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UC-NRLF

THE LIBRARY OF
USEFUL STORIES

THE STORY OF

GEOGRAPHIC

B
JOSEPH

L DISCOVERY

Y
JACOBS

THE

LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES

Arms granted to Sebastian Del Cano, Captain

of the Victoria, the first vessel that

circumnavigated the Glohe.

tF*r a description, set p. xi6.]

the story of
Geographical Discovery

HOW THE WO^ILD BECAME KNOWN
BY

JOSEPH JACOBS

IVITH TWENTY-FOUR MAPS, ETC.

NEW YORK AND LONDON

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1916

PREFACE.

The explorer and discoverer holds a unique
place in history. The fame of the statesman or
the soldier who controls or decides the fate of a
nation may decline and disappear outside the
boundaries of his own land. Except to his
own countrymen his memory may endure only as
a name, his deeds be forgotten. But the ex-
plorer and his achievements belong to the world
at large. His exploits belong to the romance of
history and exercise a peculiar fascination over
the minds of men. Those hardy and adven-
turous spirits who have extended the boundaries
of the known world have been the popular heroes
of all time and posterity is generous in its appre-
ciation of their contributions to the progress of
civilization.

The romance of exploration and geographical
discovery is now completely written. The North
and South Poles offered the last of the great
adventures which the unknown regions of the

359323

6 PREFACE.

earth set before the ambition and daring of ex-
plorers. Both were achieved within three years
of each other, the North Pole by Peary in April,
1909, and the South Pole by Amundsen in De-
cember, 191 1, and by Scott a month later. Large
areas of the earth's surface, in Asia, Africa,
South America and the polar regions remain
practically unknown and undeveloped. They will
continue to attract the explorer for detailed ex-
amination, but his discoveries will have little of
the appeal to the popular mind of the great
achievements of the past.

This little book tells the story of geograph-
ical discovery from the earliest times. Beginning
with the spread of conquest in the ancient world,
the science of geography languished during the
Dark Ages, to be revived by the travels of Marco
Polo and other mediaeval travellers. From
Prince Henry the Navigator and Columbus to
Peary and Scott, the story is one of steady prog-
ress and of unfailing interest. An appendix*
gives a survey of the annals of geographical
discovery for twenty-five centuries.

July, 1915,

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER WAOn

Preface . 5

List of Maps and Illustrations ... 9

Introduction 13

I. The World as Known to the Ancients . 17
II. The Spread of Conquest in the Ancient

World 33

'-'III. Geography in the Dark Ages ... 43
•IV. Medieval Travels— Marco Polo, Ibn Ba-

TUTA 63

V. Roads and Commerce 74

J/^I. To THE Indies Eastward — Portuguese
Route — Prince Henry and Vasco Da

Gama 84

VII. To THE Indies Westv/ard— Spanish Route
* — Columbus and Magellan .... 98

VIII. To THE Indies Northwards — English,

French, Dutch, and Russian Routes . 119
IX. The Partition of America .... 128
X. Australia and the South Seas — Tasman

AND Cook 139

XI. Exploration and Partition of Africa —

Park, Livingstone, and Stanley . . 153
XII. The Poles— Franklin, Ross, Nordenskiold,

Nansen, Peary, Amundsen, and Scott , 169
Annals of Piscqverv , , . . , isd

LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Coat-of-arms of Del Cano (from Guillemard, Magellan.
By kind permission of Messrs. Phillips.) For the blazon, see
pp. 1 16-17 Frontispiece

The Earliest Map of the World (from the Rev. C. J.

Ball's Bible Illustrations^ 1898). — This is probably of the
eighth century B.C., and indicates the Babylonian view of the
world surrounded by the ocean, which is indicated by the
parallel circles, and traversed by the Euphrates, which is seen
meandering through the middle, with Babylon, the great city,
crossing it at the top. Beyond the ocean are seven successive
projections of land, possibly indicating the Babylonian knowl-
edge of surrounding countries beyond the Euxine and the Red
Sea Page 20

The World according to Ptolemy. — It will be observed
that the Greek geographer regarded the Indian Ocean as a
landlocked body of water, while he appears to have some
knowledge of the sources of the Nile. The general tendency
of the map is to extend Asia very much to the east, which led
to the miscalculation encouraging Columbus to discover
America Page 29

The Roman Roads of Europe (drawn specially for this
work). — These give roughly the limits within which the inland
geographical knowledge of the ancients reach some degrees of
accuracy Page 41

Geographical Monsters (from an early edition of Mande-
ville's Travels). — Most of the mediaeval maps were dotted
over with similar monstrosities .... P«|;e 46

lO LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Hereford Map. — This, one of the best known of
mediaeval maps, was drawn by Richard of Aldingham about
1307. Like most of these maps, it has the east with the
terrestrial paradise at the top, and Jerusalem is represented
as the centre Page 48

Peutinger Table, Western Purt.— This is the only
Roman map extant ; it gives lines of roads from the eastern
shores of Britain to the Adriatic Sea. It is really a kind of
bird's-eye view taken from the African coast. The Mediter-
ranean runs as a thin strip through the lower part of the map.
The lower section joins on to the upper . . Page 51

The World according to Ibn Haukal (from Lelewel,
Geographie du mon age). — This map, like most of the Arabian
maps, has the south at the top. It is practically only a dia-
gram, and is thus similar to the Hereford Map in general
form. — Misr= Egypt, Fars=Persia, Andalus=Spain Page 57

Coast-line of the Mediterranean (from the Portulano
of Dulcert, 1339, given in Nordenskiold Facsimile Atlas). — To
illustrate the accuracy with which mariners' charts gave the
coast-lines as contrasted with the merely symbolical represen-
tation of other mediaeval maps .... Page 61

Fra Mauro Map, 1457 (from Lelewel, loc. cit). — Here,
as usual, the south is placed at the top of the map. Besides
the ordinary mediaeval conceptions, Fra Mauro included the
Portuguese discoveries along the coast of Africa up to his
time, 1457 Page 70

Portuguese Discoveries in Africa (from E. J. Payne,
European Colonies, 1877). — Giving the successive points
reached by the Portuguese navigators during the fifteenth
century Page 87

Portuguese Indies (from Payne, loc. cit.) — All the ports
mentioned in ordinary type were held by the Portuguese in
the sixteenth century Page 95

The Toscanelli Map (from Kretschmer, Entdeckung
Amerikas, 1892). — This is a reconstruction of the map which
Columbus got from ;the Italian astronomer and cartographer

LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. II

Toscanelli and used to guide him in his voyage across the
Atlantic. Its general resemblance to the Behaim globe will
be remarked Page loo

The Behaim Globe. — This gives the information about
the world possessed in 1492, just as Columbus was starting,
and is mainly based upon the map of Toscanelli, which served
as his guide. It will be observed that there is no other con-
tinent between Spain and Zipangu or Japan, while the fabled
islands of St. Brandan and Antilia are represented bridging
the expanse between the Azores and Japan . Page 104

Amerigo Vespucci (from Fiske's School History of the
United States, by kind permission of Messrs. Houghton,
Mifflin & Co.) Page no

Ferdinand Magellan (from Fiske's School History of the
United States, by kind permission of Messrs. Houghton,
Mifflin & Co.) . . . . . . • Page 113

Map of the World, from the Ptolemy Edition of 1548
(after Kretschmer's Entdeckungsgeschichte Amerikas). — It will
be observed that Mexico is supposed to be joined on to Asia,
and that the North Pacific was not even known
to exist Page 117

Russian Asia (after the Atlas published by the Russian
Academy of Sciences in 1737, by kind permission of Messrs.
Hachette). Japan is represented as a peninsula. Page 125

Australia as known in 1745 (from D'Anville's Atlas, by
kind permission of Messrs. Hachette). — It will be seen that
the Northern and Western coasts were even by this time
tolerably well mapped out, leaving only the eastern coast to
be explored by Cook Page 140

Australia, showing routes of explorations (prepared
specially for the present volume). The names of the chief
explorers are given at the top of the map . . Page 151

Africa as known in 1676 (from Dapper's Atlas), — This
includes a knowledge of most of the African rivers and lakes
due to the explorations of the Portuguese . » Page z$$

la LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Africa (made specially for this volume, to show chief ex-
plorations and partition). — The names of the explorers are
given at the foot of the map itself . . . Page i6i

North Polar Regions, Western Half (prepared
specially for the present volume from the Citizen's Atlas, by
kind permission of Messrs. Bartholomew). — This gives the
results ot the discoveries due to Franklin expeditions and
most of the searchers after the North-West
Passage ........ Page 175

North Polar Regions, Eastern Half. — This gives the
Siberian coast investigated by the Russians and Nordenskiold,
as well as Nansen's Farthest North . Page 179

THE STORY OF
GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

INTRODUCTION.

How was the world discovered ? That is to
say, how did a certain set of men who lived
round the Mediterranean Sea, and had acquired
the art of recording what each generation had
learned, become successively aware of the other
parts of the globe ? Every part of the earth,
so far as we know, has been inhabited by man
during the five or six thousand years in which
Europeans have been storing up their knowl-
edge, and all that time the inhabitants of each
part, of course, were acquainted with that par-
ticular part: the Kamtschatkans knew Kamts-
chatka, the Greenlanders, Greenland; the various
tribes of North American Indians knew, at any
rate, that part of America over which they
wandered, long before Columbus, as we say,
" discovered " it.

Very often these savages not only know their
own country, but can express their knowledge
in maps of very remarkable accuracy. Cortes
traversed over looo miles through Central
America, guided only by a calico map of a local
cacique. An Eskimo named Kalliherey drew
out, from his own knowledge of the coast
between Smith Channel and Cape York, a map

14 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

of it, varying only in minute details from the
Admiralty chart. A native of Tahiti, named
Tupaia, drew out for Cook a map of the Pacific,
extending over forty-five degrees of longitude
(nearly 3000 miles), giving the relative size and
position of the main islands over that huge tract
of ocean. Almost all geographical discoveries
by Europeans have, in like manner, been brought
about by means of guides, who necessarily knew
the country which their European masters wished
to " discover."

What, therefore, we mean by the history of
geographical discovery is the gradual bringing
to the knowledge of the nations of civilisa-
tion surrounding the Mediterranean Sea the
vast tracts of land extending in all directions
from it. There are mainly two divisions of
this history — the discovery of the Old World
and that of the New, including Australia under
the latter term. Though we speak of geo-
graphical discovery, it is really the discovery
of new tribes of men that we are thinking of.
It is only quite recently that men have sought
for knowledge about lands, apart from the men
who inhabit them. One might almost say that
the history of geographical discovery, properly
so called, begins with Captain Cook, the motive
of whose voyages was purely scientific curiosity.
But before his time men wanted to know one
another for two chief reasons : they wanted to
conquer, or they wanted to trade ; or perhaps
we could reduce the motives to one — they
wanted to conquer, because they wanted to
trade. In our own day we have seen a remark-
able mixture of all three motives, resulting in
the European partition of Africa — perhaps the

INTRODUCTION. 15

most remarkable event of the latter end of the
nineteenth century. Speke and Burton, Living-
stone and Stanley, investigated the interior from
love of adventure and of knowledge ; then came
the great chartered trading companies; and,
finally, the governments to which these belong
have assumed responsibility for the territories
thus made known to the civilised world. Within
forty years the map of Africa, which was prac-
tically a blank in the interior, and, as will be
shown, was better known in 1680 than in 1850,
has been filled up almost completely by re-
searches due to motives of conquest, of trade, or
of scientific curiosity.

In its earlier stages, then, the history of
geographical discovery is mainly a history of
conquest, and what we shall have to do will be
to give a short history of the ancient world,
from the point of view of how that world be-
came known. *' Became known to whom ? "
you may ask ; and we must determine that
question first. We might, of course, take the
earliest geographical work known to us — the
tenth chapter of Genesis — and work out how
the rest of the world became known to the
Israelites when they became part of the Roman
Empire; but in history all roads lead to Rome
or away from it, and it is more useful for every
purpose to take Rome as our centre-point.
Yet Rome only came in as the heir of earlier
empires that spread the knowledge of the earth
and man by conquest long before Rome was of
importance ; and even when the Romans were
the masters of all this vast inheritance, they had
not themselves the ability to record the geo-
graphical knowledge thus acquired, and it is to a

1 6 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Greek named Ptolemy, a professor of the great
university of Alexandria, to whom we owe our
knowledge of how much the ancient world knew
of the earth. It will be convenient to determine
this first, and afterwards to sketch rapidly the
course of historical events which led to the
knowledge which Ptolemy records.

In the Middle Ages, much of this knowledge,
like all other, was lost, and we shall have to
record how knowledge was replaced by imagina-
tion and theory. The true inheritors of Greek
science during that period were the Arabs, and
the few additions to real geographical knowledge
at that time were due to them, except in so
far as commercial travellers and pilgrims brought
a more intimate knowledge of Asia to the
West.

The discovery of America forms the be-
ginning of a new period, both in modern
history and in modern geography. In the
four hundred years that have elapsed since
then, more than twice as much of the inhabited
globe has become known to civilised man than
in the preceding four thousand years. The
result is that, except for a few patches of Africa,
South America, and round the Poles, man
knows roughly what are the physical resources
of the world he inhabits, and, except for minor
details, the history of geographical discovery is
practically at an end.

Besides its interest as a record of war and ad-
venture, this history gives the successive stages
by which modern men have been made what they
are. The longest known countries and peoples
have, on the whole, had the deepest influence in
the forming of the civilised character. Nor is the

THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. 17

practical utility of tliis study less important. The
way in which the world has been discovered de-
termines now-a-days the world's history. The
great problems of the twentieth century will have
immediate relation to the discoveries of America,
of Africa, and of Australia. In all these problems,
English speaking peoples will have most to say
and to do, and the history of geographical dis-
covery is, therefore, of immediate and immense
interest to them.

[A uthorities : Cooley, History of Maritime and Inland
Discoveries, 3 vols., 1 831 ; Vivien de Saint Martin, Histoire
de la Geographie, 1873.]

CHAPTER I.

THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS.

Before telling how the ancients got to know
that part of the world with which they finally
became acquainted when the Roman Empire was
at its greatest extent, it is as well to get some idea
of the successive stages of their knowledge, leaving
for the next chapter the story of how that knowl-
edge was obtained. As in most branches of or-
ganised knowledge, it is to the Greeks that we
owe our acquaintance with ancient views of this
subject. In the early stages they possibly learned
something from the Phoenicians, who were the
great traders and sailors of antiquity, and who
coasted alongthe Mediterranean, ventured through
the Straits of Gibraltar, and traded with the Brit-
ish Isles, which they visited for the tin found in

1 8 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Cornwall. It is even said that one of their ad-
mirals, at the command of Necho, king of Egypt
circumnavigated Africa, for Herodotus reports
that on the hohieward voyage the sun set in the
sea on the right hand. But the Phoenicians kept
their geographical knowledge to themselves as a
trade secret, and the Greeks learned but little
from them.

Theiirst glimpse that we have of the notions
which the Greeks possessed of the shape and the
inhabitants of the earth is afforded by the poems
passing under the name of Homer. These poems
show an intimate knowledge of Northern Greece
and of the western coasts of Asia Minor, some
acquaintance with Egypt, Cyprus, and Sicily ; but
all the rest, even of the Eastern Mediterranean,
is only vaguely conceived by their author. Where
he does not know he imagines, and some of his
imaginings have had a most important influence
upon the progress of geographical knowledge.
Thus he conceives of the world as being a sort of
flat shield, with an extremely wide river surround-
ing it, known as Ocean. The centre of this shield
was at Delphi, which was regarded as the " navel "
of the inhabited world. According to Hesiod,
who is but little later than Homer, up in the far
north were placed a people known as the Hyper-
boreani, or those who dwelt at the back of the
north wind ; whilst a corresponding place in the
south was taken by the Abyssinians. All these
^our conceptions had an important influence upon
the views that men had of the world up to times
comparatively recent. Homer also mentioned the
pigmies as living in Africa. These were regarded
as fabulous, till they were re-discovered by Dr.
Schweinfurth and Mr. Stanley in our own time.

THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. 19

It is probably from the Babylonians that the
Greeks obtained the idea of an all -encircling
ocean. Inhabitants of Mesopotamia would find
themselves reaching the ocean in almost any di-
rection in which they travelled, either the Caspian,
the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, or the Persian
Gulf. Accordingly, the oldest map of the world
which has been found is one accompanying a
cuneiform inscription, and representing the plain
of Mesopotamia with the Euphrates flowing
through it, and the whole surrounded by two con-
centric circles, which are named briny waters.
Outside these, however, are seven detached islets,
possibly representing the seven zones or climates
into which the world was divided according to
the ideas of the Babylonians, though afterwards
they resorted to the ordinary four cardinal points.
What was roughly true of Babylonia did not in
any way answer to the geographical position of
Greece, and it is therefore probable that in the
first place they obtained their ideas of the sur-
rounding ocean from the Babylonians.

It was after the period of Homer and Hesiod
that the first great expansion of Greek knowledge
about the world began, through the extensive
colonisation which was carried on by the Greeks
around the Eastern Mediterranean. Even to this
day the natives of the southern part of Italy speak
a Greek dialect, owing to the wide extent of Greek
colonies in that country, which used to be called
" Magna Grecia," or " Great Greece." Marseilles
was also one of the Greek colonies (600 B.C.),
which, in its turn, sent out other colonies along
the Gulf of Lyons. In the East, too, Greek cities
were dotted along the coast of the Black Sea, one
of which, Byzantium, was destined to be of world-

20 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

The earliest map of the Wohd.

THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. 21

historic importance. So, too, in North Africa,
and among the islands of the ^gean Sea, the
Greeks colonised throughout the sixth and fifth
centuries b. c, and in almost every case communi-
cation was kept up between the colonies and the
mother-country.

Now, the one quality which has made the
Greeks so distinguished in the world's history
was their curiosity ; and it was natural that they
should desire to know, and to put on record,
the large amount of information brought to
the mainland of Greece from the innumerable
Greek colonies. But to record geographical
knowledge, the first thing that is necessary is a
map, and accordingly it is a Greek philosopher
named Anaximander, of Miletus, of the sixth
century b. c, to whom we owe the invention of
map-drawing. Now, in order to make a map of
one's own country, little astronomical knowledge
is required. As we have seen, savages are able
to draw such maps; but when it comes to
describing the relative positions of countries
divided from one another by seas, the problem
is not so easy. An Athenian would know
roughly that Byzantium (now called Constanti-
nople) was somewhat to the east and to the
north of him, because in sailing thither he would
have to sail towards the rising sun, and would
find the climate getting colder as he approached
Byzantium. So, too, he might roughly guess that
Marseilles was somewhere to the west and north
of him ; but how was he to fix the relative position
of Marseilles and Byzantium to one another?
Was Marseilles more northerly than Byzantium ?
Was it very far away from that city ? For
though it took longer to get to Marseilles, thq

2 2 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DiSCOVERY.

voyage was winding, and might possibly bring
the vessel comparatively near to Byzantium,
though there might be no direct road between
the two cities. There was one rough way of
determining how far north a place stood : the
very slightest observation of the starry heavens
would show a traveller that as he moved
towards the north, the pole-star rose higher
up in the heavens. How much higher, could
be determined by the angle formed by a stick
pointing to the pole-star, in relation to one
held horizontally. If, instead of two sticks,
we cut out a piece of metal or wood to fill up
the enclosed angle, we get the earliest form of
the sun-dial, known as the gnomon, and accord-
ing to the shape of the gnomon the latitude
of a place is determined. Accordingly, it is
not surprising to find that the invention of the
gnomon is also attributed to Anaximander, for
without some such instrument it would have
been impossible for him to have made any
map worthy of the name. But it is probable
that Anaximander did not so much invent as
introduce the gnomon, and, indeed, Herodotus
expressly states that this instrument was de-
rived from the Babylonians, who were the
earliest astronomers, so far as we know. A
curious point confirms this, for the measure-
ment of angles is by degrees, and degrees are
divided into sixty seconds, just as minutes are.
Now this division into sixty is certainly derived
from Babylonia in the case of time measurement,
and is therefore of the same origin as regards the
measurement of angles.

We have no longer any copy of this first
map of th^ world dr^wn up by Anaximander,

THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. 23

but there is little doubt that it formed the
foundation of a similar map drawn by a
fellow-townsman of Anaximander, Hecat^us
of Miletus, who seems to have written the first
formal geography. Only fragments of this are
extant, but from them we are able to see that it
was of the nature of a periplus^ or seaman's
guide, telling how many days' sail it was from
one point to another, and in what direction. We
know also that he arranged his whole subject
into two books, dealing respectively with Europe
and Asia, under which latter term he included
part of what we now know as Africa. From the
fragments scholars have been able to reproduce
the rough outlines of the map of the world as it
presented itself to Hecatseus. From this it can
be seen that the Homeric conception of the sur-
rounding ocean formed a chief determining feature
in Hecataeus's map. For the rest, he was
acquainted with the Mediterranean, Red, and
Black Seas, and with the great rivers Danube,
Nile, Euphrates, Tigris, and Indus.

The next great name in the history of Greek
geography is that of Herodotus of Hal'car-
nassus, who might indeed be equally well called
the Father of Geography as the Father of His-
tory. He travelled much in Egypt, Babylonia,
Persia, and on the shores of the Black Sea,
while he was acquainted with Greece, and passed
the latter years of his life in South Italy. On all
these countries he gave his fellow-citizens accu-
rate and tolerably full information, and he had
diligently collected knowledge about countries
in their neighbourhood. In particular he gives
full details of Scythia (or Southern Russia), and
of the satrapies and royal roads of Persia. As a

24 THE SlURY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

rule, his information is as accurate as could be
expected at such an early date, and he rarely tells
marvellous stories, or if he does, he points out
himself their untrustworthiness. Almost the
only traveller's yarn which Herodotus reports
without due scepticism is that of the ants of India
that were bigger than foxes and burrowed out
gold dust for their ant-hill.

One of the stories he relates is of interest,
as seeming to show an anticipation of one
of Mr. Stanley's journeys. Five young men of
the Nasamonians started from Southern Libya,
W. of the Soudan, and journeyed for many
days west till they came to a grove of trees,
when they were seized by a number of men
of very small stature, and conducted through
marshes to a great city of black men of the
same size, through which a large river flowed.
This Herodotus identifies with the Nile, but,
from the indication of the journey given by him,
it would seem more probable that it was the
Niger, and that the Nasamonians had visited
Timbuctoo ! Owing to this statement of Herod-
otus, it was for long thought that the Upper Nile
flowed east and west.

After Herodotus, the date of whose history
may be fixed at the easily remembered number
of 444 B. c, a large increase of knowledge was
obtained of the western part of Asia by the
two expeditions of Xenophon and of Alexander,
which brought the familiar knowledge of the
Greeks as far as India. But besides these
military expeditions we have still extant several
log-books of mariners, which might have added
considerably to Greek geography. One of these
tells the tale of an expedition of the Cartha-

THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. 25

ginian admiral named Hanno, down the western
coast of Africa, as far as Sierra Leone, a voyage
which was not afterwards undertaken for sixteen
hundred years. Hanno brought back from this
voyage hairy skins, which, he stated, belonged
to men and women whom he had captured,
and who were known to the natives by the
name of Gorillas. Another log-book is that
of a Greek named Scylax, who gives the sailing
distances between nearly all ports on the Medi-
terranean and Black Seas, and the number of
days required to pass from one to another.
From this it would seem that a Greek merchant
vessel could manage on the average fifty miles
a day. Besides this, one of Alexander's
admirals, named Nearchus, learned to carry
his ships from the mouth of the Indus to
the Arabian Gulf. Later on, a Greek sailor,
Hippalus, found out that by using the monsoons
at the appropriate times, he could sail direct
from Arabia to India without laboriously coast-
ing along the shores of Persia and Beluchistan,
and in consequence the Greeks gave his name
to the monsoon. For information about India
itself, the Greeks were, for a long time, depen-
dent upon the account of Megasthenes, an am-
bassador sent by Seleucus, on'e of Alexander's
generals, to the Indian king of the Punjab.

While knowledge was thus gained of the East,
additional information was obtained about the
north of Europe by the travels of one Pytheas,
a native of Marseilles, who flourished about the
time of Alexander the Great (^^;^ b. c), and
he is especially interesting to us as having been
the first civilised person who can be identified
as having visited Britain. He seems to have

26 THE SrORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

coasted along the Bay of Biscay, to have spent
some time in England, — which he reckoned as
40,000 stadia (4000 miles) in circumference,
— and he appears also to have coasted along
Belgium and Holland, as far as the mouth of
the Elbe. Pytheas is, however, chiefly known
in the history of geography as having referred
to the island of Thule, which he described as
the most northerly point of the inhabited earth,
beyond which the sea became thickened, and
of a jelly-like consistency. He does not profess
to have visited Thule, and his account prob-
ably refers to the existence of drift ice near the
Shetlands.

All this new information was gathered to-
gether, and made accessible to the Greek reading
world, by Eratosthenes, librarian of Alex-
andria (240-196 B.C.), who was practically the
founder of scientific geography. He was the first
to attempt any accurate measurement of the size
of the earth, and of its inhabited portion. By
his time the scientific men of Greece had become
quite aware of the fact that the earth was a
globe, though they considered that it was fixed
in space at the centre of the universe. Guesses
had even been rnade at the size of this globe,
Aristotle fixing its circumference at 400,000
stadia (or^ 40,000 miles), but Eratosthenes at-
tempted a more accurate measurement. He
compared the length of the shadow thrown by
the sun at Alexandria and at Syene, near the
first cataract of the Nile, which he assumed to be
on the same meridian of longitude, and to be at
about 5000 stadia (500 miles) distance. From
the difference in the length of the shadows he
deduced that this distance represented gne-fiftieth

THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. 27

of the circumference of the earth, which would
accordingly be about 250,000 stadia, or 25,000
geographical miles. As the actual circumference
is 24,899 English miles, this was a very near
approximation, considering the rough means
Eratosthenes had at his disposal.

Having thus estimated the size of the earth,
Eratosthenes then went on to determine the size
of that portion which the ancients considered to
be habitable. North and south of the lands
known to him, Eratosthenes and all the ancients
considered to be either too cold or too hot to be
habitable ; this portion he reckoned to extend to
38,000 stadia, or 3800 miles. In reckoning the
extent of the habitable portion from east to
west, Eratosthenes came to the conclusion that
from the Straits of Gibraltar to the east of India
was about 80,000 stadia, or, roughly speaking, one-
third of the earth's surface. The remaining two-
thirds were supposed to be covered by the ocean,
and Eratosthenes prophetically remarked that "if
it were not that the vast extent of the Atlantic
Sea rendered it impossible, one might almost
sail from the co-ast of Spain to that of India
along the same parallel." Sixteen hundred years
later, as we shall see, Columbus tried to carry out
this idea. Eratosthenes based his calculations on
two fundamental lines, corresponding in a way
to our equator and meridian of Greenwich : the
first stretched, according to him, from Cape St.
Vincent, through the Straits of Messina and the
island of Rhodes, to Issus (Gulf of Iskanderun) ;
for his startmg-line in reckoning north and south
he used a meridian passing through the First
Cataract, Alexandria, Rhodes, and Byzantium.

The next two hundred years after Eratos-

2 8 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

thenes' death was filled up by the spread of the
Roman Empire, by the taking over by the Romans
of the vast possessions previously held by Alex-
ander and his successors and by the Carthaginians,
and by their spread into Gaul, Britain, and Ger-
many. Much of the increased knowledge thus
obtained was summed up in the geographical
work of Strabo, who wrote in Greek about 20
B. c. He introduced from the extra knowledge
thus obtained many modifications of the system
of Eratosthenes, but, on the whole, kept to his
general conception of the world. He rejected,
however, the existence of Thule, and thus made
the world narrower; while he recognised the exist-
ence of lerne, or Ireland, which he regarded as
the most northerly part of the habitable world,
lying, as he thought, north of Britain.

Between the time of Strabo and that of Ptole-
my, who sums up all the knowledge of the ancients
about the habitable earth, there was only one con-
siderable addition to men's acquaintance with
their neighbours, contained in a seaman's manual
for the navigation of the Indian Ocean, known as
the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. This gave
very full and tolerably accurate accounts of the
coasts from Aden to the mouth of the Ganges,
though it regarded Ceylon as much greater, and
more to the south, than it really is; but it also
contains an account of the more easterly parts of
Asia, Indo-China, and China itself, " where the silk
comes from." This had an important influence
on the views of Ptolemy, as we shall see, and in-
directly helped long afterwards to the discovery
of America.

It was left to Ptolemy of Alexandria to sum
up for the ancient world all the knowledge that

30 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

had been accumulating from the time of Erastos-
thenes to his own day, which we may fix at about
150 A.D. He took all the information he could
find in the writings of the preceding four hundred
years, and reduced it all to one uniform scale ; for
it is to him that we owe the invention of the
method and the names of latitude and longitude.
Previous writers had been content to say that the
distance between one point and another was so
many stadia, but he reduced all this rough reckon-
ing to so many degrees of latitude and longitude,
from fixed lines as starting-points. But, unfor-
tunately, all these reckonings were rough calcula-
tions, which are almost invariably beyond the truth;
and Ptolemy, though the greatest of ancient astron-
omers, still further distorted his results by assum-
ing that a degree was 500 stadia, or 50 geograph-
ical miles. Thus when he found in any of his
authorities that the distance between one port and
another was 500 stadia, he assumed, in the first
place, that this was accurate, and, in the second,
that the distance between the two places was equal
to a degree of latitude or longitude, as the case
might be. Accordingly he arrived at the result
that the breadth of the habitable globe was, as he
put it, twelve hours of longitude (corresponding to
180°) — nearly one-third as much again as the real
dimensions from Spain to China. The consequence
of this was that the distance from Spain to China
westward was correspondingly diminished by sixty
degrees (or nearly 4000 miles), and it was this
error that ultimately encouraged Columbus to
attempt his epoch-making voyage.

Ptolemy's errors of calculation would not have
been so extensive but that he adopted a method
of measurement which made them accumulative.

THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. 3 1

If he had chosen Alexandria for the point of de-
parture in measuring longitude, the errors he made
when reckoning westward would have been coun-
terbalanced by those reckoning eastward, and
would not have resulted in any serious distortion
of the truth ; but instead of this, he adopted as his
point of departure the Fortunatae Insulse, or Cana-
ry Islands, and every degree measured to the east
of these was one-fifth too great, since he assumed
that it was only fifty miles in length. I may men-
tion that so great has been the influence of Ptole-
my on geography, that, up to the middle of the
eighteenth century, Ferro, in the Canary Islands,
was still retained as the zero-point of the meridi-
ans of longitude.

Another point in which Ptolemy's system
strongly influenced modern opinion was his de-
parture from the previous assumption that the
world was surrounded by the ocean, derived from
Homer. Instead of Africa being thus cut through
the middle by the ocean, Ptolemy assumed, pos-
sibly from vague traditional knowledge, that
Africa extended an unknown length to the south,
and joined on to an equally unknown continent
far to the east, which, in the Latinised versions of
his astronomical work, was termed " terra aus-
tralis incognita," or "the unknown southland."
As, by his error with regard to the breadth of the
earth, Ptolemy led to Columbus ; so, by his mis-
taken notions as to the " great south land," he
prepared the way for the discoveries of Captain
Cook. But notwithstanding these errors, which
were due partly to the roughness of the materials
which he had to deal with, and partly to scientific
caution, Ptolemy's work is one of the great mon-
uments of human industry and knowledge. For

32 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

the Old AVorld it remained the basis of geograph-
ical knowledgfe up to the bes^inning of the eight-
eenth century, just as his astronomical work was
only finally abolished by the work of Newton.
Ptolemy has thus the rare distinction of being the
greatest authority on two important departments
of human knowledge — astronomy and geography
— for over fifteen hundred years. Into the details
of his description of the world it is unnecessary
to go. The map will indicate how near he came
to the main outlines of the Mediterranean, of
Northwest Europe, of Arabia, and of the Black
Sea. Beyond these regions he could only depend
upon the rough indications and guesses of un-
tutored merchants. But it is worth while refer-
ring to his method of determining latitude, as it
was followed up by most succeeding geographers.
Between the equator and the most northerly point
known to him, he divides up the earth into hor-
izontal strips, called by him " climates," and
determined by the average length of the longest
day in each. This is a very ropgh method of
determining latitude, but it was probably, in most
cases, all that Ptolemy had to depend upon, since
the measurement of angles would be a rare ac-
complishment even in modern times, and would
only exist among a few mathematicians and
astronomers in Ptolemy's days. With him the
history of geographical knowledge and discovery
in the ancient world closes.

In this chapter I have roughly given the
names and exploits of the Greek men of science,
who summed up in a series of systematic records
the knowledge obtained by merchants, by soldiers,
and by travellers of the extent of the world
known to the ancients. Of this knowledge, by

THE SPREAD OF CONQUEST. ;^'^

far the largest amount was gained, not by syste-
matic investigation for the purpose of geography,
but by miHtary expeditions for the purpose of
conquest. We must now retrace our steps, and
give a rough review of the various stages of con-
quest by which the different regions of the Old
World became known to the Greeks and the
Roman Empire, whose knowledge Ptolemy sum-
marises.

[Authorities : Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography^ 2
vols., 1879 ; Tozer, History of Ancient Geography, 1897.]

CHAPTER II.

THE SPREAD OF CONQUEST IN THE
ANCIENT WORLD.

In a companion volume of this series, "The
Story of Extinct Civilisations in the East," will
be found an account of the rise and development
of the various nations who held sway over the
west of Asia at the dawn of history. Modern
discoveries of remarkable interest have enabled
us to learn the condition of men in Asia Minor
as early as 4000 B.C. All these early civilisations
existed on the banks of great rivers, which ren-
dered the land fertile through which they passed.

We first find man conscious of himself, and
putting his knowledge on record, along the banks
of the great rivers Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris,
Ganges and Yang-tse-Kiang. But for our pur-
poses we are not concerned with these very early
stages of history. The Egyptians got to know
3

34 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

something of the nations that surrounded them,
and so did the Assyrians. A summary of similar
knowledge is contained in the list of tribes given
in the tenth chapter of Genesis, which divides all
mankind, as then known to the Hebrews, into
descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japhet — corre-
sponding, roughly, to Asia, Europe, and Africa.
But in order to ascertain how the Romans ob-
tained the mass of information which was sum-
marised for them by Ptolemy in his great work,
we have merely to concentrate our attention on
the remarkable process of continuous expansion
which ultimately led to the existence of the Roman
Empire.

All early histories of kingdoms are practically
of the same type. A certain tract of country is
divided up among a certain number of tribes
speaking a common language, and each of these
tribes ruled by a separate chieftain. One of these
tribes then becomes predominant over the rest,
through the skill in war or diplomacy of one of
its chiefs, and the whole of the tract of country is
thus organised into one kingdom. Thus the his-
tory of England relates how the kingdom of Wes-
sex grew into predominance over the whole of the
country ; that of France tells how the kings who
ruled over the Isle of France spread their rule
over the rest of the land ; the history of Israel is
mainly an account of how the tribe of Judah
obtained the hegemony of the rest of the tribes;
and Roman history, as its name implies, informs
us how the inhabitants of a single city grew to
be the masters of the whole known world. But
their empire had been prepared for them by a long
series of similar expansions, which might be de-
scribed as the successive swallowing up of empire

THE SPREAD OF CONQUEST. 35

after empire, each becoming overgrown in the
process, till at last the series was concluded by
the Romans swallowing up the whole. It was this
gradual spread of dominion which, at each stage,
increased men's knowledge of surrounding nations,
and it therefore comes within our province to
roughly sum up these stages, as part of the story
of geographical discovery.

Regarded from the point of view of geography,
this spread of man's knowledge might be com-
pared to the growth of a huge oyster-shell, and,
from that point of view, we have to take the
north of the Persian Gulf as the apex of the shell,
and begin with the Babylonian Empire. We first
have the kingdom of Babylon — which, in the early
stages, might be best termed ChaldjEa — in the
south of Mesopotamia (or the valley between the
two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates), which, during
the third and second millennia before our era,
spread along the valley of the Tigris. But in the
fourteenth century B.C., the Assyrians to the north
of it, though previously dependent upon Babylon,
conquered it, and, after various vicissitudes, estab-
lished themselves throughout the whole of Meso-
potamia and much of the surrounding lands. In
604 B.C. the capital of this great empire was moved
once more to Babylon, so that in the last stage, as
well as in the first, it may be called Babylonia. For
purposes of distinction, however, it will be as well
to call these three successive stages Chaldaea,
Assyria, and Babylonia.

Meanwhile, immediately to the east, a some-
what similar process had been gone through,
though here the development was from north to
south, the Medes of the north developing a power-
ful empire in the north of Persia, which ultimately

36 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

fell into the hands of Cyrus the Great in 546 b.c.
He then proceeded to conquer the kingdom of
Lydia, in the north-west part of Asia Minor, which
had previously inherited the dominions of the
Hittites. Finally he proceeded to seize the em-
pire of Babylonia, by his successful attack on the
capital, 538 B.C. He extended his rule nearly as
far as India on one side, and, as we know from
the Bible, to the borders of Egypt on the other.
His son Cambyses even succeeded in adding Egypt
for a time to the Persian Empire. The oyster-
shell of history had accordingly expanded to in-
clude almost the whole of Western Asia.

The next two centuries are taken up in uni-
versal history by the magnificent struggle of the
Greeks against the Persian Empire — the most
decisive conflict in all history, for it determined
whether Europe or Asia should conquer the world.
Hitherto the course of conquest had been from
east to west, and if Xerxes' invasion had been
successful, there is little doubt that the westward
tendency would have continued. But the larger
the tract of country which an empire covers —
especially when different tribes and nations are
included in it — the weaker and less organised it
becomes. Within little more than a century of
the death of Cyrus the Great the Greeks discov-
ered the vulnerable pomt in the Persian Empire,
owing to an expedition of ten thousand Greek mer-
cenaries under Xenophon, who had been engaged
by Cyrus the younger in an attempt to capture the
Persian Empire from his brother. Cyrus was
slain, 401 B.C., but the ten thousand, under the
leadership of Xenophon, were enabled to hold their
own against all the attempts of the Persians to
destroy them, and found their way back to Greece

THE SPREAD OF CONQUEST. 37

Meanwhile the usual process had been going
on in Greece by which a country becomes consol-
idated. From time to time one of the tribes into
which that mountainous country was divided,
obtained supremacy over the rest: at first the
Athenians, owing to the prominent part they had
taken in repelling the Persians; then the Spartans,
and finally the Thebans. But on the northern
frontiers a race of hardy mountaineers, the Mace-
donians, had consolidated their power, and, under
Philip of Macedon, became masters of all Greece.
Philip had learned the lesson taught by the suc-
cessful retreat of the ten thousand, and, just
before his death, was preparing to attack the
Great King (of Persia) with all the forces which
his supremacy in Greece put at his disposal. His
son Alexander the Great carried out Philip's in-
tentions. Within twelve years (334-323 B.C.) he
had conquered Persia,Parthia, India (in the strict
sense, i.e. the valley of the Indus), and Egypt.
After his death his huge empire was divided up
among his generals, but, except in the extreme
east, the whole of it was administered on Greek
methods. A Greek-speaking person could pass
from one end to the other without difficulty, and
we can understand how a knowledge of the whole
tract of country between the Adriatic and the Indus
could be obtained by Greek scholars. Alexander
founded a large number of cities, all bearing his
name, at various points of his itinerary ; but of
these the most important was that at the mouth
of the Nile, known to this day as Alexandria.
Here was the intellectual centre of the whole
Hellenic world, and accordingly it was here, as
we have seen, that Eratosthenes first wrote down
in a systematic manner all the knowledge about

38 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

the habitable earth which had been gained mainly
by Alexander's conquests.

Important as was the triumphant march of
Alexander through Western Asia, both in history
and in geography, it cannot be said to have added
so very much to geographical knowledge, for
Herodotus was roughly acquainted with most of
the country thus traversed, except towards the
east of Persia and the north-west of India. But
the itineraries of Alexander and his generals must
have contributed more exact knowledge of the
distances between the various important centres
of population, and enabled Eratosthenes and his
successors to give them a definite position on their
maps of the world. What they chiefly learned
from Alexander and his immediate successors was
a more accurate knowledge of North-West India.
Even as late as Strabo, the sole knowledge pos-
sessed at Alexandria of Indian places was that
given by Megasthenes, the ambassador to India
in the third century B.C.

Meanwhile, in the western portion of the civi-
lised world a similar process had gone on. In
the Italian peninsula the usual struggle had gone
on between the various tribes inhabiting it. The
fertile plain of Lombardy was not in those days
regarded as belonging to Italy, but was known as
Cisalpine Gaul. The south of Italy, as we have
seen, was mainly inhabited by Greek colonists,
and was called Great Greece. Between these
tracts of country the Italian territory was inhab-
ited by three sets of federate tribes — the Etrurians,
the Samnites, and the Latins. During the 230
years between 510 b.c. and 280 B.C. Rome was
occupied in obtaining the supremacy among these
three sets of tribes, and by the latter date may be

THE SPREAD OF CONQUEST. 39

regarded as having consolidated Central Italy into
an Italian federation, centralised at Rome. At
the latter date, the Greek king, Pyrrhus of Epirus,
attempted to arouse the Greek colonies in South-
ern Italy against the growing power of Rome ; but
his interference only resulted in extending the
Roman dominion down to the heel and big toe of
Italy.

If Rome was to advance farther, Sicily would
be the next step, and just at that moment Sicily
was being threatened by the other great power of
the West — Carthage. Carthage was the most im-
portant of the colonies founded by the Phoenicians
(probably in the ninth century B.C.), and pursued
in the Western Mediterranean the policy of estab-
lishing trading stations along the coast, which had
distinguished the Phoenicians from their first ap-
pearance in history. They seized all the islands
in that division of the sea, or at any rate prevented
any other nation from settling in Corsica, Sar-
dinia, and the Balearic Isles. In particular, Car-
thage took possession of the western part of Sicily,
which had been settled by sister Phoenician colo-
nies. While Rome did everything in its power to
consolidate its conquests by admitting the other
Italians to some share in the central government,
Carthage only regarded its foreign possessions as
so many openings for trade. In fact, it dealt with
the western littoral of the Mediterranean some-
thing like the East India Company treated the
coast of Hindustan: it established factories at
convenient spots. But just as the List India
Company found it necessary to conquer the neigh-
bouring territory in order to secure peaceful trade,
so Carthage extended its conquests all down the
western co^st of Africa and the south-east part pf

40 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAl. DISCOVERY.

Spain, while Rome was extending into Italy. To
continue our conchological analogy, by the time
of the first Punic War Rome and Carthage had
each expanded into a shell, and between the two
intervened the eastern section of the island of
Sicily. As the result of this, Rome became mas-
ter of Sicily, and then the final struggle took place
with Hannibal in the second Punic War, which re-
sulted in Rome becoming possessed of Spain and
Carthage. By the year 200 b.c. Rome was prac-
tically master of the Western Mediterranean,
though it took another century to consolidate its
heritage from Carthage in Spain and Mauritania.
During that century — the second before our era —
Rome also extended its Italian boundaries to the
Alps by the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul, which,
however, was considered outside Italy, from which
It was separated by the river Rubicon. In that
same century the Romans had begun to interfere
in the affairs of Greece, which easily fell into their
hands, and thus prepared the way for their inher-
itance of Alexander's empire.

This, in the main, was the work of the first
century before our era, when the expansion of
Rome became practically concluded. This was
mainly the work of two men, Caesar and Pompey.
Following the example of his uncle, Marius,
Caesar extended the Roman dominions beyond
the Alps to Gaul, Western (Germany, and Britain;
but from our present standpoint it was Pompey
who prepared the way for Rome to carry on the
succession of empire in the more civilised por-
tions of the world, and thereby merited his title
of "Great." He pounded up, as it were, the va-
rious states into which Asia Minor was divided,
and thus prepared the way for Roman dominion

42 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

over Western Asia and Egypt. By the time of
Ptolemy the empire was thorougly consolidated,
and his map and geographical notices are only
tolerably accurate within the confines of the em-
pire.

One of the means by which the Romans were
enabled to consolidate their dominion must be
here shortly referred to. In order that their
legions might easily pass from one portion of this
huge empire to another, they built roads, general-
ly in straight lines, and so solidly constructed that
in many places throughout Europe they can be
traced even to the present day, after the lapse of
fifteen hundred years. Owing to them, in a large
measure, Rome was enabled to preserve its empire
intact for nearly five hundred years, and even to
this day one can trace a difference in the civiliza-
tion of those countries over which Rome once
ruled, except where the devastating influence of
Islam has passed like a sponge over the old Ro-
man provinces. Civilisation, or the art of living
together in society, is practically the result of
Roman law, and in this sense all roads in history
lead to Rome.

The work of Claudius Ptolemy sums up to us
the knowledge that the Romans had gained b)"
their inheritance, on the western side, of the Car-
thaginian empire, and, on the eastern, of the re-
mains of Alexander's empire, to which must be
added the conquests of Caesar in North-West Eu-
rope. Caesar is, indeed, the connecting link be-
tween the two shells that had been growing
throughout ancient history. He added Gaul,
Germany, and Britain to geographical knowledge,
and, by his struggle with Pompey, connected the
Levant with his northerly conquests. One result

GEOGRAPHY IN THE DARK AGES. 43

of his imperial work must be here referred to.
By bringing all civilised men under one rule, he
prepared them for the worship of one God. This
was not without its influence on travel and geo-
graphical discovery, for the great barrier between
mankind had always been the difference of re-
ligion, and Rome, by breaking down the exclu-
siveness of local religions, and substituting for
them a general worship of the majesty of the
Emperor, enabled all the inhabitants of this vast
empire to feel a certain communion with one an-
other, which ultimately, as we know, took on a
religious form.

The Roman Empire will henceforth form the
centre from which to regard any additions to
geographical knowledge. As we shall see, part
of the knowledge acquired by the Romans was
lost in the Dark Ages succeeding the break-up
of the empire; but for our purposes this may be
neglected, and geographical discovery in the suc-
ceeding chapters may be roughly taken to be ad-
ditions and corrections of the knowledge summed
up by Claudius Ptolemy.

CHAPTER III.

GEOGRAPHY IN THE DARK AGES.

We have seen how, by a slow process of con-
quest and expansion, the ancient world got to
know a large part of the Eastern Hemisphere,
and how this knowledge was summed up in the
great work of Claudius Ptolemy. We have now
to learn how much of this knowledge was lost or

44 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHI-CAL DISCOVERY.

perverted — how geography, for a time, lost the
character of a science, and became once more the
subject of mythical fancies similar to those which
we. found in its earliest stages. Instead of knowl-
edge which, if not quite exact, was at any rate
approximately measured, the mediaeval teachers
who concerned themselves with the configuration
of the inhabited world substituted their own ideas
of what ought to be.* This is a process which ap-
plies not alone to geography, but to all branches
of knowledge, which, after the fall of the Roman
Empire, ceased to expand or progress, became
mixed up with fanciful notions, and only recov-
ered when a knowledge of ancient science and
thought was restored in the fifteenth century.
But in geography we can more easily see than
in other sciences the exact nature of the disturb-
ing mfluence which prevented the acquisition of
new knowledge.

Briefly put, that disturbing influence was
religion, or rather theology ; not, of course,
religion in the proper sense of the word, or the-
ology based on critical principles, but theological
conceptions deduced from a slavish adherence to
texts of Scripture, very often seriously misunder-
stood. To quote a single example : when it is
said in Ezekiel v. 5, " This is Jerusalem : I have
set it in the midst of the nations . . . round
about her," this was not taken by the mediaeval
monks, who were the chief geographers of the
period, as a poetical statement, but as an exact
mathematical law, which determined the form

* It is fair to add that Professor Miller's researches have
shown that some of the " unscientific " qualities of the mediaeval
mappcB mundi were due to Roman models.

GEOGRAPHY IN THE DARK AGES. 45

which all mediaeval maps took. Roughly speak-
ing, of course, there was a certain amount of
truth in the statement, since Jerusalem would be
about the centre of the world as known to the
ancients — at least, measured from east to west;
but, at the same time, the mediaeval geographers
adopted the old Homeric idea of the ocean sur-
rounding the habitable world, though at times
there was a tendency to keep more closely to the
words of Scripture about the four corners of the
earth. Still, as a rule, the orthodox conception
of the world was that of a circle enclosing a sort
of T square, the east being placed at the top,
Jerusalem m the centre ; the Mediterranean Sea
naturally divided the lower half of the circle,
while the ^gean and Red Seas were regarded as
spreading out right and left perpendicularly, thus
dividing the top part of the world, or Asia, from
the lower part, divided equally between Europe
on the left and Africa on the right. The size of
the Mediterranean Sea, it will be seen, thus deter-
mined the dimensions of the three continents.
One of the chief errors to which this led was to
cut off the whole of the south of Africa, which
rendered it seemingly a short voyage round that
continent on the way to India. As we shall see,
this error had important and favourable results
on geographical discovery.

Another result of this conception of the world
as a T within an O, was to expand Asia to an
enormous extent ; and as this was a part of the
world which was less known to the monkish map-
makers of the Middle Ages, they were obliged to
fill out their ignorance by their imagination.
Hence they located in Asia all the legends which
they had derived either from Biblical or classical

46 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY

sources. Thus there was a conception, for whicli
very little basis is to be found in the Bible, of two
fierce nations named Gog and Magog, who would
one day bring about the destruction of the civ-
ilised world. These were located m what would

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>v \ \ \lL^Vj'ir

ts?*

P^Jl

Geographical monsters.

have been Siberia, and it was thought that Alex-
ander the Great had penned them in behind the
Iron Mountains. When the great Tartar invasion
came in the thirteenth century, it was natural to
suppose that these were no less than the Gog and
Magog of legend. So, too, the position of Para-
dise was fixed in the extreme east, or, in other
words, at the top of mediaeval maps. Then,
again, some of the classical authorities, as Pliny
and Solinus, had admitted into their geographical
accounts legends of strange tribes of monstrous
men, strangely different from normal humanity.
Among these may be mentioned the Sciapodes, or
men whose feet were so large that when it was

GEOGRAPHY IN THE DARK AGES. 47

hot they could rest on their backs and lie in the
shade. There is a dim remembrance of these
monstrosities in Shakespeare's reference to

"The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders."

In the mythical travels of Sir John Maunde-
ville there are illustrations of these curious be-
ings, one of which is here reproduced. Other
tracts of country were supposed to be inhabited
by equally monstrous animals. Illustrations of
most of these were utilised to fill up the many
vacant spaces in the mediaeval maps of Asia.

One author, indeed, in his theological zeal,
went much further in modifying the conceptions
of the habitable world. A Christian merchant
named Cosmas, who had journeyed to India, and
was accordingly known as Cosmas Indico-
PLEUSTES, wrote, about 540 a.d., a work entitled
"Christian Topography," to confound what he
thought to be the erroneous views of Pagan
authorities about the configuration of the world.
What especially roused his ire was the conception
of the spherical form of the earth, and of the
Antipodes, or men who could stand upside down.
He drew a picture of a round ball, with four men
standing upon it, with their feet on opposite
sides, and asked triumphantly how it was possible
that all four could stand upright? In answer to
those who asked him to explain how he could
account for day and night if the sun did not go
round the earth, he supposed that there was a
huge mountain in the extreme north, round which
the sun moved once in every twenty-four hours.
Night was when the sun was going round the
other side of the mountain. He also proved, en-

48 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

,tirely to his own satisfaction, that the sun, in-
stead of being greater, was very much smaller
than the earth. The earth was, according to
him, a moderately sized plane, the inhabited parts

The Hereford map.

of which were separated from the antediluvian
world by the ocean, and at the four corners of the
whole were the pillars which supported the heav-
ens, so that the whole universe was something like
a big glass exhibition case, on the top of which
was the firmament, dividing the waters above and
below it, according to the first chapter of Genesis.

GEOGRAPHY IN THE DARK AGES. 49

Cosmas' views, however interesting and amus-
ing they are, were too extreme to gain much
credence or attention even from the mediaeval
monks, and we find no reference to them in the
various mappce mundi which sum up their knowl-
edge, or rather ignorance, about the world. One
of the most remarkable of these maps exists in
England at Hereford, and the plan of it given on
p. 48 will convey as much information as to early
mediaeval geography as the ordinary reader will
require. In the extreme east, i.e. at the top, is
represented the Terrestrial Paradise ; in the
centre is Jerusalem ; beneath this, the Mediter-
ranean extends to the lower edge of the map,
with its islands very carefully particularised.
Much attention is given to the rivers throughout,
but very little to the mountains. The only real
increase of actual knowledge represented in the
map is that of the north-east of Europe, which
had naturally become better known by the inva-
sion of the Norsemen. But how little real knowl-
edge was possessed of this portion of Europe is
proved by the fact that the map-maker placed
near Norway the Cynocephali, or dog-headed
men, probably derived from some confused ac-
counts of Indian monkeys. Near them are placed
the Gryphons, " men most wicked, for among
their misdeeds they also make garments for them-
selves and their horses out of the skins of their
enemies." Here, too, is placed the home of the
Seven Sleepers, who lived for ever as a standing
miracle to convert the heathen. The shape given
to the British Islands will be observed as due to
the necessity of keeping the circular form of the
inhabited world. Other details about England
we may leave for the present.
4

50 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

It is obvious that maps such as the Hereford
one would be of no practical utility to travellers
who desired to pass from one country to another ;
indeed, they were not intended for any such pur-
pose. Geography had ceased to be in any sense
a practical science ; it only ministered to men's
sense of wonder, and men studied it mainly in
order to learn about the marvels of the world.
When William of Wykeham drew up his rules for
the Fellows and Scholars of New College, Oxford,
he directed them in the long winter evenings to
occupy themselves with " singing, or reciting
poetry, or with the chronicles of the different
kingdoms, or with the wofiders of the world."
Hence almost all mediaeval maps are filled up
with pictures of these wonders, which were the
more necessary as so few people could read. A
curious survival of this custom lasted on in map-
drawing almost to the beginning of the nineteenth
century, when the spare places in the ocean were
adorned with pictures of sailing ships or spouting
sea monsters.

When men desired to travel, they did not use
such maps as these, but rather itineraries, or road-
books, which did not profess to give the shape of
the countries through which a traveller would
pass, but only indicated the chief towns on the
most-frequented roads. This information was
really derived from classical times, for the Roman
emperors from time to time directed such road-
books to be drawn up, and there still remains an
almost complete itinerary of the Empire, known
as the Peutinger Table, from the name of the
German merchant who first drew the attention of
the learned world to it. A condensed reproduc-
tion is given on the following page, from which it

52 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

will be seen that no attempt is made to give any-
thing more than the roads and towns. Unfortu-
nately, the first section of the table, which started
from Britain, has been mutilated, and we only
get the Kentish coast. These itineraries were
specially useful, as the chief journeys of men
were in the nature of pilgrimages; but these
often included a sort of commercial travelling,
pilgrims often combining business and religion
on their journeys. The chief information about
Eastern Europe which reached the West was
given by the succession of pilgrims who visited
Palestine up to the time of the Crusades. Our
chief knowledge of the geography of Europe
during the five centuries between 500 and 1000
A.D. is given in the reports of successive pil-
grims.

This period may be regarded as the Dark Age
of geographical knowledge, during which wild
conceptions like those contained in the Hereford
map were substituted for the more accurate
measurements of the ancients. Curiously enough
almost down to the time of Columbus the learned
kept to these conceptions, instead of modifying
them by the extra knowledge gained during the
second period of the Middle Ages, when travellers
of all kinds obtained much fuller information of
Asia, North Europe, and even, as we shall see, of
some parts of America.

It is not altogether surprising that this period
should have been so backward in geographical
knowledge, since the map of Europe itself, in its
political divisions, was entirely readjusted during
this period. The thousand years of history which
elapsed between 450 and 1450 were practically
taken up by successive waves of invasion from

GEOGRAPHY IN THE DARK AGES. 53

the centre of Asia, which almost entirely broke
up the older divisions of the world.

In the fifth century three wandering tribes
invaded the Empire, from the banks of the Vis-
tula, the Dnieper, and the Volga respectively
The Huns came from the Volga, in the extreme
east, and under Attila, "the Hammer of God,"
wrought consternation in the Empire ; the Visi-
goths, from the Dnieper, attacked the Eastern
Empire ; while the Vandals, from the Vistula,
took a triumphant course through Gaul and Spain,
and founded for a time. a Vandal empire in North
Africa. One of the consequences of this move-
ment was to drive several of the German tribes
into France, Italy, and Spain, and even over into
Britain ; for it is from this stage in the world's
history that we can trace the beginning of Eng-
land, properly so called, just as the invasion ot
Gaul by the Franks at this time means the begin-
ning of French history. By the eighth century
the kingdom of the Franks .extended all over
France, and included most of Central Germany ;
while on Christmas Day, 800, Charles the Great
was crowned at Rome, by the Pope, Emperor of
the Holy Roman Empire, which professed to
revive the glories of the old empire, but made a
division between the temporal power held by the
Emperor and the spiritual power held by the
Pope.

One of the divisions of the Frankish Empire
deserves attention, because upon its fate rested
the destinies of most of the nations of Western
Europe. The kingdom of Burgundy, the buffer
state between France and Germany, has now
entirely disappeared, except as the name of a
wine ; but having no natural boundaries, it was

54 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

disputed between France and Germany for a long
period, and it may be fairly said that the Franco-
Prusfian War was the last stage in its history up
to the present. A similar state existed in the
east of Europe, viz. the kingdom of Poland,
which was equally indefinite in shape, and has
equally formed a subject of dispute between the
nations of Eastern Europe. This, as is well
known, only disappeared as an independent state
in 1795, when it finally ceased to act as a buffer
between Russia and the rest of Europe. Roughly
speaking, after the settlement of the Germanic
tribes within the confines of the Empire, the
history of Europe, and therefore its historical
geography, may be summed up as a struggle for
the possession of Burgundy and Poland.

But there was an important interlude in the
south-west of Europe, which must engage our
attention as a symptom of a world-historic
change in the condition of civilisation. During
the course of the seventh and eighth centuries
(roughly, between 622 and 750) the inhabitants
of the Arabian peninsula burst the seclusion
which they had held since the beginning, almost,
of history, and, inspired by the zeal of the newly-
founded religion of Islam, spread their influence
from India to Spain, along the southern littoral
of the Mediterranean. When they had once
settled down, they began to recover the remnants
of Graeco-Roman science that had been lost on
the north shores of the Mediterranean. The
Christians of Syria used Greek for their sacred
language, and accordingly when the Sultans of
Bagdad desired to know something of the wisdom
of the Greeks, they got Syriac-speaking Chris-
tians to translate some of the scientific works of

GEOGRAPHY IN THE DARK AGES. 55

the Greeks, first into Syriac, and thence into
Arabic. In this way they obtained a knowledge
of the great works of Ptolemy, both in astronomy
— which they regarded as the more important,
and therefore the greatest, Almagest — and also
in geography, though one can easily understand
the great modifications which the strange names
of Ptolemy must have undergone in being tran-
scribed first into Syriac and then into Arabic. We
shall see later on some of the results of the Arabic
Ptolemy.

The conquests of the Arabs affected the
knowledge of geography in a twofold way : by
bringing about the Crusades, and by renewing
the acquaintance of the west with the east of
Asia. The Arabs were acquainted with South-
Eastern Africa as far south as Zanzibar and So-
fala, though, following the views of Ptolemy as to
the Great Unknown South Land, they imagined
that these spread out mto the Indian Ocean to-
wards India. They seem even to have had some
vague knowledge of the sources of the Nile.
They were also acquainted with Ceylon, Java,
and Sumatra, and they were the first people to
learn the various uses to which the cocoa-nut can
be put. Their merchants, too, visited China as
early as the ninth century, and we have from
> their accounts some of the earliest descriptions
of the Chinese, who were described by them as
a handsome people, superior in beauty to the
Indians, with fine dark hair, regular features, and
very like the Arabs. We shall see later on how
comparatively easy it was for a Mohammedan to
travel from one end of the known world to the
other, owing to the community of religion through-
out such a vast area. »

56 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Some words should perhaps be said on the
geographical works of the Arabs. One of the
most important of these, by Yacut, is in the form
of a huge Gazetteer, arranged in alphabetical
order; but the greatest geographical work of the
Arabs is by Edrisi, geographer to King Roger of
Sicily, 1 154, who describes the world somewhat
after the manner of Ptolemy, but with modifica-
tions of some interest. He divides the world into
seven horizontal strips, known as "climates," and
ranging from the equator to the British Isles.
These strips are subdivided into eleven sections,
so that the world, in Edrisi's conception, is like a
chess-board, divided into seventy-seven squares,
and his work consists of an elaborate description
of each of these squares taken one by one, each
climate being worked through regularly, so that
you might get parts of France in the eighth and
ninth squares, and other parts in the sixteenth
and seventeenth. Such a method was not adapted
to give a clear conception of separate countries,
but this was scarcely Edrisi's object. When the
Arabs — or, indeed, any of the ancient or mediaeval
writers — wanted to describe a land, they wrote
about the tribe or nation inhabiting it, and not
about the position of the towns in it ; in other
words, they drew no marked distinction between
ethnology and geography.

But the geography of the Arabs had little
or no influence upon that of Europe, which, so
far as maps went, continued to be based on fancy
instead of fact almost up to the time of Colum-
bus.

Meanwhile another movement had been going
on during the eighth and ninth centuries, which
helped to make Europe what it is, and extended

GEOGRAPHY IN THE DARK AGES.

considerably the common knowledge of the north-
ern European peoples. For the first time since the
disappearance of the Phoenicians, a great naval
power came into existence in Norway, and with-
in a couple of centuries it had influenced almost

The World according; to Ibn Haukal.

the whole sea-coast of Europe. The Vikings, or
Sea-Rovers, who kept their long ships in the
viks^ or fjords, of Norway, made vigorous attacks
all along the coast of Europe, and in several
cases formed stable governments, and so made,
in a way, a sort of crust for Europe, preventing
any further shaking of its human contents. In
Iceland, in England, in Ireland, in Normandy, in

58 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Sicily, and at Constantinople (where they formed
the Varangi, or body-guard of the Emperor), as
well as in Russia, and for a time in the Holy
Land, Vikings or Normans founded kingdoms
between which there was a lively interchange of
visits and knowledge.

They certainly extended their voyages to
Greenland, and there is a good deal of evidence
for believing that they travelled from Greenland
to Labrador and Newfoundland. In the year
looi, an Icelander named Biorn, sailing to Green-
land to visit his father, was driven to the south-
west, and came to a country which they called
Vinland, inhabited by dwarfs, and having a short-
est day of eight hours, which would correspond
roughly to 50° north latitude. The Norsemen
settled there, and as late as 1121 the Bishop of
Greenland visited them, in order to convert them
to Christianity. There is little reason to doubt
that this Vinland was on the mainland of North
America, and the Norsemen were therefore the
first Europeans to discover America. As late as
1380, two Venetians, named Zeno, visited Iceland,
and reported that there was a tradition there of a
land named Estotiland, a thousand miles west of
the Faroe Islands, and south of Greenland. The
people were reported to be civilised and good
seamen, though unacquainted with the use of the
compass, while south of them were savage can-
nibals, and still more to the south-west another
civilised people, who built large cities and
temples, but offered up human victims in them.
There seems to be here a dim knowledge of the
Mexicans.

The great difficulty in maritime discovery,
both for the ancients and the men of the Middle

GEOGRAPHY IN THE DARK AGES. 59

A^es, was the necessity of keeping close to the
shore. It is true they might guide themselves by
the sun during the day, and by the pole-star at
night, but if once the sky was overcast, they
would become entirely at a loss for their bearings.
Hence the discovery of the polar tendency of the
magnetic needle was a necessary prelude to any
extended voyages away from land. This appears
CO have been known to the Chinese from quite
jncient times, and utilised on their junks as early
as the eleventh century. The Arabs, who
voyaged to Ceylon and Java, appear to have
learnt its use from the Chinese, and it is probably
from them that the mariners of Barcelona first
introduced its use into Europe. The first mention
of it is given in a treatise on Natural History by
Alexander Neckam, foster-brother of Richard,
Coeur de Lion. Another reference, in a satirical
poem of the troubadour, Guyot of Provence
(1190), states that mariners can steer to the north
star without seeing it, by following the direction
of a needle floating in a straw in a basin of water,
after it had been touched by a magnet. But little
use, however, seems to have been made of this,
for Brunetto Latini, Dante's tutor, when on a
visit to Roger Bacon in 125S, states that the friar
had shown him the magnet and its properties, but
adds that, however useful the discovery, ''no
master mariner would dare to use it, lest he
should be thought to be a magician." Indeed,
in the form in which it was first used it would be
of little practical utility, and it was not till the
method was found of balancing it on a pivot and
fixing it on a card, as at present used, that it
became a necessary part of a sailor's outfit. This
practical improvement is attributed to one Fiavio

6o THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Gioja, of Amalfi, in the beginning of the four-
teenth century.

When once the mariner's compass had come
into general use, and its indications observed by-
master mariners in their voyages, a much more
practical method was at hand for determining the
relative positions of the different lands. Hitherto
geographers (i.e., mainly Greeks and Arabs) had
had to depend for fixing relative positions on the
vague statements in the itineraries of merchants
and soldiers ; but now, with the aid of the com-
pass, it was not difficult to determine the relative
position of one point to another, while all the
windings of a road could be fixed down on paper
without much difficulty. Consequently, while the
learned monks were content with the mixture of
myth and fable which we have seen to have
formed the basis of their maps of the world, the
seamen of the Mediterranean were gradually
building up charts of that sea and the neighbour-
ing lands which varied but little from the true
position. A chart of this kind was called a Portu-
lano, as givmg information of the best routes
from port to port, and Baron Nordenskiold has
recently shown how a.\\ these J>orfu/am are derived
from a single Catalan map which has been lost,
but must have been compiled between 1266 and
1291. And yet there were some of the learned
who were not above taking instruction from the
practical knowledge of the seamen. In 1339, one
Angelico Dulcert, of Majorca, made an elaborate
map of the world on the principle of the portu-
lano, giving the coast line — at least of the Medi-
terranean— with remarkable accuracy. A little
later, in 1375, a Jew of the same island, named
Cresquez, made an improvement on this by intro-

62 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

ducing into the eastern parts of the map the
recently acquired knowledge of Cathay, or. China,
due to the great traveller Marco Polo. His map
(generally known as the Catalan Map, from the
language of the inscriptions plentifully scattered
over it) is divided into eight horizontal strips,
and on the preceding page will be found a reduced
reproduction, showing how very accurately the
coast line of the Mediterranean was reproduced
in these portulanos.

With the portulanos, geographical knowledge
once more came back to the lines of progress,
by reverting to the representation of fact, and,
by giving an accurate representation of the
coast line, enabled mariners to adventure more
fearlessly and to return more safely, while they
gave the means of recording any further knowl-
edge. As we shall see, they aided Prince Henry
the Navigator to start that series of geographi-
cal investigation which led to the discoveries that
closed the Middle Ages. With them we may fair-
ly close the history of medi3eval geography, so far
as it professed to be a systematic branch of
knowledge.

We must now turn back and briefly sum up
the additions to knowledge made by travellers,
pilgrims, and merchants, and recorded in literary
shape in the form of travels.

[Authorities: Lelewel, Gdographie du Moyen Age, ^ vols,
and atlas, 1852 ; C R. Beazley, Dawn of Geography, 1897,
and Introduction to Prince Henry the Navigator, 1895 ; Nor-
denskiold, Feriplus, 1897.]

MEDIEVAL TRAVELS. . 63

CHAPTER IV.

MEDIAEVAL TRAVELS.

In the Middle Ages — that is, in the thousand
years between the eruption of the barbarians
into the Roman Empire in the fifth century
and the discovery of the New World in the fif-
teenth— the chief stages of history which affect
the extension of men's knowledge of the world
were: the voyages of the Vikings in the eighth
and ninth centuries, to which we have already
referred ; the Crusades, in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries; and the growth of the
Mongol Empire in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries. The extra knowledge ob-
tained by the Vikings did not penetrate to the
rest of Europe ; that brought by the Crusades,
and their predecessors, the many pilgrimages
to the Holy Land, only restored to Western
Europe the knowledge already stored up in
classical antiquity ; but the effect of the exten-
sion of the Mongol Empire was of more w^ide-
reaching importance, and resulted in the addi-
tion of knowledge about Eastern Asia which was
not possessed by the Romans, and has only been
surpassed in modern times during the nineteenth
century.

Towards the beginning of the thirteenth cen-
tury, Chinchiz Khan, leader of a small Tatar
tribe, conquered most of Central and Eastern
Asia, including China. Under his son, Okkodai,
these Mongol Tatars turned from China to the
West, conquered Armenia, and one of the Mon-
gol generals, named Batu, ravaged South Russia

64 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

and Poland, and captured Buda-Pest, 1241, It
seemed as if the prophesied end of the world had
come, and the mighty nations Gog and Magog
had at last burst forth to fulfil the prophetic
words. But Okkodai died suddenly, and these
armies were recalled. Universal terror seized
Europe, and the Pope, as the head of Christen-
dom, determined to send ambassadors to the
Great Khan, to ascertain his real intentions. He
sent a friar named John of Planocarpini, from
Lyons, in 1245, to the camp of Batu (on the Vol-
ga), who passed him on to the court of the Great
Khan at Karakorum, the capital of his empire, of
which only the slightest trace is now left on the
left bank of the Orkhon, some hundred miles
south of Lake Baikal.

Here, for the first time, they heard of a king-
dom on the east coast of Asia which was not
yet conquered by the Mongols, and which was
known by the name of Cathay. Fuller infor-
mation was obtained by another friar, named
William Ruysbroek, or Rubruquis, a Fleming,
who also visited Karakorum as an ambassador
from St. Louis, and got back to Europe in 1255,
and communicated some of his information to
Roger Bacon. He says : " These Cathayans are
little fellows, speaking much through the nose,
and, as is general with all those Eastern people,
their eyes are very narrow. . . . The common
money of Cathay consists of pieces of cotton
paper, about a palm in length and breadth, upon
which certain lines are printed, resembling the
seal of Mangou Khan. They do their writing
with a pencil such as painters paint with, and a
single character of theirs comprehends several
letters, so as to form a whole word." He also

MEDIiEVAL TRAVELS. 65

identifies these Cathayans with the Seres of the
ancients. Ptolemy knew of these as possessing
the land where the silk comes from, but he had
also heard of the Singe, and failed to identify the
two. It has been conjectured that the name of
China came to the West by the sea voyage, and
is a Malay modification, while the names Seres
and Cathayans came overland, and thus caused
confusion.

Other Franciscans followed these, and one of
them, John of Montecorvino, settled at Khan-
balig (imperial city), or Pekin, as Archbishop
(ob. 1358); while Friar Odoric of Pordenone,
near Friuli, travelled in India and China between
1316 and 1330, and brought back an account of
his voyage, filled with the most marvellous men-
dacities, most of which were taken over bodily
into the work attributed to Sir John Maunde-
ville.

The information brought back by these wan-
dering friars fades, however, into insignificance
before the extensive and accurate knowledge of
almost the whole of Eastern Asia brought back
to Europe by Marco Polo, a Venetian, who
spent eighteen years of his life in the East. His
travels form an epoch in the history of geographi-
cal discovery only second to the voyages of
Columbus.

In 1260 his. father and uncle, Nicolo and
Maffeo Polo, set out from Constantinople on
a trading venture to the Crimea, after which
they were led to visit Bokhara, and thence on
to the court of the Great -Khan, Kublai, who
received them very graciously, and being im-
pressed with the desirability of introducing
Western civilisation into the new Mongolian
5

66 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

empire, he entrusted them with a message to
the Pope, demanding one hundred wise men of
the West to teach the Mongolians the Christian
religion and Western arts. The two brothers
returned to their native place, Venice, in 1269,
but found no Pope to comply with the Great
Khan's request; for Clement IV. had died the.
year before, and his successor had not yet been
appointed. They waited about for a couple of
years till Gregory X. was elected, but he only
meagrely responded to the Great Khan's de-
mands, and instructed two Dominicans to accom-
pany the Polos, who on this occasion took with
them Nicolo's son, Marco, a lad of seventeen.
They started in November, 127 1, but soon lost
the company of the Dominicans, who lost heart
and went back.

They went first to Ormuz, at the mouth of
the Persian Gulf, then struck northward through
Khorasan Balkh to the Oxus, and thence on to
the Plateau of Pomir. Thence they passed the
Great Desert of Gobi, and at last reached
Kublai in May, 1275, at his summer residence
in Kaipingfu. Notwithstanding that they had
not carried out his request, the Khan received
them in a friendly manner, and was especially
taken by Marco, whom he took into his own
service; and quite recently a record has been
found in the Chinese annals, stating that in the
year 1277 a certain Polo was nominated a Sec-
ond-Class Commissioner of the Privy Council.
His duty was to travel on various missions to
Eastern Tibet, to Cochin China, and even to
India. The Polos amassed much wealth owing
to the Khan's favour, but found him very unwill-
ing to let them return to Europe. Marco Polo

MEDIEVAL TRAVELS. 67

held several important posts; for three years he
was Governor of the great city of Yanchau, and
it seemed likely that he would die in the service
of Kublai Khan.

But, owing to a fortunate chance, they were
at last enabled to get back to Europe. The
Khan of Persia desired to marry a princess of the
Great Khan's family, to whom he was related,
and as the young lady upon whom the choice fell
could not be expected to undergo the hardships
of the overland journey from China to Persia, it
was decided to send her by sea round the coast
of Asia. The Tatars were not good navigators,
and the Polos at last obtained permission to
escort the young princess on the rather perilous
voyage. They started in 1292, from Zayton, a
port in Fokien, and after a voyage of over two
years round the south coast of Asia, successfully
carried the lady to her destined home, though she
ultimately had to marry the son instead of the
father, who had died in the interim. They took
leave of her, and travelled through Persia to
their own place, which they reached in 1295.
When they arrived at the ancestral mansion of
the Polos, in their coarse dress of Tatar cut, their
relatives for some time refused to believe that
they were really the long-lost merchants. But
the Polos invited them to a banquet, in which
they dressed themselves all in their best, and put
on new suits for every course, giving the clothes
they had taken off to the servants. At the con-
clusion of the banquet they brought forth the
shabby dresses in which they had first arrived,
and taking sharp knives, began to rip up the
seams, from which they took vast quantities of
rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and

68 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

emeralds, into which form they had converted
most of their property. This exhibition naturally
changed the character of the welcome they re-
ceived from their relatives, who were then eager
to learn how they had come by such riches.

In describing the wealth of the Great Khan,
Marco Polo, who was the chief spokesman of the
party, was obliged to use the numeral " million "
to express the amount of his wealth and the
number of the population over whom he ruled.
This was regarded as part of the usual travellers'
tales, and Marco Polo was generally known by
his friends as " Messer Marco Millione."

Such a reception of his stories was no great
encouragement to Marco to tell the tale of his
remarkable travels, but in the year of his arrival
at Venice a war broke out between Genoa and
the Queen of the Adriatic, in which Marco Polo
was captured and cast into prison at Genoa.
There he found as a fellow-prisoner one Rusti-
cano of Pisa, a man of some learning and a sort
of predecessor of Sir Thomas Malory, since he
had devoted much time to re-writing, in prose,
abstracts of the many romances relating to the
Round Table. These he wrote, not in Italian
(which can scarcely be said to have existed for
literary purposes in those days), but in French,
the common language of chivalry throughout
Western Europe. While in prison with Marco
Polo, he took down in French the narrative of
the great traveller, and thus preserved it for all
time. Marco Polo was released in 1299, and
returned to Venice, where he died some time
after 9th January, 1334, the date of his will.

Of the travels thus detailed in Marco Polo's
book, and of their importance and significance in

MEDIAEVAL TRAVELS. 69

the history of geographical discovery, it is impos-
sible to give any adequate account in this place.
It will, perhaps, suffice if we give the summary of
his claims made out by Colonel Sir Henry Yule,
whose edition of his travels is one of the great
monuments of English learning: —

" He was the first traveller to trace a route across the whole
longitude of Asia, naming and describing kingdom after king-
dom which he had seen with his own eyes : the deserts of
Persia, the flowering plateaux and wild gorges of Badakhshan,
the jade-bearing rivers of Khotan, the Mongolian Steppes,
cradle of the power that had so lately threatened to swallow
up Christendom, the new and brilliant court that had been
established by Cambaluc : the first traveller to reveal China
in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge cities,
its rich manufactures, its swarming population, the inconceiv-
ably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters ;
to tell us of the nations on its borders, with all their eccentric-
ities of manners and worship ; of Tibet, with its sordid devo-
tees ; of Burma, with its golden pagodas and their tinkling
crowns ; of Laos, of Siam, of Cochin China, of Japan, the East-
ern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces ; the
first to speak of that museum of beauty and wonder, still so
imperfectly ransacked, the Indian Archipelago, source of those
aromatics then so highly prized, and whose origin was so dark ;
of Java, the pearl of islands : of Sumatra, with its many kings,
its strange costly products, and its cannibal races ; of the
naked savages of Nicobar and Andaman ; of Ceylon, the
island of gems, with its sacred mountain, and its tomb of
Adam ; of India the Great, not as a dreamland of Alexandrian
fables, but as a country seen and personally explored, with its
virtuous Brahmans, its obscene ascetics, its diamonds, and the
strange tales of their acquisition, its sea-beds of pearl, and its
powerful sun : the first in mediaeval times to give any distinct
account of the secluded Christian empire of Abyssinia, and
the semi-Christian island of Socotra ; to speak, though indeed
dimly, of Zanzibar, with its negroes and its ivory, and of
the vast and distant Madagascar, bordering on the dark
ocean of the South, with its Rue and other monstrosities,
and, in a remotely opposite region, of Siberia and the Arctic
Ocean, of dog-sledges, white bears, and reindeer-riding Tuu-
guses."

70 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Marco Polo's is thus one of the greatest names
in the history of geography; it may, indeed, be
doubted whether any other traveller has ever
added so extensively to our detailed knowledge

Fra Mauro's map, 1457.

of the earth's surface. Certainly up to the time
of Mr. Stanley no man had on land visited so
many places previously unknown to civilised
Europe. But the lands he discovered, though
already fully populated, were soon to fall into dis-
order, and to be closed to any civilising influences.
Nothing for a long time followed from these dis-

MEDIAEVAL TRAVELS. 7 1

coveries, and indeed almost up to the present
day his accounts were received with incredulity,
and he himself was regarded more as " Marco
Millione " than as Marco Polo,

Extensive as were Marco Polo's travels, they
were yet exceeded in extent, though not in
variety, by those of the greatest of Arabian
travellers, Mohammed Ibn Batuta, a native of
Tangier, who began his travels in 1334, as part of
the ordinary duty of a good Mohammedan to
visit the holy city of Mecca. While at Alexan-
dria he met a learned sage named Borhan Eddin,
to whom he expressed his desire to travel. Bor-
han said to him, " You must then visit my brother
Farid Iddin and my brother Rokn Eddin in
Scindia, and my brother Borhan Eddin in China.
When you see them, present my compliments to
them." Owing mainly to the fact that the Tatar
princes had adopted Islamism instead of Chris-
tianity, after the failure of Gregory X. to send
Christian teachers to China, Ibn Batuta was
ultimately enabled to greet all three brothers of
Borhan Eddin. Indeed, he performed a more
extraordinary exploit, for he was enabled to con-
vey the greetings of the Sheikh Kawan Eddin,
whom he met in China, to a relative of his resid-
ing in the Soudan. During the thirty years of
his travels he visited the Holy Land, Armenia,
the Crimea, Constantinople (which he visited in
company with a Greek princess, who married one
of the Tatar Khans), Bokhara, Afghanistan, and
Delhi. Here he found favour with the emperor
Mohammed Inghlak, who appointed him a judge,
and sent him on an embassy to China, at first
overland, but, as this was found too dangerous a
route, he went ultimately from Calicut, via Cey-

72 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Ion, the Maldives, and Sumatra, to Zaitun, then
the great port of China. Civil war having
broken out, he returned by the same route to
Calicut, but dared not face the emperor, and went
on to Ormuz and Mecca, and returned to Tangier
in 1349. But even then his taste for travel had
not been exhausted. He soon set out for Spain,
and worked his way through Morocco, across the
Sahara, to the Soudan. He travelled along the
Niger (which he took for the Nile), and visited
Timbuctoo. He ultimately returned to Fez in
1353, twenty-eight years after he had set out on
his travels. Their chief interest is in showing
the wide extent of Islam in his day, and the
facilities which a common creed gave for exten-
sive travel. But the account of his journeys was
written in Arabic, and had no influence on Euro-
pean knowledge, which, indeed, had little to learn
from him after Marco Polo, except with regard to
the Soudan. With him the history of mediaeval
geography may be fairly said to end, for within
eighty years of his death began the activity of
Prince Henry the Navigator, with whom the
modern epoch begins.

Meanwhile India had become somewhat better
known, chiefly by the travels of wandering friars,
who visited it mainly for the sake of the shrine
of St. Thomas, who was supposed to have been
martyred in India. Mention should also be made
of the early spread of the Nestorian Church
throughout Central Asia. As early as the seventh
century the Syrian Christians who followed the
views of Nestorius began spreading them east-
ward, founding sees in Persia and Turkestan, and
ultimately spreading as far as Pekin. There was
-a certain revival of their missionary activity

MEDIEVAL TRAVELS. 73

under the Mongol Khans, but the restricted
nature of the language in which their reports
were written prevented them from having any
effect upon geographical knowledge, except in
one particular, which is of some interest. The
fate of the Lost Terf Tribes of Israel has always
excited interest, and a legend arose that they had
been converted to Christianity, and existed some-
where in the East under a king who was also a
priest, and known as Prester John. Now, in the
reports brought by some of the Nestorian priests
westward, it was stated that one of the Mongol
princes named Ung Khan had adopted Christian-
ity, and as this in Syriac sounded something like
" John the Cohen," or " Priest," he was identified
with the Prester John of legend, and for a long
time one of the objects of travel in the East was
to discover this Christian kingdom. It was, how-
ever, later ascertained that there did exist such
a Christian kingdom in Abyssinia, and as, owing
to the erroneous views of Ptolemy, followed by
the Arabs, Abyssinia was considered to spread
towards Farther India, the land of Prester John
was identified in Abyssinia. We shall see later on
how this error helped the progress of geographical
discovery.

The total addition of these mediaeval travels
to geographical knowledge consisted mainly in
the addition of a wider extent of land in China,
and the archipelago of Japan, or Cipangu, to the
map of the world. The accompanying map dis-
plays the various travels and voyages of impor-
tance, and will enable the reader to understand
how students of geography, who added on to
Ptolemy's estimate of the extent of the world
east and west the new knowledge acquired by

74 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Marco Polo, would still further decrease the dis-
tance westward between Europe and Cipangu,
and thus prepare men for the voyage of Co-
lumbus.

[Authorities : Sir Henry Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither ^
1865 ; The Book of Ser Marco Polo, 1875.]

CHAPTER V.

ROADS AND COMMERCE.

We have now conducted the course of our
inquiries through ancient times and the Middle
Ages up to the very eve of the great discoveries
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and we
have roughly indicated what men had learned
about the earth during that long period, and how
they learned it. But it still remains to consider
by what means they arrived at their knowledge,
and why they sought for it. To some extent we
may have answered the latter question when deal-
ing with the progress of conquest, but men did
not conquer merely for the sake of conquest.
We have still to consider the material advantages
attaching to warfare. Again, when men go on
their wars of discovery, they have to progress,
for the most part, along paths already beaten for
them by the natives of the country they intend
to conquer ; and often when they have succeeded
in warfare, they have to consolidate their rule by
creating new and more appropriate means of com-
munication. To put it shortly, we have still to
discuss the roads of the ancient and mediaeval

ROADS AND COMMERCE. 75

worlds, and the commerce for which those roads
were mainly used.

A road may be, for our purposes, most readily
defined as the most convenient means of commu-
nication between two towns; and this logically
implies that the towns existed before the roads
were made; and in a fuller investigation of any
particular roads, it will be necessary to start by
investigating why men collect their dwellings at
certain definite spots. In the beginning, as-
semblies of men were made chiefly or altogether
for defensive purposes, and the earliest towns
were those which, from their natural position,
like Athens or Jerusalem, could be most easily
defended. Then, again, religious motives often
had their influence in early times, and towns
would grow round temples or cloisters. But soon
considerations of easy accessibility rule in the
choice of settlements, and for that purpose towns
on rivers, especially at fords of rivers, as West-
minster, or in well-protected harbours like
Naples, or in the centre of a district, as Nurem-
berg or Vienna, would form the most convenient
places of meeting for exchange of goods. Both
on a river, or on the sea-shore, the best means of
communication would be by ships or boats; but
once such towns had been established, it would be
necessary to connect them with one another by
land routes, and these would be determined
chiefly by the lay of the land. Where mountains
interfered, a large detour would have to be made
— as, for example, round the Pyrenees ; if rivers
intervened, fords would have to be sought for,
and a new town probably built at the most con-
venient place of passage. When once a recog-
nised way had been found between any two

76 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

places, the conservative instincts of man would
keep it in existence, even though a better route
were afterwards found.

The influence of water communication is of
paramount importance in determining the situa-
tion of towns in early times. Towns in the cor-
ners of bays, like Archangel, Riga, Venice, Genoa,
Naples, Tunis, Bassorah, Calcutta, would natu-
rally be the centre-points of the trade of the bay.
On rivers a suitable spot would be where the
tides ended, like London, or at conspicuous bends
of a stream, or at junctures with affluents, as
Coblentz or Khartoum. One nearly always finds
important towns at the two ends of a peninsula,
like Hamburg and Lubeck, Venice and Genoa;
though for naval purposes it is desirable to have
a station at the head of the peninsula, to com-
mand both arms of the sea, as at Cherbourg, Se-
vastopol, or Gibraltar. Roads would then easily
be formed across the base of the peninsula, and
to its extreme point.

At first the inhabitants of any single town
would regard those of all others as their enemies,
but after a time they would find it convenient to
exchange some of their superfluities for those of
their neighbours, and in this way trade wouldbegin.
Markets would become neutral ground, in which
mutual animosities would be, for a time, laid
aside for the common advantage ; and it would
often happen that localities on the border line of
two states would be chosen as places for the ex-
change of goods, ultimately giving rise to the
existence of a fresh town. As commercial inter-
course increased, the very inaccessibility of fort-
ress towns on the heights would cause them to be
neglected for settlements in the valleys or by the

ROADS AND COMMERCE. 77

river sides, and, as a rule, roads pick out valleys
or level ground for their natural course. For
military purposes, however, it would sometimes
be necessary to depart from the valley routes, and,
as we shall see, the Roman roads paid no regard
to these requirements.

The earliest communication between nations,
as we have seen, was that of the Phoenicians by
sea. They founded factories, or neutral grounds
for trade, at appropriate spots all along the
Mediterranean coasts, and the Greeks soon fol-
lowed their example in the ^gean and Black
Seas. But at an early date, as we know from the
Bible, caravan routes were established between
Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia, and later on
these were extended into Farther Asia. But in
Europe the great road-builders were the Romans.
Rome owed its importance in the ancient world
to its central position, at first in Italy, and then
in the whole of the Mediterranean. It combined
almost all the advantages necessary for a town :
it was in the bend of a river, yet accessible from
the sea; its natural hills made it easily defens-
ible, as Hannibal found to his cost ; while its
central position in the Latian Plain made it the
natural resort of all the Latin traders. The
Romans soon found it necessary to utilise their
central position by rendering themselves acces-
sible to the rest of Italy, and they commenced
building those marvellous roads, which in most
cases have remained, owing to their solid con-
struction. " Building " is the proper word to use,
for a Roman road is really a broad wall built in
a deep ditch so as to come up above the level of
the surface. Scarcely any amount of traffic could
wear this solid substructure away, and to this day

78 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

throughout Europe traces can be found of the
Roman roads built nearly two thousand years
ago. As the Roman Empire extended, these
roads formed one of the chief means by which
the lords of the world were enabled to preserve
their conquests. By placing a legion in a central
spot, where many of these roads converged, they
were enabled to strike quickly in any direction
and overawe the country. Stations were natu-
rally built along these roads, and to the present
day many of the chief highways of Europe follow
the course of the old Roman roads. Our modern
civilisation is in a large measure the outcome of
this network of roads, and we can distinctly trace
a difference in the culture of a nation where such
roads never existed — as in Russia and Hungary,
as contrasted with the west of Europe, where
they formed the best means of communication.
It was only in the neighbourhood of these high-
ways that the fullest information was obtained of
the position of towns, and the divisions of
peoples; and a sketch map, like the one already
given, of the chief Roman roads of antiquity,
gives also, as it were, a skeleton of the geograph-
ical knowledge summed up in the great work of
Ptolemy.

But of more importance for the future devel-
opment of geographical knowledge were the great
caravan routes of Asia, to which we must now
turn our attention. Asia is the continent of
plateaux which culminate in the Steppes of the
Pamirs, appropriately called by their inhabitants
"the Roof of the World." To the east of these,
four great mountain ranges run, roughly, along
the parallels of latitude — the Himalayas to the
south, the Kuen-lun, Thian Shan, and Altai to the

ROADS AND COMMERCE. 79

north. Between the Himalayas and the Kuen-lun
is the great Plateau of Tibet, which runs into a
sort of cul-de-sac at its western end in Kashmir.
Between the Kuen-lun and the Thian Shan we
have the Gobi Steppe of Mongolia, running west
of Kashgar and Yarkand ; while between the
Thian Shan and the Altai we have the great Kir-
ghiz Steppe. It is clear that only two routes are
possible between Eastern and Western Asia :
that between the Kuen-lun and the Thian-Shan
via Kashgar and Bokhara, and that south of
the Altai, skirting the north of the great lakes
Balkash, Aral, and Caspian, to the south of
Russia. The former would lead to Bassorah or
Ormuz, and thence by sea, or overland, round
Arabia to Alexandria; the latter and longer
route would reach Europe via Constantinople.
Communication between Southern Asia and
Europe would mainly be by sea, along the coast
of the Indies, taking advantage of the monsoons
from Ceylon to Aden, and then by the Red Sea.
Alexandria, Bassorah, and Ormuz would thus
naturally be the chief centres of Eastern trade,
while communication with the Mongols or with
China would go along the two routes above men-
tioned, which appear to have existed during all
historic time. It was by these latter routes that
the Polos and the other mediaeval travellers to
Cathay reached that far-distant country. But, as
we know from Marco Polo's travels, China could
also be reached by the sea voyage ; and for all
practical purposes, in the late Middle Ages, when
the Mongol empire broke up, and traffic through
mid Asia was not secure, communication with the
East was via Alexandria.

Now it is important for our present inquiry to

8o THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

realise how largely Europe after the Crusades
was dependent on the East for most of the lux-
uries of life. Nothing produced by the looms of
Europe could equal the silk of China, the calico of
India, the muslin of Mussul. The chief gems
which decorated the crowns of kings and nobles,
the emerald, the topaz, the ruby, the diamond, all
came from the East — mainly from India. The
whole of mediaeval medical science was derived
from the Arabs, who sought most of their drugs
from Arabia or India. Even for the incense which
burned upon the innumerable altars of Roman
Catholic Europe, merchants had to seek the
materials in the Levant. For many of the more
refined handicrafts, artists had to seek their best
material from Eastern traders : such as shellac
for varnish, or mastic for artists' colours (gam-
boge from Cambodia, ultramarine from lapis
lazuli) ; while it was often necessary, under medi-
aeval circumstances, to have resort to the musk or
opopanax of the East to counteract the odours
resulting from the bad sanitary habits of the
West. But above all, for the condiments which
were almost necessary for health, and certainly
desirable for seasoning the salted food of winter
and the salted fish of Lent, Europeans were
dependent upon the spices of the Asiatic islands.
In Hakluyt's great work on " English Voyages
and Navigations," he gives in his second volume
a list, written out by an Aleppo merchant, William
Barrett, in 1584, of the places whence the chief
staples of the eastern trade came, and it will be
interesting to give a selection from his long
account.

ROADS AND COMMERCE. 8 1

Cloves from Maluco, Tarenate, Amboyna, by way of
Java.

Nutmegs from Banda.

Maces from Banda, Java, and Malacca.

Pepper Common from Malabar.

Sinnamon from Seilan (Ceylon).

Spicknard from Zindi (Scinde) and Labor.

Ginger Sorattin from Sorat (Sural) within Cambaia (Bay
of Bengal).

Corall of Levant from Malabar.

Sal Ammoniacke from Zindi and Cambaia.

Camphora from Brimeo (Borneo) near to China.

Myrrha from Arabia Felix.

Borazo (Borax) from Cambaia and Labor.

Ruvia to die withall, from Chalangi.

Allumme di Rocca (Rock Alum) from China and Con-
stantinople.

Oppopanax from Persia.

Lignum Aloes from Cochin, China, and Malacca.

Laccha (Shell-lac) from Pegu and Balaguate.

Agaricum from Alemannia.

Bdellium from Arabia Felix.

Tamarinda from Balsara (Bassorah).

Safran (Saffron) from Balsara and Persia.

Thus from Secutra (Socotra).

Nux Vomica from Malabar.

Sanguis Draconis (Dragon's Blood) from Secutra.

Musk from Tartarie by way of China.

Indico (Indigo) from Zindi and Cambaia.

Silkes Fine from China.

Castorium (Castor Oil) from Almania.

Masticke from Sio.

Oppium from Pugia (Pegu) and Cambaia.

Dates from Arabia Felix and Alexandria.

Sena from Mecca.

Gumme Arabicke from Zaffo (JaflFa).

Ladanum (Laudanum) from Cyprus and Candia.

Lapis Lazzudis from Persia.

Auripigmentum (Gold Paint) from many places of Turkey.

Rubarbe from Persia and China.

These are only a few selections from Barrett's
list, but will sufficiently indicate what a large
&

82 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

number of household luxuries, and even necessities,
were derived from Asia in the Middle Ages. The
Arabs had practically the monopoly of this trade,
and as Europe had scarcely anything to offer in
exchange except its gold and silver coins, there
was a continuous drain of the precious metals
from West to East, rendering the Sultans and
Caliphs continuously richer, and culminating in
the splendours of Solomon the Magnificent.
Alexandria was practically the centre of all this
trade, and most of the nations of Europe found
it necessary to establish factories in that city, to
safeguard the interests of their merchants, who
all sought for eastern luxuries in its port. Ben-
jamin of Tudela, a Jew, who visited it about 1172,
gives the following description of it: —

" The city is very mercantile, and affords an excellent
market to all nations. People from all Christian kingdoms
resort to Alexandria, from Valencia, Tuscany, Lombardy,
Apulia, Amalfi, Sicilia, Raguvia, Catalonia, Spain, Rous-
sillon, Germany, Saxony, Denmark, England, Flandres,
Hftinault, Normandy, France, Poitou, Anjou, Burgundy,
Mediana, Provence, Genoa, Pisa, Gascony, Arragon, and
Navarre. From the West you meet Mohammedans from
Andalusia, Algarve, Africa, and Arabia, as well as from the
countries towards India, Savila, Abyssinia, Nubia, Yemen,
Mesopotamia, and Syria, besides Greeks and Turks. From
India they import all sorts of spices, which are bought by
Christian merchants. The city is full of bustle, and every
nation has its own fonteccho (or hostelry) there."

Of all these nations, the Italians had the
shortest voyage to make before reaching Alex-
andria, and the Eastern trade practically fell
into their hands before the end of the thirteenth
century. At first Amalfi and Pisa were the chief
ports, and, as we have seen, it was at Amalfi that
the mariner's compass was perfected ; but soon

ROADS AND COMMERCE. S$

the two maritime towns at the heads of the two
seas surrounding Italy came to the front, owing
to the advantages of their natural position.
Genoa and Venice for a long time competed with
one another for the monopoly of this trade, but
the voyage from Venice was more direct, and
after a time Genoa had to content itself with the
trade with Constantinople and the northern over-
land route from China. From Venice the spices,
the jewels, the perfumes, and stuffs of the East
were transmitted north through Augsburg and
Niirnberg to Antwerp and Bruges and the Hanse
Towns, receiving from them the gold they had
gained by their fisheries and textile goods. Eng-
land sent her wool to Italy, in order to tickle her
palate and her nose with the condiments and per-
fumes of the East.

The wealth and importance of Venice were
due almost entirely to this monopoly of the lucra-
tive Eastern trade. By the fifteenth century she
had extended her dominions all along the lower
valley of the Po, into Dalmatia, parts of the
Morea, and in Crete, till at last, in 1489, she ob-
tained possession of Cyprus, and thus had sta-
tions all the way from Aleppo or Alexandria to
the north of the Adriatic. But just as she
seemed to have reached the height of her pros-
perity— when the Aldi were the chief printers in
Europe, and the Bellini were starting the great
Venetian school of painting — a formidable rival
came to the front, who had been slowly preparing
a novel method of competition in the Eastern
trade for nearly the whole of the fifteenth cen-
tury. With that method begins the great epoch
of modern geographical discovery.

[Authorities : Heyd, Commerce du Levant, 2 vols., 1878.]

84 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

CHAPTER VI.

TO THE INDIES EASTWARD PRINCE HENRY

AND VASCO DA GAMA.

Up to the fifteenth century the inhabitants
of the Iberian Peninsula were chiefly occupied
in slowly moving back the tide of Mohammedan
conquest, which had spread nearly throughout
the country from 711 onwards. The last sigh of
the Moor in Spain was to be uttered in 1492 — an
epoch-making year, both in history and in geog-
raphy. But Portugal, the western side of the
peninsula, had got rid of her Moors at a much
earlier date — more than 200 years before —
though she found it difficult to preserve her
independence from the neighbouring kingdom
of Castile. The attempt of King Juan of Cas-
tile to conquer the country was repelled by Joao,
a natural son of the preceding king of Portugal,
and in 1385 he became king, and freed Portugal
from any danger on the side of Castile by his
victory at Aljubarrota. He married Philippa,
daughter of John of Gaunt ; and his third son,
Henry, was destined to be the means of revolu-
tionising men's views of the inhabited globe. He
first showed his mettle in the capture of Ceuta,
opposite Gibraltar, at the time of the battle of
Agincourt, 1415, and by this means he first
planted the Portuguese banner on the Moorish
coast. This contact with the Moors may possibly
have first suggested to Prince Henry the idea of
planting similar factory-fortresses among the
Mussulmans of India ; but, whatever the cause,
he began, from about the year 1418, to devote all

TO THE INDIES EASTWARD. 85

his thoughts and attention to the possibility of
reaching India otherwise than through the known
routes, and for that purpose established himself
on the rocky promontory of Sagres, almost the
most western spot on the continent of Europe.

Here he established an observatory, and a sem-
inary for the training of theoretical and practical
navigators. He summoned thither astronomers
and cartographers and skilled seamen, while he
caused stouter and larger vessels to be built for
the express purpose of exploration. He perfected
the astrolabe (the clumsy predecessor of the mod-
ern sextant) by which the latitude could be with
some accuracy determined ; and he equipped all
his ships with the compass, by which the steer-
ing was entirely determined. He brought from
Majorca (which, as we have seen, was the centre
of practical map-making in the fourteenth cen-
tury) one Mestre Jacme, "a man very skilful in
the art of navigation, and in the making of maps
and instruments." With his aid, and doubtless
that of others, he set himself to study the prob-
lem of the possibility of a sea voyage to India
round the coast of Africa.

We have seen that Ptolemy, with true scien-
tific caution, had left undefined the extent of
Africa to the south ; but Eratosthenes and many
of the Roman geographers, even after Ptolemy,
were not content with this agnosticism, but
boldly assumed that the coast of Africa made a
semicircular sweep from the right horn of iVfrica,
just south of the Red Sea, with which they were
acquainted, round to the north-western shore,
near what we now term Morocco. If this were
the fact, the voyage by the ocean along this
sweep of shore would be even shorter than the

86 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

voyage through the Mediterranean and Red Seas,
while of course there would be no need for dis-
embarking at the Isthmus of Suez. The writers
who thus curtailed Africa of its true proportions
assumed another continent south of it, which,
however, was in the torrid zone, and completely
uninhabitable.

Now the north-west coast of Africa was
known in Prince Henry's days as far as Cape
Bojador. It would appear that Norman sailors
had already advanced beyond Cape Non, or Nun,
which was so called because it was supposed that
nothing existed beyond it. Consequently the
problems that Prince Henry had to solve were
whether the coast of Africa trended sharply to
the east after Cape Bojador, and whether the
ideas of the ancients about the uninhabitability
of the torrid zone were justified by fact. He at-
tempted to solve these problems by sending out,
year after year, expeditions down the north-west
coast of Africa, each of which penetrated farther
than its predecessor. Almost at the beginning
he was rewarded by the discovery, or rediscov-
ery, of Madeira, in 1420, by Joao Gonsalvez
Zarco, one of the squires of his household. For
some time he was content with occupying this
and the neighbouring island of Porto Santo, which,
however, was ruined by the rabbits let loose
upon it. On Madeira vines from Burgundy were
planted, and to this day form the chief industry
of the island. In 1435 Cape Bojador was passed,
and in 1441 Cape Branco discovered. Two years
later Cape Verde was reached and passed by
Nuno Tristao, and for the first time there were
signs that the African coast trended eastward.
By this time Prince Henry's men had become

PROGRESS OF PORTUGCESJE DISCOVERY

88 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

familiar with the natives along the shore, and no
less than one thousand of them had been brought
back and distributed among the Portuguese no-
bles as pages and attendants. In 1455 a Vene-
tian, named Alvez Cadamosto, undertook a voy-
age still farther south for purposes of trade, the
Prince supplying the capital, and covenanting for
half profits on results. They reached the mouth
of the Gambia, but found the natives hostile.
Here for the first time European navigators lost
sight of the pole-star and saw the brilliant con-
stellation of the Southern Cross., The last dis-
covery made during Prince Henry's life was that
of the Cape Verde Islands, by one of his captains,
Diogo Gomez, in 1460 — the very year of his
death. As the successive discoveries were made,
they were jotted down by the Prince's carto-
graphers on portulanos, and just before his death
the King of Portugal sent to a Venetian monk,
Fra Mauro, details of all discoveries up to that
time, to be recorded on a mappa 7}iundi, a copy of
which still exists (p. 70).

The impulse thus given by Prince Henry's
patient investigation of the African coast con-
tinued long after his death. In 147 1 Fernando
de Poo discovered the island which now bears
his name, while in the same year Pedro d'Escobar
crossed the equator. Wherever the Portuguese
investigators landed they left marks of their
presence, at first by erecting crosses, then by
carving on trees Prince Henry's motto, " Talent
de bien faire," and finally they adopted the
method of erecting stone pillars, surmounted by
a cross, and inscribed with the king's arms and
name. These pillars were called padraos. In
1484, Diego Cam, a knight of the king's house-

TO THE INDIES EASTWARD. 89

hold, set up one of these pillars at the mouth of
a large river, which he therefore called the Rio
do Padrao; it was called by the natives the
Zaire, and is now known as the River Congo.
Diego Cam was, on this expedition, accompanied
by Martin Behaim of Niirnberg, whose globe is
celebrated in geographical history as the last
record of the older views (p. 104).

Meanwhile, from one of the envoys of the
native kings who visited the Portuguese Court,
information was received that far to the east of
the countries hitherto discovered there was a
great Christian king. This brought to mind the
mediaeval tradition of Prester John, and accord-
ingly the Portuguese determined to make a
double attempt, both by sea and by land, to
reach this monarch. By sea the king sent two
vessels under the command of Bartholomew
Diaz, while by land he despatched, in the fol-
lowing year, two men acquainted with Arabic,
Pedro di Covilham and Affonso de Payba. Covil-
ham reached Aden, and there took ship for Cali-
cut, being the first Portuguese to sail the Indian
Ocean. He then returned to Sofala, and ob-
tained news of the Island of the Moon, now
known as Madagascar. With this information he
returned to Cairo, where he found ambassadors
from Joao, two Jews, Abraham of Beja and Jo-
seph of Lamejo. These he sent back with the
information that ships that sailed down the coast
of Guinea would surely reach the end of Africa,
and when they arrived in the Eastern Ocean they
should ask for Sofala and the Island of the Moon.
Meanwhile Covilham returned to the Red Sea,
and made his way into Abyssinia, where he mar-
ried and settled do v/n, transmitting from time to

90 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

time information to Portugal which gave Euro-
peans their first notions of Abyssinia.

The voyage by land in search of Prester John
had thus been completely successful, while, at
the same time, information had been obtained
giving certain hopes of the voyage by sea. This
had, in its way, been almost as successful, for
Diaz had rounded the cape now known as the
Cape of Good Hope, but to which he proposed
giving the title of Cabo Tormentoso, or "Stormy
Cape." King Joao, however, recognising that Diaz's
voyage had put the seal upon the expectations
with which Prince Henry had, seventy years be-
fore, started his series of explorations, gave it the
more auspicious name by which it is now known.
For some reason which has not been ade-
quately explained, no further attempt was made
for nearly ten years to carry out the final con-
summation of Prince Henry's plan by sending
out another expedition. In the meantime, as we
shall see, Columbus had left Portugal, after a
mean attempt had been made by the king to
carry out his novel plan of reaching India with-
out his aid; and, as a just result, the discovery
of a western voyage to the Indies (as it was then
thought) had been successfully accomplished by
Columbus, in the service of the Catholic mon-
archs of Spain, in 1492. This would naturally
give pause to any attempt at reaching India by
the more cumbersome route of coasting along
Africa, which had turned out to be a longer
process than Prince Henry had thought. Three
years after Columbus's discovery King Joao
died, and his son and successor Emmanuel did
not take up the traditional Portuguese method of
reaching India till the third year of his reign.

TO THE INDIES EASTWARD. 91

By this time it had become clear, from Colum-
bus's second voyage, that there were more diffi-
culties in the way of reaching the Indies by his
method than had been thought ; and the year
after his return from his second voyage in 1496,
King Emmanuel determined on once more tak-
ing up the older method. He commissioned
Vasco da Gama, a gentleman of his court, to
attempt the eastward route to India with three
vessels, carrying in all about sixty men. Already
by this time Columbus's bold venture into the un-
known seas had encouraged similar boldness in
others, and instead of coastmg down the whole
extent of the western coast of Africa, Da Gama
steered direct for Cape Verde Islands, and thence
out into the ocean, till he reached the Bay of St.
Helena, a little to the north of the Cape of Good
Hope.

For a time he was baffled in his attempt to
round the Cape by the strong south-easterly
winds, which blow there continually during
the summer season ; but at last he commenced
coasting along the eastern shores of Africa, and
at every suitable spot he landed some of his
sailors to make inquiries about Covilham and
the court of Prester John. But in every case he
found the ports inhabited by fanatical Moors,
who, as soon as they discovered that their visi-
tors were Christians, attempted to destroy them,
and refused to supply them with pilots for the
further voyage to India. This happened at
Mozambique, at Quiloa, and at Mombasa, and
it was not till he arrived at Melinda that he was
enabled to obtain provisions and a pilot, Malemo
Cana, an Indian of Guzerat, who was quite
familiar with the voyage to Calicut. Under his

92 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

guidance Gama's fleet went from Melinda to Cali-
cut in twenty-three days. Here the Zamorin, or
sea-king, displayed the same antipathy to his
Christian visitors. The Mohammedan traders of
the place recognised at once the dangerous rivalry
which the visit of the Portuguese implied with
their monopoly of the Eastern trade, and repre-
sented Gama and his followers as merely pirates.
Vasco, however, by his firm behaviour, managed
to evade the machinations of his trade rivals, and
induced the Zamorin to regard favourably an
alliance with the Portuguese king. Contenting
himself with this result, he embarked again, and
after visiting Melinda, the only friendly spot he
had found on the east coast of Africa, he re-
turned to Lisbon in September, 1499, having
spent no less than two years on the voyage.
King Emmanuel received him with great favour,
and appointed him Admiral of the Indies.

The significance of Vasco da Gama's voyage
was at once seen by the persons whose trade
monopoly it threatened — the Venetians, and the
Sultan of Egypt. Priuli, the Venetian chronicler,
reports : " When this news reached Venice the
whole city felt it greatly, and remained stupefied,
and the wisest held it as the worst news that had
ever arrived " — as indeed they might, for it
prophesied the downfall of the Venetian Empire.
The Sultan of Egypt was equally moved, for the
greatest source of his riches was derived from the
duty of five per cent, which he levied on all mer-
chandise entering his dominions, and ten per
cent, upon all goods exported from them. Hith-
erto there had been all manner of bickerings
between Venice and Egypt, but this common
danger brought them together. The Sultan

TO THE JNDIES EASTWARD. 93

represented to Venice the need of common ac-
tion in order to drive away the new commerce ;
but Egypt was without a navy, and had indeed
no wood suitable for ship-building. The Vene-
tians took the trouble to transmit wood to Cairo,
which was then carried by camels to Suez, where
a small fleet was prepared to attack the Portu-
guese on their next visit to the Indian Ocean.

The Portuguese had in the meantime followed
up Vasco da Gama's voyage with another at-
tempt, which was, in its way, even more impor-
tant. In 1500 the king sent no less than thirteen
ships under the command of Pedro Alvarez
Cabral, with Franciscans to convert, and twelve
hundred fighting men to overawe, the Moslems of
the Indian Ocean. He determined on steering
even a more westerly cou-rse than Vasco da Gama,
and when he arrived in 17° south of the line, he
discovered land which he took possession of in
the name of Portugal, and named Santa Cruz.
The actual cross which he erected on this occa-
sion is still preserved in Brazil, for Cabral had
touched upon the land now known by that name.
It is true that one of Columbus's companions,
Pinzon, had already touched upon the coast of
Brazil before Cabral, but it is evident from his
experience that, even apart from Columbus, the
Portuguese would have discovered the New World
sooner or later. It is, however, to be observed
that in stating this, as all historians do, they leave
out of account the fact that, but for Columbus,
sailors would still have continued the old course
of coasting along the shore, by which they would
never have left the Old World. Cabral lost sev-
eral of his ships and many of his men, and, though
he brought home a rich cargo, was not regarded

94 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

as successful, and Vasco da Gama was again sent
out with a large fleet in 1502, with which he con-
quered the Zamorin of Calicut and obtained rich
treasures. In subsidiary voyages the Portuguese
navigators discovered the islands of St. Helena,
Ascension, the Seychelles, Socotra, Tristan da
Cunha, the Maldives, and Madagascar.

Meanwhile King Emmanuel was adopting the
Venetian method of colonisation, which consisted
in sending a Vice-Doge to each of its colonies for
a term of two years, during which his duty was
to encourage trade and to collect tribute. In a
similar way, Emmanuel appointed a Viceroy for
his Eastern trade, and in 1505 Almeida had
settled in Ceylon, with a view to monopolising
the cinnamon trade of that place.

But the greatest of. the Portuguese viceroys
was Affonso de Albuquerque, who captured the
important post of Goa, on the mainland of India,
which still belongs to Portugal, and the port of
Ormuz, which, we have seen, was one of the
centres of the Eastern trade. Even more impor-
tant was the capture of the Moluccas, or Spice
Islands, which were discovered in 15 n, after the
Portuguese had seized Malacca. By 1521 the
Portuguese had full possession of the Spice
Islands, and thus held the trade of condiments
entirely in their own hands. The result was seen
soon in the rise of prices in the European mar-
kets. Whereas at the end of the fifteenth century
pepper, for instance, was about 17s. a pound,
from 1521 and onwards its average price grew to
be 25s., and so with almost all the ingredients by
which food could be made more tasty. One of
the circumstances, however, which threw the mon-
opoly into the hands of the Portuguese was the

96 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

seizure of Egypt in 1521 by the Turks under
Selim I., which would naturally derange the course
of trade from its old route through Alexandria.
From the Moluccas easy access was found to
China, and ultimately to Japan, so that the Portu-
guese for a time held in their hands the whole of
the Eastern trade, on which Europe depended for
most of its luxuries.

As we shall see, the Portuguese only won by
a neck — if we may use a sporting expression — in
the race for the possession of the Spice Islands.
In the very year they obtained possession of
them, Magellan, on his way round the world, had
reached the Philippines, within a few hundred
miles of them, and his ship, the Victoria^ actually
sailed through them that year. In fact, 152 1 is a
critical year in the discovery of the world, for
both the Spanish and Portuguese (the two nations
who had attempted to reach the Indies eastward
and westward) arrived at the goal of their desires,
the Spice Islands, in ^that same year, while the
closure of Egypt to commerce occurred oppor-
tunely to divert the trade into the hands of the
Portuguese. Finally, the year 152 1 was signal-
ised by the death of King Emmanuel of Portugal,
under whose auspices the work of Prince Henry
the Navigator was completed.

It must here be observed that we are again
anticipating matters. As soon as the discovery
of the New World was announced, the Pope was
appealed to, to determine the relative shares of
Spain and Portugal in the discoveries which
would clearly follow upon Columbus's voyage.
By his Bull, dated 4th May, 1493, Alexander VI.
granted all discoveries to the west to Spain, leav-
ing it to be understood that all to the east belonged

TO THE INDIES EASTWARD. 97

to Portugal. The line of demarcation was an
imaginary one drawn from pole to pole, and pass-
ing one hundred leagues west of the Azores and
Cape Verde Islands, which were supposed, in the
inaccurate geography of the time, to be in the
same meridian. In the following year the Portu-
guese monarch applied for a revision of the raya,
as this would keep him out of all discovered in
the New World altogether ; and the line of de-
marcation was then shifted 270 leagues westward,
or altogether mo miles west of the Cape Verdes.
By a curious coincidence, within six years Cabral
had discovered Brazil, which fell within the angle
thus cut off by the raya from South America. Or
was it entirely a coincidence ? May not Cabral
have been directed to take this unusually west-
ward course in order to ascertain if any land fell
within the Portuguese claims? When, however,
the Spice Islands were discovered, it remained to
be discussed whether the line of demarcation,
when continued on the other side of the globe,
brought them within the Spanish or Portuguese
" sphere of influence," as we should say nowa-
days. By a curious chance they happened to be
very near the line, and, with the inaccurate maps of
the period, a pretty subject of quarrel was afforded
between the Portuguese and Spanish commission-
ers who met at Badajos to determine the question.
This was left undecided by the Junta, but by a
family compact, in 1529, Charles V. ceded to his
brother-in-law, the King of Portugal, any rights he
might have to the Moluccas, for the sum of 350,000
gold ducats, while he himself retained the Philip-
pines, which remained under Spanish rule until
1S98, with the exception of the capture of Manila
by the English in 1762, and its subsequent ransom.
7

98 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

By this means the Indian Ocean became, for
all trade purposes, a Portuguese lake throughout
the sixteenth century, as will be seen from the
preceding map, showing the trading stations of
the Portuguese all along the shores of the ocean.
But they only possessed their monopoly for fifty
years, for in 1580 the Spanish and Portuguese
crowns became united on the head of Philip II.,
and by the time Portugal recovered its indepen-
dence, in 1640, serious rivals had arisen to com-
pete with her and Spain for the monopoly of the
Eastern trade.

[Authorities : Major, Prince Henry the Navigator^ 1869 ;
Beazeley, Prince Henry the Navigator, 1895 ; F. Hummerich,
Vasco da Gama, 1896.]

CHAPTER VII.

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD THE SPANISH

ROUTE COLUMBUS AND MAGELLAN.

While the Portuguese had, with slow persis-
tency, devoted nearly a century to carrying out
Prince Henry's idea of reaching the Indies by
the eastward route, a bold yet simple idea had
seized upon a Genoese sailor, which was in-
tended to achieve the same purpose by sailing
westward. The ancients, as we have seen, had
recognised the rotundity of the earth, and Era-
tosthenes had even recognised the possibility of
reaching India by sailing westward. Certain tra-
ditions of the Greeks and the Irish had placed
mysterious islands far out to the west in the At-
lantic, and the great philosopher Plato had imag-

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD. 99

ined a country named Atlantis, far out in the
Indian Ocean, where men were provided with all
the gifts of nature. These views of the ancients
came once more to the attention of the learned,
owing to the invention of printing and the revival
of learning, when the Greek masterpieces began
to be made accessible in Latin, chiefly by fugitive
Greeks from Constantinople, which had been
taken by the Turks in 1453. Ptolemy's geog-
raphy was printed at Rome in 1462, and with
maps in 1478. But even without the maps the
calculation which he had made of the length of
the known world tended to shorten the distance
between Portugal and Farther India by 2500
miles. Since his time the travels of Marco Polo
had added to the knowledge of Europe the vast
extent of Cathay and the distant islands of
Zipangu (Japan), which would again reduce the
distance by another 1500 miles. As the Greek
geographers had somewhat under-estimated the
whole circuit of the globe, it would thus seem
that Zipangu was not more than 4000 miles to the
west of Portugal. As the Azores were considered
to be much farther off from the coast than they
really were, it might easily seem, to an enthusias-
tic mind, that Farther India might be reached
when 3000 miles of the ocean had been traversed.
This was the notion that seized the mind of
Christopher Columbus, born at Genoa in 1446, of
humble parentage, his father being a weaver. He
seems to have obtained sufficient knowledge to
enable him to study the works of the learned,
and of the ancients in Latin translations. But
in his early years he devoted his attention to ob-
taining a practical acquaintance with seamanship.
In his day, as we have seen, Portugal was the

100 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD. lOI

centre of geographical k^nbv/ledge, una hq ard
his brother Bartolomeo, after many voyages
north and south, settled at last in Lisbon — his
brother as a map-maker, and himself as a practi-
cal seaman. This was about the year 1473, and
shortly afterwards he married Felipa Moniz,
daughter of Bartolomeo Perestrello, an Italian
in the service of the King of Portugal, and for
some time Governor of Madeira.

Now it chanced just at this time that there
was a rumour in Portugal that a certain Italian
philosopher, named Toscanelli, had put forth
views as to the possibility of a westward voyage
to Cathay, or China, and the Portuguese king
had, through a monk named Martinez, applied
to Toscanelli to know his views, which were
given in a letter dated 25th June, 1474. It would
appear that, quite independently, Columbus had
heard the rumour, and applied to Toscanelli, for
in the latter's reply he, like a good business man,
shortened his answer by giving a copy of the let-
ter he had recently written to Martinez. What
was more important and more useful, Toscanelli
sent a map showing in hours (or degrees) the
probable distance between Spain and Cathay
westward. By adding the information given by
Marco Polo to the incorrect views of Ptolemy
about the breadth of the inhabited world, Tosca-
nelli reduced the distance from the Azores to 52°,
or 3120 miles. Columbus always expressed his
indebtedness to Toscanelli's map for his guid-
ance, and, as we shall see, depended upon it very
closely, both in steering, and in estimating the
distance to be traversed. Unfortunately this
map has been lost, but from a list of geographi-
cal positions, with latitude and longitude, founded

ro2 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

upon it, modern geographers have been able to
restore it in some detail, and a simplified sketch
of it may be here inserted, as perhaps the most
important document in Columbus's career.

Certainly, whether he had the idea of reaching
the Indies by a westward voyage before or not,
he adopted Toscanelli's views with enthusiasm,
and devoted his whole life thenceforth to trying
to carry them into operation.

He gathered together all the information he
could get about the fabled islands of the Atlan-
tic— the Island of St. Brandan, where that Irish
saint found happy mortals; and the Island of An-
tilla, imagined by others, with its seven cities.
He gathered together all the gossip he could
hear — of mysterious corpses cast ashore on the
Canaries, and resembling no race of men known
to Europe; of huge canes, found on the shores
of the same islands, evidently carved by man's
skill. Curiously enough, these pieces of evidence
were logically rather against the existence of a
westward route to the Indies than not, since they
indicated an unknown race, but, to an enthusias-
tic mind like Columbus's, anything helped to con-
firm him in his fixed idea, and besides, he could
always reply that these material signs were from
the unknown island of Zipangu, which Marco
Polo had described as at some distance from the
shores of Cathay.

He first approached, as was natural, the King
of Portugal, in whose land he was living, and
whose traditional policy was directed to mari-
time exploration. But the Portuguese had for
half a century been pursuing another method of
reaching India, and were not inclined to take up
the novel iciea of a stranger, which would

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD. 103

traverse their long-continued policy of coasting
down Africa. A hearing, however, was given to
him, but the report was unfavourable, and Colum-
bus had to turn his eyes elsewhere. There is a
tradition that the Portuguese monarch and his
advisers thought rather more of Columbus's ideas
at first, and attempted secretly to put them into
execution ; but the pilot to whom they entrusted
the proposed voyage lost heart as soon as he lost
sight of land, and returned with an adverse ver-
dict on the scheme. It is not known whether
Columbus heard of this mean attempt to forestall
him, but we find him in 1487 being assisted by the
Spanish Court, and from that time for the next
five years he was occupied in attempting to in-
duce the Catholic monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand
and Isabella, to allow him to try his novel plan
of reaching the Indies. The final operations in
expelling the Moors from Spain just then en-
grossed all their attention and all their capital^
and Columbus was reduced to despair, and wa^
about to give up all hopes of succeeding in Spain;
when one of the great financiers, a converted Jew
named Luis de Santaguel, offered to find means
for the voyage, and Columbus was recalled.

On the 19th April, 1492, articles were signed,
by which Columbus received from the Spanish
monarchs the titles of Admiral and Viceroy of all
the lands he might discover, as well as one-tenth
of all the tribute to be derived from them; and
on Friday the 3d August, of the same year, he set
sail in three vessels, entitled the Santa Maria (the
flagship), the Pinta, and the Nina. He started
from the port of Palos, first for the Canary Islands.
These he left on the 6th September, and steered
(Ju^ west. On the 13th of that month Columbus

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD. 105

observed that the needle of the compass pointed
due north, and thus drew attention to the varia-
bility of the compass. By the 21st September his
men became mutinous and tried to force him to
return. He induced them to continue, and four
days afterwards the cry of "Land! land!" was
heard, which kept up their spirits for several days,
till, on the ist October, large numbers of birds
were seen. By that time Columbus had reckoned
that he had gone some 710 leagues from the Ca-
naries, and if Zipangu were in the position that
Toscanelli's map gave it, he ought to have been
in its neighbourhood. It was reckoned in those
days that a ship on an average could make four
knots an hour, dead reckoning, which would give
about 100 miles a day, so that Columbus might
reckon on passing over the 3100 miles which he
thought intervened between the Azores and Japan
in about thirty-three days. All through the early
days of October his courage was kept up by vari-
ous signs of the nearness of land — birds and
branches — while on the nth October, at sunset,
they sounded and found bottom ; and at ten
o'clock, Columbus, sitting on the stern of his ves-
sel, saw a light, the first sure sign of land after
thirty-five days, and in near enough approxima-
tion to Columbus's reckoning to confirm him in the
impression that he was approaching the mysteri-
ous land of Zipangu. Next morning they landed
on an island, called by the natives Guanahain,
and by Columbus San Salvador. This has been
identified as Watling Island. His first inquiry
was as to the origin of the little plates of gold
which he saw in the ears of the natives. They
replied that they came from the West — another
confirmation of his impression. Steering west-

lo6 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

ward, they arrived at Cuba, and afterwards at
Hayti (St. Domingo). Here, liowever, the Santa
Maria sank, and Columbus determined to return,
to bring the good news, after leaving some of his
men in a fort at Hayti. The return journey was
made in the Niiia in even shorter time to the
Azores, but afterwards severe storms arose, and
it was not till the 15th March, 1493, that he reached
Palos, after an absence of seven and a half months,
during which everybody thought that he and his
ships had disappeared.

He was naturally received with great enthu-
siasm by the Spaniards, and after a solemn entry
at Barcelona he presented to Ferdinand and Isa-
bella the store of gold and curiosities carried by
some of the natives of the islands he had visited.
They immediately set about fitting out a much
larger fleet of seven vessels, which started from
Cadiz, 25th September, 1493. He took a more
southerly course, but again reached the islands
now known as the West Indies. On visiting Hayti
he found the fort destroyed, and no traces of the
men he had left there. It is needless for our pur-
poses to go through the miserable squabbles which
occurred on this and his subsequent voyages,
which resulted in Columbus's return to Spain in
chains and disgrace. It is only necessary for us to
say that in his third voyage, in 1498, he touched
on Trinidad, and saw the coast of South America,
which he supposed to be the region of the Terres-
trial Paradise, This was placed by the mediaeval
maps at the extreme east of the Old World. Only
on his fourth voyage, in 1502, did he actually
touch the mainland, coasting along the shores
of Central America in the neighbourhood of Pan-
ama. After many disappointments. h.e died» 2pt^

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD. I07

May, 1506, at Valladolid, believing, as far as we
can judge, to the day of his death, that what he
had discovered was what he set out to seek — a
westward route to the Indies, though his proud
epitaph indicates the contrary : —

A Castilla y a Leon I To Castille and to Leon

Nuevo mondo dio Colon. | A New World gave Colon.*

To this day his error is enshrined in the name we
give to the Windward and Antilles Islands — West
Indies: in other words, the Indies reached by the
westward route. If they had been the Indies at
all, they would have been the most easterly of
them.

Even if Columbus had discovered a new route
to Farther India, he could not, as we have seen,
claim the merit of having originated the idea,
which, even in detail, he had taken from Tosca-
nelli. But his claim is even a greater one. He
it was who first dared to traverse unknown seas
without coasting along the land, and his example
was the immediate cause of all the remarkable
discoveries that followed his earlier voyages. As
we have seen, both Vasco da Gama and Cabral
immediately after departed from the slow coasting
route, and were by that means enabled to carry
out to the full the ideas of Prince Henry; but
whereas, by the Portuguese method of coasting,
it had taken nearly a century to reach the Cape
of Good Hope, within thirty years of Columbus's
first venture the whole globe had been circum-
navigated.

The first aim of his successors was to ascer-

Colurobus's Spanish name was Cristpval Coloju

Io8 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

tain more clearly what it was that Columbus had
discovered. Immediately after Columbus's third
voyage, in 1498, and after the news of Vasco
da Gama's successful passage to the Indies had
made it necessary to discover some strait leading
from the "West Indies" to India itself, a Spanish
gentleman, named Hojeda, fitted out an expedi-
tion at his own expense, with an Italian pilot on
board, named Amerigo Vespucci, and tried once
more to find a strait to India near Trinidad.
They were, of course, unsuccessful, but they
coasted along and landed on the north coast of
South America, which, from certain resemblances,
they termed Little Venice (Venezuela). Next
year, as we have seen, Cabral, in following Vasco
da Gama, hit upon Brazil, which turned out to be
within the Portuguese " sphere of influence," as
determined by the line of demarcation.

But, three months previous to Cabral's touch-
ing upon Brazil, one of Columbus's companions
on his first voyage, Vincenta Yanez Pinzon, had
touched on the coast of Brazil, eight degrees
south of the line, and from there had worked
northward, seeking for a passage which would
lead west to the Indies. He discovered the
mouth of the Amazon, but, losing two of his
vessels, returned to Palos, which he reached in
September, 1500.

This discovery of an unknown and unsus-
pected continent so far south of the line created
great interest, and shortly after Cabrat's return
Amerigo Vespucci was sent out in 1501 by the
King of Portugal as pilot of a fleet which should
explore the new land discovered by Cabral and
claim it for the Crown of Portugal. His instruc-
tions were to ascertain how much of it was within

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD. 109

the line of demarcation. Vespucci reached the
Brazilian coast at Cape St. Roque, and then ex-
plored it very thoroughly right down to the river
La Plata, which was too far west to come within
the Portuguese sphere. Amerigo and his com-
panions struck out south-eastward till they
reached the island of St. Georgia, 1200 miles east
of Cape Horn, where the cold and the floating ice
drove them back, and they returned to Lisbon,
after having gone farthest south up to their time.
This voyage of Amerigo threw a new light
upon the nature of the discovery made by Colum-
bus. Whereas he had thought he had discovered
a route to India and had touched upon Farther
India, Amerigo and his companions had shown
that there was a hitherto unsuspected land inter-
vening between Columbus's discoveries and the
long-desired Spice Islands of Farther India-
Amerigo, in describing his discoveries, ventured
so far as to suggest that they constituted a New
World ; and a German professor, named Martin
Waldseemiiller, who wrote an introduction to
Cosmography in 1506, which included an account
of Amerigo's discoveries, suggested that this New
World should be called after him, America, after
the analogy of Asia, Africa, and Europe. For a
long time the continent which we now know as
South America was called simply the New World,
and was supposed to be joined on to the east
coast of Asia. The name America was sometimes
applied to it — not altogether inappropriately,
since it was Amerigo's voyage which definitely
settled that really new lands had been discovered
by the western route; and when it was further
ascertained that this new land was joined, not to
Asia, but to another continent as large as itself,

no THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

the two new lands were distinguished as North
and South America.

It was, at any rate, clear from Amerigo's dis-
covery that the westward route to the Spice

Amerigo Vespucci.

Islands would have to be through or round this
New World discovered by him, and a Portuguese
noble, named Fernao Magelhaens, was destined
to discover the practicability of this route. He
had served his native country under Almeida and
Albuquerque in the East Indies, and was present
at the capture of Malacca in 15 ii, and from that

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD. iii

port was despatched by Albuquerque with three
ships to visit the far-famed Spice Islands. They
visited Amboyna and Banda, and learned enough
of the abundance and cheapness of the spices of
the islands to recognise their importance; but
under the direction of Albuquerque, who only
sent them out on an exploring expedition, they
returned to him, leaving behind them, however,
one of Magelhaens' greatest friends, Francisco
Serrao, who settled in Ternate and from time to
time sent glowing accounts of the Moluccas to
his friend Magelhaens, He in the meantime re-
turned to Portugal, and was employed on an ex-
pedition to Morocco. He was not, however, well
treated by the Portuguese monarch, and deter-
mined to leave his service for that of Charles V.,
though he made it a condition of his entering his
service that he should make no discoveries
within the boundaries of the King of Portugal,
and do nothing prejudicial to his interests.

This was in the year 15 17, and two years
elapsed before Magelhaens started on his cele-
brated voyage. He had represented to the
Emperor that he was convinced that a strait
existed which would lead into the Indian Ocean,
past the New World of Amerigo, and that the
Spice Islands were beyond the line of demarca-
tion and within the Spanish sphere of influence.
There is some evidence that Spanish merchant
vessels, trading secretly to obtain Brazil wood,
had already caught sight of the strait afterwards
named after Magelhaens, and certainly such a
strait is represented upon Schoner's globes dated
1515 and 1520— earlier than Magelhaens' dis-
covery. The Portuguese were fully aware of the
dangers threatened to their monopoly of the

112 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

spice trade — which by this time had been firmly
established — owing to the presence of Serrao in
Ternate, and did all in their power to dissuade
Charles from sending out the threatened expedi-
tion, pointing out that they would consider it an
unfriendly act if such an expedition were per-
mitted to start. Notwithstanding this the Em-
peror persisted in the project, and on Tuesday,
2oth September, 15 19, a fleet of five vessels, the
Trinidad^ St. Antonio., Co7icepcion^ Victoria ^ and St.
/ago, manned by a heterogeneous collection of
Spaniards, Portuguese, Basques, Genoese, Sicili-
ans, French, Flemings, Germans, Greeks, Neapol-
itans, Corfiotes, Negroes, Malays, and a single
Englishman (Master Andrew of Bristol), started
from Seville upon perhaps the most important
voyage of discovery ever made. So great was
the antipathy between Spanish and Portuguese
that disaffection broke out alrtiost from the
start, and after the mouth of the La Plata had
been carefully explored, to ascertain whether this
was not really the beginning of a passage through
the New World, a mutiny broke out on the 2nd
April, 1520, in Port St. Julian, where it had been
determined to winter; for of course by this
time the sailors had become aware that the time
of the seasons was reversed in the Southern
Hemisphere. Magelhaens showed great firmness
and skill in dealing with the mutiny ; its chief
leaders were either executed or marooned, and on
the 1 8th October he resumed his voyage. Mean-
while the habits and customs of the natives had
been observed — their huge height and uncouth
foot-coverings, for which Magelhaens gave them
the name of Patagonians. Within three days
they had arrived at the entrance of the passage

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD.

113

which still bears Magelhaens' name. By this
time one of the ships, the St Jage^ had been
lost, and it was with only four of his vessels — the
Trinidad^ the Victoria, the Concepcion, and the St.
Antonio — that Magelhaens began his passage.
There are many twists and divisions in the

Ferdinand Magellan.

Strait, and on arriving at one of the partings,
Magelhaens despatched the St. Antonio to explore
it, while he proceeded with the other three ships
along the more direct route. The pilot of the
St. Antonio had been one of the mutineers, and
persuaded the crew to seize the opportunity to
turn back altogether; so that when Magelhaens
arrived at the appointed place of junction, no
8

114 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

news could be ascertained of the missing vessel ;
it went straight back to Portugal. Magelhaens
determined to continue his search, even, he said,
if it came to eating the leather thongs of the
sails. It had taken him thirty-eight days to get
through the Straits, and for four months after-
wards Magelhaens continued his course through
the ocean, which, from its calmness, he called
Pacific; taking a north-westerly course, and thus,
by a curious chance, only hitting upon a couple
of small uninhabited islands throughout their
whole voyage, through a sea which we now know
to be dotted by innumerable inhabited islands.
On the 6th March, 1520, they had sighted the
Ladrones, and obtained much-needed provisions.
Scurvy had broken out in its severest form, and
the only Englishman on the ships died at the
Ladrones. From there they went on to the
islands now known as the Philippines, one of the
kings of which greeted them very favourably.
As a reward Magelhaens undertook one of his
local quarrels, and fell in an unequal fight at
Mactan, 27th April, 1521. The three vessels
continued their course for the Moluccas, but the
Concepcion proved so unseaworthy that they had
to beach and burn her. They reached Borneo,
and here Juan Sebastian del Cano was appointed
captain of the Victoria.

At last, on the 6th November, 152 1, they
reached the goal of their journey, and anchored
at Tidor, one of the Moluccas. They traded
on very advantageous terms with the natives,
and filled their holds with the spices and nut-
megs for which they had journeyed so far ; but
when they attempted to resume their journey
homeward, it was found that the Trinidad was

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD. 1 15

too unseaworthy to proceed at once, and it was
decided that the Victoria should start so as to get
the east monsoon. This she did, and after the
usual journey round the Cape of Good Hope,
arrived off the Mole of Seville on Monday the
8th September, 1522 — three years all but twelve
days from the date of their departure from
Spain. Of the two hundred and seventy men
who had started with the fleet, only eighteen re-
turned with the Victoria. According to the ship's
reckoning they had arrived on Sunday, the 7th,
and for some time it was a puzzle to account for
the day thus lost.

Meanwhile the Trinidad, which had been left
behind at the Moluccas, had attempted to sail
back to Panama, and reached as far north as 43°,
somewhere about longitude 175° W. Here pro-
visions failed them, and they had to return to the
Moluccas, where they were seized, practically as
pirates, by a fleet of Portuguese vessels sent spe-
cially to prevent interference by the Spaniards
with the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade.
The crew of the Trinidad were seized and made
prisoners, and ultimately only four of them
reached Spain again, after many adventures.
Thirteen others, who had landed at the Cape de
Verde Islands from the Victoria, may also be in-
cluded among the survivors of the fleet, so that a
total number of thirty-five out of two hundred
and seventy sums up the number of the first cir-
cumnavigators of the globe.

The importance of this voyage was unique
when regarded from the point of view of geo-
graphical discovery. It decisively clinched the
matter with regard to the existence of an entirely
New World independent from Asia. In particu-

Il6 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

lar, the backward voyage of the Trinidad (which
has rarely been noticed) had shown that there
was a wide expanse of ocean north of the Hne
and east of Asia, whilst the previous voyage had
shown the enormous extent of sea south of the
line. After the circumnavigation of the Victoria
it was clear to cosmographers that the world was
much larger than had been imagined by the an-
cients ; or rather, perhaps one may say that Asia
was smaller than had been thought by the medi-
aeval writers. The dogged persistence shown by
Magelhaens in carrying out his idea, which turned
out to be a perfectly justifiable one, raises him
from this point of view to a greater height than
Columbus, whose month's voyage brought him
exactly where he thought he would find land ac-
cording to Toscanelli's map. After Magelhaens,
as will be seen, the whole coast lines of the world
were roughly known, except for the Arctic Circle
and for Australia.

The Emperor was naturally delighted with
the result of the voyage. He granted Del Cano
a pension, and a coat of arms commemorating
his services. The terms of the grant are very
significant: or^ two cinnamon sticks saltire proper^
three nutmegs and twelve cloves, a chid gules y a
castle or J crest, a globe, bearing the motto,
" Primus circumdedisti me " (thou wert the first
to go round me) ; supporters, two Malay kings
crowned, holding in the exterior hand a spice
branch proper. The castle, of course, refers to
Castile, but the rest of the blazon indicates the
importance attributed to the voyage as resting
mainly upon the visit to the Spice Islands. As
we have already seen, however, the Portuguese
recovered their position in the Moluccas im-

TO THE INDIES WESTWARD.

117

mediately after the departure of the Victoria^
and seven years later Cliarles V. gave up any

claims he might possess through Magelhaens*
visit.

But for a long time afterwards the Spaniards

Il8 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Still cast longing eyes upon the Spice Islands,
and the Fuggers, the great bankers of Augsburg,
who financed the Spanish monarch, for a long
time attempted to get possession of Peru, with
the scarcely disguised object of making it a
" jumping-place " from which to make a fresh
attempt at obtaining possession of the Moluccas.
A modern parallel will doubtless occur to the
reader.

There are thus three stages to be distinguished
in the successive discovery and delimitation of
the New World: —

(i.) At first Columbus imagined that he had
actually reached 'Zipangu or Japan, and achieved
the object of his voyage.

(ii.) Then Amerigo Vespucci, by coasting down
South America, ascertained that there was a huge
unknown land intervening even between Colum-
bus's discoveries and the long-desired Spice
Islands.

(iii.) Magelhaens clinches this view by tra-
versing the Southern Pacific for thousands of
miles before reaching the Moluccas.

There is still a fourth stage by which it was
gradually discovered that the North-west of
America was not joined on to Asia, but this stage
was only gradually reached and finally deter-
mined by the voyages of Bering and Cook.

{^Authorities : Justin Winsor, Christopher Columbus^ 1894 t
Guillemard, Ferdinand Magellan, 1894.]

TO THE INDIES NORTHWARDS. II9

CHAPTER VIII.

TO THE INDIES NORTHWARDS — ENGLISH, FRENCH,
DUTCH, AND RUSSIAN ROUTES.

The discovery of the New World had the most
important consequences on the relative impor-
tance of the different nations of Europe. Hith-
erto the chief centres for over two thousand
years had been round the shores of the Mediter-
ranean, and, as we have seen, Venice, by her cen-
tral position and extensive trade to the East, had
become a world-centre during the latter Middle
Ages. But after Columbus, and still more after
Magelhaens, the European nations on the Atlan-
tic were found to be closer to the New World,
and, in a measure, closer to the Spice Islands,
which they could reach all the way by ship, in-
stead of having to pay expensive land freights.
The trade routes through Germany became at
once neglected, and it was only in the nineteenth
century that she at all recovered from the blow
given to her by the discovery of the new sea
routes in which she could not join. But to Eng-
land, France, and the Low Countries the new
outlook promised a share in the world's trade and
affairs generally, which they had never hitherto
possessed while the Mediterranean was the centre
of commerce. If the Indies could be reached by
sea, they were almost in as fortunate a position
as Portugal or Spain. Almost as soon as the new
routes were discovered the Northern nations at-
tempted to utilise them, notwithstandingthe Bull of
Partition, which the French king laughed at, and
the Protestant English and Dutch had no reason

I20 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

to respect. Within three years of the return of
Columbus from his first voyage, Henry VII. em-
ployed John Cabot, a Venetian settled in Bristol,
with his three sons, to attempt the voyage to the
Indies by the North-West Passage. He appears
to have re-discovered Newfoundland in 1497, and
then in the following year, failing to find a pas-
sage there, coasted down North America nearly
as far as Florida.

In 1534 Jacques Cartier examined the river
St. Lawrence, and his discoveries were later fol-
lowed up by Samuel de Champlain, who explored
some of the great lakes near the St. Lawrence,
and established the French rule in Canada, or
Acadie, as it was then called.

Meanwhile the English had made an attempt
to reach the Indies, still by a northern passage,
but this time in an easterly direction. Sebastian
Cabot, who had been appointed Grand Pilot of
England by Edward VI., directed a voyage of
exploration in 1553, under Sir Hugh Willoughby.
Only one of these ships, with the pilot (Richard
Chancellor) on board, survived the voyage, reach-
ing Archangel, and then going overland to Mos-
cow, where he was favourably received by the
Czar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible. He was, how-
ever, drowned on his return, and no further at-
tempt to reach Cathay by sea was attempted.

The North-West Passage seemed thus to prom-
ise better than that by the North-East, and in
1576 Martin Frobisher started on an exploring
voyage, after having had the honour of a wave
of Elizabeth's hand as he passed Greenwich.
He reached Greenland, and then Labrador, and,
in a subsequent voyage next year, discovered the
strait named after him. His project was taken

TO THE INDIES NORTHWARDS. 121

up by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, on whom, with his
brother Adrian, Elizabeth conferred the privilege
of making the passage to China and the Moluccas
by the north-westward, north-eastward, or north-
ward route. At the same time a patent was
granted him for discovering any lands unsettled
by Christian princes. A settlement was made in
St. John's, Newfoundland, but on the return
voyage, near the Azores, Sir Humphrey's
" frigate " (a small boat of ten men), disappeared,
after he had been heard to call out, *' Courage,
my lads; we are as near heaven by sea as by
land!" This happened in 1583.

Two years after, another expedition was sent
out by the merchants of London, under John
Davis, who, on this and two subsequent voyages,
discovered several passages trending westward,
which warranted the hope of finding a north-west
passage. Beside the strait named after him, it is
probable that on his third voyage, in 1587, he
passed through the passage now named after
Hudson. His discoveries were not followed up
for some twenty years, when Henry Hudson was
despatched in 1607 with a crew of ten men and a
boy. He reached Spitzbergen, and reached 80°
N., and in the following year reached the North
(Magnetic) Pole, which was then situated at
75.22'' N. Two of his men were also fortunate
enough to see a mermaid — probably an Eskimo
woman in her kayak. In a third voyage, in 1609,
he discovered the strait and bay which now bear
his name, but was marooned by his crew, and
never heard of further. He had previously, for
a time, passed into the service of the Dutch, and
had guided them to the river named after him,
on which New York now stands. The course of

122 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

English discovery in the north was for a time
concluded by the voyage of William Baffin in 1615,
which resulted in the discovery of the land named
after him, as well as many of the islands to the
north of America.

Meanwhile the Dutch had taken part in ^the
work of discovery towards the north. They had
revolted against the despotism of Philip II., who
was now monarch of both Spain and Portugal.
At first they attempted to adopt a route which
would not bring them into collision with their
old masters; and in three voyages, between 1594
and 1597, William Barentz attempted the North-
East Passage, under the auspices of the States-
General. He discovered Cherry Island, and
touched on Spitzbergen, but failed in the main
object of his search; and the attention of the
Dutch was henceforth directed to seizing the
Portuguese route, rather than finding a new one
for themselves.

The reason they were able to do this is a
curious instance of Nemesis in history. Owing
to the careful series of intermarriages planned
out by Ferdinand of Arragon, the Portuguese
Crown and all its possessions became joined to
Spain in 1580 under Philip II., just a year after
the northern provinces of the Netherlands had
renounced allegiance to Spain. Consequently
they were free to attack not alone Spanish vessels
and colonies, but also those previously belonging
to Portugal. As early as 1596 Cornelius Hout-
man rounded the Cape and visited Sumatra and
Bantam, and within fifty years the Dutch had
replaced the Portuguese in many of their Eastern
possessions. In 16 14 they took Malacca, and
with it the command of the Spice Islands ; by

TO THE INDIES NORTHWARDS. 123

1658 they had secured full possession of Ceylon.
Much earlier, in 1619, they had founded Batavia
in Java, which they made the centre of their
East Indian possessions, as it still remains.

The English at first attempted to imitate the
Dutch in their East Indian policy. The English
East India Company was founded by Elizabeth
in 1600, and as early as 1619 had forced the
Dutch to allow them to take a third share of the
profits of the Spice Islands. In order to do this
several English planters settled at Amboyna, but
within four years trade rivalries had reached such
a pitch that the Dutch murdered some of these
merchants and drove the rest from the islands.
As a consequence the English Company devoted
its attention to the mainland of India itself, where
they soon obtained possession of Madras and
Bombay, and left the islands of the Indian Ocean
mainly in possession of the Dutch. We shall see
later the effect of this upon the history of geog-
raphy, for it was owing to their possession of the
East India Islands that the Dutch were practi-
cally the discoverers of Australia. One result of
the Dutch East India policy has left its traces
even to the present day. In 165 1 they established
a colony at the Cape of Good Hope, which only
fell into English hands during the Napoleonic
wars, when Napoleon held Holland.

Meanwhile the English had not lost sight of
the possibilities of the North-East Passage, if not
for reaching the Spice Islands, at any rate as a
means of tapping the overland route to China,
hitherto monopolised by the Genoese. In 1558
an English gendeman, named Anthony Jenkinson,
was sent as ambassador to the Czar of Muscovy,
and travelled from Moscow as far as Bokhara ;

124 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

but he was not very fortunate in his venture, and
England had to be content for some time to re-
ceive her Indian and Chinese goods from the
Venetian argosies as before. But at last they
saw no reason why they should not attempt direct
relations with the East. A company of Levant
merchants was formed in 1583 to open out direct
communications with Aleppo, Bagdad, Ormuz, and
Goa. They were unsuccessful at the two latter
places owing to the jealousy of the Portuguese,
but they made arrangements for cheaper transit
of Eastern goods to England, and in 1587 the last
of the Venetian argosies, a great vessel of eleven
hundred tons, was wrecked off the Isle of Wight.
Henceforth the English conducted their own
business with the East, and Venetian and Portu-
guese monopoly was at an end.

But the journeys of Chancellor and Jenkinson
to the Court of Moscow had more far-reaching
effects; the Russians themselves were thereby
led to contemplate utilising their proximity to
one of the best known routes to the Far East.
Shortly after Jenkinson's visit, the Czar, Ivan the
Terrible, began extending his dominions east-
ward, sending at first a number of troops to ac-
company the Russian merchant Strogonof as far
as the Obi in search of sables. Among the troops
were a corps of six thousand Cossacks commanded
by one named Vassili Yermak, who, finding the
Tartars an easy prey, determined at first to set
up a new kingdom for himself. In 1579 he was
successful in overcoming the Tartars and their
chief town Sibir, near Tobolsk ; but, finding it
difficult to retain his position, determined to
return to his allegiance to the Czar on condition
of being supported. This was readily granted,

TO THE INDIES NORTHWARDS.

125

and from that time onward the Russians steadily-
pushed on through to the unknown country of
the north of Asia, since named after the little
town conquered by Yermak, of which scarcely
any traces now remain. As early as 1639 they
had reached the Pacific under Kupilof. A force
was sent out from Yakutz, on the Lena, in 1643,

Russian map of Asia, 1 737.

which reached the Amur, and thus Russians came
for the first time in contact with the Chinese, and
a new method of reaching Cathay was thus ob-
tained, while geography gained the knowledge of
the extent of Northern Asia. For, about the
same time (in 1648), the Arctic Ocean was
reached on the north shores of Siberia, and a

126 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

fleet under the Cossack Dishinef sailed from Ko-
lyma and reached as far as the straits known by
the name of Bering^ It was not, however, till
fifty years afterwards, in 1696, that the Russians
reached Kamtschatka.

Notwithstanding the access of knowledge
which had been gained by these successive bold
pushes towards north and east, it still remained
uncertain whether Siberia did not join on to the
northern part of the New World discovered by
Columbus and Amerigo, and in 1728 Peter the
Great sent out an expedition under Vitus Be-
ring, a Dane in the Russian service, with the ex-
press aim of ascertainmg this point. He reached
Kamtschatka, and there built two vessels as
directed by the Czar^ and started on his voyage
northward, coasting along the land. When he
reached a little beyond 67° N., he found no land
to the north or east, and conceived he had reached
the end of the continent. As a matter of fact, he
was within thirty miles of the west coast of Amer-
ica; but of this he does not seem to have been
aware, being content with solving the special
problem put before him by the Czar. The strait
thus discovered by Bering, though not known
by him to be a strait, has ever since been known
by his name. In 1741, however, Bering again set
out on a voyage of discovery to ascertain how
far to the east America was, and within a fort-
night had come within sight of the lofty moun-
tain named by him. Mount St. Elias. Bering him-
self died upon this voyage, on an island also
named after him ; he had at last solved the rela-
tion between the Old and the New Worlds.

These voyages of Bering, however, belong to
a much later stage of discovery than those we

TO THE INDIES NORTHWARDS. 127

Aave hitherto been treating for the last three
chapters. His explorations were undertaken
mainly for scientific purposes, and to solve a scien-
tific problem, whereas all the other researches
of Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Dutch
were directed to one end, that of reaching the
Spice Islands and Cathay. The Portuguese at
first started out on the search by the slow method
of creeping down the coast of Africa; the Spanish,
by adopting Columbus's bold idea, had attempted
it by the western route, and under Magellan's still
bolder conception had equally succeeded in reach-
ing it in that way ; the English and French sought
for a north-west passage to the Moluccas; while
the English and Dutch attempted a north-easterly
route. In both directions the icy barrier of the
north prevented success. It was reserved, as we
shall see, for the present century to complete
the North-West Passage under Maclure, and the
North-East by Nordenskiold, sailing with quite
different motives to those which first brought the
mariners of England, France and Holland within
the Arctic Circle.

The net result of ajl these attempts by the
nations of Europe to wrest from the Venetians
the monopoly of the Eastern trade was to add to
geography the knowledge of the existence of
a New World intervening between the western
shores of Europe and the eastern shores of Asia.
We have yet to learn the means by which the
New World thus discovered became explored and
possessed by the European nations.

[Authorities: Cooley and Beazeley, John and Sebastian
Cabot, 1898.]

128 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

CHAPTER IX.

THE PARTITION OF AMERICA.

We have hitherto been deaHng with the dis-
coveries made b}" Spanish and Portuguese along
the coast of the New World, but early in the six-
teenth century they began to put foot on terra
^r/;^^ and explore the interior. As early as 15 13
Vasco Nunez de Balboa ascended the highest
peak in the range running from the Isthmus of
Panama, and saw for the first time by European
eyes the great ocean afterwards to be named by
Magellan the Pacific. He there heard that the
country to the south extended without end, and
was inhabited by great nations, with an abun-
dance of gold. Among his companions who heard
of this golden country, or El Dorado, was one
Francisco Pizarro, who was destined to test the
report. But a similar report had reached the
ears of Diego Velasquez, governor of Cuba, as to
a great nation possessed of much gold to the
north of Darien. He accordingly despatched his
lieutenant Hernando Cortes in 15 19 to investi-
gate, with ten ships, six hundred and fifty men,
and some eighteen horses. When he landed at
the port named by him Vera Cruz, the appearance
of his men, and more especially of his horses, as-
tonished and alarmed the natives of Mexico, then
a large and semi-civilised state under the rule of
Montezuma, the last representative of the Aztecs,
who in the twelfth century had succeeded the
Toltecs, a people that had settled on the Mexican
table-land as early probably as the seventh cen-
tury, introducing the use of metals and roads and

THE PARTITION OF AMERICA. 1 29

many of the elements of civilisation. Montezuma
is reported to have been able to range no less
than two hundred thousand men under his ban-
ners, but he showed his opinion of the Spaniards
by sending them costly presents, gold and silver
and costly stuffs. This only aroused the cupidity
of Cortes, who determined' to make a bold stroke
for the conquest of such a rich prize. He burnt
his ships and advanced into the interior of the
country, conquering on his way the tribe of the
Tlascalans, who had been at war with the Mexi-
cans, but, when conquered, were ready to assist
him against them. With their aid he succeeded
in seizing the Mexican king, who was forced to
yield a huge tribute. After many struggles Cor-
tes found himself master of the capital, and of all
the resources of the Mexican Empire (1521).
These he hastened to place at the feet of the Em-
peror Charles V., who appointed him Governor
and Captain-General of Mexico. It is character-
istic throughout the history of the New World,
that none of the soldiers of fortune who found it
such an easy prey ever thought of setting up an
empire for himself. This is a testimony to the
influence national feeling had upon the minds
even of the most lawless, and the result was that
Europe and European ideas were brought over
into America, or rather the New World became
tributary to Europe.

As soon as Cortes had established himself he
fitted out expeditions to explore the country, and
himself reached Honduras after a remarkable
journey for over 1000 miles, in which he was
only guided by a map on cotton cloth, on which
the Cacique of Tabasco had painted all the towns,
rivers, and mountains of the country as far as

130 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Nicaragua. He also despatched a small fleet un-
der Alvarro de Saavedra to support a Spanish ex-
pedition which had been sent to the Moluccas
under Sebastian de] Cano, and which arrived at
Tidor in 1527, to the astonishment of Spanish
and Portuguese alike when they heard he had
started from New Castile. In 1536, Cortes, who
had been in the meantime shorn of much of his
power, conducted an expedition by sea along the
north-west coast of Mexico, and reached what he
considered to be a great island. He identified this
with an imaginary island in the Far East, near the
terrestrial paradise to which the name of Califor-
nia had been given in a contemporary romance.
Thus, owing to Cortes, almost the whole of Cen-
tral America had become known before his death
in 1540. Similarly, at a much earlier period.
Ponce de Leon had thought he had discovered
another great island in Florida in 15 12, whither
he had gone in search of Bayuca, a fabled island
of the Indians, in which they stated was a foun-
tain of eternal youth. At the time of Cortes' first
attempt on Mexico, Pineda had coasted round
Florida, and connected it with the rest of the
coast of Mexico, which he traversed as far as
Vera Cruz.

The exploits of Cortes were all important in
their effects. He had proved with what ease a
handful of men might overjcome an empire and
gain unparalleled riches. Francisco Pizarro was
encouraged by the success of Cortes to attempt
the discovery of the El Dorado he had heard of
when on Balboa's expedition. With a companion
named Diego de Almegro he made several coast-
ing expeditions down the north-west coast of
South America, during which they heard of the

THE PARTITION OF AMERICA. 13 1

empire of the Incas on the plateau of Peru. They
also obtained sufficient gold and silver to raise
their hopes of the riches of the country, and re-
turned to Spain to report to the Emperor. Pi-
zarro obtained permission from Charles V. to at-
tempt the conquest of Peru, of which he was
named Governor and Captain-General, on condi-
tion of paying a tribute of one-fifth of the treas-
ure he might obtain. He started in February,
1531, with a small force of 180 men, of whom
thirty-six were horsemen. Adopting the policy
of Cortes, he pushed directly for the capital
Cuzco, where they managed to seize Atahualpa,
the Inca of the time. He attempted to ransom
himself by agreeing to fill the room in which he
was confined, twenty-two feet long by sixteen
wide, with bars of gold as high as the hand could
reach. He carried out this prodigious promise,
and Pizarro's companions found themselves in pos-
session of booty equal to three millions sterling.

Atahualpa was, however, not released, but
condemned to death on a frivolous pretext, while
Pizarro dismissed his followers, fully confident
that the wealth they carried off would attract as
many men as he could desire to El Dorado. He
settled himself at Lima, near the coast, in 1534.
Meanwhile Almegro had been despatched south,
and made himself master of Chili. Another
expedition in 1539 was conducted by Pizarro's
brother Gonzales across the Andes, and reached
the sources of the Amazon, which one of his
companions, Francisco de Orellana, traversed as
far as the mouth. This he reached in August,
1541, after a voyage of one thousand leagues.
The river was named after Orellana, but, from
reports he made of the existence of a tribe of

132 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

female warriors, was afterwards known as the
river of the Amazons; The author spread re-
ports of another El Dorado to the north, in
which the roofs of the temples were covered
with gold. This report afterwards led to the
disastrous expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh to
Guiana. By his voyage Orellana connected the
Spanish and Portuguese " spheres of influence "
in the New World of Amerigo. By the year
1540 the main outlines of Central and South
America and something of the interior had been
made known by the Spanish adventurers within
half a century of Columbus's first voyage. Ow-
ing to the papal bull Portugal possessed Brazil,
but all the rest of the huge stretch of country
was claimed for Spain. The Portuguese wisely
treated Brazil as an outlet for their overflowing
population, which settled there in large numbers
and established plantations. The Spaniards, on
the other hand, only regarded their huge posses-
sions as exclusive markets to be merely visited
by them. Rich mines of gold, silver, and mercury
were discovered in Mexico and Peru, especially
in the far-famed mines of Potosi, and these were
exploited entirely in the interests of Spain, which
acted as a sieve by which the precious metals
were poured into Europe, raising prices through-
out the Old World. In return European merchan-
dise was sent in the return voyages of the Span-
ish galleons to New Spain, which could only buy
Flemish cloth, for example, through Spanish in-
termediaries, who raised its price to three times
the original cost. This short-sighted policy on
the part of Spain naturally encouraged smug-
gling, and attracted the ships of all nations
towards that pursuit.

THE PARTITION OF AMERICA. 1 33

We have already seen the first attempts of the
French and English in the exploration of the
north-eaat coast of North America ; but during
the sixteenth century very little was done to
settle on such inhospitable shores, which did not
offer anything like the rich prizes that Tropical
America afforded. Neither the exploration of
Cartier in 1534, or that of the Cabots much
earlier, was followed by any attempt to possess
the land. Breton fishermen visited the fisheries
off Newfoundland, and various explorers at-
tempted to find openings which would give them
a north-west passage, but otherwise the more
northerly part of the continent was left unoccu-
pied till the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury. The first town founded was that of St.
Augustine, in Florida, in 1565, but this was de-
stroyed three years later by a French expedition.
Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to found a colony
in 1584 near where Virginia now stands, but it
failed after three years, and it was not till the
reign of James I. that an organised attempt was
made by England to establish plantations, as
they were then called, on the North American
coast.

Two Chartered Companies, the one to the
north named the Plymouth Company, and the
one to the south named the London Company
(both founded in 1606), nominally divided be-
tween them all the coast from Nova Scotia to
Florida. These large tracts of country were dur-
ing the seventeenth century slowly parcelled out
into smaller states, mainly Puritan in the north
(New England), High Church and Catholic in the
south (Virginia and Maryland). But between
the two, and on the banks of the Hudson and the

134 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Delaware, two other European nations had also
formed plantations — the I)utch along the Hud-
son from 1609 forming the New Netherlands, and
the Swedes from 1636 along the Delaware form-
ing New Sweden. The latter, however, lasted
only a few years, and was absorbed by the Dutch
in 1655. The capital of New Netherlands was es-
tablished on Manhattan Island, to the south of
the palisade still known as Wall Street, and the
city was named New Amsterdam. The Hudson
is such an important artery of commerce between
the Atlantic and the great lakes, that this wedge
between the two sets of English colonies would
have been a bar to any future progress. This
was recognised by Charles H., who in 1664 de-
spatched an expedition to demand its surrender,
even though England and Holland were at that
time at peace. New Amsterdam was taken, and
named New York, after the king's brother, the
Duke of York, afterwards James H. New Sweden,
which at the same time fell into the English
hands, was sold as a proprietary plantation to a
Jersey man, Sir George Carteret, and to a Quaker,
William Penn. By this somewhat high-handed
procedure the whole coast-line down to Florida
was in English hands.

Both the London arid Plymouth Companies
had started to form plantations in 1607, and in
that very year the French made their first effec-
tive settlements in America, at Port Royal and at
Nova Scotia, then called Acadie ; while, the fol-
lowing year, Samuel de Champlain made settle-
ments at Quebec, and founded French Canada.
He explored the lake country, and established
settlements down the banks of the St. Lawrence,
along which French activity for a long time con-

THE PARTITION OF AMERICA. 135

fined itself. Between the French and the English
settlements roved the warlike Five Nations of the
Iroquois Indians, and Champlain, whose settle-
ments were in the country of the Algonquins, was
obliged to take their part and make the Iroquois
the enemies of France, which had important ef-
fects upon the final struggle between England
and France in the eighteenth century. The
French continued their exploration of the interior
of the continent. In 1673 Marquette discovered
the Mississippi (Missi Sepe, " the great water"),
and descended it as far as the mouth of the Ar-
kansas, but the work of exploring the Mississippi
valley was undertaken by Robert de la Salle. He
had already discovered the Ohio and Illinois
rivers, and in three expeditions, between 1680 and
1682, succeeded in working his way right down
to the mouth of the Mississippi, giving to the huge
tract of country which he had thus traversed the
name of Louisiana, after Louis XIV.

France thenceforth claimed the whole hinter-
land, as we should now call it, of North America,
the English being confined to the comparatively
narrow strip of country east of the Alleghanies.
New Orleans was founded at the mouth of the
Mississippi in 1716, and named after the Prince
Regent; and French activity ranged between
Quebec and New Orleans, leaving many traces
even to the present day, in French names like
Mobile, Detroit, and the like, through the inter-
vening country. The situation at the commence-
ment of the eighteenth century was remarkably
similar to that of the Gold Coast in Africa at the
end of the nineteenth. The French persistently
attempted to encroach upon the English sphere
of influence, and it was in attempting to define

136 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

the two spheres that George Washington learned
his first lesson in diplomacy and strategy. The
French and English American colonies were al-
most perpetually at war with one another, the
objective being the spot where Pittsburg now
stands, which was regarded as the gate of the
west, overlooking as it did the valley of the Ohio.
Here Duquesne founded the fort named after
himself, and it was not till 1758 that this was
finally wrested from French hands ; v/hile, in the
following year, Wolfe, by his capture of Quebec,
overthrew the whole French power in North
America. Throughout the long fight the English
had been much assisted by the guerilla warfare
of the Iroquois against the French.

By the Treaty of Paris in 1763 the whole of
French America was ceded to England, which
also obtained possession of Florida from Spain, in
exchange for the Philippines, captured during the
war. As a compensation all the country west of
the Mississippi became joined on to the Spanish
possessions in Mexico. These of course became
nominally French when Napoleon's brother Jo-
seph was placed on the Spanish throne, but
Napoleon sold them to the United States in 1803,
so that no barrier existed to the westward spread
of the States. Long previously to this, a Char-
tered Company had been formed in 1670, with
Prince Rupert at its head, to trade with the In-
dians for furs.in Hudson's Bay, then and for some
time afterwards called Rupertsland. The Hudson
Bay Company gradually extended its knowledge
of the northerly parts of America towards the
Rocky Mountains, but it was not till 1740 that
Varenne de la Varanderye discovered their ex-
tent. In 1769-71 a fur trader named Hearne

THE PARTITION OF AMERICA. 137

traced the river Coppermine to the sea, while it
was not till 1793 that Mr. (after Sir A.) Mac-
kenzie discovered the river now named after him,
and crossed the continent of North America from
Atlantic to Pacific. One of the reasons for this
late exploration of the north-west of North
America was a geographical myth started by a
Spanish voyager named Juan de Fuca as early as
1592. Coasting as far as Vancouver Island, he
entered the inlet to the south of it, and not being
able to see land to the north, brought back a
report of a huge sea spreading over all that part
of the country, which most geographers assumed
to pass over into Hudson Bay or the neighbour-
hood. It was this report as much as anything
which encouraged hopes of finding the north-west
passage in a latitude low enough to be free from
ice.

As soon as the United States got possession
of the land west of the Mississippi they began to
explore it, and between 1804 and 1807 Lewis and
Clarke had explored the whole basin of the Mis-
souri, while Pike had investigated the country
between the sources of the Mississippi and the
Red River. We have already seen that Bering
had carried over Russian investigation and
dominion into Alaska, and it was in order to
avoid her encroachments down towards the
Californian coast that President Monroe put forth
in 1823 the doctrine that no further colonisation
of the Americas would be permitted by the United
States. In this year Russia agreed to limit her
claims to the country north of 54.40°. The States
subsequently acquired California and other ad-
joining states during their war with Mexico in
1848, just before gold was discovered in the

138 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Sacramento valley. The land between California
and Alaska was held in joint possession between
Great Britain and the States, and was known as
the Oregon Territory. Lewis and Clarke had
explored the Columbia River, while Vancouver
had much earlier examined the island which now
bears his name, so that both countries appear to
have some rights of discovery to the district. At
one time the inhabitants of the States were
inclined to claim all the country as far as the
Russian boundary 54.40°, and a war-cry arose
"54.40° or fight; " but in 1846 the territory was
divided by the 49th parallel, and at this date we
may say the partition of America was complete,
and all that remained to be known of it was the
ice-bound northern coast, over which so much
heroic enterprise has been displayed.

The history of geographical discovery in
America is thus in large measure a history of con-
quest. Men got to know both coast-line and
interior while endeavouring either to trade or to
settle where nature was propitious, or the country
afforded mineral or vegetable wealth that could be
easily transported. Of the coabL early knowledge
was acquired for geography ; but where the conti-
nent broadens out either north or south, making
the interior inaccessible for trade purposes with
the coasts, ignorance remained even down to the
nineteenth century. Even to the present day the
country south of ^ the valley of the Amazon is
perhaps as little known as any portion of the
earth's surface, while, as we have seen, it was not
till the early years of the nineteenth century that
any knowledge was acquired of the huge tract oi
country between the Mississippi and the Rockj
Mountains. It was the natural expansion of th(

AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH SEAS. 139

United States, rendered possible by the cession
of this tract to the States by Napoleon in 1803,
that brought it within the knowledge of all. That
expansion was chiefly due to the improved
methods of communication which steam has
given to mankind only within this century. But
for this the region east of the Rocky Mountains
would possibly be as little known to Europeans,
even at the present day, as the Soudan or Somali-
land. It is owing to this natural expansion of
the States, and in minor measure of Canada, that
few great names of geographical explorers are
connected with our knowledge of the interior of
North America. Unknown settlers have been the
pioneers of geography, and not as elsewhere has
the reverse been the case. In the two other con-
tinents whose geographical history we have still
to trace, Australia and Africa, explorers have
preceded settlers or conquerors, and we can gen-
erally follow the course of geographical discovery
in their case without the necessity of discussing
their political history.

[Authorities :YI\nsor, From Cartier to Frontenac ; Gelcich,
in Mittheilungeti of Geographical Society of Vienna, 1892.]

CHAPTER X.

AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH SEAS TASMAN

AND COOK.

If one looks at the west coastof Australia one
is struck by the large number of Dutch names
^hich are jotted down the coast, There are Hoog

I40 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Island, Diemen's Bay, Houtman's Abrolhos, De
Wit land, and the Archipelago of Nuyts, besides
Dirk Hartog's Island and Cape Leeuwin. To the
extreme north we find the Ciulf of Carpentaria,
and to the extreme south the island which used
to be called Van Diemen's Land. It is not alto-
gether to be w^ondered at that almost to the
mid^dle of this century the land we now call
Australia was tolerably well known as New Hol-

y ■Jd*iJietnin ■

I. a Ah Tasrrhn ^^

TERRES AUSTRALES

dopris d Anvil I e.

•746.

land. If the Dutch had struck the more fertile
eastern shores of the Australian continent, it
might have been called with reason New Holland
to the present day ; but there is scarcely any long
coast-line of the world so inhospitable and so
little promising as that of Western Australia, and
one can easily understand how the Dutch, though
they explored it, did not care to take possession
of it.

But though the Dutch were the first to explore

AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH SEAS. 14 (

any considerable stretch of Australian coast, they
were by no means the first to sight it. As early
as 1542 a Spanish expedition, under Luis Lopez
de Villalobos, was despatched to follow up the
discoveries of Magellan in the Pacific Ocean with-
in the Spanish sphere of influence. He discovered
several of the islands of Polynesia, and attempted
to seize the Philippines, but his fleet had to return
to New Spain. One of the ships coasted along
an island to which was given the name of New
Guinea, and was thought to be part of the great
unknown southern land which Ptolemy had im-
agined to exist in the south of the Indian Ocean,
and to be connected in some way with Tierra del
Fuego. Curiosity was thus aroused, and in 1606
Pedro de Quiros was despatched on a voyage to
the South Seas with three ships. He discovered
the New Hebrides, and believed it formed part of
the southern continent, and he therefore named
it Australia del Espiritu Santo, and hastened home
to obtain the viceroyalty of this new possession.
One of his ships got separated from him, and the
commander, Luys Naz de Torres, sailed farther
to the south-west, and thereby learned that the
New Australia was not a continent but an island.
He proceeded farther till he came to New Guinea,
which he coasted along the south coast, and seeing
land to the south of him, he thus passed through
the straits since named after him, and was prob-
ably the first European to see the continent of
Australia. In the very same year (1606) the
Dutch yacht named the Duyfken is said to have
coasted along the south and west coast of New
Guinea nearly a thousand miles, till they reached
Cape Keerweer, or " turn again." This was prob-
ably the north-west coast of Australia. In the

142 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

first thirty years of the seventeenth century the
Dutch followed the west coast of Australia with
as much industry as the Portuguese had done with
the west coast of Africa, leaving up to the present
day signs of their explorations in the names of
islands, bays, and capes. Dirk Hartog, in the
Endraaght, discovered that Land which is named
after his ship, and the cape and roadstead named
after himself, in 1616. Jan Edels left his name
upon the western coast in 1619 ; while, three years
later, a ship named the Lioness or Leemvin reached
the most western point of the continent, to which
its name is still attached. Five years later, in
1627, De Nuyts coasted round the south coast of
Australia; while in the same year a Dutch com-
mander named Carpenter discovered and gave his
name to the immense indentation still known as
the Gulf of Carpentaria.

But still more important discoveries were made
in 1642 by an expedition sent out from Batavia
under Abel Janssen Tasman to investigate the
real extent of the southern land. After the voy-
ages of the Leeuwin and De Nuyts it was seen
that the southern coast of the new land trended
to the east, instead of working round to the west,
as would have been the case if Ptolemy's views
had been correct. Tasman's problem was to dis-
cover whether it was connected with the great
southern land assumed to lie to the south of South
America. Tasman first sailed from Mauritius,
and then directing his course to the south-east,
going much more south than Cape Leeuwin, at
last reached land in latitude 43.30° and longitude
163.50°. This he called Van Diemen's Land,
after the name of the Governor-General of Bata-
via, and it was assumed that this joined on to the

AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH SEAS. 1 43

land already discovered by De Nuyts. Sailing
farther to the eastward, Tasman came out into
the open sea again, and thus appeared to prove
that the newly discovered land was not connected
with the great unknown continent round the south
pole.

But he soon came across land which might
possibly answer to that description, and he called
it Staaten Land, in honour of the States-General
of the Netherlands. This was undoubtedly some
part of New Zealand. Still steering eastward,
but with a more northerly trend, Tasman dis-
covered several islands in the Pacific, and ulti-
mately reached Batavia after touching on New
Guinea. His discoveries were a great advance on
previous knowledge ; he had at any rate reduced
the possible dirhensions of the unknown continent
of the south within narrow limits, and his discov-
eries were justly inscribed upon the map of the
world cut in stone upon the new Staathaus in
Amsterdam, in which the name New Holland was
given by order of the States-General to the west-
ern part of the " terra Australis." When England
for a time became joined on to Holland under
the rule of William HI., William Dampier was de-
spatched to New Holland to make further discov-
eries. He retraced the explorations of the Dutch
from Dirk Hartog's Bay to New Guinea, and ap-
pears to have been the first European to have
noticed the habits of the kangaroo ; otherwise his
voyage did not add much to geographical knowl-
edge, though when he left the coasts of New Gui-
nea he steered between New England and New
Ireland.

As a result of these Dutch voyages the exist-
ence of a great land somewhere to the south-east

144 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

of Asia became common property to all civilised
men. As an instance of this familiarity many
years before Cook's epoch-making voyages, it
may be mentioned that in 1699 Captain Lemuel
Gulliver (in Swift's celebrated romance) arrived
at the kingdom of Lilliput by steering north-west
from Van Diemen': Land, which he mentions by
name. Lilliput, it would thus appear, was situated
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the great
Bight of Australia. This curious mixture of
definite knowledge and vague ignorance on the
part of Swift exactly corresponds to the state of
geographical knowledge about Australia in his
days, as is shown in the preceding map of those
parts of the world, as given by the great French
cartographer D'Anville in 1746 (p. 140).

These discoveries of the Spanish and Dutch
were direct results and corollaries of the great
search for the Spice Islands, which has formed
the main subject of our inquiries. The discover-
ies were mostly made by ships fitted out in the
Malay archipelago, if not from the Spice Islands
themselves. But at the beginning of the eight-
eenth century new motives came into play in the
search for new lands; by that time almost the
whole coast-line of the world was roughly known.
The Portuguese had coasted Africa, the Spanish
South America, the English most of the east of
North America, while Central America was known
through the Spaniards. Many of the islands of
the Pacific Ocean had been touched upon, though
not accurately surveyed, and there remained only
the north-west coast of America and the north-
east coast of Asia to be explored, while the great
remaining problem of geography was to discov-
er if the great southern continent assumed by

AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH SEAS. 1 45

Ptolemy existed, and, if so, what were its dimen-
sions. It happened that all these problems of
coast-line geography, if we may so call it, were
destined to be solved by one man, an English-
man named James Cook, who, with Prince Henry,
Magellan, and Tasman, may be said to have de-
termined the limits of the habitable land.

His voyages were made in the interests, not
of trade or conquest, but of scientific curiosity ;
and they were, appropriately enough, begun in the
interests of quite a different science than that of
geography. The English astronomer Halley had
left as a sort of legacy the task of examining the
transit of Venus, which he predicted for the year
1769, pointing out its paramount importance for
determining the distance of the sun from the earth.
This transit could only be observed in the south-
ern hemisphere, and it was in order to observe it
that Cook made his first voyage of exploration.

There was a double suitability in the motive
of Cook's first voyage. The work of his life
could only have been carried out owing to the
improvement in nautical instruments which had
been made during the early part of the eighteenth
century. Hadley had invented the sextant, bj
which the sun's elevation could be taken with
much more ease and accuracy than with the old
cross-staff, the very rough gnomon which the
earlier navigators had to use. Still more impor-
tant for scientific geography was the improvement
that had taken place in accurate chronometry.
To find the latitude of a place is not so difficult—
the length of the day at different times of the
year will by itself be almost enough to determine
this, as we have seen in the very earliest history
of Greek geography — but to determine the longi-

146 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

tude was a much more difficult task, which in the
earlier stages could only be performed by guess-
work and dead reckoning.

But when clocks had been brought to such a
pitch of accuracy that they would not lose but a
few seconds or minutes during the whole voyage,
they could be used to determine the difference of
local time between any spot on the earth's sur-
face and that of the port from which the ship
sailed, or from some fixed place where the clock
could be timed. The English government, seeing
the importance of this, proposed the very large
reward of ^10,000 for the invention of a chronom-
eter which would not lose more than a stated
number of minutes during a year. This prize was
won by John Harrison, and from this time onward
a sea-captain with a minimum of astronomical
knowledge was enabled to know his longitude
within a few minutes. Hadley's sextant and
Harrison's chronometer were the necessary im-
plements to enable James Cook to do his work,
which was thus, both in aim and method, in every
way English.

James Cook was a practical sailor, who had
shown considerable intelligence in sounding the
St. Lawrence on Wolfe's expedition, and had after-
wards been appointed marine surveyor of New-
foundland. When the Royal Society determined
to send out an expedition to observe the transit
of Venus, according to Halley's prediction, they
were deterred from entrusting the expedition to a
scientific man by the example of Halley himself,
who had failed to obtain obedience from sailors on
being entrusted with the command. Dalrymple,
the chief hydrographer of the Admiralty, who had
chief claims to the command, was also somewhat

AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH SEAS. 147

of a faddist, and Cook was selected almost as a
dernier ressort. The choice proved an excellent
one. He selected a coasting coaler named the
Endeavour, of 360 tons, because her breadth of
beam would enable her to carry more stores and
to run near coasts. Just before they started.
Captain Wallis returned from a voyage round the
world upon which he had discovered or re-discov-
ered Tahiti, and he recommended this as a suit-
able place for observing the transit.

Cook duly arrived there, and on the 3rd of
June, 1769, the main object of the expedition was
fulfilled by a successful observation. But he
then proceeded farther, and arrived soon at a land
which he saw reason to identify with the Staaten
Land of Tasman ; but on coasting along this.
Cook found that, so far from belonging to a great
southern continent, it was composed of two islands,
between which he sailed, giving his name to the
strait separating them. Leaving New Zealand on
the 31st of March, 1770, on the 20th of the next
month he came across another land to the west-
ward, hitherto unknown to mariners. Entering
an inlet, he explored the neighbourhood with the
aid of Mr. Joseph Banks, the naturalist of the ex-
pedition. He found so many plants new to him
that the bay was termed Botany Bay.

He then coasted northward, and nearly lost
his ship upon the great reef running down the
eastern coast; but by keeping within it he man-
aged to reach the extreme end of the land in this
direction, and proved that it was distinct from
New Guinea. In other words, he had reached
the southern point of the strait named after Tor-
res. To this immense line of coast Cook gave
the name of New South Wales, from some resem-

148 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

blance that he saw to the coast about Swansea.
By this first voyage Cook had proved that neither
New Holland nor Staaten Land belonged to the
great Antarctic continent, which remained the sole
myth bequeathed by the ancients which had not
yet been definitely removed from the maps. In
his second voyage, starting in 1 7 7 2, he was directed
to settle finally this problem. He went at once
to the Cape of Good Hope, and from there started
out on a zigzag journey round the Southern Pole,
poking the nose of his vessel in all directions as
far south as he could reach, only pulling up when
he touched ice. In whatever direction he ad-
vanced he failed to find any trace of extensive
land corresponding to the supposed Antarctic
continent, which he thus definitely proved to be
non-existent. He spent the remainder of this
voyage in re-discovering various sets of archipela-
gos which preceding Spanish, Dutch, and English
navigators had touched, but had never accurately
surveyed. Later on Cook made a run across the
Pacific from New Zealand to Cape Horn without
discovering any extensive land, thus clinching the
matter after three years' careful inquiry. It is
worthy of remark that during that long time he
lost but four out of 118 men, and only one of
them by sickness.

Only one great problem to maritime geography
still remained to be solved, that of the north-west
passage, which, as we have seen, had so frequently
been tried by English navigators, working from
the east through Hudson's Bay. In 1776 Cook
was deputed by George III, to attempt the solu-
tion of this problem by a new method. He was
directed to endeavour to find an opening on the
north-west coast of America which would lead into

AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH SEAS. 149

Hudson's Bay. The old legend of Juan de Fu-
ca's great bay still misled geographers as to this
coast. Cook not alone settled this problem, but,
by advancing through Bering Strait and examin-
ing both sides of it, determined that the two con-
tinents of Asia and America approached one an-
other as near as thirty-six miles. On his return
voyage he landed at Owhyee (Hawaii), where he
was slain in 1777, and his ships returned to Eng-
land without adding anything further to geo-
graphical knowledge.

Cook's voyages had aroused the generous emu-
lation of the French, who, to their eternal honour,
had given directions to their fleet to respect his
vessels wherever found, though France was at
that time at war with England. In 1783 an ex-
pedition was sent, under Francois de la Perouse,
to complete Cook's work. He explored the north-
east coast of Asia, examined the island of Sagha-
lien, and passed through the strait between it and
Japan, often called by his name. In Kamtschat-
ka La Perouse landed Monsieur Lesseps, who had
accompanied the expedition as Russian inter-
preter, and sent home by him his journals and
surveys. Lesseps made a careful examination of
Kamtschatka himself, and succeeded in passing
overland thence to Paris, being the first European
to journey completely across the Old World from
the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. La Perouse
then proceeded to follow Cook by examining the
coast of New South Wales, and to his surprise,
when entering a fine harbour in the middle of the
coast, found there English ships engaged in set-
tling the first Australian colony in 1787. After
again delivering his surveys to be forwarded by
the Englishmen, he started to survey the coast ot

150 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

New Holland, but his expedition was not heard
of until 1826, when it was discovered that it had
been wrecked on Vanikoro, an island near the
Fijis.

We have seen that Cook's exploration of the
eastern coast of Australia was soon followed up
by a settlement. A number of convicts were sent
out under Captain Philips to Botany Bay, and
from that time onward English explorers grad-
ually determined with accuracy both the coast-
line and the interior of the huge stretch of land
known to us as Australia. One of the ships that
had accompanied Cook on his second voyage had
made a rough survey of Van Diemen's Land, and
had come to the conclusion that it joined on to
the mainland. But in 1797, Bass, a surgeon in
the navy, coasted down from Port Jackson to the
south in a fine whale boat with a crew of six
men, and discovered open sea running between
the southernmost point and Van Diemen's Land;
this is still known as Bass' Strait. A companion
of his, named Flinders, coasted, in 1799, along
the south coast from Cape Leeuwin eastward, and
on this voyage met a French ship at Encounter
Bay, so named from the re?tcontre. Proceeding
farther, he discovered Port Philip ; and the coast-
line of Australia was approximately settled after
Captain P. P. King in four voyages, between 181 7
and 1822, had investigated the river mouths.

The interior now remained to be investigated.
On the east coast this was rendered difficult by
the range of the Blue Mountains, honeycombed
throughout with huge gullies, which led investi-
gators time after time into a cul-de-sac; but in
1813 Philip Wentworth managed to cross them,
and found a fertile plateau to the westward.

152 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Next year Evans discovered the, Lachlan and
Macquarie rivers, and penetrated farther into the
Bathurst plains. In 1828-29 Captain Sturt in-
creased the knowledge of the interior by tracing
the course of the two great rivers Darling and
Murray. In 1848 the German explorer Leich-
hardt lost his life in an attempt to penetrate the
interior northward; but in i860 two explorers,
named Burke and Wills, managed to pass from
south to north along the east coast; while in the
four years 1858 to 1862, John M'Dowall Stuart
performed the still more difficult feat of crossing
the centre of the continent from south to north,
in order to trace a course for the telegraphic line
which was shortly afterwards erected. By this
time settlements had sprung up throughout the
whole coast of Eastern Australia, and there only
remained the western desert to be explored. This
was effected in two journeys of John Forrest,
between 1868 and 1874, who penetrated from
Western Australia as far as the central tele-
graphic line; while, between 1872 and 1876,
Ernest Giles performed the same feat to the
north. Quite recently, in 1897, these two routes
were jomed by the journey of the Honourable
Daniel Carnegie from the Coolgardie gold fields
in the south to those of Kimberley in the north.
These explorations, while adding to our knowl-
edge of the interior of Australia, have only con-
firmed the impression that it was not worth
knowing.

[Authorities : Rev. G. Grimm, Discovery and Exploration
of Australia (Melbourne, 1888) ; A. F. Calvert, Discovery of
Australia, 1893 » Exploration of Australia, 1895 ; Early Voy-
ages to Australia, Hakluyt Society.]

EXPLORATION AND BARTITION OF AFRICA. 153

CHAPTER XI.

EXPLORATION AND PARTITION OF AFRICA :
PARK LIVINGSTONE STANLEY.

We have seen how the Portuguese had slowly
coasted along the shore of Africa during the
fifteenth century in search of a way to the
Indies. By the end of the century mariners*
portulanos gave a rude yet effective account
of the littoral of Africa, both on the west and
the eastern side. Not alone did they explore
the coast, but they settled upon it. At Amina
on the Guinea coast, at Loando near the Congo,
and at Benguela on the western coast, they
established stations whence to despatch the
gold and ivory, and, above all, the slaves, which
turned out to be the chief African products of
use to Europeans. On the east coast they
settled at Sofala, a port of Mozambique ; and in
Zanzibar they possessed no less than three ports,
those first visited by Vasco da Gama and after-
wards celebrated by Milton in the sonorous line
contained in the gorgeous geographical excursus
in the Eleventh Book —

" Mombaza and Quiloa and Melind."

— Paradise Lost^ xi. 339.

It is probable that, besides settling on the
coast, the Portuguese from time to time made ex-
ploration into the interior. At any rate, in some
maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
there is shown a remarkable knowledge of the
course of the Nile. We get it terminated in three
large lakes, which can be scarcely other than the

154 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and Tanganyika.
The Mountains of the Moon also figure promi-
nently, and it was only almost the other day that
Mr. Stanley re-discovered them. It is difficult,
however, to determine how far these entries on
the Portuguese maps were due to actual knowl-
edge or report, or to the traditions of a still earlier
knowledge of these lakes and mountains; for in
the maps accompanying the early editions of
Ptolemy we likewise obtain the same information,
which is repeated by the Arabic geographers, ob-
viously from Ptolemy, and not from actual obser-
vation. When the two great French carto-
graphers Delisle and D'Anville determined not to
insert anything on their maps for which they had
not some evidence, these lakes and mountains
disappeared, and thus it has come about that
maps of the seventeenth century often appear to
display more knowledge of the interior of Africa
than those of the beginning of the nineteenth, at
least with regard to the sources of the Nile.

African exploration of the interior begins with
the search for the sources of the Nile, and has
been mainly concluded by the determination of
the course of the three other great rivers, the
Niger, the Zambesi, and the Congo. It is re-
markable that all four rivers have had their
course determined by persons of British nation-
ality. .The names of Bruce and Grant will always
be associated with the Nile, that of Mungo Park
with the Niger, Dr. Livingstone with the Zam-
besi, and Mr. Stanley with the Congo. It is not
inappropriate that, except in the case of the
Congo, England should control the course of the
rivers which her sons first made accessible to
civilisation.

EXPLORATION AND PARTITION OF AFRICA. 155

We have seen that there was an ancient tradi-
tion reported by Herodotus, that the Nile trended
off to the west and became there the river Niger ;
while still earlier there was an impression that
part of it at any rate wandered eastward, and
some way joined on to the same source as the

Dapper's map of Africa, 1676.

Tigris and Euphrates — at least that seems to be
the suggestion in the biblical account of Paradise.
Whatever the reason, the greatest uncertainty
existed as to the actual course of the river, and to
discover the source of the Nile was for many
centuries the standing expression for performing

156 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

the impossible. In 1768, James Bruce, a Scottish
gentleman of position, set out with the determi-
nation of solving this mystery — a determination
which he had made in early youth, and carried
out with characteristic pertinacity. He had
acquired a certain amount of knowledge of
Arabic and acquaintance with African customs as
Consul at Algiers. He went up the Nile as far as
Farsunt, and then crossed the desert to the Red
Sea, went over to Jedda, from which he took ship
for Massowah, and began his search for the
sources of the Nile in Abyssinia. He visited the
ruins of Axum, the former capital, and in the
neighbourhood of that place saw the incident
with which his travels have always been associ-
ated, in which a couple of rump-steaks were ex-
tracted from a cow while alive, the wound sewn
up, and the animal driven on farther.

Here, guided by some Gallas, he worked his
way up the Blue Nile to the three fountains,
which he declared to be the true sources of the
Nile, and identified with the three mysterious
lakes in the old maps. From there he worked
his way down the Nile, reaching Cairo in 1773.
Of course what he had discovered was merely the
source of the Blue Nile, and even this had been
previously visited by a Portuguese traveller
named Payz. But the interesting adventures
which he experienced, and the interesting style
in which he told them, aroused universal atten-
tion, which was perhaps increased by the fact
that his journey was undertaken purely from love
of adventure and discovery. The year 1768 is
distinguished by the two journeys of James Cook
and James Bruce, both of them expressly for pur-
poses of geographical discovery, and thus inau-

EXPLORATION AND PARTITION OF AFRICA. 157

^urating the era of what may be called scientific
exploration. Ten years later an association was
formed named the African Association, expressly
intended to explore the unknown parts of Africa,
and the first geographical society called into
existence. In 1795 Mungo Park was despatched
by the Association to the west coast. He started
from the Gambia, and after many adventures, in
which he was captured by the Moors, arrived at
the banks of the Niger, which he traced along its
middle course, but he failed to reach as far as
Timbuctoo. He made a second attempt in 1805,
hoping by sailing down the Niger to prove its
identity with the river known at its mouth as the
Congo ; but he was forced to return, and died at
Boussa, without having determined the remaining
course of the Niger.

Attention was thus drawn to the existence of
the mysterious city of Timbuctoo, of which
Mungo Park had brought back curious rumors
on his return from his first journey. This was
visited in 181 1 by a British seaman named Adams,
who had been wrecked on the Moorish coast, and
taken as a slave by the Moors across to Tim-
buctoo. He was ultimately ransomed by the
British consul at Mogador, and his account re-
vived interest in West African exploration.
Attempts were made to penetrate the secret of
the Niger, both from Senegambia and from the
Congo, but both were failures, and a fresh method
was adopted, possibly owing to Adams' experi-
ence in the attempt to reach the Niger by the car-
avan routes across the Sahara. In 1822 Major
Denham and Lieutenant Clapperton left Murzouk,
the capital of Fezzan, and made their way to
Lake Chad and thence to Bornu. Clapperton,

158 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

later on, again visited the Niger from Benin.
Altogether these two travellers added some two
thousand miles of route to our knowledge of
West Africa. In 1826-27 Timbuctoo was at last
visited by two Europeans — Major Lamg in the
former year, who was murdered there ; and a
young Frenchman, Rene Caillie, in the latter.
His account aroused great interest, and Tenny-
son began his poetic career by a prize-poem on
the subject of the mysterious African capital.

It was not till 1850 that the work of Denham
and Clapperton was again taken up by Barth,
who for five years explored the whole country to
the west of Lake Chad, visiting Timbuctoo, and
connecting the lines of route of Clapperton and
Cailli^. What he did for the west of Lake Chad
was accomplished by Nachtigall east of that lake
in Darfur and Wadai, in a journey which likewise
took five years (1869-74). Of recent years polit-
ical interests have caused numerous expeditions,
especially by the French to connect their posses-
sions in Algeria and Tunis with those on the Gold
Coast and on the Senegal.

The next stage in African exploration is con-
nected with the name of the man to whom can be
traced practically the whole of recent discoveries.
By his tact in dealing with the natives, by his
calm pertinacity and dauntless courage, David
Livingstone succeeded in opening up the entirely
unknown districts of Central Africa. Starting
from the Cape in 1849, he worked his way north-
ward to the Zambesi, and then to Lake Dilolo,
and after five years' wandering reached the west-
ern coast of Africa at Loanda. Then retracing
his steps to the Zambesi again, he followed its
course to its mouth on the east coast, thus for

EXPLORATION AND PARTITION OF AFRICA. 159

the first time crossing Africa from west to east.
In a second journey, on which he started in 1858,
he commenced tracing the course of the river
Shire, the most important affluent of the Zambesi,
and in so doing arrived on the shores of Lake
Nyassa in September, 1859.

Meanwhile two explorers. Captain (afterwards
Sir Richard) Burton and Captain Speke, had
started from Zanzibar to discover a lake of which
rumours had for a long time been heard, and in
the following year succeeded in reaching Lake
Tanganyika. On their return Speke parted from
Burton and took a route more to the north, from
which he saw another great lake, which afterwards
turned out to be the Victoria Nyanza. In i860,
with another companion (Captain Grant), Speke
returned to the Victoria Nyanza, and traced out
its course. On the north of it they found a great
river trending to the north, which they followed
as far as Gondokoro. Here they found Mr.
(afterwards Sir Samuel) Baker, who had travelled
up the White Nile to investigate its source, which
they thus proved to be in the Lake Victoria
Nyanza. Baker continued his search, and suc-
ceeded in showing that another source of the Nile
was to be found in a smaller lake to the west,
which he named Albert Nyanza. Thus these
three Englishmen had combined to solve the long-
sought problem of the sources of the Nile.

The discoveries of the Englishmen were soon
followed up by important political action by the
Khedive of Egypt, Ismail Pasha, who claimed the
whole course of the Nile as part of his dominions,
and established stations all along it. This, of
course, led to full information about the basin of
the Nile being acquired for geographical pur-

i6o THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

poses, and, under Sir Samuel Baker and Colonel
Gordon, civilisation was for a time in possession
of the Nile from its source to its mouth.

Meanwhile Livingstone had set himself to
solve the problem of the great Lake Tanganyika,
and started on his last journey in 1865 for that
purpose. He discovered Lakes Moero and Bang-
weolo, and the river Nyangoue, also known as
Lualaba. So much interest had been aroused
by Livingstone's previous exploits of discovery,
that when nothing had been heard of him for
some time, in 1869 Mr. H. M. Stanley was sent
by the proprietors of the New York Her-ald^ for
whom he had previously acted as war-correspond-
ent, to find Livingstone. He started in 1871
from Zanzibar, and before the end of the year
had come across a white man in the heart of the
Dark Continent, and greeted him with the historic
query, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Two
years later Livingstone died, a martyr to geo-
graphical and missionary enthusiasm. His work
was taken up by Mr. Stanley, who in 1876 was
again despatched to continue Livingstone's work,
and succeeded in crossing the Dark Continent
from Zanzibar to the mouth of the Congo, the
whole course of which he traced, proving that the
Lualaba or Nyangoue were merely different
names or affluents of this mighty stream. Stan-
ley's remarkable journey completed the rough
outline of African geography by defining the
course of the fourth great river of the continent.

But Stanley's journey across the Dark Con-
tinent was destined to be the starting-point of an
entirely new development of the African problem.
Even while Stanley was on his journey a confer-
ence had been assembled at Brussels by King

20 lO

20 30 4.0

20 10 0 10 20 30

50 60

Exploration and j)ait:ti()n of Africa.

l62 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Leopold, in which an international committee was
formed representing all the nations of Europe,
nominally for the exploration of Africa, but, as it
turned out, really for its partition among the
European powers. Within fifteen years of the
assembly of the conference the interior of Africa
had been parcelled out, mainly among the five
powers, England, France, Germany, Portugal, and
Belgium. As in the case of America, geographical
discovery was soon followed by political division.
The process began by the carving out of a
state covering the whole of the newly-discovered
Congo, nominally independent, but really forming
a colony of Belgium, King Leopold supplying the
funds for that purpose. Mr. Stanley was de-
spatched in 1879 to establish stations along the
lower course of the river, but, to his surprise, he
found that he had been anticipated by M. de
Brazza, a Portuguese in the service of France,
who had been despatched on a secret mission to
anticipate the King of the Belgians in seizing the
important river mouth. At the same time Portu-
gal put in claims for possession of the Congo
mouth, and it became clear that international rival-
ries would interfere with the foundation of any
state on the Congo unless some definite interna-
tional arrangement was arrived at. Almost about
the same time, in 1880, Germany began to enter
the field as a colonising power in Africa. In
South-West Africa and in the Cameroons, and
somewhat later in Zanzibar, claims were set up
on behalf of Germany by Prince Bismarck which
conflicted with English interests in those districts,
and under his presidency a Congress was held at
Berlin in the winter of 1884-85 to determine the
rules of the claims by which Africa could be par-

EXPLORATION AND PARTITION OF AFRICA. 163

titioned. The old historic claims of Portugal to
the coast of Africa, on which she had established
stations both on the west and eastern side, were
swept away by the principle that only effective
occupation could furnish a claim of sovereignty.
This great principle will rule henceforth the whole
course of African history; in other words, the
good old Border rule —

" That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."

Almost immediately after the sitting of the
Berlin Congress, and indeed during it, arrange-
ments were come to by which the respective claims
of England and Germany in South-West Africa
were definitely determined. Almost immediately
afterwards a similar process had to be gone
through in order to determine the limits of the
respective " spheres of influence," as they began
to be called, of Germany and England in East
Africa. A Chartered Company, called the British
East Africa Association, was to administer the
land north of Victoria Nyanza bounded on the
west by the Congo Free State, while to the north
it extended till it touched the revolted provinces
of Egypt, of which we shall soon speak. In South
Africa a similar Chartered Company, under the
influence of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, practically con-
trolled the whole country from Cape Colony up
to German East Africa and the Congo Free State.

The winter of 1890-91 was especially produc-
tive of agreements of demarcation. After a con-
siderable amount of friction owing to the en-
croachments of Major Serpa Pinto, the limits of
Portuguese Angola on the west coast were then
determined, being bounded on the east by the

1 64 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Congo Free State and British Central Africa ; and
at the same time Portuguese East Africa was set-
tled in its relation both to British Central Africa
on the west and German East Africa on the north.
Meanwhile Italy had put in its caims for a share
in the spoil, and the eastern horn of Africa, to-
gether with Abyssinia, fell to its share, though it
soon had to drop it, owing to the unexpected
vitality shown by the Abyssinians. In the same
year (1890) agreements between Germany and
England settled the line of demarcation between
the Cameroons and Togoland, with the adjoining
British territories; while in August of the same
year an attempt was made to limit the abnormal
pretensions of the French along the Niger, and as
far as Lake Chad. Here the British interests
were represented by another Chartered Company,
the Royal Niger Company. Unfortunately the
delimitation was not very definite, not being by
river courses or meridians as in other cases, but
merely by territories ruled over by native chiefs,
whose boundaries were not then particularly dis-
tinct. This has led to considerable friction, last-
ing even up to the present day ; and it is only
with reference to the demarcation between Eng-
land and France in Africa that any doubt still
remains with regard to the western and central
portions of the continent.

Towards the north-east the problem of delim-
itation had been complicated by political events,
which ultimately led to another great exploring
expedition by Mr. Stanley. The extension of
Egypt into the Equatorial Provinces under Ismail
Pasha, due in large measure to the geographical
discoveries of Grant, Speke, and Baker, led to an
enormous accumulation of debt, which caused the

EXPLORATION AND PARTITION OF AFRICA. 165

country to become bankrupt, Ismail Pasha to be
deposed, and Egypt to be administered jointly by
France and England on behalf of the European
bondholders. This caused much dissatisfaction
on the part of the Egyptian officials and army
officers, who were displaced by French and Eng-
lish officials; and a rebellion broke out under
Arabi Pasha. This led to the armed intervention
of England, France having refused to co-operate,
and Egypt was occupied by British troops. The
Soudan and Equatorial Provinces had independ-
ently revolted under Mohammedan fanaticism,
and it was determined to relinquish those Egyp-
tian possessions, which had originally led to bank-
ruptcy. General Gordon was despatched to relieve
the various Egyptian garrisons in the south, but
being without support, ultimately failed, and was
killed in 1885. One of Gordon's lieutenants, a
German named Schnitzler, who appears to have
adopted Mohammedanism, and was known as
Emin Pasha, was thus isolated in the midst of
Africa, near the Albert Nyanza, and Mr. Stanley
was commissioned to attempt his rescue in 1887.
He started to march through the Congo State,
and succeeded in traversing a huge tract of forest
country inhabited by diminutive savages, who
probably represented the Pigmies of the ancients.
He succeeded in reaching Emin Pasha, and after
much persuasion induced him to accompany him
to Zanzibar, only, however, to return as a German
agent to the Albert Nyanza. Mr. Stanley's jour-
ney on this occasion was not without its political
aspects, since he made arrangements during the
eastern part of his journey for securing British in-
fluence for the lands afterwards handed over to
the British East Africa Company.

1 66 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

All these political delimitations were naturally
accompanied by explorations, partly scientific,
but mainly political. Major Serpa Pinto twice
crossed Africa in an attempt to connect the Por-
tuguese settlements on the two coasts. Similarly,
Lieutenant Wissmann also crossed Africa twice,
between 1881 and 1887, in the interests of the
Congo State, though he ultimately became an
official of his native country, Germany. Captain
Lugard had investigated the region between the
three Lakes Nyanza, and secured it for Great
Britain. In South Africa British claims were
successfully and successively advanced to Bech-
uana-land, Mashona-land, and Matabele-land, and,
under the leadership of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, a rail-
way and telegraph were rapidly pushed forward
towards the north. Owing to the enterprise of
Mr. (now Sir H. H.) Johnstone, the British pos-
sessions were in 1891 pushed up as far as Nyassa-
land. By that date, as we have seen, various
treaties with Germany and Portugal had definitely
fixed the contour lines of the different possessions
of the three countries in South Africa. By 1891
the interior of Africa, which had up to 1880 been
practically a blank, could be mapped out almost
with as much accuracy as, at any rate, South
America. Europe had taken possession of Africa.

One of the chief results of this, and formerly
one of its main motives, was the abolition of the
slave trade. North Africa has been Mohammedan
since the eighth century, and Islam has always
recognised slavery, consequently the Arabs of the
north have continued to make raids upon the
negroes of Central Africa, to supply the Moham-
medan countries of West Asia and North Africa -
with slaves, The Mahdist rebellion was in parJ

EXPLORATION AND PARTITION OF AFRICA. 167

at least a reaction against the abolition of slavery
by Egypt, and the interest of the next few years
will consist in the last stand of the slave mer-
chant in the Soudan, in Darfur, and in Wadai,
east of Lake Chad, where the only powerful
independent Mohammedan Sultanate still exists.
England is closely pressing upon the revolted
provinces, along the upper course of the Nile;
while France is attempting, by expeditions from
the French Congo and through Abyssinia, to take
possession of the Upper Nile before England
conquers it. The race for the Upper Nile is at
present one of the sources of danger of European
war.

While exploration and conquest have either
gone hand in hand, or succeeded one another
very closely, there has been a third motive that
has often led to interesting discoveries, to be fol-
lowed by annexation. The mighty hunters of
Africa have often brought back, not alone ivory
and skins, but also interesting information of the
interior. The gorgeous narratives of Gordon
Cumming in the " fifties " were one of the causes
which led to an interest in African exploration.
Many a lad has had his imagination fired and his
career determined by the exploits of Gordon
Cumming, which are now, however, almost for-
gotten. Mr, F. C. Selous has in our time sur-
passed even Gordon Cumming's exploits, and has
besides done excellent work as guide for the suc-
cessive expeditions into South Africa.

Thus, practically within our own time, the
interior of Africa, where once geographers, as the
poet Butler puts it, " placed elephants instead of
towns," has become known, in its main outlines,
t>y successive series pf intrepid explorers, whg

1 68 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

have often had to be warriors as well as scientific
men. Whatever the motives that have led the
white man mto the centre of the Dark Continent
— love of adventure, scientific curiosity, big game,
or patriotism — the result has been that the con-
tinent has become known instead of merely its
coast-line. On the whole, English exploration has
been the main means by which our knowledge of
the interior of Africa has been obtained, and Eng-
land has been richly rewarded by coming into pos-
session of the most promising parts of the conti-
nent— the Nile valley and temperate South Africa.
But France has also gained a huge extent of
country covering almost the whole of North-West
Africa. While much of this is merely desert,
there are caravan routes which tap the basin of
the Niger and conduct its products to Algeria,
conquered by France early in the century, and to
Tunis, more recently appropriated. The West
African provinces of France have, at any rate,
this advantage, that they are nearer to the
mother-country than any other colony of a
European power ; and the result may be that
African soldiers may one of these days fight for
France on European soil, just as the Indian
soldiers were imported to Cyprus by Lord Bea-
consfield in 1876. Meanwhile, the result of all
this international ambition has been that Africa
in its entirety is now known and accessible to
European civilisation.

[Authorities : Kiepert, Beitrage zur EntdeckungsgescMchte
Affikas, 1873 ; Brown, The Story of Africa, 4 vols., 1894 ;
SgoU Kdtie, The Partition of Africa, 1896.]

THE POLES. 169

CHAPTER XII.

THE POLES — FRANKLIN — ROSS — NORDENSKIOLD —
NANSEN — PEARY — AMUNDSEN — SCOTT.

Almost the whole of the explorations which
we have hitherto described or referred to had for
their motive some practical purpose, whether to
reach the Spice Islands or to hunt big game.
Even the excursions of Davis, Frobisher, Hudson,
and Baffin in pursuit of the north-west passage,
and of BarenLz and Chancellor in search of the
north-east passage, were really in pursuit of mer-
cantile ends. It IS only with James Cook that
the era of purely scientific exploration begins,
though it is fair to qualify this statement by
observing that the Russian expedition under
Bering, already referred to, was ordered by Peter
the Great to determine a strictly geographical
problem, though doubtless it had its bearings on
Russian ambitions. Bering and Cook between
them, as we have seen, settled the problem of the
relations existing between the ends of the two
continents, Asia and America, but what remained
still to the north of terra firma within the Arctic
Circle ? That was the problem which the nine-
teenth century set itself to solve, and very nearly
succeeded in the solution. For the Arctic Circle
we now possess maps that only show blanks over
a few thousand square miles.

This knowledge has been gained by slow
degrees, and by the exercise of the most heroic
courage and endurance. It is a heroic tale, in
which love of adventure and zeal for science have
combated with and conquered the horrors of an

170 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Arctic winter, the six months' darkness in silence
and desolation, the excessive cold, and the
dangers of starvation. It is impossible here to
go into any of the details which rendered the tale
of Arctic voyages one of the most stirring in
human history. All we are concerned with here
is the amount of new knowledge brought back
by successive expeditions within the Arctic Circle.
This region of the earth's surface is distin-
guished by a number of large islands in the east-
ern hemisphere, most of which were discovered at
an early date. We have seen how the Norsemen
landed and settled upon Greenland as early as
the tenth century. Burrough sighted Nova
Zembla in 1556, in one of the voyages in search
of the north-east passage, though the very name
(Russian for Newfoundland) implies that it had
previously been sighted and named by Russian
seamen. Barentz is credited with having sighted
Spitzbergen. The numerous islands to the north
of Siberia became known through the Russian
investigations. of Discheneff, Bering, and their fol-
lowers; while the intricate network of islands
to the north of the continent of North America
had been slowly worked out during the search for
the north-west passage. It was indeed in pursuit
of this will-of-the-wisp that most of the discov-
eries in the Arctic Circle were made, and a gen-
eral impetus given to Arctic exploration.

It is with a renewed attempt after this search
that the modern history of Arctic exploration
begins. In 1818 two expeditions were sent under
the influence of Sir Joseph Banks to search the
north-west passage, and to attempt to reach the
Pole. The former was the objective of John Ross
in the Isabella and W. E. P^rry in the Alexander

THE POLES. 171

while in the Polar exploration John Franklin
sailed in the Trent. Both expeditions were un-
successful, though Ross and Parry confirmed
Baffin's discoveries. Notwithstanding this, two
expeditions were sent two years later to attempt
the north-west passage, one by land under
Franklin, and the other by sea under Parry.
Parry managed to get half-way across the top of
North America, discovered the archipelago named
after him, and reached 114° west longitude,
thereby gaining the prize of ^5000 given by the
British Parliament for the first seaman that sailed
west of the iioth meridian. He was brought up,
however, by Banks Land, while the strait which,
if he had known it, would have enabled him to
complete the north-west passage, was at that
time closed by ice. In two successive voyages,
in 1822 and 1824, Parry increased the detailed
knowledge of the coasts he had already discov-
ered, but failed to reach even as far westward as
he had done on his first voyage. This somewhat
discouraged government attempts at exploration,
and the next expedition, in 1829, was fitted out
by Mr. Felix Booth, sheriff of London, who
despatched the paddle steamer Victory, com-
manded by John Ross. He discovered the land
known as Boothia Felix, and his nephew, James
C. Ross, proved that it belonged to the mainland
of America, which he coasted along by land to
Cape Franklin, besides determining the exact
position of the North Magnetic Pole at Cape
Adelaide, on Boothia Felix. After passing five
years within the Arctic Circle, Ross and his com-
panions, who had been compelled to abandon the
Victory^ fell in with a whaler, which brought them
home.

172 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

We must now revert to Franklin, who, as we
have seen, had been despatched by the Admiralty
to outline the north coast of America, only two
points of which had been determined, the em-
bouchures of the Coppermine and the Mackenzie,
discovered respectively by Hearne and Mackenzie.
It was not till 182 1 that Franklin was able to
start out from the mouth of. the Coppermine east-
ward in two canoes, by which he coasted along
till he came to the point named by him Point
Turn-again. By that time only three days' stores
of pemmican remained, and it was only with the
greatest difficulty, and by subsisting on lichens
and scraps of roasted leather, that they managed
to return to their base of operations at Fort
Enterprise. Four years later, in 1825, Franklin
set out on another exploring expedition with the
same object, starting this time from the mouth of
the Mackenzie river, and despatching one of his
companions, Richardson, to connect the coast
between the Mackenzie and the Coppermine;
while he himself proceeded westward to meet the
Blossom, which, under Captain Beechey, had been
despatched to Behring Strait to bring his party
back. Richardson was entirely successful in ex-
amining the coast-line between the Mackenzie
and the Coppermine ; but Beechey, though he
succeeded in rounding Icy Cape and tracing the
coast as far as Point Barrow, did not come up to
Franklin, who had only got within 160 miles at
Return Reef. These 160 miles, as well as the 222
miles intervening between Cape Turn-again,
Franklin's easternmost point by land, and Cape
Franklin, J. C. Ross's most westerly point, were
afterwards filled in by T. Simpson in 1837, after
a coasting voyage in boats of 1408 miles, which

THE POLES. 173

Stands as a record even to this day. Meanwhile
the Great Fish River had been discovered and
followed to its mouth by C. J. Back in 1833.
During the voyage down the river, an oar broke
while the boat was shooting a rapid, and one of
the party commenced praying in a loud voice;
whereupon the leader called out : " Is this a time
for praying ? Pull your starboard oar ! "

Meanwhile, interest had been excited rather
more towards the South Pole, and the land of
which Cook had found traces in his search for the
fabled Australian continent surrounding it. He
had reached as far south as 71.10°, when he was
brought up by the great ice barrier. In 1820-23
Weddell visited the South Shetlands, south of
Cape Horn, and found an active volcano, even
amidst the extreme cold of that district. He
reached as far south as 74°, but failed to come
across land in that district. In 1839 Bellany dis-
covered the islands named after him, with a vol-
cano twelve thousand feet high, and another still
active on Buckle Island. In 1839 ^ French ex-
pedition under Dumont d'Urville again visited
and explored the South Shetlands; while in the
following year, Captain Wilkes, of the United
States navy, discovered the land named after him.
But the most remarkable discovery made in Ant-
arctica was that of Sir J. C. Ross, who had been
sent by the Admiralty in 1840 to identify the
South Magnetic Pole, as we have seen he had dis-
covered that of the north. With the two ships
Erebus and Terror he discovered Victoria Land
and the two active volcanoes named after his
ships, which he found pouring forth flaming lava
amidst the snow. In January, 1842, he reached
farthest south, 78**. After the return of the Ross

174 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

expedition little was attempted toward the ex-
ploration of the Antarctic regions for more than
half a century.

On the return of the Erebus and Terror from
the South Seas the government placed these two
vessels at the disposal of Franklin (who had been
knighted for his previous discoveries), and on the
26th of May, 1845, he started with one hundred
and twenty-nine souls on board the two vessels,
which were provisioned up to July, 1848. They
were last seen by a whaler on the 26th July, of
the former year waiting to pass into Lancaster
Sound. After penetrating as far north as 77°,
through Wellington Channel, Franklin was
obliged to winter upon Beechey Island, and in the
following year (September, 1846) his two ships
were beset in Victoria Strait, about twelve miles
from King William Land. Curiously enough, in
the following year (1847) J. Rae had been de-
spatched by land from Cape Repulse in Hudson's
Bay, and had coasted along the east coast of
Boothia, thus connecting Ross's and Franklin's
coast journeys with Hudson's Bay. On i8th
April, 1847, Rae had reached a point on Boothia
less than 150 miles from Franklin on the other
side of it. Less than two months later, on the
nth June, Franklin died on the Erebus. His
ships were only provisioned to July, 1848, and
remained still beset throughout the whole of 1847.
Crozier, upon whom the command devolved, left
the ship with one hundred and five survivors to
try and reach Back's Fish River. They struggled
along the west coast of King William Land, but
failed to reach their destination ; disease, and
even starvation, gradually lessened their numbers.
An old Eskimo woman, who had watched the

THE POLES.

175

North polar region— western half.

176 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

melancholy procession, afterwards told M'Clin-
tock they fell down and died as they walked.

By this time considerable anxiety had been
roused by the absence of any news from Frank-
lin's party. Richardson and Rae were despatched
by land in 1848, while two ships were sent on the
attempt to reach Franklin through Bering Strait,
and two others, the Investigator and the Enter-
prise^ under J. C. Ross, through Baffin Bay. Rae
reached the east coast of Victoria Land, and ar-
rived within fifty miles of the spot where Frank-
lin's two ships had been abandoned ; but it was
not till his second expedition by land, which
started in 1853, that he obtained any news. After
wintering at Lady Pelly Bay, on the 20th April,
1854, Rae met a young Eskimo, who told him
that four years previously forty white men had
been seen dragging a boat to the south on the
west shore of King William Land, and a few
months later the bodies of thirty of these men
had been found by the Eskimo, who produced
silver with the Franklin crest to confirm the
truth of their statement. Further searches by
land were continued up to as late as 1879, when
Lieutenant F. Schwatka, of the United States
army, discovered several of the graves and skel-
etons of the Franklin expedition.

Neither of the two attempts by sea from the
Atlantic or from the Pacific base, in 1848, having
succeeded in gaining any news, the Enterprise and
the Investigator, which had previously attempted
to reach Franklin from the east, were despatched
in 1850, under Captain R. Collinson and Captain
M'Clure, to attempt the search from the west
through Bering Strait. M'Clure in the Ijwesti-
gator^ did not wait for Collinson, as he had been

THE POLES. 177

directed, but pushed on and discovered Banks
Land, and became beset in the ice in Prince of
Wales Strait. In the winter of 1850-51 he en-
deavoured unsuccessfully to work his way from
this strait into Parry Sound, but in August and
September, 185 1, managed to coast round Banks
Land to its most north-westerly point, and then
succeeded in passing through the strait named after
M'Clure, and reached Barrow Strait, thus perform-
ing for the first time the north-west passage,
though it was not till 1853 that the Investigator
was abandoned. Collinson, in the Enterprise^ fol-
lowed M'Clure closely, though never reaching
him, and attempting to round Prince Albert Land
by the south through Dolphin Strait, reached
Cambridge Bay at the nearest point by ship of all
the Franklin expeditions. He had to return west-
ward, and only reached England in 1855, after an
absence of five years and four months.

From the east no less than ten vessels had
attempted the Franklin sea search in 185 1, com-
prising two Admiralty expeditions, one private
English one, an American combined government
and private party, together with a ship put in com-
mission by the wifely devotion of Lady Franklin.
These all attempted the search of Lancaster
Sound, where Franklin had last been seen, and
they only succeeded in finding three graves of
men who had died at an early stage, and had been
buried on Beechey Island. Another set of four
vessels were despatched under Sir Edward Belcher
in 1852, who were fortunate enough to reach
M'Clure in the Investigator in the following year,
and enable him to complete the north-west pas-
sage, for which he gained the reward of ^^10,000
offered by Parliament in 1763. But Belcher was

178 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

obliged to abandon most of his vessels, one of
which the Resolute, drifted over a thousand miles,
and having been recovered by an American whaler,
was refitted by the United States and presented
to the Queen and people of Great Britain.

Notwithstanding all these efforts, the Franklin
remains have not yet been discovered, though Dr.
Rae, as we have seen, had practically ascertained
their terrible fate. Lady Franklin, however, was
not satisfied with this vague information. She
was determined to fit out still another expedition,
though already over ^^35,000 had been spent by
private means, mostly from her own personal for-
tune; and in 1857 the steam yacht Fox ^d^s de-
spatched under M'Clintock, who had already
shown himself the most capable master of sledge
work. He erected a monument to the Franklin
expedition on Beechey Island in 1858, and then
following Peel Sound, he made inquiries of the
natives throughout the winter of 1858-59. This
led him to search King William Land, where, on
the 25th May, he came across a bleached human
skeleton lying on its face, showing that the man
had died as he walked. Meanwhile, Hobson, one
of his companions, discovered a record of the
Franklin expedition, stating briefly its history
between 1845 and 1848; and with this definite
information of the fate of the Franklin expe-
dition M'Clintock returned to England in 1859,
having succeeded in solving the problem of
Franklin's fate, while exploring over 800 miles of
coast-line in the neighbourhood of King William
Land.

The result of the various Franklin expeditions
had thus been to map out the intricate network
of islands dotted over the north of North America.

THE POLES.

179

North polar region— eastern half.

l8o THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

None of these, however, reached much farther
north than 75°.

Only Smith Sound promised to lead north of
the 80th parallel. This had been discovered as
early as 1616 by Baffin, whose farthest north was
only exceeded by forty miles, in 1852, by Ingle-
field in the Isabel^ one of the ships despatched in
search of Franklin. He was followed up by Kane
in the Advance, fitted out in 1853 by the munifi-
cence of two American citizens, Grinnell and Pea-
body. Kane worked his way right through Smith
Sound and Robeson Channel into the sea named
after him. For two years he continued investigat-
ing Grinnell Land and the adjacent shores of
Greenland. Subsequent investigations by Hayes
in i860, and Hall ten years later, kept alive the
interest in Smith Sound and its neighbourhood;
and in 1873 three ships were despatched under
Captain (afterwards Sir George) Nares, who nearly
completed the survey of Grinnell Land, and one
of his lieutenants, Pelham Aldrich, succeeded in
reaching 82.48° N, About the same time, an Aus-
trian expedition under Payer and Weyprecht ex-
plored the highest known land, much to the east,
named by them Franz Josef Land, after the Aus-
trian Emperor.

Simultaneously interest in the northern regions
was aroused by the successful exploit of the north-
east passage by Professor (afterwards Baron) Nor-
denskiold, who had made seven or eight voyages
in Arctic regions between 1858 and 1870. He first
established the possibility of passing from Norway
to the mouth of the Yenesei in the summer, making
two journeys in 1875-76. These have since been
followed up for commercial purposes by Captain
Wiggins, who has frequently passed from Eng-

THE POLES. l8l

land to the mouth of the Yenesei in a merchant
vessel. As Siberia develops there can be little
doubt that this route will become of increasing
commercial importance. Professor Nordenskiold,
however, encouraged by his easy passage to the
Yenesei, determined to try to get round into Be-
ring Strait from that point, and in 1878 he started
in the Fega, accompanied by the Lena, and a col-
lier to supply them with coai. On the 19th Au-
gust they passed Cape Chelyuskin, the most north-
erly point of the Old World. From here the Lena
appropriately turned its course to the mouth of its
namesake, while the Vega proceeded on her course,
reaJ-ving on the r2th September Cape North, with-
in 120 miles of Bering Strait; this cape Cook had
reached from the east in 1778. Unfortunately
the ice became packed so closely that they could
not proceed farther, and they had to remain in
this tantalising condition for no less than ten
months. On the i8th July, 1879, the ice broke up,
and two days later the Vega rounded East Cape
with flying colours, saluting the easternmost coast
of Asia in honour of the completion of the north-
east passage. Baron Nordenskiold has since en-
joyed a well-earned leisure from his arduous la-
bours in the north by studying and publishing the
history of early cartography, on which he has is-
sued two valuable atlases, containing fac-similes
of the maps and charts of the Middle Ages.

General interest thus re-aroused in Arctic ex-
ploration brought about a united effort of all the
civilised nations to investigate the conditions of
the Polar regions. An international Polar Confer-
ence was held at Hamburg in 1879, at which it was
determined to surround the North Pole for the years
1882-83 by stations of scientific observation, in-

1 82 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

tended to study the conditions of the Polar Ocean.
No less than fifteen expeditions were sent forth,
some to the Antarctic regions, but most of them
round the North Pole. Their object was more to
subserve the interest of physical geography than
to promote the interest of geographical discovery ;
but one of the expeditions, that of the United
States under Lieutenant A. W. Greely, again took
up the study of Smith Sound and its outlets, and
one of his men, Lieutenant Lockwood, succeeded
in reaching 83.24° N., within 450 miles of the Pole,
and up to that time the farthest north reached by
any human being. The Greely expedition also
succeeded in showing that Greenland was not so
much ice-capped as ice-surrounded.

Hitherto the universal method by which discov-
eries had been made in the Polar regions was to
establish a base at which sufficient food was cached,
then to push in any required direction as far as
possible, leaving successive caches to be returned
to when provisions fell short on the forward jour-
ney. But in 1888, Dr. Fridjof Nansen determined
on a bolder method of investigating the interior
of Greenland. He was deposited upon the east
coast, where there were no inhabitants, and started
to cross Greenland, his life depending upon the
success of his journey, since he left no reserves in
the rear and it would be useless to return. He suc-
ceeded brilliantly in his attempt, and his exploit
was followed up by two successive attempts of
Lieut. Peary in 1892-95, who succeeded in cross-
ing Greenland at much higher latitude even than
Nansen.

The success of his bold plan encouraged Dr.
Nansen to attempt an even bolder one. He had
become convinced, from the investigations con-

THE POLES.

183

WESTERN
HEMISPHERE

Abruzzi, 1899.

A. W. Greely, 1882.
G. S. Nares, 1876.

C. F. Hall, 1870,

E. K. Kane, 1854.

EASTERN
HEMISPHERE.

Nansen, 1895.

E. A. INGLEFIELD, 1852. 78

William Baffin, i6i6.

W. E. Parry, 1827.
Payer and Weyprecht,

1874.
nordenskiold, 1868.
William Scoresby, 1806.
J. C. Phipps, 1773.
Hudson, 1607.

William Barentz, 1594.

Henry Hudson, 1607.

John Davis, 1587. 72 M

Climbing the North Pole.

1 84 THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY.

Baldwin, which in 1 901 attempted the dash to the
Pole from the base of Franz Josef Land, re-
turned in 1902, having accomplished almost
nothing. Peary, however, in 1906, reached 87.6°
by way of Smith Sound, traced the north coast
of Grant Land, and discovered new land in about
100° W.

In July, ig»o8, Peary left New York in the
Roosevelt on his eighth Arctic expedition. After
wintering near Cape Sheridan, a party of seven,
accompanied by 59 Eskimos, left the Roosevelt
in sledges in February, 1909. From 84° most of
the Eskimos were sent back, and 16 men, with 12
sledges and 100 dogs, started on the final dash
which was to result in the discovery of the Pole.
Peary reached the Pole on April 6, 1909. He
found surrounding it, as had been surmised for
many years, a continuous ice field, and soundings
of 9,000 feet failed to reach the sea bottom. The
return journey was made without mishap.

Meanwhile interest in Antarctic exploration
had been revived. C. E. Borchgrevink, of Nor-
way, explored Victoria Land in 1894-95, and in
1897 made an unsuccessful attempt to reach the
Pole, reaching 78.5°. Dr. Otto Nordenskiold, of
Sweden, headed an expedition in 1901-4 which
reached Cape Seymour, and during the same
period a British expedition under Capt. R. F.
Scott explored the inland ice of Victoria Land
and reached latitude 82° 17'. A British national
expedition in 1903-5 explored the region south-
east of Cape Horn and drifting along the ice bar-
rier discovered King Edward VH Land.

The quest of the South Pole began in earnest
with the sending out of the British national ex-
pedition under Lieut. Ernest Shackleton in 1907.

THE POLES. 185

In January, 1909, a few days before one of his
parties reached the South magnetic pole, Shack-
leton gained a point within 1 1 1 miles of the South
Pole and was able to report that the Pole was
situated on a high plateau about 10,000 feet above
sea level. Capt. Scott left New Zealand on his
second expedition in November, 1910, with the
intention of taking up the exploration of the Ant-
arctic continent at the point where his former
expedition and that of Shackleton had left off.
Scott reached the Pole on January 18, 1912, only
to find that he had been anticipated by Capt.
Roald Amundsen. Amundsen, who was the first
to accomplish, in 1903, the complete traverse of
the Northwest Passage, had left Norway early
in 191 1 for an expedition to the Arctic. Sud-
denly changing his plans to attempt the South
Pole, he spent the winter of 1909 on the ice bar-
rier at Bay of Whales, Ross Sea. Leaving his
camp on October 20, 191 1, he reached the Pole
on December 14, by a route about 750 miles in
length. Amundsen returned in safety, the whole
expedition having been favored by good weather
conditions. But Capt. Scott, who had been op-
posed by storms on his final dash to the Pole, was
overtaken by a blizzard on his return journey
and perished with cold and hunger with four com-
panions, on March 29, 1912. Thus to the end
polar discovery claimed its toll of human lives.

ANNALS OF DISCOVERY.

B.C.

dr. 600. Marseilles founded.

570. Anaximander of Miletus invents maps and the gncv

mon.
501. Hecataeus of Miletus writes the first geography.
450. Himilco the Carthaginian said to have visited Britain.
446. Herodotus describes Egypt and Scythia.
cir, 450. Hanno the Carthaginian sails down the west coast

of Africa as far as Sierra Leone.
cir. 333. Pytheas visits Britain and the Low Countries.
332. Alexander conquers Persia and visits India.
330. Nearchus sails from the Indus to the Arabian Gulf.
cir. 300. Megasthenes describes the Punjab.
cir. 200. Eratosthenes founds scientific geography.

100. Marinus of Tyre, founder of mathematical geo-
graphy.
60-54. Caesar conquers Gaul ; visits Britain, Switzerland,
and Germany.
20. Strabo describes the Roman Empire. First mention
of Thule and Ireland.
bef. 12. Agrippa compiles a Mappa Mundi, the foundation
of all succeeding ones.

A.D.

150. Ptolemy publishes his geography.
230. The Peutinger Table pictures the Roman roads.
400-14. Fa-hien travels through and describes Afghanistan
and India.
499. Hoei-Sin said to have visited the kingdom of Fu-
sang, 20,000 furlongs east of China (identified by
some with California).
518-21. Hoei-Sing and Sung-Yun visit and describe the
Pamirs and the Punjab.
540. Cosmas Indicopleustes visits India, and combats the
sphericity of the globe.
629-46. Hiouen-Tshang travels through Turkestan, Afghan-
istan, India, and the Pamirs.

186

ANNALS OF DISCOVERY. 187

671-95. I-tsing travels through and describes Java, Sumatra,
and India.
776. The Mappa Mundi of Beatus.
851-916. Sulaim^n and Abu Zaid visit China.
861. Naddod discovers Iceland.

884. Ibn Khordadbeh describes the trade routes between
Europe and Asia,
dr. 890. Wulfstan and Othere sail to the Baltic and the North

Cape.
dr. 900. Gunbiom discovers Greenland.
912-30. The geographer Mas'udi describes the lands of Is-
lam, from Spaint o Further India, in his " Mead-
ows of Gold."
921. Ahmed Ibn Fozlan describes the Russians,
969, Ibn Haukal composes his book on Ways.
985, Eric the Red colonises Greenland.
dr. 1000. Lyef, son of Eric the Red, discovers Newfoundland
(Helluland), Nova Scotia (Markland), and the
mainland of North America (Vinland).
Ill I. Earliest use of the water-compass by Chinese.
1154. Edrisi, geographer to King Roger of Sicily, produces
his geography.
1159-73. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela visited the Persian Gulf;

reported on India.
dr, 1 180. The compass first mentioned by Alexander Neckam.
1255. William Ruysbroek (Rubruquis), a Flemmg, visits
Karakorum.
1260-71. The brothers Nicolo and Maffeo Polo, father and
uncle of Marco Polo, make their first trading
venture through Central Asia.
1271-95. They make their second journey, accompanied by
Marco Polo ; and about 1275 arrived at the Court
of Kublai Khan in Shangfu, whence Marco Polo
was entrusted with several missions to Cochin
China, Khanbalig (Pekin), and the Indian Seas.
1280. Hereford map of Richard of Haldingham,
1284. The Ebstorf Mappa Mundi.
bef. 1290, The normal Portulano compiled in Barcelona.

1292, Friar John of Monte Corvino, travels in India, and
afterwards becomes Archbishop of Pekin,
1325-78. Ibn Batuta, an Arab of Tangier, after performing the
Mecca pilgrimage through N. Africa, visits Syria,
Quiloa (E. Africa), Ormuz, S. Russia, Bulgaria,
Khiva, Candahar, and attached himself to the

1 88 ANNALS OF DISCOVERY.

Court of Delhi, 1334-42, whence he was de-
spatched on an embassy to China. After his
return he visited Timbuctoo.

1316-30. Odorico di Pordenone, a Minorite friar, travelled
through India, by way of Persia, Bombay, and
Surat, to Malabar, the Coromandel coast, and
thence to China and Tibet.
1320. Flavio Gioja of Amalfi invents the compass box and
card.

1312-31. Abulfeda composes his geography.

1327-72, Sir John Mandeville said to have written his travels
in India.
1328. Friar Jordanus of Severac, Bishop of Quilon.

1328-49, John de MarignoUi, a Franciscan friar, made a mis^
sion to China, visited Quilon in 1347, and made a
pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas in India in

1349.
1339. Angelico Dulcert of Majorca draws a Portulano.
1351. The Medicean Portulano compiled.
1375. Cresquez, the Jew, of Majorca, improves Dulcert's

Portulano (Catalan map).
cir. 1400. Jehan Bethencourt re-discovers the Canaries.

1419. Prince Henry the Navigator establishes a geograph-

ical seminary at Sagres (died 1460).
1419-40. Nicolo Conti, a noble Venetian, travelled throughout
Southern India and along the Bombay coast.

1420. Zarco discovers Madeira.

1432. Gonsalo Cabral re-discovers the Azores.
1442. Nuno Tristao reaches Cape de Verde.
1442-44. Abd-ur-Razzak, during an embassy to India, visited

Calicut, Mangalore, and Vijayanagar.
1457. Fra Mauro's map.
1462. Pedro de Cintra reaches Sierra Leone.
1468-74. Athanasius Nikitin, a Russia, travelled from the

Volga, through Central Asia and Persia, to Gujerat,

Cambay, and Chaul, whence he proceeded inland

to Bidar and Golconda.
147 1. Fernando Poo discovers his island.
1471. Pedro d'Escobar crosses the line.
1474. Toscanelli's map (foundation of Behaim globe and

Columbus' guide).
1478. Second printed edition of Ptolemy, with twenty.

seven maps — practically the first atlas.
1484. Diego Cam discovers the Congo.

ANNALS OF DISCOVERY. 189

i486. Bartholomew Diaz rounds the Cape of Good Hope.
1487. Pedro de Covilham visits Ormuz, Goa, and Malabar,

and afterwards settled in Abyssinia.
1492. Martin Behaim makes his globe.
1492. 6th September. Columbus starts from the Canaries.

1492. 1 2th October. Columbus lands at San Salvador

(Watling Island).
1493' 3rd May. Bull of partition between Spain and
Portugal issued by Pope Alexander VI.

1493. September. Columbus on his second voyage dis-

covers Jamaica.
1494-99. Hieronimo di Santo Stefana, a Genoese, visited
Malabar and the Coromandel coast, Ceylon and
Pegu.
1497. Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape, sees Natal (Christ-
mas Day) and Mozambique, lands at Zanzibar,
and crosses to Calicut.

1497. John Cabot re-discovers Newfoundland.

1498. Columbus on his third voyage discovers Trinidad and

the Orinoco.

1499. Amerigo Vespucci discovers Venezuela.

1499. Pinzon discovers mouth of Amazon, and doubles

Cape St. Roque.

1500. Pedro Cabral discovers Brazil on his way to Calicut.
1500. First map of the Nesv World, by Juan de la Cosa.

1500. Corte Real lands at mouth of St. Lawrence, and re-

discovers Labrador.

1501. Vespucci coasts down S. America and proves that it

is a New World.
1501. Tristan d'Acunha discovers his island.

1501. Juan di Nova discovers the island of Ascension

1502. Bermudez discovers his islands.

1502-4. Columbus on his fourth voyage explores Honduras.
1503-8. Travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Further India.
1505. Mascarenjias discovers the islands of Bourbon and

Mauritius.
1507. Martin Waldseemiiller proposes to call the New

World America in his 0>sm agraphia.
1509. Malacca visited by Lopes di Sequira.

15 12. Molucca, or Spice Islands, visited by Francisco

Serrao.

1513. Strasburg Ptolemy contains twenty new maps by

Waldseemiiller, forming the first modem atlas.
1513. Ponce de Leon discovers Florida.

1 9© ANNALS OF DISCOVERY.

1 5 13. Vasco Nunez de Balbao crosses the Isthmus of Pan-
ama, and sees the Pacific.

1 517. Sebastian Cabot said to have discovered Hudson's
Bay.

1 5 17. Juan Diaz de Solis discovers the Rio de la Plata,

and is murdered on the island of Martin Garcia.

1 5 18. Grijalva discovers Mexico.

15 19. Fernando Cortez conquers Mexico.

15 19. Fernando Magellan starts on the circumnavigation
of the globe.

1 519. Guray explores north coast of Gulf of Mexico.

1520. Schoner's second globe.

1520. Magellan sees Monte Video, discovers Patagonia and

Tierra del Fuego, and traverses the Pacific.
1520-26. Alvarez explores the Soudan.

1521. Magellan discovers the Ladrones (Marianas), and is

killed on the Philippines.

1522. Magellan's ship Victoria, under Sebastian del Cano,

reaches Spain, having circumnavigated the globe
in three years.

1524. Verazzano, on behalf of the French King, coasts
from Cape Fear to New Hampshire.

1527. Saavedra sails from west coast of Mexico to the Mo-
luccas.

1529. Line of demarcation between Spanish and Portu-
guese fixed at 17° east of Moluccas.

1 53 1. Francisco Pizarro conquers Peru.

1532. Cortez visits California.

1534. Jacques Cartier explores the gulf and river of St.

Lawrence.

1535. Diego d'Almagro conquers Chili.

1536. Gonsalo Pizarro passes the Andes.

1537-58. Ferdinand Mendez Pinto travels to Abyssinia, India,
the Malay Archipelago, China, and Japan.

1538. Gerhardt Mercator begins his career as geographer.

(Globe, 1541 ; projection, 1539 ; died 1594 ; atlas,

1595.)

1539. Francesco de Ulloa explores the Gulf of California.

1 541. Orellana sails down the Amazon.

1542. Ruy Lopez de Villalobos discovers New Philippines,

Garden Islands, and Pelew Islands, and takes pos-
session of the Philippines for Spain.

1542. Cabrillo advances as far as Cape Mendocino.

1542. Japan first visited by Antonio de Mota.

ANNALS OF DISCOVERY. 191

1542. Gaetano sees the Sandwich Islands.

1543. Ortez de Retis discovers New Guinea.

1544. Sebastian Munster's Cosmographia.

1549. Bareto and Homera explore the lower Zambesi.

1553. Sir Hugh Willoughby attempts the North-East Pass-

age past North Cape, and sights Novaya Zemlya.

1554. Richard Chancellor, Willoughby's pilot, reaches

Archangel, and travels overland to Moscow.
1556-72. Antonio Laperis' atlas published at Rome.

1558. Anthony Jenkinson travels from Moscow to Bok-
hara.

1567. Alvaro Mendaiia discovers Solomon Islands.

1572. Juan Fernandez discovers his island, and St. Felix

and St. Ambrose Islands.

1573. Abraham Ortelius' Teatrum Orbis Terrarum.
1576. Martin Frobisher discovers his bay.

1577-79. Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe, and ex-
plores the west coast of North America.

1579. Yermak Timovief seizes Sibir, on the Irtish.

1580. Dutch settle in Guiana.

1586. John Davis sails through his strait, and reaches lat.

72° N.
1590. Battel visits the lower Congo.
1592. The Molyneux globe.
1592. Juan de Fuca imagines he has discovered an im.

mense sea in the north-west of North America.
1596. William Barentz discovers Spitzbergen, and reaches

lat. 80° N.
1596. Payz traverses the Horn of Africa, and visits the

. source of the Blue Nile.
1598, Mendana discovers Marquesas Islands.

1598. Hakluyt publishes his Principal Navigations.

1599, Houtman reaches Achin, in Sumatra.

1603. Stephen Bennett re-discovers Cherry Island, 74.13*
N.

1605. Louis Vaes de Torres discovers his strait.

1606. Quiros discovers Tahiti and north-east coast of Aus-

tralia.

1608. Champlain discovers Lake Ontario.

1609. Henry Hudson discovers his river.

1610. Hudson passes through his strait into his bay.

1611. Jan Mayen discovers his island.

161 5. Lemaire rounds Cape Horn (Hoom), and sees New
Britain.

192 ANNALS OF DISCOVERY.

1616. Dirk Hartog coasts West Australia to 27° S.

1616. Baffin discovers his bay.

1618. George Thompson, a Barbary merchant, sails up the

Gambia.
i6ig. Edel and Houtman coast Western Australia to 32^°

S. (Edel's Land).

1622. Dutch ship Leeuwin reaches south-west cape of

Australia.

1623. Lobo explores Abyssinia.

1627. Peter Nuyts discovers his archipelago.

1630. First meridian of longitude fixed at Ferro, in the

Canary Islands.

163 1. Fox explores Hudson's Bay.

1638. W. J. Blaeu's Atlas.

1639. Kupiloff crosses Siberia to the east coast.

1642. Abel Jansen Tasman discovers Van Diemen's Land
(Tasmania) and Staaten Land (New Zealand).

1642. Wasilei Pojarkof traces the course of the Amur.

1643. Hendrik Brouwer identifies New Zealand.

1643. Tasman discovers Fiji.

1644. Michael Staduchin reaches the Kolima.

1645. Nicholas Sanson's atlas.

1645. Italian Capuchin Mission explores the lower Congo.
1648. The Cossack Dishinef sails between Asia and Amer-
ica.
1650. Staduchin reaches the Anadir, and meets Dishinef.
1682. La Salle descends the Mississippi.
1696. Russians reach Kamtschatka.

1699. Dampier discovers his strait.

1700. Delisle's maps.

1 701. Sinpopoff describes the land of the Tschutkis.
1718. Jesuit map of China and East Asia published by the

Emperor Kang-hi.
1721. Hans Egede resettles Greenland.
1731. Hadley invented the sextant.
1731. Krupishef sails round Kamtschatka.
1 73 1. Paulutski travels round the north-east corner of Si-
beria.
1735-37. Maupertuis measures an arc of the meridian.
1739-44. Lord George Anson circumnavigates the globe.

1740. Varenne de la Veranderye discovers the Rocky

Mountains.

1 741. Behring discovers his strait.

1742. Chelyuskin discovers his cape.

ANNALS OF DISCOVERY.

X93

1743-44. La Condamine explores the Amazon.
1745-61. Bourguignon d'Anville produces his maps.
1761-67. Carsten Niebuhr surveys Arabia.

1764. John Byron surveys the Falkland Islands.

1767. First appearance of the Nautical Almanac.

1765. Harrison perfects the chronometer.

1768. Carteret discovers Pitcairn Island, and sails through

St. George's Channel, between New Britain and

New Ireland.
1768-71. Cook's first voyage ; discovers New Zealand and

east coast of Australia ; passes through Torres

Strait.
1769-71. Hearne traces river Coppermine.
1769-71. James Bruce re-discovers the source of the Blue Nile

in Abyssinia.
1770. Liakhoff discovers the New Siberian Islands.
1771-72. Pallas surveys West and South Siberia.
1776-79. Cook's third voyage ; surveys North-West Passage ;

discovers Ovvhyhee (Hawaii), where he was killed.
1785-88. La Perouse survey north-east coast of Asia and

Japan, discovers Saghalien, and completes delim-
itation of the ocean.
1785-94. Billings surveys East Siberia.
1787-88. Lesseps surveys Kamtschatka and crosses the Old

World from east to west.
1788. The African Association founded.
1789-93. Mackenzie discovers his river, and first crosses North

America.

1792. Vancouver explores his island.

1793. Browne reaches Darfur, and reports the existence of

the White Nile.
1796. Mungo Park reaches the Niger.

1796. Lacerda explores Mozambique.

1797. Bass discovers his strait.

1799-1804. Alexander von Humboldt explores South America.
1804-4. Lewis and Clarke explore the basin of the Missouri.
1800-4. Flinders coasts south coast of Australia.
1805-7. Pike explores the country between the sources of the
Mississippi and the Red River.
1810-29. Malte-Brun publishes his G^os;raphie Univer&elle.
1814. Evans discovers Lachlan and Macquarie rivers.

1816. Captain Smith discovers South Shetland Isles.
1817-20. Spix and Martins explore Brazil.

1817. First edition of Stieler's atlas.

194 ANNALS OF DISCOVERS.

1817-22. Captain King maps the coast-line of Australia.
1819-22. Franklin, Back, and Richardson attempt the North-

West Passage by land. '
1 8 19. Parry discovers Lancaster Strait and reaches 114*

W.
1820-23. Wrangel discovers his land.

1821. Bellinghausen discovers Peter Island, the most

southerly land then known.

1822. Denham and Clapperton discover Lake Tchad, and

visit Sokoto.
1822-23. Scoresby explores the coast of East Greenland.

1823. Weddell reaches 74.15° S.

1826. Major Laing is murdered at Timbuctoo.

1827. Parry reaches 82,45" N.
1827. Ren6 Caillie visits Timbuctoo.

1828-31. Captain Sturt traces the Darling and the Murray.
1829-33. Ross attempts the North-West Passage; discovers
Boothia Felix.

1830. Royal Geographical Society founded, and next year

united with the African Association.
1831-35. Schomburgk explores Guiana.

1831. Captain Biscoe discovers Enderby Land.
1833. Back discovers Great Fish River.

1835-49. Junghuhn explores Java.

1837. T. Simpson coasts along the north mainlaind of
North America 1277 miles.
1838-40. Wood explores the sources of the Oxus.
1838-40. Dumont d'Urville discovers Louis-Philippe Land
and Ad^lie Land.
1839. Balleny discovers his island.

1839. Count Strzelecki discovers Gipps' Land.

1840. Captain Sturt travels in Central Australia.
1840-42. James Ross reaches 78.10° S. ; discovers Victoria

Land, and the volcanoes Erebus and Terror.

1841. Eyre traverses south of Western Australia.
1842-62. E. F. Jomard's Monuments de la G^ographie pub^

lished.
1843-47. Count Castelnau traces the source of the Paraguay.

1844. Leichhardt explores Southern Australia.

1845. Hue explores Tibet.

1845. Petermann's Mittheilungen first published.
1845-47. Franklin's last voyage.

1846. First edition of K. v. Spruner's Historische Hand-

atlas.

ANNALS OF DISCOVERY. 195

1847. J. Rae connects Hudson's Bay with east coast of

Boothia.

1848. Leichhardt attempts to traverse Australia, and dis-

appears.
1849-56. Livingstone traces the Zambesi and crosses South

Africa.
1850-54. M'Clure succeeds in the North-West passage.
1850-55. Barth explores the Soudan.

1853. Dr. Kane explores Smith's Sound.

1854. Rae hears news of the Franklin expedition from the

Eskimo.

1854-65. Faidherbe explores Senegambia.

1856-57. The brothers Schlagintweit cross the Himalayas,
Tibet, and Kuen Lun.

1856-59. Du Chaillu travels in Central Africa.

1857-59. M'Clintock discovers remains of the Franklin expe-
dition, and exf. lores King William Land.

• 1858. Burton and Speke discover Lake Tanganyika, and
Speke sees Lake Victoria Nyanza.

1858-64. Livingstone traces Lake Nyassa.
1859. Valikhanoff reaches Kashgar.
i860. Burke travels from Victoria to Carpentaria.
i860. Grant and Speke, returning from Lake Victoria
Nyanza, meet Baker coming up the Nile.

1861-62. M'Douall Stuart traverses Australia from south to
north.

1863. W. G. Palgrave explores Central and Eastern Arabia.

1864. Baker discovers Lake Albert Nyanza.

1868. Nordenskiold reaches his highest point in Green-
land, 81.42°.
1868-71. Ney Elias traverses Mid-China.
1868-74. John Forrest penetrates from Western to Central

Australia.
1869-71. Schweinfurth explores the Southern Soudan.
1869-74. Nachtigall explores east of Tchad.

1870. Fedchenko discovers Transalai, north of Pamir.

1770. Douglas Forsyth reaches Yarkand.
1871-88. The four explorations of Western China by Prjevalsky.
1872-73. Payer and Weiprecht discover Franz Josef Land.
1872-76. H. M. S. Challenget examines the bed of the ocean.
1872-76. Ernest Giles traverses North-West Australia.

1873. Colonel Warburion traverses Australia from east to
west.

1873. Livingstone discovers Lake Moero.

tgS ANNALS OF DISCOVERY.

1874-75. Lieut. Cameron cro=;ses equatorial Africa.
1875-94. ifilis^e Reclus publishes his Giographie UniverselU.
1876. Albert Markham reaches 83.20° N. on the Nares

expedition.
1876-77. Stanley traces the course of the Congo.
1878-82. The Pundit Krishna traces the course of the Yang-

tse, Pekong, and Brahmaputra.
1878-79. Nordenskiold solves the North-East Passage along

the north coast of Siberia.
1878-84. Joseph Thomson explores East-Central Africa.
1878-85. Serpa Pinto twice crosses Africa.
1879-82. The Jeannette passes through Behring Strait to the

mouth of the Lena.
1880. Leigh Smith surveys south coast of Franz Josef Land.
1880-82. Bonvalot traverses the Pamirs.
1881-87. Wissmann twice crosses Africa, and discovers the left

affluents of the Congo.
1883. Lockwood, on the Greely Mission, reaches 83.23°

N., north cape of Greenland.

1886. Francis Gamier explores the coast of the Mekong.

1887. Younghusband travels from Pekin to Kashmir,
1887-89. Stanley conducts the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition

across Africa, and discovers the Pigmies, and the
Mountains of the Moon.

1888. F. Nansen crosses Greenland from east to west.
1888-89. Captain Binger traces the bend of the Niger.

1889. The brothers Grjmailo explore Chinese Turkestan.
1889-90. Bonvalot and Prince Henri d'Orleans traverse Tibet.

1890. Selous and Jameson explore Mashonaland.
1892. Peary proves Greenland an island.

1893-97. Dr. Sven Hedin explores Chinese Turkestan, Tibet,

and Mongolia.
1894-95. C. E. Borchgrevink visits Antarctica.

1896. Captain Bottego explores Somaliland.

1899. Abruzzi reaches farthest north (86° 33').

1905. Roald Amundsen completes the Northwest Passage

by boat.

1906. Amundsen locates the magnetic North Pole.
1908-12. V. Stefanssen proves Arctic maps wrong ; discovers

race of Eskimos hitherto unknown.
1909. Peary discovers the North Pole.

191 1. Amundsen discovers the South Pole.

191 2. Scott reaches the South Pole and perishes on his

return journey.

191 3. Dr. Hudson Stuck reaches the summit of Mt.

McKinley.

ANNALS OF DISCOVERY. 1 97

EUROPE.

Great Britain. — b.c. 450. Himilco. Circa 333. Py-
theas. 60-54. Caesar.

France. — b.c. circa 600. Marseilles founded. 57. Caesar.
Russia. — A.D. 1554. Richard Chancellor.
Baltic. — A.D. 890. Wulfstan and Othere.
Iceland. — a.d. 861. Naddod.

ASIA.

India. — b.c. 332. Alexander. 330. Nearckus. Circa
300. Megasthenes. A.D. 400-14. Fa-hien. 518-21. Hoei-
Sing and Sung-Yun. 540. Cosmas Indicopleustes. 629-46.
Hiouen-Tshang. 671-95. I-tsing. 1159-73. Benjamin of
Tudela. 1304-78. Ibn Batuta. 1327-72. Mandeville. 1328.
Jordanus of Severac. 1328-49. John de Marignolli. 1419-40.
Nicolo Conti. 1442-44. Abd-ur-Razzak. 1468-74. Athan-
asius Nikitin. 1487. Pedro de Covilham. 1494-99. Hiero-
nimo di Santo Stefano. 1503-8. Ludovico di Varthema.

Farther India. — a.d. 1503. Ludovico di Varthema.
1509. Lopes di Sequira. 1886. Francis Gamier.

China. — a.d. 851-916. Sulaiman and Abu Zaid. 1292.
John of Monte Corvino. 1316-30. Odorico di Pordenone.
1328-49. John de Marignolli. 1537-58. Ferdinand Mendez
Pinto. 1868-71. NeyEIias. 1871-88. Prjevalsky. 1878-82.
Pundit Krishna. 1889. Grjmailo brothers. 1896. Prince
Henri d'Orleans.

Japan. — a.d. 1542. Antonio de Mota. 1785-88. La
Perouse.

Arabia.— a.d. 1671-67. Carsten Niebuhr. 1863. Pal-
grave.

Persia. — b.c. 332. Alexander, a.d. 1468-74. Athanasius
Nikitin.

Mongolia. — a.d. 1255. Ruysbroek (Rubruquis). 1260-
71. Nicolo and Maffeo Polo. 1271. Marco Polo. 1893-97.
Dr. Sven Hedin.

Tibet.— a.d. 1845. Hue. 1856-7. Schlagintweit. 1878.
Pundit Krishna. 1887, Younghusband. 1889-90. Bonvalot
and Prince Henri d'Orleans. 1893-97. Dr. Sven Hedin.

Central Asia. — a.d. 1558. Anthony Jenkinson. 1642.
Wasilei Pojarkof. 1838-40. Wood. 1859. Valikhanoff. 1870.
Douglas Forsyth. 1870. Fedchenko. 1880. Bonvalot. 1893,
Littledale.

198 ANNALS OF DISCOVERY.

Siberia. — a.d. 1579. Timovief. 1639. Kupiloff. 1644-

50. Staduchin. 1648. Dshineif. 1701. Sinpopoff. 1731.

Paulutski. 1742. Chelyuskin. 1771-72. Pallas. 1785-94.
Billings.

Kamtschatka. — a.d. 1696. Russians. 1731. Krupishef.
1787-88. Lesseps.

AFRICA.

A.D. circa 450. Hanno. 1420. Zarco. 1462. Pedro de
Cintra. 1484. Diego Cam. i486. Bartholomew Diaz. 1497.
Vasco da Gama. 1520. Alvarez. 1549. Bareto and Homera.
1590. Battel. 1596. Payz. 1618. Thompson. 1623. Lobo.
1645. Italian Capuchins. 1769-71. Bruce. 1793. Browne.
1796. Mungo Park. 1796. Lacerda. 1822. Denham and
Clapperton. 1826. Laing. 1827. Rene Caillie. 1849-73.
Livingstone. 1850-55. Barth. 1854-65. Faidherbe. 1856-
59. Du Chaillu. 1858. Burton and Speke. i860. Grant and
Spake. 1864. Baker. 1869-71. Schweinfurth. 1869-74.
Nachtigall. 1874-75. Cameron. 1876-89. Stanley. 1878-
84. Thomson. 1878-85. Serpa Pinto. 1881-87. Wissmann.
1888-89. Binger. 1890. Selous and Jameson. 1891-92.
Monteil. 1896. Bottego. 1896. Donaldson Smith. 1897.
Foa.

NORTH AMERICA.

A.D. 499. Hoei-Sin. Circa 1000. Lyef. 1497, 151 7- John
and Sebastian Cabot. 1500. Corte Real. 15 13. Ponce de
Leon. 1524. Verazzano. 1532. Cortez. 1534. Cartier.
1539. Ulloa. 1542. Cabrillo. 1576. Frobisher. 1586.
Davis. 1592. Juan de Fuca. 1608. Champlain. 1609, 10.
Hudson. 1631. Fox. 1682. La Salle. 1740. Varenne de la
Veranderye. 1741. Behring. 1789-93. Mackenzie. 1792.
Vancouver. 1800-4. Lewis and Clarke. 1 805-7. Pike
1837. Simpson.

SOUTH AMERICA.

A.D. 1498. Columbus. 1499-1501. Amerigo Vespucci.
1499. Pinzon. 1500. Pedro Cabral. 1517. Juan Diaz de
Solis. 1519-20. Magellan. 1531. Francisco Pizarro. 1535.
D'Almagro. 1536. Gonsalo Pizarro. 1541. Orellana. 1572.
Juan Fernandez. 1580. Dutch in Guiana. 1615. Lemaire.
1743-44. La Condamine. 1764. John Byron. 1 799-1 804.
Humboldt. 1817-20. Spix and Martius. 1831-35. Schom-
buigk. 1843-47. Castelasiu*

ANNALS OF DISCOVERY. 199

CENTRAL AMERICA.

A.D. 1502. Columbus. 1 5 13. Vasco Nunez de Balbao.
1518. Grijalva. 1519. Fernando Cortez. 1519. Guray.

AUSTRALIA.

A.D. 1605. Torres. 1606. Quiros. 1616. Hartog. 1619.
Edel and Houtman, 1622. The Leeuwin. 1627. Nuyts.
1699. Dampier. 1700. Cook. 1797. Bass. 1 801-4. Flin-
ders. 1814. Evans. 1817-22. King. 1828-40. Sturt. 1839.
Strzelecki. 1841. Eyre. 1844-48. Leichhardt. i860. Burke.
1861-62. MacDouall Stuart. 1868-74. Forrest. 1872-76.
Giles. 1873. Warburton, 1897. Carnegie.

NEW ZEALAND.
A.D. 1642. Tasman. 1643. Brouwer. 1768-79. Cook.

POLYNESIA.

A.D. 1512. Francisco Serrao. 1520, 21. Magellan. 1527.
Saavedra. 1542. Gaetano. 1542. Ruy Lopez de Villalobos.
1543, Ortez de Retis. 1567-98. Alvaro Mendaila. 1599.
Houtman. 1643. Tasman. 1768. Carteret. 1776-79. Cook.
£835-49. Junghuhn. 1890. Macgregor.

NORTH POLE.

A.D. circa 900. Gunbiom. 985. Eric the Red. 1553.
Willoughby. 1596. Barentz. 1603. Bennett. 161 1. Jan
Mayen. 1616. Baffin. 1721. Egede. 1769-71. Hearne.
1819-22. Franklin, Back, and Richardson. 1819-27. Parry.
1820-23. Wrangel. 1922-23. Scoresby. 1829-33. Ross.
1833. Back. 1845-47. Franklin. 1847-54. Rae. 1850-54.
M'Clure. 1853. Kane. 1S57-59. M'Clintock. 1868-79.
Nordenskiold. 1872-73. Payer and Weiprecht. 1876. Mark-
ham. 1879-82. The Jeannette. 1880. Leigh Smith. 1883.
Lockwood. 1888-97. Nansen. 1892 ; 1 898-1902 ; 1907-9.
Peary. 1894-96. Jackson-Harmsworth expedition. 1899-
1900. Abruzzi. 1901-02. Baldwin-Zeigler expedition.

SOUTH POLE.

A.D. 1816. Capt. Smith. 1821. Bellinghausen. 1823.
Weddell. 1831. Biscoe. 1838-40. Dumont d'Urville. 1839.
3alleny, 1840-42. James Ross, j 894-1900, BorchgrcviRk»

200 ANNALS OF DISCOVERY.

1901-4. Otto Nordenskiold. 1901-4 ; 1910-12. Scott.
1907-9. Shackleton. 1911-12. Amundsen.

CIRCUMNAVIGATORS.

A.D. 1522. Sebastian del Cano. 1577-79. Drake. 1739-44.
Lord George Anson.

ATLANTIC OCEAN.

A.D. 1400. Jehan Bethencours. 1432. Cabral. 1.442. Nuno
Tristao. 147 1. Pedro d'Escobar. 1471. Fernando Po. 1492-
93. Columbus. 1501. Juan di Nova. 1501. Tristan d'Acun-
ha. 1502. Bermudez.

INDIAN OCEAN.
A.D. 1505. Mascarenhas.

PROGRESS OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.

B.C. 570. Anaximander of Miletus. 501. Hecataeus of
Miletus. 446. Herodotus. Circa 200. Eratosthenes, icx).
Marinus of Tyre. 20. Strabo. Before 12. Agrippa. A.D.
150. Ptolemy, 230. Peutinger Table. 776. Beatus. 884.
Ibn Khordadbeh. 912-30, Mas'udi, 921. Ahmed Ibn Foz-
lan. 969, Ibn Haukal. iiii. Water-compass, 1154. Ed-
risi. Circa 1180. Alexander Neckam. 1280. Hereford
map. 1284. Ebstorf map, 1290, The normal Portulano,
1320. Flavio Gioja. 1339. Dulcert. 1351. Medicean Portu-
lano. 1375. Cresquez. 1419. Prince Henry the Navigator.
1457. Fra Mauro. 1474. Toscanelli. 1478. 2nd ed. Ptolemy.
1492. Behaim, 1500, Juan de la Cosa, 1507-13, Waldsee-
miiller. 1520. Schoner. 1538. Mercator. 1544. Munster.
1556-72. Laperis, 1573. Ortelius. 1592. Molyneux globe.
1598, Hakluyt. 1630, Ferro meridian fixed, 1638. Blaeu.
1645. Sanson. 1700. Delisle. 1718. Jesuit map of China.
1731. Hadley. 1735-37. Maupertuis. 1745-61, Bourguignon
d'Anville. 1765. Harrison. 1767. Nautical Almanac. 1788.
African Association. 1810-29. Malte-Brun, 18 17, Stieler.
1830. Royal Geographical Society founded. 1842, Jomard,
1845. Petermann. 1846. Spruner. 1875-94. Elisee Reclus.
1872-76. The Challenger,,

INDEX.

Abn zi, Duke of, 185, iqq.

Ab s.si:iia, 'i,^, 156, 164.

Ac-'die. 134.

Africa, 31; circumnavigation of,
85; exploration of, 153.

Alaska, 126, 137.

Albert Nyanza, Lake, 159.

Albuquerque, Af?onso de, 94,
no.

Aldrich, Pelham, Arctic ex-
plorer, 180.

Alexander the Great, 24. 28, 37.

Alexander VI., Pope, bull on
discoveries, 96, 132.

Alexandria, 26, 37; commercial
importance of, 79, 82.

Almegro, Diego de, 130, 131.

Amazon, discovered, 108 ; ex-
plored, 131.

America, discovery of, 105 ; ori-
gin of name, log ; partition of,
128.

Amerigo Vespucci, 108, 118.

Amundsen, Roald, Antarctic ex-
plorer, 185.

Anaximander, 21.

Andree, S. A., 185.

Anthropophagi, 47.

Antilla, Island of, 102.

Antipodes, 47.

Arabs, 54; commerce of, 82.

Aristotle, 26.

Armenia conquered by Mon-
gols, 63.

Ascension discovered, 94.

Asia, 28, 45, 78.

Asia Minor, 18, 33, 36, 40.

Assyrians, 34, 35.

Astrolabe perfected by Henry
the Navigator, 85.

Atahualpa, Inca, 131.

Atlantis, Plato's, 98.

Australia, 123; exploration of,

139; D'Anville's map of, 144;

first English settlement, 149.

Babylonians, 19, 22, 23, 35.

Back, C. J., Arctic explorer, 173.

Balifin, William, discoveries of,
122, 169, 180.

Baker, Sir Samuel, explorations
in Africa, 159, 160.

Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, dis-
covers Pacific Ocean, 128.

Bangweolo, Lake, discovered,
160.

Barentz, William, 122, 169.

Barrett, William, list of staples
imported from the Orient, 80.

Barth, African explorer. 158.

Bass, Dr., explorations in Aus-
tralia, 150.

Batavia, Java, founded. 123.

Beechey, Captain, Arctic ex-
plorer, 172.

Behaim's. Martin, globe, 89, 104.

Belcher, Sir Edward, Arctic ex-
plorer, 177.

Belgium, 26.

Bering Vitus, explorations of,
118, 126, 137.

Bible, influence of, 44.

Biorn discovc-s Vinland, 58.

Black Sea, 23.

Borchgrevink, C. E., Antarctic
explorer, 184.

Borneo, Portuguese in, 114.

Botany Bay, 147, 150.

201

202

INDEX.

Brazil, discoveries in, io8; Por-
tuguese in, 93, 132.

Britain, 25, 28, 42, 53, 57.

Bruce, James, African explorer,
154, 156.

Burgundy, kingdom of, 53.

Burke, Australian explorer, 152.

Burton, Sir Richard, explora-
tions in Africa, 159.

Byzantium, 19. See Constanti-
nople.

Cabot, John, 120, 133.

Cabot, Sebastian, 120, 133.

Cabral, Pedro Alvarez, Portu-
guese navigator, 93.

Cadmosto, Alvez, Venetian
merchant, 88.

Caesar, 40.

Caillie, Rene, explorations in
Africa, 158.

California, discovered by Cortes,
130; becomes a part of United
States, 137.

Calcutta, 92.

Calicut. See Calcutta.

Cam, Diego, Portuguese navi-
gator, 88.

Cambyses, 36.

Canada, exploration of, 120, 133.

Canary Islands, 31.

Cano, Juan Sebastian del. See
Del Cano.

Cape Bojador, 86.

Cape Branco discovered, 86.

Cape Colony, 123.

Cape of Good Hope, 90, 91.

Cape Verde discovered, 86.

Cape Verde Islands discovered,
88.

Caravan routes, 77, 78.

Carpentaria, Gulf of, 140, 142.

Carthaginians, 28, 39.

Carteret, Sir George, 134.

Cartier, Jacques, explores St.
Lawrence, 120, 133.

Cathay, 64. See China.

Ceylon, 28, 55, 94.

Chad, Lake, 157, 158.

Chaldseans, 35.

Champlain, Samuel de, discov-
eries of, 120; settles Quebec,
134-

Chancellor, Richard, reaches
Archangel, uo, 124, 169.

Chili conquered by Almegro, 131.

China, 28, 55, 63, 65, 71, 73, 96,
125.

Chinchiz Khan, founder of Mon-
gol Empire, 63.

" Christian Topography " of
Cosmas, 47.

Chronometers, perfection of, 146.

Lipangu. See Japan.

Clapperton, Lieut., explorations
in Africa, 157.

" Climates " of Ptolemy, 32.

Collinson, Capt. R., Arctic ex-
plorer, 176.

Columbia River, explored, 138.

Columbus, Christopher, voyages
and discoveries of, 99, 118; in
Portugal, 90; and Cabral, 93.

Commerce of Middle Ages, 80;
value of roads to, 64.

Compass, invention of, 59, 82;
variability of, discovered by
Columbus, 105.

Congo Free State, 162.

Congo River, discovered, 89; ex-
ploration of, IS4, 157, 160.

Constantinople, 58; commercial
importance of, 79. See Byzan-
tium.

Cook, James, voyages of, 118,
145, 149-

Coppermine River, 137, 172.

Corsica, 39.

Cortes, Hernando, 13; conquest
of Mexico, 128.

Cosmas Indicopleustes, 47.

Covilham, Pedro di, Portuguese
explorer, 89, 91.

Cresquez, 60.

Crozier, Arctic explorer, 174.

Crvisades, 55, 63.

Cuba, Columbus in, 106.

Cuzco, Inca capital of Peru, 131,

Cynocephali, 49.

Cyprus, 18.

Cyrus the Great, 36.

Cyrus the younger, 36.

Da Gama, Vasco, voyages of,

91, 94-
Danube, 23.
D'Anville's map of Australigi,

HO, 144.

INDEX.

203

Davis, John, voyages of, 121,
169.

Delaware River, settlements on,
134.

Del Cano, Juan Sebastian; cir-
cumnavigator, 114, 130; coat of
arms granted to, 116.

De Leon, Ponce, discovers
Florida, 130.

Denbam, Major, explorations in
Africa, 157.

De Nuyts, explores Australia,

D'Escobar, Pedro, Portuguese

navigator, 88.
Diaz, Bartholomew, Portuguese

navigator, 89.
Discovery, motives for, 14.
Dulcert, Angelico, 60.
Duquesne, Fort, 136.
D'Urville, Dumont, Antarctic

explorer, 173.
Dutch. See Holland.

Earth, sphericity of, 26; denied
by Cosmas, 47.

East India Company, 123.

Edels, Jan, explores Australia,
142.

Edrisi, 56.

Egypt, 18, 23, 33, 36, 159-

Elbe, the river, 26.

Emmanuel, King of Portugal,
90.

Emin Pasha, 165.

England, discoveries and ex-
plorations in America, 119,
133; East Indian policy, 123.

Eratosthenes, 26, 37, 85.

Erythrean Sea. See Red Sea.

Estotiland, 58.

Etrurians, 38.

Euphrates, 23, 33.

Euxine. See Black Sea.

Evans, explorations in Austra-
lia, 152.

Ferdinand and Isabella assist
Columbus, 103.

Flinders, Australian explorer,
150.

Forrest, John, Austr?ilmn ex-
plorer, 153,

Fortunatce Insulce. See Canary
Islands.

France, 53; discoveries and ex-
plorations in America, 119, 133.

Franklin, Sir John, Arctic ex-
plorations, 171, 172, 174.

Frobisher, Martin, voyages of,
120, 169.

Gambia, River, discovered, 88.

Ganges, 33.

Gengis Khan. See Chinchiz

Khan.
Genoa as a commercial center,

Germany, 28, 42, 53.

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, explora-
tions of, 121.

Giles, Ernest, Australian ex-
plorer, 152.

Gioja, Flavio, improves com-
pass, 59.

Gnomon, invention of, 22.

Goa captured by Portuguese, 94,

Gog and Magog, 46, 64.

Gomez, Diogo, Portuguese nav-
igator, 88.

Gordon, General, 160, 165.

Gorillas, 25.

Grant, African explorer, 154, 159,

Greece, 17, 18. 19, 36.

Greely, Lieut. A. W., Arctic ex-
plorations, 182.

Greenland, 58, 120, 170.

Grinnell, Arctic explorer, 180.

Gryphons, 49.

Gulliver's Travels, 144.

Hadley, inventor of sextant, 145.

Hakluyt's " English Voyages
and Navigations," 80.

Hall, Arctic explorer, 180.

Hanno, 25.

Harrison, John, chronometer
maker, 146.

Hartog, Dirk, explores Austra-
lia, 142.

Hawaii, Cook murdered at, 149.

Hayes, Arctic explorer, 180.

Hayti, Columbus in, 106.

Hearne, explorer, 137.

Hebrews, 34.

Hecat?«s, 2J1.

204

INDEX

Henry the Navigator, Prince,
62, y2, 84.

Hereford, map, 49.

Herodotus, 18, 22, 21, 38, 155.

Hesiod, 18.

Hippalus, 25.

Hittites, 36.

Hobson, Arctic explorer, 178.

Holland, 26; discoveries in
America, 119; commercial su-
premacy of, 122; settlement of
New Netherlands, 134; ex-
ploration of Australia, 139.

Homer, 18.

Honduras, explored by Cortes,
129.

Houtman, Cornelius, Dutch
navigator, 122.

Hudson Bay Company, 136.

Hudson Bay discovered, 121.

Hudson, Henry, voyages of, 121.

Hudson River discovered, i.^i;
settlements on, 134.

Hudson Strait discovered, 121.

Huns, 53.

Hyperboreans, 18.

Ibn Batuta, travels of, 71.

Iceland, 57.

lerne. See Ireland.

India, 24, 36, 65, J2, 80; Portu-
guese in, 92, 94; routes to, 78,
85.

Indo-China, 28.

Indus, 2z.

Inglefield, Arctic explorer, 180.

Ireland, or lerne, 28, 57.

Islam, 54.

Ismail Pasha, Khedive of
Egypt, 159.

Italy, 19, 2j„ 38.

Ivan, Czar of Russia, 120, 124.

Jackson, F., Arctic explorer, 183.
Jacme, Mestre, navigator and

map-maker, 85.
Japan, 69, 73, 96, 99, 102, 118.
Java, 55.
Jenkinson, Anthony, English

traveller, 123, 124.
Jerusalem as world's centre, 44.
Joao, King of Portugal, 84, 89.

90, 103.

John of Montecorvino, 65.
John of Flanocarpini, 64.
Juan dc Fuca, 137.

Kalliherey, 13.
Kamtschatka explored, 149.
Kane, Arctic explorer, 180.
Karakorum, capital of Mongol

Empire, 64.
Khanbalig (Pekin), 65.
King, Capt. P. P., explorations

in Australia, 150.
Kublai Khan, 65.

Labrador, 58, 120.

Ladrones, the, discovered by
Magellan, 114.

Laing, Major, explorations in
Africa, 158.

La Perouse, Frangois de, ex-
plorations of, 149.

La Plata, River, discovered, 109;
explored, 112.

La Salle, Robert de, exploration
of Mississippi, 135.

Latins, 38.

Leichardt, Australian explorer,
152.

Lesseps, M., explores Kamts-
chatka, 149.

Lewis and Clarke, explorations
of, iZT.

Livingstone, Dr. David, explo-
rations in Africa, 154. 158, 160,
184.

Lockwood, Lieut, Arctic ex-
plorer, 182.

London Company, 133, 134.

Louisiana, 135.

Louisiana purchase, 136, 139.

Lydia, 36.

M'Clintock, Arctic explorer, 178.

M'Clure, Arctic explorer, 176.

Mackenzie River, 137, 172.

Mackenzie, Sir A., 137.

Madagascar, discovered. So, 94.

Madeira, discovered, 86.

Magelhaens, Fernao. See Ma-
gellan.

Magellan, voyages of, 06, iiOi
118.

Magog, 46, 64.

INDEX.

205

Malacca seizad by Portuguese,

94"
Maldives discovered, 94.
Mandeville, See Maundeville,

Sir John.
Mappi mundi of Fra Mauro, 70,

88.
Maps invented by Anaximander,

21.
Marco Polo. See Polo, Marco.
Markets, first, 76.
Marquette, explorations of, 135.
Marseilles, 19.

Maundeville, Sir John, 47, 65.
Mauro, Fra, mappi mundi of, 70,

88.
Medes, 35.

Mediterranean Sea, 23.
Megasthenes, 25, 38.
Mexico, 58; conquered by

Cortes, 128; resources of, 132.
Middle Ages, the, commerce of,

80; geography in, 43; travel

in, 63.
Mississippi River, 135.
Moero, Lake, discovered, 160.
Mohammedans, 54.
Moluccas. See Spice Islands.
Mongol Empire, 63.
Monsters, geographical, 46.
Montezuma, 128.

Nachtigall, African explorer,
158.

Nansen, Dr. Fridjof, Arctic ex-
plorer, 182.

Nares, Sir George, Arctic ex-
plorer, 180.

Nearchus, 25.

Necho, 18.

Nestorian Church, spread of, 72.

Netherlands. See Holland.

New Amsterdam, 134. See New
York.

Newfoundland, 58; rediscovered
by Cabot, 120; settlement of,
121; fisheries of, 133.

New Guinea discovered, T41.

New Hebrides discovered, 141.

New Netherlands, 134.

New Orleans founded, 135.

New South Wales, 147.

New York, 121, 134.

New Zealand, 143, 147.

Niger, River, 24, J2, 154, 157.

Nile, 23, 24, 33, 153, IS5, 159.

Nordenskiold, Baron, 60; ex-
plorations in the Arctic re-
gions, 180.

Normandy, 57.

Normans, 57.

Norsemen, 49.

North-East Passage, 120, 122, 123,
169, 180.

North-West Passage, 129, 148, 169,
170.

Norway, 57.

Nova Scotia, settled, 134.

Nova Zembla, 170.

Nyassa, Lake, discovered, 159.

Odoric of Pordenone, Friar,
Archbishop of Pekin, 65.

Okkodai, son of Chinchiz Khan,
63-

Orellana, Francisco de, explores
the Amazon, 131.

Pacific Ocean, discovered, 128;
named, 114.

Paradise, terrestrial, 46.

Park, Mungo, African explorer,
154, 157.

Parry, W. E., Arctic explorer,
170.

Parthia, 37.

Payba, Aflfonso de, Portuguese
explorer. 89.

Peabody, Arctic explorer, 180.

Peary, Lieutenant, Arctic explo-
rations of, 182, 184, 185.

Pekin (Khanbalig), 65.

Penn, William, 134.

Persia, 23, 35, 36, 37.

Peru, conquered by Pizarro,
130; resources of, 132.

Peutinger Table, 50.

Philip of Macedon, 37.

Philippines, discovery of, 96, 114.

Phoenicians, discoveries of the,
17, 39; commerce of, 77.

Pigmies, 18, 24, 165.

Pinto, Major Serpo, explora-
tions in Africa, 163, 166.

Pinzon, Vincenta Yanez, discov-
ers Amazon, 108.

Pizarro, Francisco, explorations
of, 128, 130.

2o6

INDEX.

Pizarro, Gonzales, 131.

Plymouth Company, 133, 134.

Poland, 54.

Polar exploration, 169.

Polo, Marco, travels of, 62, 65,
79-

Polo, Nicolo and Maffeo, 65.

Pompey, 40.

Poo, Fernando, discovered, 88.

J^orto Santo, 86.

Port Royal, settlement of, 13^.

I'ortugal, commercial activity
and explorations of, 84; sup-
planted by Dutch in East In-
dies, 122; explorations of Afri-
ca, 153.

Portulani, 60.

Prester, John, y^, 89, 91.

Priuli, Venetian chronicler, 92.

Ptolemy, Claudius, 28, 42, 55, 85.

Pyrrhus of Epirus, 39.

Pytheas, 25.

euebec settled, 134.
uiros, Pedro de, 141.

Rae, Dr. J,, Arctic explorer, 174,
176, 178.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, Guiana ex-
pedition, 132; Virginia colony,

133-

Red Sea, 23.

Rhodes, Cecil, 166.

Richardson, Arctic explorer, 172,
176.

Roads, ancient and mediaeval,
74; importance of, 42; Roman,
77-

Rome, 15, 28, 38, jy.

Ross, Sir James C, Arctic ex-
plorer, 171, 173, 176.

Ross, John, Arctic explorer, 170,
171.

Rubruquis. See Ruysbroek,
William.

Russia, 22', exploration and set-
tlement of Siberia, 124.

Rusticano of Pisa, 68.

Ruysbroek, William, 64.

Saavedra, Alvarro de, 130.
Saghalien, La Perouse at, i4p-

St. Augfustine, Fla., founded,

St. Brandan, Island of, 102.

St. Helena, discovery of. 94.

St. Lawrence River, disc(n-ered,
120; French settlements on,

^ 134-

Samnites, 38.

San Salvador, Columbus on, 105.

Sardinia, 39.

Scott, Captain R. F., Antarctic
explorer, 185.

Sciapodes, 46.

Scylax, 25.

Scythia, 23.

Serrao, Francisco, m.

Sextant invented, 145, 146.

Seychelles, discovered, 94.

Shackleton, Ernest, Antarctic ex-
plorer, 185.

Siberia, exploration and settle-
ment of, 124, 181.

Sicily, 18, 39, 58.

Sierra Leone, 25,

Sofala, 55.

Soudan, yz.

Southern Cross, 88.

Spain, 40, 54, 96.

Speke, Captain, African ex-
plorer, 159.

Spice Islands, 5. 94, 109, no,
III, 114, 115, 116, 122, 144.

Spices, 80.

Spitzbergen, 121, 122.

Staaten Land, 143, 147.

Stanley, H. M., explorations in
Africa, 154, 160, 165, 184.

Strabo, 28, 38.

Sturt, Captain, exploration in
Australia, 152.

Sumatra, 55.

Swedish settlements in America,
134.

Tabasco, Cacique of, his map,

129.
Tahiti, discovered, 147.
Tanganyika, Lake, discovered,

159; Livingstone at, 160.
Tartars, 46.
Tasman, Abel Janssen, explores

Australia, 142.
Thule, 26, 28.
Tigris, 23, 33.
Timbuctoo, 24, 72, 157, 158.

INDEX.

207

Toscanelli, service to Columbia,

lOI.

Trinidad, 106, 108.
Tristan da Cunha discovered, 91.
Tristao, Nuno, Portuguese navi-
gator, 86.
Tupaia, 14.

U.
Ung Khan (Prester John), 7^.

Vancouver, 138.

Vandals, 53.

Van Dieman's Land, 140, 142,
150.

Vasco da Gama. See Da Gama,
Vasco.

Velasquez, Diego, governor of
Cuba, 128.

Venezuela, " Little Venice,"
named by Vespucci, 108.

Venice, as centre of Ea'^tern
trade, 83, 119; effect of da
Gama's voyage on, 92.

Vespucci, Amerigo, 108, T18.

Victoria Nyanza, Lake, discov-
ered, 159,

Vikings, 57, 63.

Villalobos, Luis Lopez de, dis-
coveries in Pacific Ocean, 141.

Vinland, 58.

Visigoths, 53.

Waldseemiiller, Martin, names
America, 109.

V\ atling Island, 105.

Weddell, Antarctic explorer, 173.

\\ entworth, Philip, explorations
in Australia, 150.

Wiggins, Captain, Arctic ex-
plorer, 181.

Wilkes, Captain, Antarctic ex-
plorer, yz-

Wills, Australian explorer, 152.

Wolfe captures Quebec, 136.

Xenophon, 24.
Xerxes, 36.

Yacut, Arabian geographer, 56.
Yule, Sir Henry, appreciation
of Marco Polo, 69.

Zambesi River, exploration of,
154, 158.

Zamorin, King of Calicut, 92,
94.

Zarco, Joao Gonsalvez, Portu-
guese navigator, 86.

(13)

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