 INTRODUCTION of a book of discovery such as the Spirit in which the exploration of the world was accomplished. It was the inspiration that carried men of old far beyond the sunrise into those magic and silent seas wherein no boat had ever sailed. It is the incentive of those today with the wonders searched in their souls who travel and suffer in the travelling, though there are fewer prizes left to win. But the reward is in the doing and the rapture of pursuing is the prize. To travel, hopefully, says Stevenson, is a better thing than to arrive. This would explain the fact that this book of discovery has become a record of splendid endurance, of hardships bravely borne, of silent toil, of courage and resolution unequalled in the annals of Mankind, of self-sacrifice and revolt and faithful lives laid ungrudgingly down, of the many who went forth, the few only attained. It is of these few that this book tells. All these, says the poet in Ecclesiastes, all these were honoured in their generation and were the glory of their times, their name lives forevermore. But while we read of those master spirits who succeeded, let us never forget those who failed to achieve. Anybody might have found it, but the whisper came to me. Enthusiasm, too, was the secret of their success. Among the best of crews there was always some, one who would have turned back, but the world would have never been explored, had it not been for those finer spirits who resolutely went on, even to the death. This is what carried Alexander the Great to the earth's utmost verge, that drew Columbus across the trackless Atlantic, that nerfed Vasco de Gamma to double the stormy cape, that induced Maggillan to face the dreaded straits now called by his name, that made it possible for men to face without flinching the ice-bound regions of the far north. There is no land uninhabitable, nor sea unnavigable, asserted the men of the 16th century, when England set herself to take possession of her heritage in the north. Such unheroic temper could overcome all things, but the cost was great, the sufferings intense. Having eaten our shoes and saddles boiled with a few wild herbs, we set out to reach the kingdom of gold, says Oralana in 1540. We ate biscuit, but in truth it was biscuit no longer, but a powder full of worms. So great was the want of food, that we were forced to eat the hides, with which the main yard was covered. But we had also to make use of sodast for food, and rats became a great delicacy, related Maggillan, as he led his little ship across the unknown Pacific. Again, there is Franklin returning from the Arctic coast, and stealing the pangs of hunger with pieces of single tide mixed with lesion, where it was the horns and bones of the dead deer, fried with some old shoes. The dangers of the way were manifold. For the early explorers had no land, map, or ocean chart to guide them. There were no lighthouses to warn the strange manner of dangerous coasts and angry surf. No books of travel to relate the weird doings of fierce and inhospitable savages. No tinned foods to prevent the terrible squads of sailors, scurvy. In their little wooden sailing ships the men of old faced every conceivable danger, and surmounted obstacles unknown to modern civilization. Now strike your sails ye jolly mariners, for we become into a quiet road. For the most part we are struck with the light-heartedness of the old ensailor, the shout of gladness with which men went forth on these hazardous undertakings, knowing not how they would arrive or what might befall them by the way, went forth in the smallest of wooden ships with the most incompetent of crews to face the dangers of unknown seas and unsuspected lands, the chance the angry storm and the hidden rock to discover inhospitable shores and savage foes. Founded on bitter experience is the old saying, A passage perilous maketh a port pleasant. For the early navigators knew little of the art of navigation. Pitheas, who discovered the British Isles, was a great mathematician. Diego Kamm, who sailed to the mouth of the Congo, was a knight of the king's household. Sir Hugh Willoughby, a most valiant gentleman. Richard Kanzler, a man of great estimation for many good parts of wit in him. Antoni Jankensen, a resolute and intelligent gentleman. Sir Walter Raleigh, an Elizabethan courtier, and so forth. It has been obviously impossible to include all the famous names that belong to the history of exploration. Most of these explorers have been chosen for some definite new discovery, some addition to the world's geographical knowledge, or some great feat of endurance, which may serve to brace us to fresh effort as a nation famous for our semen. English navigators have been afforded the lion's share in the book, partly because they took the lion's share in exploring, partly because translations of foreign travel are difficult to transcribe. Most of these stories have been taken from original sources, and most of the explorers have been allowed to tell part of their own story in their own words. Perhaps the most graphic of all explorations is that, written by a native of West Australia, who accompanied the exploring party searching for an English lad named Smith, who had been starved to death. Away, away, away, away, we reach the water of June Job, we should game. Away, away, away, through a forest, away, through a forest, away, we see no water. Through a forest, away, along our tracks, away, hills ascending, then pleasantly, away, away, through a forest, away. We see a water, along the river, away. A short distance we go, then away, away, away, through a forest, away. Then along another river, away, across the river, away. Still we go onwards, along the sea, away, through the bush, away, then along the sea, away. We sleep near the sea. I see Mr. Smith's footsteps ascending a sand hill. Onwards I go, regarding his footsteps. I see Mr. Smith dead. To sleep had he been dead, greatly did I weep, and much aggrieved. In his blanket folding him, we scraped away the earth. The sun had inclined to the westward, as we laid him in the ground. The book is illustrated with reproductions from old maps, old primitive maps, with the real Adam and Eve standing in the Garden of Eden, with pillars of Hercules guarding the Straits of Gibraltar, with paradise in the east, a realistic Jerusalem in the center, the island of Toul in the north, and St. Brandon's Isles of the Blessed in the west. Beautifully colored were the maps of the Middle Ages, joyous charts all glorious with gold and vermilion, compasses and crests and flying banners with mountains of red and gold. The seas are full of ships, brave with flagged vessels with swelling sails. The land is ablaze with kings, and potentates in golden thrones, and their canopy of angels. While overall presides the Madonna in her golden chair. The Hereford Moppa Mundi, drawn in the 13th century on a fine sheet of velum, circular in form, is among the most interesting of the medieval maps. It must once have been gorgeous, with its gold letters and scarlet towns, its green seas and its blue rivers. The Red Sea is still red, but the Mediterranean is chocolate brown, and all the green has disappeared. The mounted figure in the lower right hand corner is probably the author, Richard de Haudingham. The map is surmounted by a representation of the large judgment, below which is paradise as a circular island, with the four rivers as the figures of Adam and Eve. In the center is Jerusalem. The world is divided into three, Asia, Africa and Europe. Around this earth island flows the ocean. America is, of course, absent. The east is placed at paradise, and the west at the pillars of Hercules. North and south are left to the imagination. And what of the famous map of Juan de la Cosa, once pillared to Columbus, drawn in the 15th century, with Saint Christopher carrying the infant Christ across the water, supposed to be a portrait of Christopher Columbus, carrying the gospel to America? It is the first map in which a dim outline appears of the newer world. The early maps of Áprica are filled with camels and unicorns, lions and tigers, veiled figures and the turrets and spires of strange buildings. Geographers in Africa maps with savage pictures fill their gaps. Surely, says a modern writer, surely the old cartographer was less concerned to fill his gaps than to express the poetry of geography. And today there are still gaps in the most modern maps of Africa, where one eleventh of the whole area remains unexplored. Further, in Asia, the problem of the Brahmaputra falls as yet unsolved. There are shores untrodden and rivers unsurwayed. God has given us some things, and not all things, that our successors also might have something to do, brought barons in the 16th century. There may not be much left, but with the words of Kipling's explorer, we may fitly conclude, something hidden, go and find it, go and look behind the ranges, something lost behind the ranges, lost and waiting for you, go. Thanks are due to Mr. S. G. Stubbs for valuable assistance in the selection and preparation of the illustrations, which, with few exceptions, have been executed under his directions. End of INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 OF A BOOK OF DISCOVERY This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A book of discovery by M. B. Singh. CHAPTER 1 A LITTLE OLD WORLD No story is complete, unless it begins at the very beginning. But where is the beginning? Where is the dawn of geography, the knowledge of our Earth? What was it like before the first explorers made their way into distant lands? Every day that passes we are gaining fresh knowledge of the dim and silent past. Every day men are patiently digging in the old heaps that were once the sites of busy cities. And, as a result of their unverifying toil, they are revealing to us the life stories of those who dwelt therein. They are disclosing secrets written on weather-worn stones and tablets, bricks and cylinders, never before even guessed at. Thus we read the wondrous story of ancient days, and breastlessly wonder what marvelous discovery will thrill us next. For the earliest account of the Old World, a world made up apparently of a little land and a little water, we turn to an old papyrus, the oldest in existence, which tells us, in familiar words, and surpassed for their exquisite poetry and wondrous simplicity, of that great, dateless time so full of mystery and eve. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was waste and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be a firmament and the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered in one place, and let the dry land appear. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seas. Thus beautifully did the children of men express their earliest idea of the world's distribution of land and water. And where, on our modern maps, was this little earth, and what was it like? Did trees and flowers cover the land? Did rivers flow into the sea? Listen again to the old tradition that still rings down the ages. And the Lord God blended a garden eastward in Eden, and the river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and became four heeds. The name of the first is Pison, and the name of the second river is Gihon, the name of the third river is Hedekal, Tigris, and the fourth river is Euthrates. Now look at the modern map of Asia. Between Arabia and Persia, there is a long valley watered by the Tigris and Euthrates, rivers which rise in Armenia and flow into the Persian Gulf. This region was the traditional cradle of the human race. Around and beyond was a great world, a world with great surging seas, with lands of trees and flowers, a world with continents and lakes, and bays and capes, with islands and mountains and rivers. There were vast deserts of sand rolling away to right and to left. There were mountains up which no man had climbed. There were stormy seas over which no ship had ever sailed. But these men of old had never explored far. They believed that their world was just a very little world, with no other occupants than themselves. They believed it to be flat, with mountains at either end on which rested a solid metal dome, known as the firmament. In the shining circle were windows, in and out of which the sun would creep by day and the moon and stars by night. And the whole of this world was, they thought, balanced on the waters. There was water above, the waters that be above the firmament, and water below, and water all around. Long ages pass away. Let us look again at the green valley of the Euphrates and Tigris. It has been called the nursery of nations. Names have been given to various regions round about, and cities have arisen on the banks of the rivers. Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Caldea, Assyria. All these long names belong to this region. And around each centers some of the most interesting history and legend in the world. Rafts on the river and caravans on the land carried merchandise far and wide. Men made their way to the sea of the rising sun, as they called the Persian Gulf, and to the sea of the sitting sun, as they called the Mediterranean. They settled on the shores of the Caspian Sea, on the shores of the Black Sea, on the shores of the Red Sea. They carried on magnificent trade. Cedar, Pine and Cyprus were brought from Lebanon to Caldea, limestone and marble from Syria, copper and lead from the shores of the Black Sea. And these dwellers about Babylonia built up a wonderful civilization. They had temples and brick-built houses, libraries of tablets revealing knowledge of astronomy and astrology. They had a literature of their own. Suddenly from out the city of Ur, Kerbella, near the ancient mouth of the Euphrates, appears a traveler. There had doubtless been many before, but records are scanty, and hard to piece together, and the detailed account of a traveler with a name is very interesting. Abram went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and Abram journeyed going on still toward the south. And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there. He would have traveled by the chief caravan routes of Syria into Egypt. Here, about the fertile mouth of the Nile, he would have found an ancient civilization, as wonderful as that to which he was accustomed in Babylonia. It was a grain-growing country, and when there was famine in other lands, there was always corn in Egypt, thanks to the mighty, life-giving Nile. But we must not linger over the old civilization, over the wonderful empire governed by the pharaohs or kings, first from Memphis, Cairo, and then from the Hundred-Gated Thebes. Must not linger over these old pyramid builders, the temple, sphinxes, and statues of ancient Egypt. Before even Abram came into their country, we find the Egyptians famous for their shipping and navigation. Old pictures and tombs recently discovered tales as this. On the coast of the Red Sea, they built their long, narrow ships, which were rowed by some 20 paddlers on either side, and steered by three men standing in the stern. With one mast and a large sail, they flew before the wind. They had to go far afield for their wood. We find an Egyptian being sent to cut down four forests in the south in order to build three large vessels out of Acacia wood. Petri tells us of an Egyptian sailor who was sent to Punt or Somaliland to fetch for pharaohs sweet-smelling spices. He was shipwrecked on the way, and this is the account of his adventures. I was going, he relates, to the minds of pharaoh, and I went down on the sea on a ship with 150 sailors of the best of Egypt, whose hearts were stronger than lions. They had said that the wind would be contrary, or that there would be none. But as we approached the land, the wind rose and threw up high waves. As for me, I seized a piece of wood, with those who were in the vessel perished, without one remaining. A wave threw me on an island. After that, I had been three days alone without a companion beside my own heart. I laid me in a thicket, and the shadow covered me. I found figs and grapes, all manner of good herbs, berries and grain, melons of all kinds, fishes and birds. I lighted a fire, and I made burnt offering unto the gods. Suddenly I heard a noise as of thunder, which I sought to be that of a wave of the sea. The trees shook, and the earth was moored. I uncovered my eyes, and I saw that the serpent drew near. His body was as if overlaid with gold, and his color as that of true lazuli. What has brought thee here little one to this isle, which is in the sea and of which the shores are in the midst of the waves, asked the serpent. The sailor told his story kneeling on his knees, with his face bowed to the ground. Fear not, little one, and make not thy face sad, continued the serpent. For it is God who has brought thee to this isle of the blessed, where nothing is lacking, and which is filled with all good things. Those shall be four months in this isle. Then a ship shall come from thy land with sailors, and those shall go to thy country. As for me, I am a prince of the land of Punt. I am here with my brethren and children around me. We are seventy-five serpents, children and kindred. Then the grateful sailor promised to bring all the treasures of Egypt back to Punt, and I shall tell of thy presence unto Parol. I shall make him to know of thy greatness, said the Egyptian stranger. But the strange prince of Punt only smiled. Those shall never more see this isle, he said. It shall be changed into waves. Everything came to pass, as the serpent said. The ship came. Gifts were lavished on the sailor from Egypt. Perfumes of cassia, of sweet woods, of zippers, incense, ivory tusks, baboons and apes, and thus laden he sailed home to his own people. Long centuries after this we get another glimpse at the land of Punt. This time it is in the reign of Queen Hatsepsu, who sent a great trading expedition into this famous country. Five ships started from seaps, sailing down the river Nile and probably reaching the Red Sea by means of a canal. Navigating in the Red Sea was difficult. The coast was steep and inhospitable. No rivers ran into it. Only a few fishing villages lay along the coast used by Egyptian merchants as markets for mother of pearl, emeralds, gold and sweet-smelling perfumes. Then two ships continued their way, the whole voyage taking about two months. Arrived at Punt, the Egyptian commander pitched his tents upon the shore to the great astonishment of the inhabitants. Why have you come hither unto this land, for it is the people of Egypt know not, asked the chief of Punt. Have you come through the sky? Did you sail upon the waters or upon the sea? Presents from the Queen of Egypt were at once laid before the chief of Punt, and soon the seashore was alive with people. Their ships were drawn up, gang planks were very heavily laden, with marvels of the country of Punt. There were heaps of myrrh, resin, of fresh myrrh trees, ebony and pure ivory, cinnamon wood, incense, baboons, monkeys, dogs, natives and children. Never was the like brought to any king of Egypt since the world stands. And the ships voyage safely back to Thebes, with all their booty and these pleasant recollections of the people of Somaliland. In spite of these little expeditions, the Egyptian world seems still very small. The Egyptians sought of the earth with its land and sea as a long, oblong sort of box, the center of which was Egypt. The sky stretched over it like an iron ceiling. The port towards the earth, being sprinkled with lamps, hung from the strong cables lighted by night and extinguished by day. Four forked trunks of trees upheld the sky roof. But lest some storm should overthrow these three trunks, there were four lofty peaks connected by chains of mountains. The southern peak was known as the Horn of the Earth, the eastern, the mountain of birth, the western, the region of life. The southern was invisible. And why? Because they, through the great sea, the very green, the Mediterranean lay between it and Egypt. Beyond these mountain peaks, supporting the world, rolled a great river and ocean stream, and the sun was the sapeaule of fire, placed on a boat and carrying round the ramparts of the world by the all encircling water. So we realize that the people, living in Babylonia, about the river Euphrates, and those living in Egypt about the river Nile, had very strange ideas about the little old world around them. End of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 of A Book of Discovery This is the LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Book of Discovery by M. B. Singh, Chapter 2, Early Mariners The law of the universe is progress and expansion, and this little old world was soon discovered to be larger than men thought. Now in Syria, the highway between Babylonia and Egypt, dwelt a tribe of dusky people known as Phoenicians. Some have thought that they were related to our old friends in Somali land, and that long years ago they had migrated north to the seacoast of that part of Syria known as Qanan. Living on the seashore, washed by the tideless Mediterranean, they soon became skillful sailors. They built ships and ventured force on the deep. They made their way to the islands of Cyprus and Crete, and then to the islands of Greece, bringing back goods from other countries, to barter with their less daring neighbors. They reached Greece itself and cruised along the northern coast of the Great Sea to Italy, along the coast of Spain to the rock of Gibraltar, and out into the open Atlantic. How their little sailing boats lived through the storms of that great ocean, none may know, for Phoenician records are lost. But we have every reason to believe that they reached the northern coast of France, and brought back tin from the islands known to them as the tin islands. In their home markets were found all manner of strange things, from foreign and known lands, discovered by these master mariners. The admiration of the ancient world. The ships of Tarshish, said the old poet, did think of thee in thy market, and though vast replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas, thy rovers have brought thee into great waters. The east wind has broken thee in the midst of the seas. All the world knew of the Phoenician seaports Tyre and Cedon. They were as famous as Memphis and Thebes on the Nile, as magnificent as Nineveh on the Tigris and Babylon on the Euphrates. Men spoke of the renowned city of Tyre, whose merchants were as princes, whose traffickers were among the honorable of the earth. Although they are situated at the entry of the sea, cries the poet again, when the greatness of Tyre was passing away. Which art a merchant of the people from many isles? Thy borders are in the midst of the seas. Thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all their ship-boards of fir trees. They have taken cedars of Lebanon to make masts for thee. Of the oaks of Basan have they made thy oars. Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that, with those prettiest force to be thy sail. The inhabitants of Cedon were thy mariners. Thy wise men were thy pilots. As time goes on, early groups round the Euphrates and the Nile continue. But new nations form and grow, new cities arise, new names appear. Centuries of men live and die, ignorant of the great world that lies about them. Lords of the eastern world that knew no west. England was yet unknown, America un-dreamed of. Australia still a desolate island in an unknown sea. The burning eastern sun shone down onto vast stretches of desert land uninhabited by men. Great rivers flowed through dreary swamps and realized. Tempestous waves beat against their shores, and melancholy winds swept over the face of endless ocean solitudes. And still, according to their untortured minds, the world is flat, the world is very small, and it is surrounded by ever-flowing waters, beyond which all is dark and mysterious. Around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, revealed by the boundless energy and daring skill of the Phoenicians, there were colonies along the coasts of Africa and Europe, though they were not yet called by their names. They have discovered and explored, but they have kept their information to themselves, and they have specially refused to divulge their voyages to the Greeks. A story is told, at a later date, than this of a Phoenician shipmaster, who was bound for the thin islands, when he suddenly discovered that he was being followed by a strange ship, evidently bent on finding out where these unknown islands lay. The Phoenician purposely ran his ship onto a shawl in order to keep the secret of the discovery. When he returned home, his conduct was upheld by the state. But those of Phoenicians have left us no record of their travels and voyages. They had been the carriers of knowledge, and it was from them that the Greeks learned of the extreme regions of the world, and of the dim far west. Indeed, it is highly probable that from the Phoenicians, they got material for their famous legend of the Argonauts and their adventures in the Black Sea. Though the story is but legendary, and it has been added, too, with the growing knowledge of the world, yet it gives an idea of the perils that beset the sailors of those remote ages, and of their limitations. And again we must remind ourselves that both the Phoenicians and early Greeks had, like the Egyptians and Babylonians, childish ideas as to the form of the earth. To them it was a circular plane, encircled by the ocean, which they believed to be a broad, deep running river, flowing round and round the world. Into this ocean stream ran all the rivers and seas known to them. Over the earth was raised a solid firmament of bronze in which the stars were set, and this was supported on tall pillars, which kept the heaven and the earth asunder. The whole delightful story of the Argonauts can be read in Kingsley's Heroes. It is the story of brave men who sailed in the ship Argo, named after the great shipbuilder Argos, to bring back the golden fleece from Kohiz in the Black Sea. Nowhere, in all the history of exploration, have we a more practical account of the launching of a ship for distant lands. Then they have stored her well with food and water, and pulled the ledger up on board, and settled themselves each man to his oar, and kept time to Orpheus' harp. And away across the bay they rode sauce for it, while the people lined the clefs, and the woman wept while the man shouted at the starting of that gallant crew. They chose a captain, and the choice fell on Jason, because he was the wisest of them all, and they rode on over the long swell on the sea, past Olympus, past the wooden bays of Athos, and the sacred isle, and they came past Lemnos to the Hellespont, and so on into the Propontis, which we call Marmora now. So they came to the Bosphorus, the land then as now of bitter blast, the land of cold and misery, and the great battle of the winds took place. Then the Argonauts came out into the open sea, the Black Sea. No Greek had ever crossed it, and even the heroes, for all their courage, feared the dreadful sea in its rocks and shoals and fogs, and bitter freezing storms. And they trembled as they saw it stretching out before them, without a shore, as far as the eye could see. Verily they sailed on past the coast of Asia. They passed Sinop, and the cities of the Amazons, the warlike women of the east, until at last they saw the white snow peaks, hanging glittering sharp and bright above the clouds. And they knew that they were come to Caucasus at the end of all the earth. Caucasus, the highest of all mountains, the father of the rivers of the east. And they rode three days to the eastward, while the Caucasus rose higher hour by hour, till they saw the dark stream of faces, rushing headlong to the sea, and shining above the treetops, the golden roofs of the child of the sun. How they reached home, no one knows. Some say they sailed up the Danube river, and so came to the Adriatic, dragging their ship over the snow-clad Alps. Others say they sailed south to the Red Sea, and dragged their ship over the burning desert of North Africa. More than once they gave themselves up for lost, heartbroken with toil and hunger, until the brave housemen cried to them, raise up the mast and set the sail, and face what comes like men. After days and weeks on the wide, wild western sea, they sailed by the coast of Spain, and came to Sicily, the three-cornered island, and after numerous adventures they reached home once more. And they limped ashore very unborn, with long wracked beards and sunburned cheeks, and garments torn and weather-stained. No strength had they left to haul the ship up the beach. They just crawled out and sat down and wept, till they could weep no more. For the houses and trees were all altered, and all the faces which they saw were strange, and their joy was swallowed up in sorrow, while they thought of their youth and all their labor, and the gallant comrades they had lost. And the people crowded, drowned, and asked them, who are you that sit weeping here? We are the sons of your princess, who sailed away many a year ago. We went to fetch the coat and fleece, and we have brought it back. Then there was shouting and laughing and weeping, and all the kings came to the shore, and they led the heroes away to their homes, and availed the valiant dead. Old and charming as is the story of the Argonauts, it is made up of traveller's tales, probably told to the Greeks by the Phoenicians of their adventures on unknown seas. The wanderings of Ulusus by the old Greek poet Homer shows us that, though they seldom ventured beyond the Mediterranean Sea, yet the Greeks were dimly conscious of an outer world beyond the recognized limits. They still dreamed that the earth was flat, and that the ocean stream flowed forever round and rounded. There were no maps or charts to guide the intrepid mariners who embarked on unknown waters. The siege of Troy, famous in legend, was over, and the heroes were anxious to make their way home. Ulusus was one of the heroes, and he sailed forth from Asia Minor into the Aegean Sea, but contrary winds drove him as far south as Cape Malaya. Now the gatherer of the clouds, he says, in telling his story, aroused the north wind against our ships with a terrible tempest, and covered land and sea alike with clouds, and down sped night from heaven. Thus the ships were driven headlong, and their sails were torn to shreds by the might of the wind. So we lowered the sails into the hold in fear of death, and drove the ships landward apace. Throughout all ages Cape Malaya has been renowned for sudden and violent storms, dreaded by early mariners as well as those of later times. Thence for nine whole days was I borne by runous winds over the teeming deep, but on the tenth day we set foot on the land of the lottos-eaters who eat a flowery food. Now ten days sail to the south would have brought Ulusus to the coast of North Africa, and here we imagine the lottos-eaters dwelt. But their stay was short, for as soon as the mariners tasted the honey-sweet fruit of the lottos, they forgot their homes, forgot their own land, and only wanted to stay with the mild-eyed melancholy lottos-eaters. They set them down upon the yellow sand, between the sun and moon upon the shore, and sweet it was to dream of other land, of child and wife and slave. But evermore most weary seemed to see weary the oar, weary the wandering fields of barren foam. Then some one said, we will return no more, and all at once they sang, our island home is far beyond the wave, we will no longer roam. Therefore said Ulusus, I let them back to the ships, weeping and sore against their will, and dragged them beneath the benches. Soon they embarked and sitting orderly, they smote the grey sea-water with their oars. Thence we sailed onward, stricken at heart, and we came to the land of the kicklops. Now one knows exactly where the land of the kicklops is, some think it may be Sicily, and the slopes of Mount Edna facing the sea. The famous rock of Skilla and whirlpool of Caribis, known to the ancients as two sea monsters, near the straits of Messina, next claimed his attention. Let us see how Ulusus passed them. We began to sail up the narrow strait, he says lamenting, for on the one side lay Skilla, and on the other mighty Carubdis, tucking down the salt sea-water. Like a cauldron on a great fire, she would see the up-through all her troubled deeps, and overheard the spray fell on the top of either cliff. The rock around roared horribly, and pale fear got hold of my men. Toward her then we looked, fearing destruction. But Skilla meanwhile caught from out my hollow ship six of my company. They cried aloud in their agony, and there she devoured them, shrieking at her gates. They stretching forth their hands to me in their death struggles. And the most pitiful thing was this, that mine eyes have seen of all my travail in searching out the paths of the sea. Some have thought that the terrifying stories of Skilla, Carubdis, and the cake-lops were stories invented by the Phoenicians to frighten travelers of other nations away from the sea, that they wished to keep for themselves, for purposes of trade. It would take too long to tell of the great storm that destroyed the ships and drowned the men, leaving Ulysses to make a raft on which he drifted about for nine days, blown back to Skilla and Carubdis, and from thence to the island of Ogidia, in the center of the sea. Finally he reached his home in Ithaca, so changed, so aged and weather-worn, that only his dog Argus recognized him. This very briefly is Homer's world picture of a bygone age, when those who were seized with the search of our travel sailed about the Mediterranean in their primitive ships, landing on unnamed coasts, cruising about unknown islands, meeting strange people, encountering strange adventures. It all reads like an old fairy tale to us today, for we have our maps and charts and know the whereabouts of every country and island about the tideless Mediterranean. Still, although the men of ancient time were learning fast about the land and sea, they were woefully ignorant. He seared a Greek poet, who lived 750 years before the Christian era, declared that the world was flat, and the ocean stream, or the perfect river as he called it, flowed round and round, encompassing all things. Still, there was something beyond the water, something dim, mysterious, unknowable. It might be the islands of the blessed, it might be the sacred isle. One thing he asserted firmly, Atlas upholds the broad heaven, standing on earth's verge with head and enviroment hands, while the clear-voiced Hesperides guarded their beautiful golden apples beyond the waters of ocean. Hesperus and his daughters three, that sung about the golden tree. But who thinks now of the weary Titan, doomed forever to support the ancient world on his head and hands, when the atlas of today is brought forth for a lesson in geography? About this time comes a story, it may be fact or it may be fiction, that the Phoenicians had sailed right round Africa. The voyage was arranged by Neko, an enterprising Egyptian king, who built his ships in the Red Sea in the year 613 BC. The story is told by Herodotus, the Greek traveler, many years afterwards. Libya, he says, is known to be washed on all sides by the sea, except where it is attached to Asia. This discovery was first made by Neko, the Egyptian king, who sent a number of ships manned by Phoenicians, with orders to make for the pillars of Hercules, now known as the Straits of Gibraltar, and returned to Egypt through them and by the Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt by way of the Eritrean Sea and so sailed into the southern ocean. When autumn came, it is supposed they left the Red Sea in August, they went ashore wherever that might happen to be, and having sown a tract of land with corn waited until the grain was fit to cut. Having reaped it, they set sail, and thus it came to pass, that two whole years went by, and it was not till the third year that they doubled the pillars of Hercules and made good their voyage home. On their return they declared, I for my part says Herodotus do not believe them, but perhaps others may, that in sailing round Libya they had the sun upon their right hand. In this way was the extent of Libya first discovered. To modern students who have learned more of Phoenician enterprise, the story does not seem so incredible as it did to Herodotus, and a modern poet Edwin Arnold has dreamed into a verse, a delightful account of what this voyage may have been like. Etobal of Tyre, chief captain of the seas, standing before Niko, Pharaoh and king, ruler of Nile and its lands, relates the story of his two years voyage, of the strange things he saw, of the hardships he endured, of the triumphant end. He tells how, with the help of mechanics from Tarnish, Tyre and Sidon, he built three goodly ships, Oceans children in a windless Greek on the Red Sea, how he loaded them with clothes and beads, the wares welled people love, food flour for the ship, cakes, honey, oil, pulse, meal, dried fish and rice, and salted goods. Then the start was made down the Red Sea, until at last the great ocean opened east, and thaws to the unknown world, and into the great nameless sea, by the coast of the large land whence none has come, they sailed. Etobal had undertaken no light task, contrary winds mutiny on board, want of fresh water, all the hardships that confront the mariner, who pilots his crews in search of the unknown. Strange tribes met them on the coast, and asked them whither they went. We go as far as the sun goes, as far as the sea rolls, as far as the stars, shine still in sky, to find for mighty furrow what his world holds hidden. South and ever south they sailed, day after day and night succeeding night, clothes clinging to the shore. New stars appeared, lower and lower sank the sun, moons rose and waned, and still the coast reached southwards, till they reached a cape of storms, and found the coast was turning north. And now occurred the strange phenomenon mentioned by Herodotus, that while sailing westwards the sun was on their right hand. No man had seen that sink in Syria or in Egypt. A year and a half had now passed away since they left home, but onward to the north they now made their way, past the mouth of the golden waters, orange river, past the niger, past the island of gorillas described by Hanno, who explored the west coast under Niko, either before or after this time, until at last the little Phoenician ships sailed peacefully into the Mediterranean Sea. Here is the ocean gate, here is the strait, twice before sea, where goes the middle sea. Under the setting sun and the unknown, no more unknown, it about ships have sailed around all Africa, our task is done. These are the pillars, this is the midland sea. The road to Tyre is yonder, every wave is homely. Yonder shore, all nihilus pours into this sea, the waters of the world, whose secret is his own and thine and mine. It will ever remain one of the many disputed points in early geography, whether or not Africa was circumnavigated at this early date. If the Phoenicians did accomplish such a feat, they kept their experiences as secret as usual, and the early maps gave a very wrong idea of South Africa. On the other hand, we know they had good seaworthy ships in advance of their neighbors. Our member says, Xenophon, I once went aboard a Phoenician ship, where I observed the best example of good order that I ever met with, and especially it was surprising to observe the vast numbers of implements which were necessary for the management of such a small vessel. What numbers of wars, stretches, ship hooks and spikes were there for bringing the ship in and out of the harbor? What number of roads, cables, ropes, and other tackling for the ship? What a vast quantity of provisions were there for the sustenance and support of the sailors? Captain and sailors knew where everything was stowed away on board, and while the captain stood upon the deck, he was considering with himself what things might be wanting in his voyage, what things wanted repair, and what lengths of time his provisions would last. For, as he observed to me, it is no proper time, when the storm comes upon us, to have the necessary implements to seek, or to be out of repair, or to want them on board, for the gods are never favorable to those who are negligent or lazy, and it is their goodness that they do not destroy us when we are diligent. There is an old story which says that one day the Greeks captured a Phoenician ship and copied it. However this may be, the Greeks soon became great colonizers themselves, and we have to thank a Greek philosopher living in Miletus and the coast of Asia Minor for making the first map of the ancient world. Of course the Babylonians and Egyptians had made maps thousands of years before this. But this Greek Anaximander introduced the idea of map-making to the astonished world about the year 580 BC. What was the map like? It was a bronze tablet where upon the whole circuit of the earth was engraved with all its seas and rivers. This is all we know, but this map-making Greek was famous for another idea in advance of his time. He used to study the heavens and the earth, and after much study he made up his mind that the earth was round and not flat. He thought that the world hung free in the midst of the universe, or rather in the midst of the waters. The center of the earth was at Delphi. In the world of legend, there was a reason for this. Two eagles had been led loose, one from the eastern extremity of the world, the other from the west, and they met at Delphi. Hence it was assumed that Delphi was at the center of the world. And Delphi at this time was such a wonderful city. On the slopes of Mount Parnassus it stood high on a rock. On the heights stood the temple of Apollo with its immense riches, its golden statue of the great god, and its ever-smoking fire of wood. In the same way, in those days of imperfect geography, as we hear of Delphi being the center of the Greek world, so we hear of Jerusalem being considered the central point of the world. This is your Jerusalem, says Ezekiel, in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her. In the Mappa Mundi 13th century, in Hereford Cathedral, Jerusalem is still the center of the earth. Following close on these ideas came another. It too came from Miletus, now famous for its school of thought and its searchers after truth. A tour of the world is the grand sounding title of the work of Hecateus, who wrote it about 500 years BC. It contains an account of the coast, an island of the Mediterranean Sea, and an outline of all the lands the Greeks thought they knew. In the fragments that have to come down to us, the famous olteographer divides both his work and the world into two parts. One part he calls Europe, the other Asia, in which he includes Africa bounded by the river Nile. He held that these two parts were equal. They were divided from one another by the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, while round the whole flat world still floats the everlasting ocean stream. Chapter 4 of A Book of Discovery. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. A Book of Discovery by M. B. Singh. Chapter 4. Herodotus the Traveler. The greatest traveler of olden times now comes upon the scene, Herodotus the Greek, the father of history. He is a traveler as well as a writer. He has journeyed as one eager for knowledge, with a hungry heart and a keen, observant eye. He tells us what he has seen with his eyes, what he has heard with his ears. He insists that the world is flat. He acknowledges that it is divided into two parts, Europe and Asia. But he can afford to laugh at those who draw maps of the world without any sense to guide them, in which they make the whole world round, as if drawn with a pair of compasses, with the ocean stream running round it, making Europe and Asia of equal size. His first journey is to Egypt. I speak at length about Egypt, he says, because it contains more marvelous things than any other country, things too strange for words. Not only is the climate different from that of the rest of the world and the rivers unlike any other rivers, but the people also, in most of their manners and customs, reverse the common practice of mankind. The women are employed in trade and business, while the men stay at home to spin and weave. Other nations is weaving, throw the wolf up the warp, but an Egyptian throws it down. In other countries, sons are constrained to make provision for their parents. In Egypt it is not only the sons, but the daughters. In other countries the priests have long hair. In Egypt their heads are shaven. Other nations fasten their robes and hooks to the outside of their sails, but the Egyptians to the inside. The Greeks ride and read from left to right, but the Egyptians from right to left. After sailing for some 700 miles up the river Nile, from the coast, past Heliopolis, the once famous city of ancient Egypt, past Memphis, the old capital, past Thebes, with its hundred gates, to Elephantine, the Ivory Island, opposite to what is now Aswan, he is more than ever puzzled about its course and the reason of its periodical floods. Concerning the nature of the river, I was not able to gain any information from the priests. I was particularly anxious to learn from them why the Nile at the commencement of the summer solstice begins to rise and continues to increase for a hundred days, and why, as soon as that number is passed, it forthwith retires and contracts its stream, continuing low during the whole of the winter, until the summer solstice comes round again. On none of these points could obtain any explanation from the inhabitants, though I made every inquiry. The sources of the Nile entirely baffled Herodotus, as they baffled many another later explorer, long years after he had passed away. Of the sources of the Nile, no one can give any account, since the country through which it passes is desert and without inhabitants. He explains, his thirst for knowledge unsatisfied. Some priests volunteer this explanation. On the frontiers of Egypt are two high mountain peaks called Krofe and Mofe, in an unfathomable abyss between the two rows the Nile. But Herodotus does not believe in Krofe and Mofe. He inclines to the idea that the Nile rises away in the west and flows eastward right across Libya. He troubled a little about Libya himself, literally realizing the size of the great continent of Africa through which he passed. Many a strange tale of these unknown parts did he relate to his people at home. He had seen the tallest and handsomest race of men in the world, who lived to the age of 120 years. Gold was so abundant that it was used even for the prisoner's chains. He had seen folks who lived on meat and milk only, never having seen bread or wine. Some 30-day journey from the land of the Lotus Eaters, he had found tribes who hunted with four horse chariots, and whose oxen walked backwards as they grazed, because their horns curved outwards in front of their heads. And if they moved forward, these horns would stick in the ground. Right across the desolate sandy desert of the north Herodotus seems to have made his way. The region of the wild beast must have been truly perilous, for this is a tract, he says, in which huge serpents are found, and the lions, the elephants, the bears, and the horned asses. He also tells us of underloppies, gazelles, asses, foxes, wild sheep, jackals, and panthers. There is no end to the quaint sights he records. Here is a tribe whose wives drive the chariots to battle. Here another, who paints themselves red and need honey and monkeys, another, who grows their hair long on the right side of their heads, and shave it close on the left. Back through Egypt to Syria went our observant traveler, visiting the famous seaport of Tyre on the way. A visit at the temple of Hercules at that place, and found two pillars, one of pure gold, the other of emerald, shining with great brilliancy at night. That temple was already 2,300 years old. Herodotus makes some astounding statements about various parts of the world. He asserts that a good walker could walk across Asia Minor, from north to south, in five days. A distance we now know to be 300 miles. He tells us that the Danube rises in the Pyrenees mountains, and flows right through Europe, till it empties its waters into the Black Sea, giving us a long and detailed account of a country he calls Scythia, Russia, with many rivers flowing into the same Black Sea. But here we must leave the old traveler, and back through him reading aloud to his delighted hearers his account of his discoveries and explorations, discussing with learned Greeks of the day the size and wonders of the world as they imagined it. News traveled slowly in these bygone days, and we know the Phoenicians were very fond of keeping their discoveries secret. But it seems strange to think that Herodotus never seems to have heard the story of Hanno the Cartaginian, who coasted along the west of North Africa, being the first explorer to reach the place we know as Sierra Leone. Hanno's Periplus, or the coasting survey of Hanno, is one of the few Phoenician documents that has lived through the long ages. In it, the commander of expedition himself tells his own story. With an idea of colonizing, he left Cartage, the most famous of the Phoenician colonies, with 60 ships containing an enormous number of men and women. When we had set sail, says Hanno shortly, and passed the pillars of Hercules after two days' voyage, we found it the first city. Below the city lay a great plain. Sailing thence westward, we came to a promontory of Libya, sickly covered with trees. Here we built a temple to the sea god, and proceeded thence half a day's journey eastward, till we reached a lake, lying not far from the sea, and filled with abundance of great reeds. Here were feeding elephants and a great number of other wild animals. After we had gone a day's sail beyond the lakes, we found at cities near to the sea. Making friends with the tribes along the coast, they reached the Senegal River. Here they fell in with savage men, clothed with the skins of beasts, who pelted them with stones, so that they could not land. Past Cappeverde they reached the mouth of the campia, great and broad, and full of crocodiles and river horses, and thence costed twelve days to the south, and again five days to the south, which brought them to Sierra Leone, the lion mountain, as it was called long years after by the Portuguese. Here Hanno and his party landed, but as night approached, they saw flames eschewing from the island, and heard the sound of flutes and cymbals and drums, and the noise of confused shouts. Great fears then came upon us. We sailed there for quickly sense, much terrified, and passing on for four days, found at night a country full of fire. In the middle was a lofty fire greater than all the rest, so that it seemed to touch the stars. When day came on, we found that this was the great mountain, which they called the chariot of the gods. They had a last adventure before they turned homeward, at what they called the Isle of Gorillas. Here they found a savage people, gorillas, whom they pursued, but were unable to catch. At last they managed to catch three, but when these, biting and tearing those that led them, would not follow us, we slew them and, playing off their skins, carried them to Carthage. Then abruptly this quaint account of the only Phoenician voyage on record stops. Further, says the commander, we did not sail, for our food failed us. Further knowledge of the world was now supplied by the Greeks, who were rapidly asserting themselves, and settling round the coast of the Mediterranean, as the Phoenicians had done before them. As in more ancient days, Babylonians and Egyptians had dominated the little world, so now the power was shifting to the Greeks and Persians. The rise of Persia does not rightly belong to this story, which is not one of conquest and annexation, but of discovery. So we must content ourselves by stating the fact that Persia had become a very important country, with no less than 56 subject states paying tribute to her, including the land of Egypt, efforts to include Greece had failed. In the year 401 B.C. one Artaxerxes sat on the throne of Persia, the mighty empire, which extended eastwards beyond the knowledge of Greeks or Phoenicians, even to the unknown regions of the Indus. He had reigned for many years, when Cirrus, his brother, a dashing young prince, attempted to seize the throne. Collecting a huge army, including the famous 10,000 Greeks, he led them by way of Frigia Kilikia, and along the banks of the Euphrates, to within 50 miles of the gates of Babylon. The journey took nearly five months, a distance of 1,700 miles through recognized tracks. Here a battle was fought, and Cirrus was slain. It was mid-winter when the 10,000 Greeks, who had followed their leaders so loyally through the plains of Asia Minor, found themselves friendless, and in great danger in the very heart of the enemy's country. Now Xenophon, a mere Greek volunteer, who had accompanied the army from the shores of Asia Minor, rose up and offered to lead his countrymen back to Greece, is a matter of history. It would take too long to tell in detail how they marched northward through the Assyrian plains, past the neighborhood of Nineveh, till they reached the mountain regions which were known to be inhabited by fierce fighters, unconquered even by the powerful Persians. Up to this time their line of retreat had followed the royal road of merchants and caravans. Their only chance of safety lay in striking north into the mountains inhabited by this warlike tribe, who had hurled out amid their wild and rugged country against the Persians themselves. They now opposed the Greeks with all their might, and it took seven days of continuous fighting to reach the valley which lay between them and the high table land of Armenia. They crossed the Tigris near its source, and a little further on they also crossed the Euphrates, not far from its source, so they were informed by the Armenians. They now found themselves some five or six thousand feet above sea level, and in the midst of a bitter Armenian winter. Snow fell heavily, covering all tracks, and day after day a cold northeast wind, whose bitter blast was tortuous, increased their sufferings as their ploughed their way on on and on through such depths of snow as they had never seen before. Many died of cold and hunger, many fell grievously sick, and others suffered from snow blindness and frostbite. Vaksenophon led his army on, making his notes of the country through which they were toiling, measuring distances by the day's march, and at last one day when the soldiers were climbing a steep mountain, a cry, growing louder and more joyous every moment, rends the air. Through enough on the distant horizon, glittering in the sunlight, was a narrow silver streak of sea, the Black Sea, the gall of all their hopes. The long struggle of five months was over. They could sail home, know along the shores of the Black Sea. They had reached a coast near the spot Colchis, where the Argonauts landed to win the Golden Fleece long centuries before. In a work known as the Anabasis, Xenophon rode the adventures of the ten thousand Greeks, and no geographical explorer ever recorded his travels through unknown countries more facefully, than did the great leader of twenty three hundred years ago. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Alexander the Great explores India. Still greater light was shed on the size of the world by Alexander the Great on his famous expedition to India, by which he almost doubled the area of the world known to the people of his time. It was just sixty years after Xenophon had made his way right across Asia to the shores of Black Sea, when Alexander resolved to break, if possible, the power of the Persians. The Great Persian Empire extended from the shores of the Mediterranean right away to the east, far beyond the knowledge of the Greeks. Indeed, their knowledge of the interior of Asia was very imperfect, and Alexander's expedition was rather that of an explorer than that of the conqueror. How he overthrew the Persians and subdued an area as large as Europe in the space of twelve years reads like a romance rather than fact, and it is not for us to tell the story in detail. Rather, let us take up the story after Alexander had fought and conquered the Persians twice. The siege tire taken the Phoenician fleet, occupied Egypt, marched across the desert and crossed the Euphrates, passed over the plane and followed the Tigris to near Nineveh, where he crossed that river too, fought another famous battle over the Persians, which decided the fate of King and Monarchy, and opened to him the capitals of Babylon and Sousa, wherein the immense treasures of the Persian Empire were stored. King of all Asia, he sat on the throne of the Persian kings under a golden canopy in the palace of Persepolis. So far the whole expedition was our country known, if imperfectly, to the Greeks. Now we have to follow the conquering hero more closely as he leads us into an unknown land away to the east, known as the farthest region of the inhabited world towards the east, beyond which lies the endless sandy desert void of inhabitants. And all the while the great land of India lay beyond, and beyond again was China, and away far over the ocean sea lay America, and they knew it not. Alexander was a young man yet, only 26. It was four years since he had left Europe, and in that short time he had done wonders. He had conquered the whole eastern half of the Persian Empire. Now he resolutely turned his face to the unknown east, and started force on an expedition of exploration. Following the main highway from Medea, which today leads from Tehran, capital of modern Persia, into the land of the Turkomans and the borders of Russia, he found himself between the great south desert and the mountains, which today marks the frontier of Persia. Suddenly, to his great surprise, the Caspian Sea came into sight. It seemed about the same size as the Black Sea, and he concluded it was connected with the Sea of Azoth. Though the men of his day were certain enough that it was the most northern of four great gulfs connected with the outer ocean, which flowed round the world. Onward, towards the east, he marched with his great army. To conciliate the tribes through which he passed, he adopted Persian dress. This annoyed his Greek countrymen, but as they admired his other virtues, they thought he might be suffered to please himself a little and enjoy his vanity. Arrived at the modern boundary between Persia, Afghanistan and Russia, he and his men pushed on across Afghanistan by the Karavan route that had long existed from the shores of the Caspian by modern Herod, Kandahar, which still bears a conqueror's name, and Kabul to India. Their way lay through deep snow, deeper than they had ever seen before, and by the time they had reached the mountains of Kabul, it was mid-winter. Between Alexander and India still lays a lofty range of the Hindu Kush or Indian Caucasus. But before going south toward India, he turned northwards to explore the unknown country, which lay about the river Oxos. They found the Oxos a mighty stream, swollen with melting snow. There were no boats and no wood to build them, so Alexander pioneered his men across in life preservers, made out of their leather tent coverings and stuffed with straw. This river impressed the Greeks even more than the Euphrates and Tigris, as it impressed many an explorer and poet since these early days. Let us recall Matthew Arnold's famous description of the Oxos, now seen for the first time by the Greeks. But the majestic river floated on, out of the midst and hum of that low land. Into the frosty starlight he flowed, right for the fuller star passed Orguni, brimming and bright and large. Then sands began, to him his watery march and dumb his streams, and split his currents, that for many a leak, the shorn and parceled Oxos strained along. Through beds of sand and matted rushy aisles, Oxos forgetting the bright speed he had, in his high mountain cradle in Pamir, a fold circuitous wanderer, till at last, the longed for dash of waves is heard and wide, his luminous home of water opens, bright and tranquil, from whose floors and new-based stars emerge and shine upon the Aral Sea. Here in this valley, the Greeks met more determined opposition than they had yet encountered since entering Asia, and over two years were occupied in reducing this single district, now Bokhara and Turkestan, to submission, though it was only some 350 miles square, and in one single year Alexander had conquered a kingdom over 1000 miles in vids. It was not till the spring of 827 BC that he was ready to cross the Hindukush and begin the great expedition into India. The night before the start Alexander discovered that his troops were now so heavily laden with spoils that they were quite unfit for the longed march. So, in the early morning, when they were all ready to start, he suddenly set fire to his own baggage, and giving orders that all his men were to do the same. The army started for the passes of the lofty mountain range, and, as a troop of peddlers from Kabul, cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, the vast sky-neighboring mountain of milk snow, crossing so high that, as they mount they pass, long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, choked by the air and scarce can say themselves, slakes their parts throats with sugared mulberries. In single file they move and stop their breath, for fear they should dislodge the overhanging snows. The banks of the river of Kabul were reached at last. Sending part of the army by the now famous Kuber Pass towards the Indus, Alexander himself undertook to subdue with the mountain tribes, and get control of the Ketral passes. The shepherds of the region opposed him vigorously, but swiftly and pitilessly the king of Asia sacked their peaceful homes, and city after city fell to him, as he advanced towards the boundaries of Kashmir. At last the volley of the Indus was reached, a bridge of boats was hastily thrown over, and Alexander and his army passed to the other side. Borus, the ruler of the country between the Indus and the river Hidespis, Jellam, sent presents of welcome to the invader, including 3,000 animals for sacrifice, 10,000 sheep, 30 elephants, 200 talons of silver, and 700 horsemen. The new king was also greeted with presents of ivory and precious stones. Even from far Kashmir came greetings to Alexander, whose fame was spreading rapidly. He now entered the Punjab, the land of the five rivers. But on the other side of the river Hidespis, a different reception awaited him. There the king Borus had assembled a sturdy, well-disciplined troop to dispute the passage of the river, which separated the new king of Asia from his territory. But under cover of a mighty thunderstorm, Alexander contrived to cross, though the river was rushing down yellow and fierce after the rains. Secretly the Greeks put together their 30 oared galleys, hidden in a wood, an utterly surprised borus by landing on the other side. In their strange renderings the Greeks had fought under varying conditions, but they had never faced elephants before. Nevertheless their brilliantly repulsed an onslaught of these animals, who slowly retreated, facing the foe like ships backing water and nearly uttering a shrill piping sound. Despite the elephants the old story was repeated, civilized arms triumphed over barbarians, and the army of Borus was annihilated, his chariots shattered, and 33,000 men slain. The kingdom beyond the Hidespis was now Alexander's. Ordering a great fleet of rafts and boats to be built for his proposed voyage to the mouth of the Indus, he pushed on to complete the conquest of the five stream land, or the Punjab, the last province of the Great Persian Empire. This was India, all that was known at the time. The India of the Gangswally was beyond the knowledge of the western world, the gangs itself and known to the Persians, and Alexander saw no reason to change his mind. The great sea surrounds the whole earth, he's totally maintained. But when he reached the eastern limit of the Punjab and heard that beyond lay a fertile land where the inhabitants were skilled in agriculture, where there were elephants in yet greater abundance, and men were superior in stature and courage, the world stretched out before him in an unexpected direction, and he launched to explore farther, to conquer new and utterly unknown worlds. But at last his men struck. They were weary, somewhere wounded, somewhere ill, seventy days of incessant rain had taken the heart out of them. I'm not ignorant soldiers, said Alexander to the hesitating troops, that during the last few days the natives of this country have been spreading all sorts of rumors to work upon your fears. The Persians in this way sought to terrify you with the gates of Kilikia, with the plains of Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates, and yet this river you crossed by afford and that by means of a bridge. By my troth we had long ago fled from Asia could fables have been able to scare us. We're not standing on the threshold of our enterprise, but at the very close. We have already reached the sunrise and the ocean, and unless your sloths and cowardice prevent, we shall then return in triumph to our native land, having conquered the earth to its remotest bounds. I beseech you that he desert not your king just at the very moment when he is approaching the limits of the inhabited world. But the soldiers with their heads bent earthwards stood in silence. It was not that they would not follow him beyond the sunset. They could not. Their tears began to flow, sobs reached the ears of Alexander. His anger turned to pity, and he wept with his men. Oh, sir, at last cried one of his men. We have done and suffered up to the full measure of the capacity of mortal nature. We have traversed seas and lands, and know them better than do the inhabitants themselves. We are standing now almost on the earth's atmost verge, and yet you are preparing to go in quest of an India unknown even to the Indians themselves. You would faint root out from their hidden recesses and dens, a race of men that herd with snakes and wild beasts, so that you may traverse as a conqueror more regions than the sun surveys. But while your courage will be ever growing, our vigor is fast waning to its end. See how bloodless be our bodies, pierced with how many wounds and gashed with how many scars. Our weapons are blunt, our armor worn out. We have been driven to assume the Persian dress. Which of us has a horse? We have conquered all the world, but are ourselves destitute of all things. The conqueror was at last conquered. The order to turn back was reluctantly given by the disappointed king and leader. It was received the shouts of joy from the mixed multitudes of his followers, and the expedition faced for home. Bags they marched through the new lands were no less than two thousand cities had owned his sway, till they came to the banks of the river, where the ships were building. Two thousand boats were ready, including eighty-thirty oared galleys. It was now September three hundred twenty-six BC. Near host from Crete was made admiral of the new fleet, which at dawn one October morning pushed out upon the river Hiddaspis and set sail downstream towards the unknown sea, Alexander standing proudly on the pro of the royal galley. The trumpets rang out, the oars moved, and the strange urgency that just had never been seen before in these parts made its way down the unknown river to the unknown sea. Natives swarmed to the banks of the river to wander at the strange sight, marveling especially to see horses as passengers on board. The greater part of the army followed the ships on land, marching along the shores. At last the waters of the Hiddaspis mingled with those of the Indus, and onwards down this great river floated the Persian fleet. Alexander had no pilots, no local knowledge of the country, but with his unquenchable ambition to see the ocean and reach the boundaries of the world he sailed on, ignorant of everything on the way they had to pass. In vain they asked the natives assembled on the banks how far distant was the sea, they had never heard of the sea. At last they found a tide mixing its salt waters with the fresh. Soon a flood tide burst upon them, forcing back the current of the river and scattering the fleet. The sailors of the Mediterranean knew nothing of the rise and fall of tides. They were in a state of panic and consternation. Some tried to push off their ships with long poles, others tried to row against the incoming tide. Pros were dashed against poops, oars were broken, sterns were bumped, until at last the sea had flowed over all the level land near the river mouth. Suddenly a new danger appeared. The tide turned and the sea began to recede. Further misfortunes now befell the ships. Many were left high and dry, most of them were damaged in some way or another. Alexander sent horsemen to the seashore with instructions to watch for the return of the tide and ride back in haste so that the fleet might be prepared. Thus they got safely out to sea on the next high tide. Alexander's explorations were now at the end. Leaving Nerhuz to explore the seacoast at the mouth of the Andos, he left the spot near where the town of Hiderabad now stands, and turned his face toward the home he was never to reach. We must not linger over his terrible coast journey through the scorching desert of Balukistan, the billows of sand, the glare of the barren sea, the awful thirst, the long hungry marches of 40 miles a day under the burning eastern sun. Our story is one of discovery, and we must turn to Nerhuz, Admiral of the Fleet, left behind at the mouth of the Andos to explore the coast of the Persian Gulf, where he was to meet Alexander if possible. Shortly after the fleet had emerged from the mouth of the Andos, a violent southwest monsoon began to blow and Nerhuz was obliged to seek shelter in a harbor, which he called the Port of Alexander, but which today is known as Karachi, the most western seaport of India. The waters of the Indian Ocean were quite unknown to the Greeks, and they could only coast along inside of land, anchoring at different points for the man to land and get water and food. Past the wild barren shores of Balukistan they made their way. The natives subsisted on fish, entirely even as they do today, even their hats being made of fish bones and their bread of pounded fish. They had but one adventure in their five months' cruise to the Persian Gulf, but we have a graphic account of how the terrified Greeks met a shawl of whales and how they frightened the whales away. Here is the story. One day, towards daybreak, they suddenly saw water spouting up from the sea, as if being violently carried upwards by whirlwinds. The sailors, feeling very frightened, asked at their native guides what it meant. The natives replied that it was caused by whales blowing the water up into the air. At this explanation the Greek sailors were panic-stricken and dropped the oars from their hands, nor whose soul that something must be done at once, though he bade the men draw up their ships in line, as if for battle, and draw forward side by side towards the whales, shouting and splashing with their oars. At a given signal they duly advanced, and when they came near the sea monsters they shouted with all their might and blew their trumpets, and made all possible noise with their oars. On hearing which, says the old story, the whales took fright and plunged into the depths, but not long after came to the surface again close to the sterns of the vessels, and once more spouted great jets of water. Then the sailors shouted aloud at their happy and unlooked for escape, and nor whose was cheered as the saviour of the fleet. It is not uncommon today for steamers bound from Aden to Bombay to encounter what is called a shawl of whales, similar to those which alarmed the fleet of Nerhuz in the year 323 BC. The expedition was completely successful, and Nerhuz pioneered his fleet to the mouth of the Euphrates. But the deaths of Alexander the Great and the confusions that followed set back the advance of geographical discovery in this direction for some time. Alexandria, one of the many towns founded by Alexandra, had become the world centre of their learned from Europe, Asia and Africa. Its position was unrevealed, situated at the mouth of the Nile, it commanded the Mediterranean Sea, while by the means of the Red Sea it held easy communication with India and Arabia. When Egypt had come under the space of Alexander, he had made one of his generals ruler over the country, and men of intellect collected there to study and to write. A library was started, and a Greek Eratosthenes held the post of librarian at Alexandria for 40 years, namely from 240 till 190 BC. During this period he made a collection of all the travels and books of Earth's description, the first the world had ever known, and stored them in the great library of which he must have felt so justly proud. But Eratosthenes did more than this. He was the originator of scientific geography. He realized that no maps could be properly laid down till something was known of the size and shape of the Earth. While this time all men of science had ceased to believe that the world was flat, they thought of it as a perfect round, but fixed at the centre in space. Many had guessed at the size of the Earth, some said it was 40 000 miles round, but Eratosthenes was not content with guessing. He studied the length of the shadow thrown by the Sun at Alexandria, and compared it with that thrown by the Sun at Sien, near the first cataract of the Nile, some 500 miles distant, and as he thought in the same longitude. The differences in the length of these two shadows he calculated would represent 150 of the circumference of the Earth, which would accordingly be 20 000 miles. There was no one to tell him whether he had calculated right or wrong, but we know today that he was wonderfully right, but he must know more. He must find out how much of this Earth was habitable. To the north and south of the known countries men declared it was too hot or too cold to live. So he decided that from north to south, that is from the land of Tule to the land of Punt, Somaliland, the habitable Earth stretched for some 3800 miles, while from east to west, that is from the pillars of Hercules, strats of Gibraltar to India, would be some 8 000 miles. All the rest was ocean. Ignoring the division of the world into three continents, he divided it into two – north and south, divided by the Mediterranean and by a long range of mountains intersecting the whole of Asia. Then the famous librarian drew a map of the world for his library at Alexandria, but it has perished with all the rest of the valuable treasure collected in this once celebrated city. We know that he must have made a great many mistakes in drawing a map of his little island world, which measured 8 000 miles by 3800 miles. It must have been quaintly arranged. The Caspian Sea was connected with the northern ocean, that Danube sent a tributary to the Adriatic. There was no Bay of Biscay. The British isles lay in the wrong direction. Africa was not half its right size. The gangs flowed into the eastern ocean. Ceylon was a huge island stretching east and west, while across the whole of Asia a mountain chain stretched in one long and broken line. And yet, with all his errors, he was nearer the truth than men three centuries later. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 6 BTS Find the British Isles For some centuries past, men had been pushing eastward, and to west, vast lands lay and explored, and dreamed of, amongst them a little far off island set in a silver sea. BTS was the first explorer to bring the world news of the British Isles. About the time that Alexander was making his way eastward through Persia, BTS was leaving the Greek colony of Marcellus from the west and north. The Phoenicians, with their headquarters at Cartage, had complete command of the mineral trade of Spain, the Mexico of the ancient world. They knew where to find the gold and silver from the rivers. Indeed, they said that the coast, from the Tacos to the Pyrenees, was stuffed with mines of gold and silver and tin. The Greeks were now determined to see for themselves. The men of Cartage should no longer have it all their own way. Where were these tin islands kept so secret by the master mariners of the ancient world? A committee of merchants met at Marcellus and engaged the services of BTS, a great mathematician, and one who made a study of the effect of the moon on the tides. All sorts of vague rumors had reached the ears of BTS about the northern regions he was about to visit. He would discover the homes of the tin and amber merchants. He would find the people who lived at the back of the north wind. He would reach a land of perpetual sunshine, where a swan sang like nightingales, and life was one unending banquet. So BTS, the mathematician of Marcellus, started off on his northern trip. Unfortunately, his diary and book called The Circuit of the Earth have perished, and our story of geographical discovery is the poorer. But these facts have survived. The ships first touched at Cadiz, the tire of the west, a famous port in those days, where Phoenician merchants lived careless and secure and rich. This was the limit of Greek geographical knowledge. Here were the pillars of Hercules, beyond which all was dim and mysterious and interesting. Five days sail, that is to say, some 300 miles along the coast of Spain, brought BTS to Cape St. Vincent. He thought he was navigating the swift ocean river flowing around the world. He was, therefore, surprised to find, as he rounded the Cape, that the current had ceased, or, in his own words, the ebb came to an end. Three days more, and they were at the mouth of the Tagus. Near this part of the coast lay the tin islands, according to Greek ideas. Though even today their exact locality is uncertain, BTS must have heard the old tradition that the Cassiturides were ten in number and lay near each other in the ocean, that they were inhabited by people who wore black cloaks and long tunics reaching to the feet, that they walked with long staves and subsisted by their cattle. They led a wandering life, they bartered hides, tin and lead, with the merchants in exchange for pottery, salt, and implements of bronze. That these islands had already been visited by a Himilcos at the Cataginian seems fairly certain. He had started from Cadiz, for the north, when Hanno started for the south. From the tin islands his fleet had ventured forth into the open sea. Thick fogs had hidden the sun, and the ships were driven south before a north wind, till they reached, though they did not know it, the Sargasso Sea, famous for its vast plains of seaweed, through which it was difficult to push the ships. Sea animals, he tells us, crept upon the tangled weed. It has been thought that with a little good fortune, Himilco might have discovered America two thousand years before the birth of Columbus. But Himilco returned home by the outdoors or fortunate islands as they were called. Leaving the tin islands, P.T.S. voyaged on the Cape Finisterre, landing on the island of Uschand, where he found a temple served by woman priests, who kept up a perpetual fire in honour of their god. Then P.T.S. sailed prosperously on up to the English Channel, till he struck the coast of Kent. Britain, he announced the several days journey from Uschand, and about 170 miles to the north. He sailed round part of the coast, making notes of distances, but these are curiously exaggerated. This was not unnatural, for the only method of determining distance was roughly based on the number of miles that the ship could go in an hour along the shore. Measuring in this primitive fashion, P.T.S. assures us that Britain is a continent of enormous size, and that he has discovered a new world. It is, he says, three-cornered in shape, something like the head of a battle axe. The south side, lying opposite the coast of France, is 835 miles in length. The eastern coast is 1665 miles. The west turned 2222. Indeed, the whole country was thought to be over 4000 miles in circumference. These calculations must have been very upsetting to the old geographers of that age, because up to this time, they had decided that the whole world was only 3400 miles long and 6800 broad. He tells us that he made journeys into the interior of Britain, that the inhabitants drink mead, and that there is an abundance of wheat in the fields. The natives, he says, collect the sheaves in great barns and trash out the corn there, because they have so little sunshine that an open trashing place would be of little use in that land of clouds and rain. He seems to have voyaged north as far as the Shetland Islands, but he never saw Ireland. Having returned from the north of the Thames, BTS crossed the North Sea to the mouth of the Rhine, a passage which took about two and a half days. He gives a pitiable account of the people living on the Dutch coast, and their perpetual struggle with the sea. The natives had not learned the art of making dikes and embankments. A high tide with a wind setting towards the shore would sweep over the low-lying country and swam to their homes. A mounted horseman could barely get up from the rush and force of these strong North Sea tides. But the Greek geographers would not believe this. They only knew the tideless Mediterranean, and they thought BTS was lying when he told of the fierce northern sea. BTS sailed past the mouth of the Elbe, noting the amber cast upon the shore by the high-spring tides. But all these interesting discoveries paled before the famous land of Toul, six days voyage north of Britain, in the neighborhood of the frozen ocean. Grand excitement reigned among geographers when they heard of Toul, and a very sea of romance rose up around the name. Had BTS indeed found the end of the world? Was it an island? Was it mainland? In the childhood of the world, where so little was known and so much imagined, men's minds caught at the name of Toul, Ultima Tule, far away too, and weaved round it many and beautiful legends. But today we ask, was it Iceland? Was it Lapland? Was it one of the Shetland Isles? BTS said that the fourest parts of the world are those which lie about Toul, the northernmost of the Britannic Isles. But he never said whether Toul was an island or whether the world was habitable by man, as far as that point. I should think myself, the speaker is Strabo, a famous Greek traveler who wrote 17 books of geography. I should think myself that the northern limit of habitude lies much farther to the south. For the writers of our age say nothing of any place beyond Ireland, which is situated in front of the northern parts of Britain. BTS said that Toul was six days sail north of Britain. But who in his senses would believe this, cried Strabo again, for BTS, who described Toul, has been shown to be the falsest of men. A traveler starting from the middle of Britain and going 500 miles to the north would come to a country somewhere about Ireland, where living would be barely possible. The first account of the Arctic regions likewise reads like pure romance to the ignorant and traveled. After one day's journey to the north of Toul, says BTS, men come to our sluggish sea, where there is no separation of sea, land and air, but a mixture of these elements, like the substance of jellyfish, through which one can neither walk nor sail. Here the nights were very short, sometimes only two hours, after which the sun rose again. This, in fact, was the sleeping palace of the sun. With all this wealth of discovery, BTS returned home by the Bay of Biscay, to the mouth of the Gironde. Then sailed up the Garonne, and from the modern town of Bordeaux he reached Marcel's by an overland journey. End of chapter 6