A Book of Discovery Part 7

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 hara.s.s the mind with attempts to measure the world,"

he a.s.serts, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROMAN GALLEY, ABOUT 110 A.D. From Trajan's Column at Rome.]

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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"--II. THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO PTOLEMY AND THE ROMANS.]

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 a.s.syria and Egypt. But China had had little or no direct intercourse with the West till after the death of Ptolemy. Merchants had pa.s.sed 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 lat.i.tude 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 s.p.a.ces 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 G.o.d. So men pa.s.sed 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-doc.u.ments 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST STAGES OF A MEDIAEVAL PILGRIMAGE: LONDON TO DOVER. From Matthew of Paris's _Itinerary_, thirteenth century.]

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, pa.s.ses 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, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.s. 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 surpa.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 G.o.d.... Meanwhile the ship was ploughing the sea--the winds were sluggish and all speed slow." But the ship pa.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JERUSALEM AND THE EAST. From Matthew of Paris's _Itinerary_, thirteenth century.]

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