined the conqueror with the explorer, so now history repeats itself, and we find the Roman Caesar not only conquering, but exploring. It was Caesar who first dispelled the mist that lay over the country about the French Seine, the German Rhine, the English Thames—Caesar who gives us the first graphic account of crossing the English Channel from France to England. Pytheas had hinted at the fog-bound lands of the north—Caesar brought them into the light of day.

Since the days of Alexander the centre of Empire had shifted from Greece to Rome, and Rome was now conquering and annexing land, as Persia had done in the olden days. Hence it was that Julius Caesar was in the year 58 B.C. appointed Governor of a new province recently brought under Roman sway, stretching from the Alps to the Garonne and northward to the Lake of Geneva, which at this time marked the frontier of the Roman Empire. Caesar made no secret of his intentions to subdue the tribes to the north of his province and bring all Gaul under the dominion of Rome. His appointment carried with it the command of four legions, including some twenty thousand soldiers. His chance soon came, and we find Caesar, with all the ability of a great commander, pushing forward with his army into the very heart of France one hundred and fifty miles beyond the Roman frontier.

On the banks of the river Saone he defeated a large body of Celtic people who were migrating from Switzerland to make their homes in the warmer and roomier plains at the foot of the Pyrenees.

While the defeated Celts returned to their chilly homes among the mountains, victorious Caesar resolved to push on at the head of his army toward the Rhine, where some German tribes under a "ferocious headstrong savage" threatened to overrun the country. After marching through utterly unknown country for three days, he heard that fresh swarms of invaders had crossed the Rhine, intending to occupy the more fertile tracts on the French side. They were making for the town we now call Besancon—then, as now, strongly fortified, and nearly surrounded by the river Doubs. By forced marches night and day, Caesar hastened to the town and took it before the arrival of the invaders.

Accounts of the German tribes even now approaching were brought in by native traders and Gaulish chiefs, until the Roman soldiers were seized with alarm. Yes, said the traders, these Germans were "men of huge stature, incredible valour, and practised skill in wars; many a time they had themselves come across them, and had not been able to look them in the face or meet the glare of their piercing eyes."

The Romans felt they were in an unknown land, about to fight against an unknown foe. Violent panic seized them, "completely paralysing every one's judgment and nerve." Some could not restrain their tears; others shut themselves up in their tents and bemoaned their fate. "All over the camp men were making their wills," until Caesar spoke, and the panic ceased. Seven days' march brought them to the plain of Alsace, some fifty miles from the Rhine. A battle was fought with the German tribes, and "the enemy all turned tail and did not cease their flight until they reached the Rhine." Some swam across, some found boats, many were killed by the Romans in hot pursuit.

For the first time Romans beheld the German Rhine—that great river that was to form a barrier for so long between them and the tribes beyond. But Caesar's exploration was not to end here. The following year found him advancing against the Belgae—tribes living between the Rhine and the Seine. In one brilliant campaign he subdued the whole of north-eastern Gaul from the Seine to the Rhine. Leaving Roman soldiers in the newly conquered country, he returned to his province, and was some eight hundred miles away when he heard that a general rebellion was breaking out in that part we now know as Brittany. He at once ordered ships to be built on the Loire, "which flows into the ocean," oarsmen to be trained, seamen and pilots assembled.

The spring of 56 B.C. found Caesar at the seat of war. His ships were ready on the Loire. But the navy of the Veneti was strong. They were a sea-going folk, who knew their own low rocky coast, intersected by shallow inlets of the sea; they knew their tides and their winds. Their flat-bottomed boats were suitable to shallows and ebbing tides. Bows and stern stood high out of the water to resist heavy seas and severe gales; the hulls were built of oak. Leather was used for sails to withstand the violent ocean storms. The long Roman galleys were no match for these, and things would have gone badly had not Caesar devised a plan for cutting the enemy's rigging with hooks "sharpened at the end and fixed to long poles." With these, the Romans cut the rigging of the enemy's ships forming the fleet of Brittany; the sails fell and the ships were rendered useless. One after another they were easily captured, and at sunset the victory lay with the Romans.

The whole of Gaul, from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, seemed now subdued. Caesar had conquered as he explored, and the skill of his well-disciplined army triumphed everywhere over the untrained courage of the barbarian tribes.

Still, the German tribes were giving trouble about the country of the Rhine, and in the words of the famous Commentaries, "Caesar was determined to cross the Rhine, but he hardly thought it safe to cross in boats. Therefore, although the construction of a bridge presented great difficulties on account of the breadth, swiftness, and depth of the stream, he nevertheless thought it best to make the attempt or else not cross at all." Indeed, he wanted to impress the wild German people on the other side with a sense of the vast power of the Roman Empire. The barbarian tribes beyond must, indeed, have been impressed with the skill of the Roman soldier. For in ten days the bridge was completed: timber had been hewn from the forest, brought to the banks of the Rhine, worked into shape, piles driven into the bed of the river, beams laid across. And Caesar led his army in triumph to the other side. They stood for the first time in the land of the Germans, near the modern town of Coblenz, and after eighteen days on the farther side, they returned to Gaul, destroying the bridge behind them.

Caesar had now a fresh adventure in view. He was going to make his way to Britain. The summer of 55 B.C. was passing, and "in these parts, the whole of Gaul having a northerly trend, winter sets in early," wrote Caesar afterwards. There would be no time to conquer, but he could visit the island, find out for himself what the people were like, learn about harbours and landing-places, "for of all this the Greeks knew practically nothing. No one, indeed, readily undertakes the voyage to Britain except traders, and even they know nothing of it except the coast."

Caesar summoned all the traders he could collect and inquired the size of the island, what tribes dwelt there, their names, their customs, and the shortest sea passage. Then he sent for the ships which had vanquished the fleet of Brittany the previous year; he also assembled some eighty merchant ships on the northern coast of Gaul, probably not very far from Calais.

It was near the end of August, when soon after midnight the wind served and he set sail. A vision of the great Roman—determined, resolute—rises before us as, standing on the deck of the galley, he looks out on to the dark waters of the unknown sea bound for the coast of England. After a slow passage the little fleet arrived under the steep white cliffs of the southern coast about nine o'clock next morning. Armed forces of barbarians stood on the heights above Dover, and, finding it impossible to land, Caesar gave orders to sail some seven miles farther along the coast, where they ran the ships aground not far from Deal.

But the visit of the Romans to Britain on this occasion lasted but three days, for a violent storm scattered the ships with the horses on board.

"The same night," says Caesar, "it happened to be full moon, which generally causes very high tides in the ocean, a fact of which our men were not aware."

Indeed, we may well believe that a night of full moon and an unusually high tide would be a mystery to those children of the Mediterranean. Their ships had been beached and were lying high and dry when the rapidly rising tide overwhelmed them. Cables were broken, anchors lost, panic ensued.

But Caesar's glory lay in overcoming obstacles, and it is well known how he got his troops and ships safely back across the Channel, and how preparations were hurried on in Gaul for a second invasion of Britain. This is not the place for the story of his campaign. He was the first to raise the curtain on the mysterious islands discovered by Pytheas.

"Far to the west, in the ocean wide, Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies, Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old."

Caesar's remarks on this new-found land are interesting for us to-day. He tells us of "a river called the Thames, about eight miles from the sea." "The interior of Britain," he says, "is inhabited by a people who, according to tradition, are aboriginal. The population is immense; homesteads closely resembling those of the Gauls are met with at every turn, and cattle are very numerous. Gold coins are in use, or iron bars of fixed weight. Hares, fowls, and geese they think it wrong to taste; but they keep them for pastime or amusement. The climate is more equable than in Gaul, the cold being less severe. The island is triangular in shape, one side being opposite Gaul. One corner of this side, by Kent—the landing-place for almost all ships from Gaul—has an easterly, and the lower one a westerly, aspect. The extent of this side is about five hundred miles. The second trends off towards Spain. Off the coast here is Ireland, which is considered only half as large as Britain. Halfway across is an island called 'Man,' and several smaller islands also are believed to be situated opposite this coast, in which there is continuous night for thirty days. The length of this side is eight hundred miles. Thus the whole island is two thousand miles in circumference. The people of the interior do not, for the most part, cultivate grain, but live on milk and flesh-meat, and clothe themselves with skins. All Britons, without exception, stain themselves with woad, which produces a bluish tint. They wear their hair long."

Caesar crossed the Thames. "The river can only be forded at one spot," he tells us, "and there with difficulty." Farther he did not go. And so this is all that was known of Britain for many a long year to come.



CHAPTER VIII

STRABO'S GEOGRAPHY

Strabo wrote his famous geography near the beginning of the Christian era, but he knew nothing of the north of England, Scotland, or Wales. He insisted on placing Ireland to the north, and scoffed at Pytheas' account of Thule.

And yet he boasted a wider range than any other writer on geography, "for that those who had penetrated farther towards the West had not gone so far to the East, and those on the contrary who had seen more of the East had seen less of the West."

Like Herodotus, Strabo had travelled himself from Armenia and western Italy, from the Black Sea to Egypt and up the Nile to Philae. But his seventeen volumes—vastly important to his contemporaries—read like a romance to us to-day, and a glance at the map laid down according to his descriptions is like a vague and distorted caricature of the real thing. And yet, according to the men of his times, he "surpasses all the geographical writings of antiquity, both in grandeur of plan and in abundance and variety of its materials."

Strabo has summed up for us the knowledge of the ancient world as it was in the days of the Emperor Caesar Augustus of the great Roman Empire, as it was when in far-off Syria the Christ was born and the greater part of the known earth was under the sway of Rome.

A wall-map had already been designed by order of Augustus to hang in a public place in Rome—the heart of the Empire—so that the young Romans might realise the size of their inheritance, while a list of the chief places on the roads, which, radiating from Rome, formed a network over the Empire, was inscribed on the Golden Milestone in the Forum.



We may well imagine with what keen interest the schoolmen of Alexandria would watch the extension of the Roman Empire. Here Strabo had studied, here or at Rome he probably wrote his great work toward the close of a long life. He has read his Homer and inclines to take every word he says as true. Herodotus he will have none of.

"Herodotus and other writers trifle very much," he asserts, "when they introduce into their histories the marvellous like an interlude of some melody."

In like manner he disbelieves poor Pytheas and his accounts of the land of Ultima Thule and his marvellous walks through Britain, while he clings to the writings of Eratosthenes.

But in common with them all Strabo believes the world to be one vast island, surrounded on all sides by ocean into which the rivers flow, and the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf are but inlets. So is also the Mediterranean or "Our Sea," as he prefers to call it. This earth-island reaches north to south, from Ireland, "barely habitable on account of the cold," to the cinnamon country (Somaliland), "the most southerly point of the habitable earth." From west to east it stretches from the Pillars of Hercules right "through the middle of Our Sea" to the shores of Asia Minor, then across Asia by an imaginary chain of mountains to an imaginary spot where the Ganges, lately discovered, emptied its waters into the world-surrounding ocean stream.



The breadth of the habitable earth is three thousand miles, the length about seven thousand—a little world, indeed, with the greater world lying all around it, still undreamt of by the old student of geography and the traveller after truth.

He begins his book with a detailed account of southern Spain. He tells of her two hundred towns. "Those best known are situated on the rivers, estuaries, and seas; but the two which have acquired the greatest name and importance are Cordova and Cadiz. After these Seville is the most noted.... A vast number of people dwell along the Guadalquivir, and you may sail up it almost a hundred and twenty miles from the sea to Cordova and the places a little higher up. The banks and little inlets of this river are cultivated with the greatest diligence. The eye is also delighted with groves and gardens, which in this district are met with in the highest perfection. For fifty miles the river is navigable for ships of considerable size, but for the cities higher up smaller vessels are employed, and thence to Cordova river-boats. These are now constructed of planks joined together, but they were formerly made out of a single trunk. A chain of mountains, rich in metal, runs parallel to the Guadalquivir, approaching the river, sometimes more, sometimes less, toward the north."

He grows enthusiastic over the richness of this part of southern Spain, famous from ancient days under the name of Tartessus for its wealth. "Large quantities of corn and wine are exported, besides much oil, which is of the first quality, also wax, honey, and pitch ... the country furnishes the timber for their shipbuilding. They have likewise mineral salt and not a few salt streams. A considerable quantity of salted fish is exported, not only from hence, but also from the remainder of the coast beyond the Pillars. Formerly they exported large quantities of garments, but they now send the unmanufactured wool remarkable for its beauty. The stuffs manufactured are of incomparable texture. There is a superabundance of cattle and a great variety of game, while on the other hand there are certain little hares which burrow in the ground (rabbits). These creatures destroy both seeds and trees by gnawing their roots. They are met with throughout almost the whole of Spain. It is said that formerly the inhabitants of Majorca and Minorca sent a deputation to the Romans requesting that a new land might be given them, as they were quite driven out of their country by these animals, being no longer able to stand against their vast multitudes." The seacoast on the Atlantic side abounds in fish, says Strabo. "The congers are quite monstrous, far surpassing in size those of Our Sea. Shoals of rich fat tunny fish are driven hither from the seacoast beyond. They feed on the fruit of stunted oak, which grows at the bottom of the sea and produces very large acorns. So great is the quantity of fruit, that at the season when they are ripe the whole coast on either side of the Pillars is covered with acorns thrown up by the tides. The tunny fish become gradually thinner, owing to the failure of their food as they approach the Pillars from the outer sea."

He describes, too, the metals of this wondrous land—gold, silver, copper, and iron. It is astonishing to think that in the days of Strabo the silver mines employed forty thousand workmen, and produced something like 900 pounds a day in our modern money!

But we cannot follow Strabo over the world in all his detail. He tells us of a people living north of the Tagus, who slept on the ground, fed on acorn-bread, and wore black cloaks by day and night. He does not think Britain is worth conquering—Ireland lies to the north, not west, of Britain; it is a barren land full of cannibals and wrapped in eternal snows—the Pyrenees run parallel to the Rhine—the Danube rises near the Alps—even Italy herself runs east and west instead of north and south. His remarks on India are interesting.

"The reader," he says, "must receive the accounts of this country with indulgence. Few persons of our nation have seen it; the greater part of what they relate is from report. Very few of the merchants who now sail from Egypt by the Nile and the Arabian Gulf to India have proceeded as far as the Ganges."

He is determined not to be led astray by the fables of the great size of India. Some had told him it was a third of the whole habitable world, some that it took four months to walk through the plain only. "Ceylon is said to be an island lying out at sea seven days' sail from the most southerly parts of India. Its length is about eight hundred miles. It produces elephants."

Strabo died about the year 21 A.D., and half a century passed before Pliny wrote An Account of Countries, Nations, Seas, Towns, Havens, Mountains, Rivers, Distances, and Peoples who now Exist or Formerly Existed. Strange to say, he never refers in the most distant way to his famous predecessor Strabo. He has but little to add to the earth-knowledge of Strabo. But he gives us a fuller account of Great Britain, based on the fresh discoveries of Roman generals.



CHAPTER IX

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND PLINY

In the year 43 A.D. the Emperor Claudius resolved to send an expedition to the British coast, lying amid the mists and fog of the Northern Ocean.

A gigantic army landed near the spot where Caesar had landed just a hundred years before. The discovery and conquest of Britain now began in real earnest. The Isle of Wight was overrun by Romans; the south coast was explored. Roman soldiers lost their lives in the bogs and swamps of Gloucestershire. The eastern counties, after fierce opposition, submitted at the last. The spirit of Caractacus and Boadicea spread from tribe to tribe and the Romans were constantly assailed. But gradually they swept the island. They reached the banks of the river Tyne; they crossed the Tweed and explored as far as the Firths of Clyde and Forth. From the coast of Galloway the Romans beheld for the first time the dim outline of the Irish coast. In the year 83 A.D. Agricola, a new Roman commander, made his way beyond the Firth of Forth.

"Now is the time to penetrate into the heart of Caledonia and to discover the utmost limits of Britain," cried the Romans, as they began their advance to the Highlands of Scotland. While a Roman fleet surveyed the coasts and harbours, Agricola led his men up the valley of the Tay to the edge of the Highlands, but he could not follow the savage Caledonians into their rugged and inaccessible mountains. To the north of Scotland they never penetrated, and no part of Ireland ever came under Roman sway, in that air "the Roman eagle never fluttered." The Roman account of Britain at this time is interesting. "Britain," says Tacitus, "the largest of all the islands which have come within the knowledge of the Romans, stretches on the east towards Germany, on the west towards Spain, and on the south it is even within sight of France.... The Roman fleet, at this period first sailing round this remotest coast, gave certain proof that Britain was an island, and at the same time discovered and subdued the Orkney Islands, till then unknown. Thule was also distinctly seen, which winter and eternal snow had hitherto concealed.... The sky in this country is deformed by clouds and frequent rains; but the cold is never extremely rigorous. The earth yields gold and silver and other metals—the ocean produces pearls."

The account of Ireland is only from hearsay. "This island," continues Tacitus, "is less than Britain, but larger than those of Our Sea. Situated between Britain and Spain and lying commodiously to the Bay of Biscay, it would have formed a very beneficial connection between the most powerful parts of the Empire. Its soil, climate, and the manners and dispositions of its inhabitants are little different from those of Britain. Its ports and harbours are better known from the concourse of merchants for the purposes of commerce."

Not only the British Isles, but a good deal of the wild North Sea and the low-lying coast on the opposite side were explored by Roman ships and Roman soldiers. Caesar had crossed the Rhine; he had heard of a great forest which took a man four months to cross, and in 16 A.D. a Roman general, Drusus, penetrated into the interior of Germany. Drusus crossed the Rhine near the coast, made his way across the river Weser, and reached the banks of the Elbe. But the fame of Drusus rests mainly on his navigation of the German Ocean or North Sea in a Roman fleet. Near the mouth of the Rhine a thousand ships were quickly built by expert Romans. "Some were short, with narrow stern and prow and broad in the middle, the easier to endure the shock of the waves; some had flat bottoms that without damage they might run aground; many were fitted for carrying horses and provisions, convenient for sails and swift with oars."

The Roman troops were in high spirits as they launched their splendid fleet on the Northern Ocean and sailed prosperously to the mouth of the Elbe, startling the Frisians into submission. But no friendliness greeted them on the farther side of the river. The Germans were ready to defend their land, and further advance was impossible. Returning along the northern coast, the Romans got a taste of the storms of this northern ocean, of which they were in such complete ignorance.

"The sea, at first calm," says Tacitus, "resounded with the oars of a thousand ships; but presently a shower of hail poured down from a black mass of clouds, at the same time storms raging on all sides in every variety, the billows rolling now here, now there, obstructed the view and made it impossible to manage the ships. The whole expanse of air and sea was swept by a south-west wind, which, deriving strength from the mountainous regions of Germany, its deep rivers and boundless tract of clouded atmosphere, and rendered still harsher by the rigour of the neighbouring north, tore away the ships, scattered and drove them into the open ocean or upon islands dangerous from precipitous rocks or hidden sandbanks. Having got a little clear of these, but with great difficulty, the tide turning and flowing in the same direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride at anchor or bale out the water that broke in upon them; horses, beasts of burthen, baggage, even arms were thrown overboard to lighten the holds of the ships, which took in water at their sides, and from the waves, too, running over them. Around were either shores inhabited by enemies, or a sea so vast and unfathomable as to be supposed the limit of the world and unbounded by lands. Part of the fleet was swallowed up; many were driven upon remote islands, where the men perished through famine. The galley of Drusus or, as he was hereafter called, Germanicus, alone reached the mouth of the Weser. Both day and night, amid the rocks and prominences of the shore, he reproached himself as the author of such overwhelming destruction, and was hardly restrained by his friends from destroying himself in the same sea. At last, with the returning tide and a favouring gale, the shattered ships returned, almost all destitute or with garments spread for sails."



The wreck of the Roman fleet in the North Sea made a deep impression on the Roman capital, and many a garbled story of the "extreme parts of the world" was circulated throughout the Empire.

Here was new land outside the boundaries of the Empire—country great with possibilities. Pliny, writer of the Natural History, now arises and endeavours to clear the minds of his countrymen by some account of these northern regions. Strabo had been dead some fifty years, and the Empire had grown since his days. But Pliny has news of land beyond the Elbe. He can tell us of Scandinavia, "an island of unknown extent," of Norway, another island, "the inhabitants of which sailed as far as Thule," of the Seamen or Swedes who lived in the "northern half of the world."

"It is madness to harass the mind with attempts to measure the world," he asserts, but he proceeds to tell us the size of the world as accepted by him. "Our part of the earth, floating as it were in the ocean, which surrounds it, stretching out to the greatest extent from India to the Pillars at Cadiz, is eight thousand five hundred and sixty-eight miles ... the breadth from south to north is commonly supposed to be half its length."

But how little was known of the north of Europe at this time is shown by a startling statement that "certain Indians sailing from India for the purposes of commerce had been driven by tempests into Germany."

"Thus it appears," concludes Pliny, "that the seas flow completely round the globe and divide it into two parts."

How Balbus discovered and claimed for the Empire some of the African desert is related by Pliny. He tells us, too, how another Roman general left the west coast of Africa, marched for ten days, reached Mt. Atlas, and "in a desert of dark-coloured sand met a river which he supposed to be the Niger."

The home of the Ethiopians in Africa likewise interested Pliny.

"There can be no doubt that the Ethiopians are scorched by their vicinity to the sun's heat, and that they are born like persons who have been burned, with beard and hair frizzled, while in the opposite and frozen parts of the earth there are nations with white skins and long light hair."

Pliny's geography was the basis of much mediaeval writing, and his knowledge of the course of the Niger remained unchallenged, till Mungo Park re-discovered it many centuries after.



CHAPTER X

PTOLEMY'S MAPS

And so we reach the days of Ptolemy—the last geographer of the Pagan World. This famous Greek was born in Egypt, and the great Roman Empire was already showing signs of decay, while Ptolemy was searching the great Alexandrian library for materials for his book. Alexandria was now the first commercial city of the world, second only to Rome. She supplied the great population in the heart of the Empire with Egyptian corn. Ships sailed from Alexandria to every part of the known world. It was, therefore, a suitable place for Ptolemy to listen to the yarns of the merchants, to read the works of Homer, Herodotus, Eratosthenes, Strabo, Pliny, and others, to study and observe, and finally to write.

He begins his great geography with the north-west extremities of the world—the British Isles, Iverna, and Albion as he calls Ireland and England. But he places Ireland much too far north, and the shape of Scotland has little resemblance to the original.[2] He realised that there were lands to the south of Africa, to the east of Africa, and to the north of Europe, all stretching far away beyond his ken. He agrees with Pliny about the four islands in the neighbourhood of Scandinavia, and draws the Volga correctly, He realises, too, that the Caspian is an inland sea, and unconnected with the surrounding ocean.

[Footnote 2: If Ptolemy's longitudes are adjusted, he becomes extraordinarily correct.]



Perhaps the most remarkable part of Ptolemy's geography is that which tells us of the lands beyond the Ganges. He knows something of the "Golden Chersonese" or Malay Peninsula, something of China, where "far away towards the north, and bordering on the eastern ocean, there is a land containing a great city from which silk is exported, both raw and spun and woven into textures."

The wonder is that Ptolemy did not know more of China, for that land had one of the oldest civilisations in the world, as wondrous as those of Assyria and Egypt. But China had had little or no direct intercourse with the West till after the death of Ptolemy. Merchants had passed between China and India for long centuries, and "the Indians had made journeys in the golden deserts in troops of one or two thousand, and it is said that they do not return from these journeys till the third or fourth year." This was the Desert of Gobi, called golden because it opened the way to wealth.

But perhaps the most interesting part of this great geography, which was to inform the world for centuries yet to come, was the construction of a series of twenty-six maps and a general map of the known world.

This was one of the most important maps ever constructed, and forms our frontispiece from mediaeval copies of the original. The twelve heads blowing sundry winds on to the world's surface are characteristic of the age. The twenty-six maps are in sections. They are the first maps to be drawn with lines of latitude and longitude. The measurements are very vague. The lines are never ruled; they are drawn uncertainly in red; they are neither straight nor regular, though the spaces between the lines indicate degrees of fifty miles. The maps are crowded with towns, each carefully walled in by little red squares and drawn by hand. The water is all coloured a sombre, greeny blue, and the land is washed in a rich yellow brown. A copy can be seen at the British Museum.

It is only by looking back that we can realise the progress made in earth-knowledge. Ptolemy wrote just a thousand years after Homer, when the little world round the Mediterranean had become a great Empire stretching from the British Isles to China.

Already the barbaric hordes which haunted the frontiers of the Roman Empire were breaking across the ill-defended boundaries, desolating streams were bursting over the civilised world, until at last the storm broke, the unity of the Empire was ended, commerce broken up, and the darkness of ignorance spread over the earth.

During this time little in the way of progress was made, and for the next few centuries our only interest lies in filling up some of the shadowy places of the earth, without extending its known bounds.



CHAPTER XI

PILGRIM TRAVELLERS

Meanwhile a new inspiration had been given to the world, which affected travelling to no small extent.

In far-off Roman province of Syria, the Christ had lived, the Christ had died. And His words were ringing through the land: "Go ye and make disciples of all the nations, preach the gospel to every creature." Here at once was a new incentive to travel, a definite reason for men to venture forth into the unknown, to brave dangers, to endure hardship. They must carry their Master's words "unto the ends of the world." The Roman Empire had brought men under one rule; they must now be brought to serve one God. So men passed out of Syria; they landed on the islands in the Mediterranean, they made their way to Asia Minor and across to Greece, until in the year 60 A.D. we get the graphic account of Paul the traveller, one of the first and most famous of the missionaries of the first century.

Jerusalem now became, indeed, the world centre. A very stream of pilgrim travellers tramped to the Holy City from far-away lands to see for themselves the land where the Christ had lived and died.

The pilgrim age begins with the journey of a woman—the beautiful and learned daughter of the King of Britain, Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. She was a student of divinity and a devoted Christian. In the year 326 she undertook the difficult journey to Jerusalem, where she is reported to have discovered the "true cross," which had been buried, with Pilate's inscription in "Hebrew and Greek and Latin." When the news of her discovery was noised abroad a very rush of pilgrims took place from every part of the world. Indeed, one pilgrim—his name is unknown—thought it worth while to write a guide-book for the benefit of his fellow-travellers. His Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem is very interesting, being the first Christian guide-book and one of the earliest travel-documents ever written for the use of travellers. This ancient "Bradshaw" has been translated into English and throws light on fourth-century travelling. Enthusiastic indeed must these early pilgrims have been to undertake the long and toilsome journey.



The guide-book takes them, save for crossing the Bosphorus, entirely by land. It leads them from the "city of Bordeaux, where is the river Garonne in which the ocean ebbs and flows for one hundred leagues more or less," to Arles, with thirty changes and eleven halts in three hundred and seventy-two miles. There were milestones along the Roman roads to guide them, and houses at regular intervals where horses were kept for posting. From Arles the pilgrim goes north to Avignon, crosses the Alps, and halts at the Italian frontier. Skirting the north of Italy by Turin, Milan, and Padua, he reaches the Danube at Belgrade, passes through Servia and Bulgaria and so reaches Constantinople—the great new city of Constantine. "Grand total from Bordeaux to Constantinople, two thousand two hundred and twenty-one miles, with two hundred and thirty changes and one hundred and twelve halts."

"From Constantinople," continues the guide-book, "you cross the strait and walk on through Asia Minor, passing the spot where lies King Hannibal, once King of the Africans." Thus onward through the long dreary miles to Tarsus, where "was born the Apostle Paul," till Syria is reached at last.

Then the "Bradshaw" becomes a "Baedeker." Long and detailed accounts are given of the country through which the pilgrim has to pass. From Caesarea he is led to Jezreel by the spot "where David slew Goliath," by "Job's country house" to Sichem, "where Joseph is laid," and thence to Jerusalem. Full accounts follow of the Holy City and Mount Sion, "the little hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified," the Mount of Olives, Jericho, Jordan, Bethlehem, and Hebron. "Here is a monument of square form built of stone of wondrous beauty," in which lie Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sara, Rebecca, and Leah.

"From Constantinople to Jerusalem is one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine miles, with sixty-nine changes and fifty-eight halts."

Here the guide-book ends abruptly with a brief summary of distances. Thither then flocked the pilgrims, some by land and some by sea, men and women from all parts of the world.

"Even the Briton, separated from our world, leaves the setting sun and seeks a place known to him only by fame and the narrative of the Scriptures."

One of the earliest was Paula of Rome—a weak, fragile woman accustomed to a life of luxury and ease, but, fired with the enthusiasm of her religion, she resolved to brave the dangers and hardships of a journey to the East. Her travels were written by St. Jerome.

"When the winter was spent and the sea was open," he writes, "she longed and prayed to sail.... She went down to the harbour, accompanied by her brother, her relatives, her connections and, more than these, by her children, who strove to surpass the affection of the kindest of mothers. Soon the sails were swelling in the breeze, and the ship, guided by the oars, gained the open sea. Little Lexotinus piteously stretched forth his hands from the shore. Rufina, a grown-up girl, by her tears silently besought her mother to stay until she was married. Yet she herself, without a tear, turned her eyes heavenward, overcoming her love for her children by her love for God.... Meanwhile the ship was ploughing the sea—the winds were sluggish and all speed slow." But the ship passed between Scylla and Charybdis and reached Antioch in safety. From this spot she followed the guide-book directions until she arrived at Jerusalem. How Paula and one of her young daughters walked over the rough ground, endured the hardships of desert-life, and finally lived twenty years at Bethlehem, would take too long to tell. And she was but one of many.



Sylvia of Aquitaine, travelling at the same time, wrote a strangely interesting account of her travels. The early part of her manuscript is lost, and we find her first in Arabia. All was new and strange.

"Meanwhile as we walked we arrived at a certain place, where the mountains between which we were passing opened themselves out and formed a great valley, very flat and extremely beautiful; and beyond the valley appeared Sinai, the holy mount of God.... This is the same great and flat valley in which the children of Israel waited during the days when holy Moses went up into the Mount of God.... It was late on the Sabbath when we came to the mountain, and, arriving at a certain monastery, the kindly monks who lived there entertained us, showing us all kindliness." Sylvia had to ascend the mountain on foot "because the ascent could not be made in a chair," but the view over "Egypt and Palestine and the Red Sea and the Mediterranean which leads to Alexandria, also the boundless territory of the Saracens, we saw below us, hard though it is to believe, all of which things these holy men pointed out to us."

But we must not follow her to Jerusalem, or to Mesopotamia, where she saw "the great river Euphrates, rushing down in a torrent like the Rhine, but greater." She reached Constantinople by the guide-book route, having spent four years in travel, and walked two thousand miles to the very "limit of the Roman Empire." Her boundless energy is not exhausted yet. "Ladies, my beloved ones," she writes, "whilst I prepare this account for your pious zeal, it is already my purpose to go to Asia."

But we must turn away for a moment from the stream of pilgrim travellers wending their weary way from Britain, France, Spain, and the east to Jerusalem, to follow the travels of St. Patrick through the wilds of Ireland.



CHAPTER XII

IRISH EXPLORERS

Patrick had been a pilgrim to Rome from the banks of the Clyde, where he lived, and, having seen the Pope, he had returned to Ireland by sea, landing on the Wicklow coast in the year 432. Hungry and tired after the long voyage, he tried to get some fish from the fishermen, but they replied by throwing stones at him, and he put out to sea again and headed north. Past Bray Head, past the Bay of Malahide he sailed, but he could get neither fish nor food till he reached a spot between the Liffey and the Boyne, where he built his first Christian church.

Now in the fifth century, when light first breaks over Ireland, it breaks over a land torn by perpetual tribal strife, a land in the chaos of wild heathendom. It was reserved for St. Patrick to save her from increasing gloom.

Patrick and his companions now sailed on past Louth, by the low-lying shore with long stretches of sandy flats, on under the shadow of great peaks frowning over the sea. He landed near Downpatrick, founded another church, and spent the winter in these parts, for the autumn was far advanced. Spring found him sailing back to the Boyne and attacking the fierce heathen king at Tara, the capital of Ireland. From Tara five great roads led to different parts of the island. St. Patrick now made his way through Meath to the very heart of the country, building churches as he went. Thence he crossed the Shannon, entered the great plain of Roscommon, passed by Mayo, and at length reached the western sea. He had now been eight years in Ireland, eight laborious years, climbing hills, wading through waters, camping out by night, building, organising, preaching. He loved the land on the western sea, little known as yet.

"I would choose To remain here on a little land, After faring around churches and waters. Since I am weary, I wish not to go further."

St. Patrick climbed the great peak, afterwards called Croaghpatrick, and on the summit, exposed to wind and rain, he spent the forty days of Lent. From here he could look down on to one of the most beautiful bays in Ireland, down on to the hundred little islands in the glancing waters below, while away to the north and south stretched the rugged coast-line. And he tells us how the great white birds came and sang to him there. It would take too long to tell how he returned to Tara and started again with a train of thirteen chariots by the great north-western road to the spot afterwards known as Downpatrick Head; he passed along the broken coast to the extreme north where the great ocean surf breaks on the rugged shore, returning again to the Irish capital. He travelled over a great part of Ireland, founded three hundred and fifty churches, converted heathen tribes to Christianity and civilisation, and finally died at Armagh in 493. His work was carried on by St. Columba, a native of Ireland, who, "deciding to go abroad for Christ," sailed away with twelve disciples to a low rocky island off the west coast of Scotland, where he founded the famous monastery of Iona, about 563. Thence he journeyed away to the Highlands, making his way through rugged and mountainous country that had stayed the warlike Romans long years before. He even sailed across the stormy northern sea to the Orkney Islands.

Let us picture the Scotland of the sixth century in order to realise those long lonely tramps of St. Columba and his disciples across the rough mountains, through the dense forests, across bleak moors and wet bogs, till after dreary wanderings they reached the coast, and in frail ships boldly faced the wild seas that raged round the northern islands.

"We can see Columba and his disciples journeying on foot, as poor and as barely provided as were Christ and His disciples, with neither silver nor gold nor brass in their purses, and over a wilder country and among a wilder people."



These pilgrims tramped to and fro clad in simple tunics over a monkish dress of undyed wool, bound round the waist by a strong cord, all their worldly goods on their backs and a staff in their hands. The hermit instinct was growing, and men were sailing away to lonely islands where God might be better served apart from the haunts of men. Perhaps it was this instinct that inspired St. Brandon to sail away across the trackless ocean in search of the Island of Saints reported in the western seas. His voyage suggests the old expedition of Ulysses. A good deal of it is mythical, some is added at a later date, but it is interesting as being an attempt to cross the wide Atlantic Ocean across which no man had yet sailed. For seven years St. Brandon sailed on the unknown sea, discovering unknown islands, until he reached the Island of Saints—the goal of his desires. And the fact remains that for ten centuries after this an island, known as Brandon's Isle, was marked on maps somewhere to the west of Ireland, though to the end it remained as mysterious as the island of Thule.

Here is the old story. Brandon, abbot of a large Irish monastery containing one thousand monks, sailed off in an "osier boat covered with tanned hides and carefully greased," provisioned for seven years. After forty days at sea they reached an island with steep sides, where they took in fresh supplies. Thence the winds carried the ship to another island, where they found sheep—"every sheep was as great as an ox."

"This is the island of sheep, and here it is ever summer," they were informed by an old islander.

This may have been Madeira. They found other islands in the neighbourhood, one of which was full of singing-birds, and the passing years found them still tossing to and fro on the unknown sea, until at last the end came. "And St. Brandon sailed forty days south in full great tempest," and another forty days brought the ship right into a bank of fog. But when the fog lifted "they saw the fairest country eastward that any man might see, it was so clear and bright that it was a heavenly sight to behold; and all the trees were charged with ripe fruit." And they walked about the island for forty days and could not find the end. And there was no night there, and the climate was neither hot nor cold.

"Be ye joyful now," said a voice, "for this is the land ye have sought, and our Lord wills that you laden your ship with the fruit of this land and hie you hence, for ye may no longer abide here, but thou shalt sail again into thine own country."



So the monks took all the fruit they could carry, and, weeping that they might stay no longer in this happy land, they sailed back to Ireland. Hazy, indeed, was the geography of the Atlantic in the sixth century. Nor can we leave St. Brandon's story without quoting a modern poet, who believed that the voyage was to the Arctic regions and not in the Atlantic.

"Saint Brandon sails the Northern Main, The brotherhood of saints are glad. He greets them once, he sails again: So late! Such storms! The saint is mad. He heard across the howling seas Chime convent bells on wintry nights; He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides, Twinkle the monastery lights: But north, still north, Saint Brandon steered, And now no bells, no convents more, The hurtling Polar lights are reached, The sea without a human shore."

Some three hundred years were to pass away before further discoveries in these quarters revealed new lands, three hundred years before the great energy of the Vikings brought to light Iceland, Greenland, and even the coast of America.



CHAPTER XIII

AFTER MOHAMMED

So once more we turn back to the East. Jerusalem is still the centre of the earth. But a change has passed over the world, which influenced not a little the progress of geography. Mohammed in the seventh century lived and died in Arabia. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet," proclaimed his followers, the Arabs or Saracens as they were called. And just as men had travelled abroad to preach Christianity to those who knew it not, so now the Mohammedans set forth to teach the faith of their Lord and Master. But whereas Christianity was taught by peaceful means, Mohammedanism was carried by the sword. The Roman provinces of Syria and Egypt had been conquered by the Arabs, and the famous cities of Jerusalem and Alexandria were filled with teachers of the new faith. The Mohammedans had conquered Spain and were pressing by Persia towards India.

What deep root their preaching took in these parts is still evident. Still the weary fight between the two religions continues.

The first traveller of note through this distracted Europe was a Frenchman named Arculf, a Christian bishop. When he had visited the Holy Land and Egypt his ship was caught in a violent storm and driven on to the west coast of Scotland. After many adventures Arculf found himself at the famous convent of Iona, made welcome by an Irish monk Adamnan, who was deeply interested in Arculf's account of his wanderings, and wrote them down at his dictation, first on waxed tablets, copied later on to parchment. How tenderly the two monks dwell on all the glories of Jerusalem. "But in that beautiful place where once the Temple had been, the Saracens now frequent a four-sided house of prayer, which they have built, rudely constructing it by raising boards and great beams on some remains of ruins, which house can hold three thousand men at once." And Arculf draws on the waxed tablet the picture of some church or tomb to make his narrative clearer to his friend Adamnan.

Perhaps the most interesting part of all the travels is the account of the lofty column that Arculf describes in the midst of Jerusalem.

"This column," he says, "as it stands in the centre of the heaven, shining straight down from above, proves that the city of Jerusalem is situated in the middle of the earth."

Arculf's journey aroused great interest among the newly converted Christians of the north, and Willibald, a high-born Englishman, started off in 721 to explore farther. But the road through Europe was now full of danger. The followers of Mohammed were strong, and it required true courage to face the perils of the long journey. Willibald was undaunted, and with his father and two brothers he sailed from Southampton, crossed to France, sailed up the Seine to Rouen, and reached Italy. Here the old father died. Willibald and his brothers travelled on through "the vast lands of Italy, through the depths of the valleys, over the steep brows of the mountains, over the levels of the plains, climbing on foot the difficult passes of the Alps, over the icebound and snow-capped summits," till they arrived at Rome. Thence they made their way to Syria, where they were at once thrown into prison by Mohammedan conquerors. They were brought before the ruler of the Mohammedan world, or Khalif, whose seat was at Damascus. He asked whence they came.

"These men come from the western shore, where the sun sets: and we know not of any land beyond them, but water only," was the answer.

Such was Britain to the Mohammedans. They never got a footing in that country: their Empire lay to the east, and their capital was even now shifting to Bagdad.



But before turning to their geographical discoveries we must see how Cosmas, the Egyptian merchant-monk, set the clock back by his quaint theories of the world in the sixth century. Cosmas hailed from "Alexander's great city." His calling carried him into seas and countries remote from home. He knew the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. He had narrowly escaped shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, which in those days was regarded with terror on account of its violent currents and dense fogs. As the ship carrying the merchant approached this dread region, a storm gathered overhead, and flocks of albatross, like birds of ill-omen, hovered about the masts.

"We were all in alarm," relates Cosmas, "for all the men of experience on board, whether passengers or sailors, began to say that we were near the ocean and called out to the pilot: 'Steer the ship to port and make for the gulf, or we shall be swept along by the currents and carried into the ocean and lost.' For the ocean rushing into the gulf was swelling with billows of portentous size, while the currents from the gulf were driving the ship into the ocean, and the outlook was altogether so dismal that we were kept in a state of great alarm."

That he eventually reached India is clear, for he relates strange things concerning Ceylon. "There is a large oceanic island lying in the Indian Sea," he tells us. "It has a length of nine hundred miles and it is of the like extent in breadth. There are two kings in the island, and they are at feud the one with the other. The island, being as it is in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all parts of India, and from Persia and Ethiopia, and from the remotest countries, it receives silk, aloes, cloves, and other products ... farther away is the clove country, then Tzinista (China), which produces silk. Beyond this there is no other country, for the ocean surrounds it on the east."

Cosmas was the first to realise that China was bounded on the east by the ocean. He tells us a good story about the "Lord of India," who always went to war with two thousand elephants. "Once upon a time this king would lay siege to an island city of the Indians, which was on every side protected by water. A long while he sat down before it, until, what with his elephants, his horses, and his soldiers, all the water had been drunk up. He then crossed over to the city dryshod and took it."



But, strange as are the travels and information of Cosmas, still stranger is his Christian Topography. His commercial travelling done he retired, became a devout Christian monk, and devoted his leisure time in trying to reconcile all the progress of geographical knowledge with old Biblical ideas.

He assures us that the world is flat and not round, and that it is surrounded by an immense wall supporting the firmament. Indeed, if we compare the maps of Cosmas in the sixth century with those of the Babylonians thousands of years before, there is mighty little difference. With amazing courage he refutes all the old theories and draws the most astounding maps, which, nevertheless, are the oldest Christian maps which survive.



CHAPTER XIV

THE VIKINGS SAIL THE NORTHERN SEAS

A more interesting force than the pilgrim travellers now claims our attention, and we turn to the frozen north, to the wild region at the back of the north wind, for new activity and discovery. Out of this land of fable and myth, legend and poetry, the fierce inhabitants of Scandinavia begin to take shape. Tacitus speaks of them as "mighty in fame," Ptolemy as "savage and clothed in the skins of wild beasts."

From time to time we have glimpses of these folk sailing about in the Baltic Sea. They were known to the Finns of the north as "sea-rovers." "The sea is their school of war and the storm their friend; they are sea-wolves that live on the pillage of the world," sang an old Roman long years ago. The daring spirit of their race had already attracted the attention of Britons across the seas. The careless glee with which they seized either sword or oar and waged war with the stormy seas for a scanty livelihood, raiding all the neighbouring coasts, had earned them the name of Vikings or creek men. Their black-sailed ships stood high out of the water, prow and stern ending in the head and tail of some strange animal, while their long beards, their loose shirts, and battleaxe made them conspicuous. "From the fury of the Northmen save us, Lord," prayed those who had come in contact with these Vikings.

In the ninth century they spring into fame as explorers by the discovery of Iceland. It was in this wise. The chief of a band of pirates, one Naddod, during a voyage to the Faroe Islands was driven by a storm upon the eastern coast of an unknown land. Not a soul was to be seen. He climbed a high mountain covered with snow and took a look round, but though he could see far and wide, not a human being could he detect. So he named it Snow-land and sailed home to relate his adventures.

A few years later another Viking, Gardar, bound for the west coast of Scotland, was likewise blown by a storm on to the coast of Snow-land. He sailed right round and found it to be an island. Considering that it was unsafe to navigate the icy northern seas in winter, he built himself a hut on the island, lived there till the spring, and returned home. His account of the island fired the enthusiasm of an old Viking called Floki, who sailed away, meaning to take possession of the newly discovered country. At the Faroe Islands he let fly three ravens. The first returned, the second came back to the ship, the third guided the navigator to the island which he sought. He met a quantity of drift ice about the northern part of the island and called it Ice-land, the name it has borne ever since. But amid the Arctic ice he spent a desolate winter; the island seemed full of lofty mountains covered with eternal snow. His companions, however, were delighted with the climate and the soil.

"Milk drops from every plant and butter from every twig," they said; "this was a land where men might live free from the tyranny of kings." Free, indeed, for the island was totally uninhabited.



Iceland soon became a refuge for pirates and other lawless characters. Among these was a young Viking called Erik the Red. He was too lawless even for Iceland, and, being banished for three years, he sailed away in 985 in search of new lands. At the end of his three years he returned and reported that he had discovered land with rich meadows, fine woods, and good fishing, which he had named Green-land. So glowing was his description that soon a party of men and women, with household goods and cattle, started forth in twenty-five ships to colonise the new land. Still the passion for discovery continued, and Erik's son Lief fitted out a vessel to carry thirty-five men in quest of land already sighted to the west.

It was in the year 1000 that they reached the coast of North America. It was a barren and rocky shore to which Lief gave the name of Rock-land. Sailing farther, they found a low coast wooded to its edge, to which they gave the simple name of Woody-land. Two days later an island appeared, and on the mainland they discovered a river up which they sailed. On low bushes by the banks of the river they found sweet berries or wild grapes from which a sort of wine was made, so Lief called the land Vin-land. It is now supposed that Vinland and Woodyland are really Newfoundland and Labrador on the shores of North America. After this, shipload followed shipload from Iceland to colonise Vinland. But without success.

So the Viking discoveries in these cold and inhospitable regions were but transitory. The clouds lifted but for a moment to settle down again over America, till it was rediscovered some five hundred years later.

Before leaving these northern explorers let us remind ourselves of the old saga so graphic in its description of their ocean lives—

"Down the fiord sweep wind and rain; Our sails and tackle sway and strain; Wet to the skin We're sound within. Our sea-steed through the foam goes prancing, While shields and spears and helms are glancing From fiord to sea, Our ships ride free, And down the wind with swelling sail We scud before the gathering gale."

Now, while these fierce old Vikings were navigating unknown seas, Alfred the Great was reigning over England. Among his many and varied interests he was deeply thrilled in the geography of the world. He was always ready to listen to those who had been on voyages of discovery, and in his account of the geography of Europe he tells us of a famous old sea captain called Othere, who had navigated the unknown seas to the north of Europe.

"Othere told his lord, King Alfred, that he dwelt northmost of all Northmen, on the land by the western sea. He said that the land is very long thence to the north; but it is all waste save that in a few places here and there Finns reside. He said that he wished to find out how far the land lay right north, or whether any man dwelt to the north of the waste. Then he went right north near the land, and he left all the way the waste land on the right and the wide sea on the left for three days. There was he as far north as the whale-hunters ever go. He then went yet right north, as far as he could sail in the next three days. After sailing for another nine days he came to a great river; they turned up into the river, but they durst not sail beyond it on account of hostility, for the land was all inhabited on the other side. He had not before met with any inhabited land since he came from his own home, for the land was uninhabited all the way on his right save by fishermen, hunters, and fowlers, and they were all Finns, and there was always a wide sea on his left."

And as a trophy of distant lands and a proof of his having reached farthest north, Othere presented the King with a "snow-white walrus tooth."

But King Alfred wanted his subjects to know more of the world around them, and even in the midst of his busy life he managed to write a book in Anglo-Saxon, which sums up for us the world's knowledge some nine hundred years after Ptolemy—nine hundred barren years as far as much geographical progress was concerned. Alfred does not even allude to Iceland, Greenland, or Vinland. The news of these discoveries had evidently not reached him. He repeats the old legend of Thule to the north-west of Ireland, "which is known to few, on account of its very great distance."

So ends the brief but thrilling discoveries of the Northmen, who knew not fear, and we turn again to landsmen and the east.



CHAPTER XV

ARAB WAYFARERS

And now we leave the fierce energy of the Northmen westwards and turn to another energy, which was leading men toward the east, to the lands beyond the Euphrates, to India, across central Asia, even into far Cathay.

These early travellers to the east were for the most part Arabs. Mohammed had bidden his followers to spread his teaching far and wide; this teaching had always appealed more to the eastern than to the western mind. So farther and farther to the east travelled the Arabs, converting the uncivilised tribes that Christianity had not reached.

What a contrast are these Arabs to the explorers of the vigorous north. They always travelled by land and not by that sea which was life to the Viking folk. To the Arabs the encircling ocean was a very "Sea of Darkness"; indeed, the unknown ocean beyond China was called the "Sea of Pitchy Darkness." Their creed taught that the ocean was boundless, so that ships dared not venture out of sight of land, for there was no inhabited country beyond, and mariners would assuredly be lost in mists and fogs. So, while the Vikings tossed fearlessly about the wild northern seas, the Arab wayfarers rode eastward by well-known caravan tracks, trading and teaching the ways of Mohammed. Arabic enterprise had pushed on far beyond Ptolemy's world. The Arab centre lay in the city of Bagdad, the headquarters of the ruler or Khalif of the Mohammedan world. They had already opened up a considerable trade with the rapidly rising Mongol Empire, which no European had yet reached.



But as this country was to play a large part in the travels of the near future, it will be interesting to hear the account given by two Mohammedan friends who journeyed thither in the year 831, just four hundred years before Marco Polo's famous account. The early part of their story is missing, and we raise the curtain when they have arrived in the land of China itself, then a very small empire compared with what it is now.

"The Emperor of China reckons himself next after the King of the Arabs, who they all allow to be the first and beyond all dispute the most powerful of kings, because he is the head of a great religion. In this great kingdom of China they tell us there are over two hundred cities; each city has four gates, at each of which are five trumpets, which the Chinese sound at certain hours of the day and of the night. There are also within each city ten drums, which they beat at the same time as a public token of their obedience to the Emperor, as also to signify the hour of the day and of the night, to which end they also have dials and clocks with weights.

"China is a pleasant and fruitful country; the air is much better than the Indian provinces: much rain falls in both these countries. In India are many desert tracts, but China is inhabited and peopled throughout its whole extent. The Chinese are handsomer than the Indians, and come nearer the Arabs, not only in countenance, but in dress, in their way of riding, in their manners, and in their ceremonies. They wear long garments and girdles in form of belts. The Chinese are dressed in silk both winter and summer, and this kind of dress is common to the prince and the peasant. Their food is rice, which they often eat with a broth which they pour upon the rice. They have several sorts of fruits, apples, lemons, quinces, figs, grapes, cucumbers, walnuts, almonds, plums, apricots, and cocoanuts."



Here, too, we get the first mention of tea, which was not introduced into Europe for another seven hundred years, but which formed a Chinese drink in the ninth century. This Chinese drink "is a herb or shrub, more bushy than the pomegranate tree an of a more pleasant scent, but somewhat bitter to the taste. The Chinese boil water and pour it in scalding hot upon this leaf, and this infusion keeps them from all distempers."

Here, too, we get the first mention of china ware. "They have an excellent kind of earth, wherewith they make a ware of equal fineness with glass and equally transparent."

There is no time here to tell of all the curious manners and customs related by these two Mohammedans. One thing struck them as indeed it must strike us to-day. "The Chinese, poor and rich, great and small, learn to read and write. There are schools in every town for teaching the poor children, and the masters are maintained at public charge.... The Chinese have a stone ten cubits high erected in the public squares of their cities, and on this stone are engraved the names of all the medicines, with the exact price of each; and when the poor stand in need of physic they go to the treasury where they receive the price each medicine is rated at."

It was out of such travels as these that the famous romance of "Sindbad the Sailor" took shape—a true story of Arab adventures of the ninth and tenth centuries in a romantic setting. As in the case of Ulysses, the adventures of many voyages are ascribed to one man and related in a collection of tales which bears the title of The Arabian Nights.

Of course, Sindbad was a native of Bagdad, the Arab centre of everything at this time, and of course he journeyed eastwards as did most Mohammedans.

"It occurred to my mind," says Sindbad, "to travel to the countries of other people; then I arose and collected what I had of effects and apparel and sold them, after which I sold my buildings and all that my hand possessed and amassed three thousand pieces of silver. So I embarked in a ship, and with a company of merchants we traversed the sea for many days and nights. We had passed by island after island and from sea to sea and land to land, and in every place we sold and bought and exchanged merchandise. We continued our voyage until we arrived at an island like one of the gardens of Paradise."

Here they anchored and lit fires, when suddenly the master of the ship cried aloud in great distress: "Oh, ye passengers, come up quickly into the ship, leave your merchandise and flee for your lives, for this apparent island, upon which ye are, is not really an island, but it is a great fish that hath become stationary in the midst of the sea, and the sand hath accumulated upon it and trees have grown upon it, and when ye lighted a fire it felt the heat, and now it will descend with you into the sea and ye will all be drowned." As he spoke the island moved and "descended to the bottom of the sea with all that were upon it, and the roaring sea, agitated with waves, closed over it."

Let Sindbad continue his own story: "I sank in the sea with the rest. But God delivered me and saved me from drowning and supplied me with a great wooden bowl, and I laid hold upon it and gat into it and beat the water with my feet as with oars, while the waves sported with me. I remained so a day and a night, until the bowl came to a stoppage under a high island whereupon were trees overhanging the sea. So I laid hold upon the branch of a lofty tree and clung to it until I landed on the island. Then I threw myself upon the island like one dead."

After wandering about he found servants of the King of Borneo, and all sailed together to an island beyond the Malay Peninsula. And the King of Borneo sent for Sindbad and heaped him with honours. He gave him costly dress and made him superintendent of the seaport and adviser of affairs of state. And Sindbad saw many wonders in this far-distant sea. At last "one day I stood upon the shore of the sea, with a staff in my hand, as was my custom, and lo! a great vessel approached wherein were many merchants." They unloaded their wares, telling Sindbad that the owner of their goods, a man from Bagdad, had been drowned and they were selling his things.