A Book of Discovery Part 5

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALEXANDRIA IN PIZZIGANI'S MAP, FOURTEENTH CENTURY. The river with the buildings on its bank is the Nile.]

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 s.p.a.ce. 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 circ.u.mference 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 Ma.r.s.eilles 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 Ma.r.s.eilles 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 Ma.r.s.eilles 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 Ca.s.siterides 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 Sarga.s.so 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 G.o.d.

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 sh.o.r.e. Measuring in this primitive fashion, Pytheas a.s.sures 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 circ.u.mference. 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 pa.s.sage 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 d.y.k.es and embankments. A high tide with a wind setting toward the sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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?

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTH BRITAIN AND THE ISLAND OF THULE. From Mercator's edition of Ptolemy's map.]

"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 Ma.r.s.eilles 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 a.s.sembled.

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 pa.s.sing, 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 pa.s.sage. Then he sent for the ships which had vanquished the fleet of Brittany the previous year; he also a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.sage 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.