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+	<title>The Project Gutenberg e-Book of A Book of Discovery, by M. B. Synge</title>
+	<style type="text/css">
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's A Book of Discovery, by Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Book of Discovery
+       The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest
+              Times to the Finding of the South Pole
+
+Author: Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2007 [EBook #23107]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF DISCOVERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ron Swanson
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<a name="ill001"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="Frontispiece">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="693">
+			<img src="images/001.jpg" alt="PTOLEMY'S MAP OF THE WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="693" align="center">
+			<small>PTOLEMY'S MAP OF THE WORLD, ORIGINALLY DRAWN ABOUT <small>A.D.</small> 150.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="693" align="left">
+			<small>From the first printed edition of 1472 (the first book to have
+			printed maps) and the famous Rome edition of 1508. It is only necessary
+			to compare this map with the mythical geography represented in a
+			medi&aelig;val map such as the Hereford map of the world, made <i>eleven
+			centuries</i> later to recognise the extraordinary accuracy and
+			scientific value of Ptolemy's geography.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>A BOOK OF DISCOVERY</h1>
+<h3>THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S EXPLORATION, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO
+THE FINDING OF THE SOUTH POLE</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>By M. B. SYNGE, F.R.Hist.S.</h2>
+<center><small>AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF THE WORLD"<br>
+"A SHORT HISTORY OF SOCIAL LIFE IN ENGLAND" ETC.</small></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><b><i>FULLY ILLUSTRATED FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES AND WITH MAPS</i></b></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 002">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="300" align="center">
+			<img src="images/002.jpg" alt="THE GOLDEN HIND">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="300" align="center">
+			<small>THE <i>GOLDEN HIND</i><br>
+			(<i>From the Chart of "Drake's Voyages"</i>)</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center>LONDON: T. C. &amp; E. C. JACK, LTD.<br>
+35 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C., &amp; EDINBURGH</center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3>
+
+<center><small>"Hope went before them, and the world was wide."</small></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>Such was 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 whereon no boat had ever
+sailed. It is the incentive of those to-day with the wander-thirst
+in their souls, who travel and suffer in the travelling, though there
+are fewer prizes left to win. But</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem1">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"The reward is in the doing,<br>
+			&nbsp;And the rapture of pursuing<br>
+			&nbsp;Is the prize."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"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 unrivalled 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.</p>
+
+<p>"All these," says the poet in Ecclesiastes&mdash;"all these were honoured
+in their generation, and were the glory of their times ... their name
+liveth for evermore."</p>
+
+<p>But while we read of those master-spirits who succeeded, let us never
+forget those who failed to achieve.</p>
+
+   <center><small>"Anybody might have found it, but the Whisper came to Me."</small></center>
+
+<p>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 never have been explored had it not been for those finer spirits
+who resolutely went on&mdash;even to the death.</p>
+
+<p>This is what carried Alexander the Great to the "earth's utmost verge,"
+that drew Columbus across the trackless Atlantic, that nerved Vasco
+da Gama to double the Stormy Cape, that induced Magellan 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.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no land uninhabitable, nor sea unnavigable," asserted the
+men of the sixteenth century, when England set herself to take
+possession of her heritage in the North. Such an heroic temper could
+overcome all things. But the cost was great, the sufferings intense.</p>
+
+<p>"Having eaten our shoes and saddles boiled with a few wild herbs, we
+set out to reach the kingdom of gold," says Orellana in 1540.</p>
+
+<p>"We ate biscuit, but in truth it was biscuit no longer, but a powder
+full of worms,&mdash;so great was the want of food, that we were forced
+to eat the hides with which the mainyard was covered; but we had also
+to make use of sawdust for food, and rats became a great delicacy,"
+related Magellan, as he led his little ship across the unknown Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>Again, there is Franklin returning from the Arctic coast, and stilling
+the pangs of hunger with "pieces of singed hide mixed with lichen,"
+varied with "the horns and bones of a dead deer fried with some old
+shoes."</p>
+
+<p>The dangers of the way were manifold.</p>
+
+<p>For the early explorers had no land map or ocean chart to guide them,
+there were no lighthouses to warn the strange mariner of dangerous
+coast and angry surf, no books of travel to relate the weird doings
+of fierce and inhospitable savages, no tinned foods to prevent the
+terrible scourge of sailors, scurvy. In their little wooden sailing
+ships the men of old faced every conceivable danger, and surmounted
+obstacles unknown to modern civilisation.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem2">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Now strike your Sails ye jolly Mariners,<br>
+			&nbsp;For we be come into a quiet Rode."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>For the most part we are struck with the light-heartedness of the olden
+sailor, 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, to chance the angry storm and the
+hidden rock, to discover inhospitable shores and savage foes. Founded
+on bitter experience is the old saying&mdash;</p>
+
+   <center><small>"A Passage Perilous makyth a Port Pleasant."</small></center>
+
+<p>For the early navigators knew little of the art of navigation.</p>
+
+<p>Pytheas, who discovered the British Isles, was "a great
+mathematician." Diego Cam, who sailed to the mouth of the Congo, was
+"a knight of the King's household." Sir Hugh Willoughby, "a most
+valiant gentleman." Richard Chancellor, "a man of great estimation
+for many good parts of wit in him." Anthony Jenkinson, a "resolute
+and intelligent gentleman." Sir Walter Raleigh, an Elizabethan
+courtier, and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>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 seamen.
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most graphic of all explorations is that written by a native
+of West Australia, who accompanied an exploring party searching for
+an English lad named Smith, who had been starved to death.</p>
+
+<p>"Away, away, away, away; we reach the water of Djunjup; we shoot 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&mdash;along the river away&mdash;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 sandhill; onwards I go regarding his footsteps.
+I see Mr. Smith dead. Two sleeps had he been dead; greatly did I weep,
+and much I grieved. In his blanket folding him, we scraped away the
+earth. The sun had inclined to the westward as we laid him in the
+ground."</p>
+
+<p>The book is illustrated with reproductions from old maps&mdash;old
+primitive maps, with a 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 centre, the island
+of Thule in the north, and St. Brandon's Isles of the Blest in the
+west.</p>
+
+<p>Beautifully coloured 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&mdash;"brave beflagged vessels with swelling sails." The land is
+ablaze with kings and potentates on golden thrones under canopies of
+angels. While over all presides the Madonna in her golden chair.</p>
+
+<p>The Hereford Mappa Mundi, drawn in the thirteenth century on a fine
+sheet of vellum, circular in form, is among the most interesting of
+the medi&aelig;val 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 Haldingham. The
+map is surmounted by a representation of the Last Judgment, below which
+is Paradise as a circular island, with the four rivers and the figures
+of Adam and Eve. In the centre is Jerusalem. The world is divided into
+three&mdash;Asia, "Affrica," 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.</p>
+
+<p>And what of the famous map of Juan de la Cosa, once pilot to Columbus,
+drawn in the fifteenth century, with St. 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 New World.</p>
+
+<p>The early maps of "Apphrica" are filled with camels and unicorns, lions
+and tigers, veiled figures and the turrets and spires of strange
+buildings&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem3">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Geographers in Afric maps<br>
+			&nbsp;With savage pictures fill their gaps."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Surely," says a modern writer,&mdash;"surely the old cartographer was less
+concerned to fill his gaps than to express the poetry of geography."</p>
+
+<p>And to-day, 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 is yet unsolved; there are
+shores untrodden and rivers unsurveyed.</p>
+
+<p>"God hath given us some things, and not all things, that our successors
+also might have somewhat to do," wrote Barents in the sixteenth century.
+There may not be much left, but with the words of Kipling's <i>Explorer</i>
+we may fitly conclude&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem4">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges&mdash;<br>
+			&nbsp;Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" summary="table of contents">
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><small><small>CHAP.</small></small></td>
+		<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">I.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap1">A L<small>ITTLE</small> O<small>LD</small> W<small>ORLD</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">II.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap2">E<small>ARLY</small> M<small>ARINERS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">III.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap3">I<small>S THE</small> W<small>ORLD</small> F<small>LAT</small>?</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">IV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap4">H<small>ERODOTUS</small>&mdash;T<small>HE</small> T<small>RAVELLER</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">V.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap5">A<small>LEXANDER THE</small> G<small>REAT EXPLORES</small> I<small>NDIA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">VI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap6">P<small>YTHEAS FINDS THE</small> B<small>RITISH</small> I<small>SLES</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">VII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap7">J<small>ULIUS</small> C<small>&AElig;SAR AS</small> E<small>XPLORER</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">VIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap8">S<small>TRABO'S</small> G<small>EOGRAPHY</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">IX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap9">T<small>HE</small> R<small>OMAN</small> E<small>MPIRE AND</small> P<small>LINY</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">X.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap10">P<small>TOLEMY'S</small> M<small>APS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap11">P<small>ILGRIM</small> T<small>RAVELLERS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap12">I<small>RISH</small> E<small>XPLORERS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap13">A<small>FTER</small> M<small>OHAMMED</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XIV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap14">T<small>HE</small> V<small>IKINGS SAIL THE</small> N<small>ORTHERN</small> S<small>EAS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap15">A<small>RAB</small> W<small>AYFARERS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XVI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap16">T<small>RAVELLERS TO THE</small> E<small>AST</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XVII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap17">M<small>ARCO</small> P<small>OLO</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XVIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap18">T<small>HE</small> E<small>ND OF</small> M<small>EDI&AElig;VAL</small> E<small>XPLORATION</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XIX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap19">M<small>EDI&AElig;VAL</small> M<small>APS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap20">P<small>RINCE</small> H<small>ENRY OF</small> P<small>ORTUGAL</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap21">B<small>ARTHOLOMEW</small> D<small>IAZ REACHES THE</small> S<small>TORMY</small> C<small>APE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap22">C<small>HRISTOPHER</small> C<small>OLUMBUS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap23">A G<small>REAT</small> N<small>EW</small> W<small>ORLD</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXIV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap24">V<small>ASCO DA</small> G<small>AMA REACHES</small> I<small>NDIA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap25">D<small>ISCOVERY OF THE</small> S<small>PICE</small> I<small>SLANDS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXVI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap26">B<small>ALBOA SEES THE</small> P<small>ACIFIC</small> O<small>CEAN</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXVII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap27">M<small>AGELLAN SAILS</small> R<small>OUND THE</small> W<small>ORLD</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXVIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap28">C<small>ORTES EXPLORES AND CONQUERS</small> M<small>EXICO</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXIX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap29">E<small>XPLORERS IN</small> S<small>OUTH</small> A<small>MERICA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap30">C<small>ABOT SAILS TO</small> N<small>EWFOUNDLAND</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXXI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap31">J<small>ACQUES</small> C<small>ARTIER EXPLORES</small> C<small>ANADA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXXII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap32">S<small>EARCH FOR A</small> N<small>ORTH</small>-E<small>AST</small> P<small>ASSAGE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXXIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap33">M<small>ARTIN</small> F<small>ROBISHER SEARCHES FOR A</small> N<small>ORTH</small>-W<small>EST</small> P<small>ASSAGE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXXIV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap34">D<small>RAKE'S FAMOUS</small> V<small>OYAGE</small> R<small>OUND THE</small> W<small>ORLD</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXXV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap35">D<small>AVIS</small> S<small>TRAIT</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXXVI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap36">B<small>ARENTS SAILS TO</small> S<small>PITZBERGEN</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXXVII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap37">H<small>UDSON FINDS HIS</small> B<small>AY</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXXVIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap38">B<small>AFFIN FINDS HIS</small> B<small>AY</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XXXIX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap39">S<small>IR</small> W<small>ALTER</small> R<small>ALEIGH SEARCHES FOR</small> E<small>L</small> D<small>ORADO</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XL.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap40">C<small>HAMPLAIN DISCOVERS</small> L<small>AKE</small> O<small>NTARIO</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XLI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap41">E<small>ARLY</small> D<small>ISCOVERERS OF</small> A<small>USTRALIA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XLII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap42">T<small>ASMAN FINDS</small> T<small>ASMANIA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XLIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap43">D<small>AMPIER DISCOVERS HIS</small> S<small>TRAIT</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XLIV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap44">B<small>EHRING FINDS HIS</small> S<small>TRAIT</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XLV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap45">C<small>OOK DISCOVERS</small> N<small>EW</small> Z<small>EALAND</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XLVI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap46">C<small>OOK'S</small> T<small>HIRD</small> V<small>OYAGE AND</small> D<small>EATH</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XLVII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap47">B<small>RUCE'S</small> T<small>RAVELS IN</small> A<small>BYSSINIA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XLVIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap48">M<small>UNGO</small> P<small>ARK AND THE</small> N<small>IGER</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">XLIX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap49">V<small>ANCOUVER DISCOVERS HIS</small> I<small>SLAND</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">L.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap50">M<small>ACKENZIE AND HIS</small> R<small>IVER</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap51">P<small>ARRY DISCOVERS</small> L<small>ANCASTER</small> S<small>OUND</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap52">T<small>HE</small> F<small>ROZEN</small> N<small>ORTH</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap53">F<small>RANKLIN'S</small> L<small>AND</small> J<small>OURNEY TO THE</small> N<small>ORTH</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LIV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap54">P<small>ARRY'S</small> P<small>OLAR</small> V<small>OYAGE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap55">T<small>HE</small> S<small>EARCH FOR</small> T<small>IMBUKTU</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LVI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap56">R<small>ICHARD AND</small> J<small>OHN</small> L<small>ANDER DISCOVER THE</small> M<small>OUTH OF THE</small> N<small>IGER</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LVII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap57">R<small>OSS DISCOVERS THE</small> N<small>ORTH</small> M<small>AGNETIC</small> P<small>OLE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LVIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap58">F<small>LINDERS NAMES</small> A<small>USTRALIA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LIX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap59">S<small>TURT'S DISCOVERIES IN</small> A<small>USTRALIA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap60">R<small>OSS MAKES DISCOVERIES IN THE</small> A<small>NTARCTIC</small> S<small>EAS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap61">F<small>RANKLIN DISCOVERS THE</small> N<small>ORTH</small>-W<small>EST</small> P<small>ASSAGE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap62">D<small>AVID</small> L<small>IVINGSTONE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap63">B<small>URTON AND</small> S<small>PEKE IN</small> C<small>ENTRAL</small> A<small>FRICA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXIV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap64">L<small>IVINGSTONE TRACES</small> L<small>AKE</small> S<small>HIRWA AND</small> N<small>YASSA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXV.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap65">E<small>XPEDITION TO</small> V<small>ICTORIA</small> N<small>YANZA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXVI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap66">B<small>AKER FINDS</small> A<small>LBERT</small> N<small>YANZA</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXVII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap67">L<small>IVINGSTONE'S</small> L<small>AST</small> J<small>OURNEY</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXVIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap68">T<small>HROUGH THE</small> D<small>ARK</small> C<small>ONTINENT</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXIX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap69">N<small>ORDENSKI&Ouml;LD ACCOMPLISHES THE</small> N<small>ORTH</small>-E<small>AST</small> P<small>ASSAGE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXX.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap70">T<small>HE</small> E<small>XPLORATION OF</small> T<small>IBET</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXXI.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap71">N<small>ANSEN REACHES</small> F<small>ARTHEST</small> N<small>ORTH</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXXII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap72">P<small>EARY REACHES THE</small> N<small>ORTH</small> P<small>OLE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">LXXIII.</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#chap73">T<small>HE</small> Q<small>UEST FOR THE</small> S<small>OUTH</small> P<small>OLE</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">&nbsp;</td>
+		<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">&nbsp;</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#dates">D<small>ATES OF</small> C<small>HIEF</small> E<small>VENTS</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">&nbsp;</td>
+		<td align="left"><a href="#index">I<small>NDEX</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" summary="coloured illustrations">
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill001">Ptolemy's Map of the World about <small>A.D.</small> 150</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>Taken from the first printed edition of 1472 and the Rome edition of 1508.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill042">The Polos leaving Venice for their Travels to the Far East</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Miniature at the head of a late 14th century MS. of the
+		<i>Travels of Marco Polo</i>, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill053">The Hereford Mappa Mundi of 1280</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>The original, made by R<small>ICHARD DE</small> H<small>ALDINGHAM</small>, Prebendary of
+		Hereford, hangs in the Chapter House Library, Hereford
+		Cathedral.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill069">Map of the World drawn in 1500, the first to show America</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>By J<small>UAN DE LA</small> C<small>OSA</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill092">The Dauphin Map of the World</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>Made by P<small>IERRE</small> D<small>ESCELLIERS</small> 1546, by order of Francis <small>I</small>. for the
+		Dauphin (Henri <small>II</small>.) of France.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill107">Barents's Ship among the Arctic Ice</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a coloured woodcut in Barents's <i>Three Voyages</i> (De Veer),
+		published in 1598.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill146">Ross's Winter Quarters in Felix Harbour</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill147">The First Communication With Eskimos at Boothia Felix, 1830</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From Drawings by R<small>OSS</small> in the <i>Narrative of his Expedition to the
+		North Magnetic Pole, A Second Voyage in Search of a North-West
+		Passage</i>, 1829-33.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill187">Shackleton's Ship, the <i>Nimrod</i>, among the Ice in M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Murdo Sound</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From <i>The Heart of the Antarctic</i> (published by Heinemann), by
+		kind permission of Sir E<small>RNEST</small> S<small>HACKLETON</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>BLACK &amp; WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" summary="black and white illustrations">
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill010">The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known
+		at the time of Homer</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill024">The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the time of Ptolemy</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill044">The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the end of the 13th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill064">The Best Portrait of Columbus</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the original Painting by an unknown artist in the Naval
+		Museum, Madrid.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill068">The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the time of Columbus</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill070">Amerigo Vespucci</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Sculpture by G<small>RAZZINI</small> at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill079">Ferdinand Magellan, the first Circumnavigator</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Engraving by F<small>ERDINAND</small> S<small>ELMA</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill099">Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman to sail round the World</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>After the Engraving attributed to H<small>ONDIUS</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill102">The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the time of Drake</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill125">Karakakova Bay, where Captain Cook was murdered</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Engraving in the Atlas to C<small>OOK'S</small> <i>Voyages</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill126">The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the time of Cook</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2">Mungo Park</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Engraving in P<small>ARK'S</small> <i>Travels into the Interior of
+		Africa</i>, 1799.<br> [Transcriber's note: This illustration has been lost.]</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill135">Search for a North-West Passage: Parry's Ships cutting through
+		the Ice into Winter Harbour, 1819</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing by W<small>ILLIAM</small> W<small>ESTALL</small>, A.R.A., of a Sketch by Lieut.
+		B<small>EECHEY</small>, a member of the expedition. From P<small>ARRY'S</small> <i>Journal of
+		a Voyage for the Discovery of the North-West Passage</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill183">Lhasa and the Potala</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Photograph by a member of Younghusband's Expedition to Thibet.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill186">At the North Pole</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Photograph in Admiral P<small>EARY'S</small> book <i>The North Pole</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill188">Captain Roald Amundsen taking Sights at the South Pole</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Photograph.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<center><hr width="30%"></center>
+
+<p><small>Acknowledgment is due to the courtesy of Mr. John Murray and the
+<i>Illustrated London News</i> for the photograph taken at the South Pole;
+to Admiral Peary for that taken at the North Pole;
+and to Sir Ernest Shackleton and Mr. Heinemann for
+the colour-plate of the <i>Nimrod</i>. Permissions have also been granted
+by Mr. John Murray (for illustrations from Livingstone's books and
+Admiral M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock's <i>Voyage of the Fox</i>); by Messrs. Macmillan (for
+the colour-plate of the Polos leaving Venice, from the Bodleian); and
+by Messrs. Sampson, Low, Marston, &amp; Co. (for illustrations from Sir
+H. M. Stanley's books).</small></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" summary="text illustrations">
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill003">The Garden of Eden with its Four Rivers</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Hereford Map of the World.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill004">Babylonian Map of the World on Clay</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>In the British Museum.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill005">The oldest known Ships: between 6000 and 5000 <small>B.C.</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a pre-Egyptian Vase-painting.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill006">Egyptian Ship of the Expedition to Punt,
+		about 1600 <small>B.C.</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Rock-carving at Der el Bahari.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill007">The Ark on Ararat, and the Cities of Nineveh and Babylon</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From L<small>EONARDO</small> D<small>ATI'S</small> Map of 1422.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill008">A Phoenician Ship, about 700 <small>B.C.</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Bas-relief at Nineveh.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill009">Map of the Voyage of the Argonauts</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill011">The Pillars of Hercules, as shown in a Medi&aelig;val Map</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>H<small>IGDEN'S</small> Map of the World. 1360 <small>A.D.</small></small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill012">The Pillars of Hercules, as shown in the Anglo-Saxon Map of the
+		World, 10th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill013">A Greek Galley, about 500 <small>B.C.</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Vase-painting.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill014">Jerusalem, the Centre of the World</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Hereford Map of the World, 13th century.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill015">A Merchant-Ship of Athens, about 500 <small>B.C.</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Vase-painting.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill016">The Coast of Africa, after Ptolemy (Mercator's Edition), showing
+		Hanno's Voyage</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill017">A Sketch Map of Alexander's Chief Exploratory Marches from Athens
+		to Hyderabad and Gaza</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill018">Alexandria in Pizzigani's Map, 14th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill019">North Britain and the Island of Thule</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From M<small>ERCATOR'S</small> edition of Ptolemy's Map.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill020">A Portion of an old Roman Map of the World, showing the roads
+		through the Empire</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Peutinger Table.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill021">The World-Island according to Strabo, 18 <small>A.D.</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill022">Hull of a Roman Merchant-Ship</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Roman model at Greenwich.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill023">A Roman Galley, about 110 <small>A.D.</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From Trajan's Column at Rome.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill025">The First Stages of a Medi&aelig;val Pilgrimage, London to Dover</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From M<small>ATTHEW OF</small> P<small>ARIS'S</small> <i>Itinerary</i>, 13th century.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill026">Jerusalem and the East</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From M<small>ATTHEW OF</small> P<small>ARIS'S</small> <i>Itinerary</i>, 13th century.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill027">Ireland and St. Brandon's Isle</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Catalan Map, 1375.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill028">The Mysterious Isle of St. Brandon</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From M<small>ARTIN</small> B<small>EHAIM'S</small> Map, 1492.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill029">The World-Map of Cosmas, 6th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>The oldest Christian Map.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill030">The Mountain of Cosmas</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill031">A Viking Ship</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From Professor M<small>ONTELIUS'S</small> book on Scandinavian arch&aelig;ology.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill032">A Khalif on his Throne</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Ancona Map, 1497.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill033">A Chinese Emperor giving Audience, 9th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an old Chinese MS. at Paris.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill034">The Scene of Sindbad's Voyages</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From E<small>DRISI'S</small> Map, 1154.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill035">Sindbad's Giant Roc</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an Oriental Miniature Painting.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill036">Jerusalem and the Pilgrims' Ways to it, 12th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Map of the 12th century at Brussels.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill037">Two Emperors of Tartary</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Catalan Map, 1375.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill038">A Tartar Camp</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Borgian Map, 1453.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill039">Initial Letter from the MS. of Rubruquis at Cambridge</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill040">How the Brothers Polo set out from Constantinople with their nephew
+		Marco for China</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Miniature Painting in 14th century <i>Livre des Merveilles</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill041">Marco Polo lands at Ormuz</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Miniature in the <i>Livre des Merveilles</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill043">Kublai Khan</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an old Chinese Encyclop&aelig;dia at Paris.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill045">Marco Polo</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Woodcut in the first printed edition of M<small>ARCO</small> P<small>OLO'S</small>
+		<i>Travels</i>, 1477.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill046">A Japanese Fight against the Chinese at the time when Marco Polo
+		first saw the Japanese</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an ancient Japanese Painting.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill047">Sir John Mandeville on his Travels</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a MS. in the British Museum.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill048">An Emperor of Tartary</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Map ascribed to S<small>EBASTIAN</small> C<small>ABOT</small>, 1544.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill049">A Caravan in Cathay</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Catalan Map, 1375.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill050">The Turin Map of the World, 8th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill051">A T-map, 10th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill052">A T-map, 13th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill054">The Kaiser holding the World</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a 12th-century MS.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill055">The "Anglo-Saxon" Map of the World, drawn about 990 <small>A.D.</small></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill056">Africa&mdash;from Ceuta to Madeira</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From F<small>RA</small> M<small>AURO'S</small> Map, 1457.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill057">The Voyage to Cape Blanco from Cape Bojador</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From F<small>RA</small> M<small>AURO'S</small> Map, 1457.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill058">A Portion of Africa illustrating Cadamosto's Voyage beyond Cape Blanco</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From F<small>RA</small> M<small>AURO'S</small> Map, 1457.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill059">Sketch of Africa</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From F<small>RA</small> M<small>AURO'S</small> Map of the World, 1457.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill060">Negro Boys</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From C<small>ABOT'S</small> Map, 1544.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill061">The West Coast of Africa</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From M<small>ARTIN</small> B<small>EHAIM'S</small> Map, 1492.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill062">The Parting of Columbus with Ferdinand and Isabella, 3rd August 1492</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From D<small>E</small> B<small>RY'S</small> account of
+		the <i>Voyages to India</i>, 1601.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill063">Columbus's Ship, the <i>Santa Maria</i></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Woodcut of 1493, supposed to be after a Drawing by C<small>OLUMBUS</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill065">Columbus landing on Hispaniola</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Woodcut of 1494.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill066">The first Representation of the People of the New World</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Woodcut published at Augsburg between 1497 and 1504.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill067">The Town of Isabella and the Colony founded by Columbus</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Woodcut of 1494.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill071">Vasco da Gama</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a contemporary Portrait.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill072">Africa as it was known after da Gama's Expeditions</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From J<small>UAN DE LA</small> C<small>OSA'S</small> Map of 1500.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill073">Calicut and the Southern Indian Coast</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From J<small>UAN DE LA</small> C<small>OSA'S</small> Map, 1500.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill074">The Malabar Coast</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From F<small>RA</small> M<small>AURO'S</small> Map.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill075">A Ship of Albuquerque's Fleet</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a very fine Woodcut in the British Museum.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill076">A Ship of Java and the China Seas in the 16th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From L<small>INSCHOTEN'S</small> <i>Navigatio ac Itinerarium</i>, 1598.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill077">One of the first Maps of the Pacific</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From D<small>IEGO</small> R<small>IBERO'S</small> Map, 1529.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill078">Magellan's Fleet</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From M<small>ERCATOR'S</small> <i>Mappe Monde</i>, 1569.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill080">A Ship of the 16th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From A<small>MORETTI'S</small> translation of <i>Magellan's Voyage round the
+		World</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill081">"Hondius his Map of the Magellan Streight"</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Map by J<small>ODOCUS</small> H<small>ONDIUS</small>, about 1590.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill082">The first Ship that sailed round the World</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>Magellan's <i>Victoria</i>, from H<small>ULSIUS'S</small> <i>Collection of Voyages</i>,
+		1602.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill083">Hernando Cortes, Conqueror of Mexico</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>After the original Portrait at Mexico.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill084">The Battles of the Spaniards in Mexico</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an ancient Aztec Drawing.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill085">Pizarro</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Portrait at Cuzco.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill086">Peru and South America</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Map of the World, 1544, usually ascribed to S<small>EBASTIAN</small>
+		C<small>ABOT</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill087">Peruvian Warriors of the Inca Period</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an ancient Peruvian Painting.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill088">Part of North America, showing Sebastian Cabot's Voyage to Newfoundland</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Map of 1544, usually ascribed to C<small>ABOT</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill089">Jacques Cartier</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an old Pen-drawing at the Biblioth&egrave;que Nationale, Paris.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill090">Canada and the River St. Lawrence, showing Quebec</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From L<small>ESCARBOT'S</small> <i>Histoire de la Nouvelle France</i>, 1609.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill091">New France, showing Newfoundland, Labrador, and the St. Lawrence</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From J<small>OCOMO DI</small> G<small>ASTALDI'S</small> Map, about 1550.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill093">Ivan Vasiliwich, King of Muscovie</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an old Woodcut.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill094">Anthony Jenkinson's Map of Russia, Muscovy, and Tartary</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>Published in 1562.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill095">Greenlanders as seen by Martin Frobisher</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From Captain B<small>ESTE'S</small> Account of Frobisher's <i>Voyages</i>, 1578.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill096">Sir Francis Drake</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From H<small>OLLAND'S</small> <i>Heroologia</i>, 1620.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill097">The Silver Map of the World</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From Medallion in British Museum.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill098">The Silver Map of the World</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From Medallion in British Museum.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill100">The <i>Golden Hind</i> at New Albion</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Chart of Drake's <i>Voyages</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill101">The <i>Golden Hind</i> at Java</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Chart of Drake's <i>Voyages</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill103">An Eskimo</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Water-colour Drawing by J<small>OHN</small> W<small>HITE</small>, about
+		1585.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill104">A Ship of the late 16th century</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From Ortelius, 1598.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill105">Nova Zembla and the Arctic Regions</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Map in D<small>E</small> B<small>RY'S</small> <i>Grands Voyages</i>, 1598.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill106">Barents in the Arctic&mdash;"Hut wherein we wintered"</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From D<small>E</small> V<small>EER'S</small> Account of
+		the <i>Voyages of Barents</i>, 1598.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill108">Hudson's Map of his Voyages in the Arctic</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From his Book published in 1612.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill109">A Ship of Hudson's Fleet</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From his <i>Voyages</i>, 1612.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill110">Baffin's Map of his Voyages to the North</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From original MS., drawn by B<small>AFFIN</small>, in the British Museum.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill111">Sir Walter Raleigh</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill112">Raleigh's Map of Guinea, El Dorado, and the Orinoco Coast</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the original Map, drawn by R<small>ALEIGH</small>, in British Museum.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill113">The first Settlement at Quebec</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From C<small>HAMPLAIN'S</small> <i>Voyages</i>, 1613.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill114">The Defeat of the Iroquois by Champlain</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in C<small>HAMPLAIN'S</small> <i>Voyages</i>, 1613.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill115">An early Map of "Terra Australis" called "Java la Grande"</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the "Dauphin" Map of 1546.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill116">The Wreck of Captain Pelsart's Ship, the <i>Batavia</i>, on the Coast
+		of New Holland</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Dutch account of P<small>ELSART'S</small> <i>Voyages</i>, 1647.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill117">Van Diemen's Land and two of Tasman's Ships</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Map drawn by T<small>ASMAN</small> in his "Journal."</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill118">Dampier's Ship, the <i>Cygnet</i></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in the Dutch edition of his <i>Voyage Round the
+		World</i>, 1698.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill119">Dampier's Strait and the Island of New Britain</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Map in D<small>AMPIER'S</small> <i>Voyages</i>, 1697.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill120">Chart of Behring's Voyage from Kamtchatka to North America</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Chart drawn in 1741 by Lieut. W<small>AXELL</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill121">The Island of Otaheite, or St. George</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Painting by W<small>ILLIAM</small> H<small>ODGES</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill122">A Maori Fort on the Coast between Poverty Bay and Cape Turnagain</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an Engraving in the Atlas to C<small>OOK'S</small> first <i>Voyage</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill123">Captain Cook's Vessel beached at the Entrance of Endeavour River</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From an Engraving in the Atlas to C<small>OOK'S</small> first <i>Voyage</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill124">Captain James Cook</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Painting by D<small>ANCE</small> in the Gallery of Greenwich Hospital.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill127">Port Jackson and Sydney Cove</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the Atlas to the <i>Voyage de l'Astrolabe</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill128">A Nile Boat, or Canja</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From B<small>RUCE'S</small> <i>Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill129">An Arab Sheikh</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From B<small>RUCE'S</small> <i>Travels</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill130">The Camp of Ali, the Mohammedan Chief, at Benown</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Sketch by M<small>UNGO</small> P<small>ARK</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill131">Kamalia, a Native Village near the Southern Course of the Niger</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Sketch by M<small>UNGO</small> P<small>ARK</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill132">A Native Woman washing Gold in Senegal</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Sketch by M<small>UNGO</small> P<small>ARK</small>, made on his last expedition.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill133">Vancouver's Ship, the <i>Discovery</i>, on the Rocks in Queen
+		Charlotte's Sound</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in V<small>ANCOUVER'S</small> <i>Voyage</i>, 1798.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill134">Parry's Ships, the <i>Hecla</i> and <i>Griper</i>, in Winter Harbour</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in P<small>ARRY'S</small> <i>Voyage for the North-West Passage</i>,
+		1821.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill136">The North Shore of Lancaster Sound</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in P<small>ARRY'S</small> <i>Voyage for the North-West Passage</i>,
+		1821.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill137">A Winter View of Fort Enterprise</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing, by W<small>ILLIAM</small> B<small>ACK</small>, in Franklin's <i>Journey to the
+		Polar Sea</i>, 1823.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill138">Franklin's Expedition to the Polar Sea on the Ice</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing, by W<small>ILLIAM</small> B<small>ACK</small>, in Franklin's <i>Journey to the
+		Polar Sea</i>, 1823.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill139">An Eskimo watching a Seal Hole</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in P<small>ARRY'S</small> <i>Second Voyage for a North-West
+		Passage</i>, 1824.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill140">Fort Franklin, on the Great Bear Lake, in the Winter</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in F<small>RANKLIN'S</small> <i>Second Expedition to the Polar
+		Sea</i>, 1828.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill141">Franklin's Expedition crossing Back's Inlet</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing, by Lieut. B<small>ACK</small>, in Franklin's <i>Second Expedition
+		to the Polar Sea</i>, 1828.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill142">The Boats of Parry's Expedition hauled up on the Ice for the Night</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in P<small>ARRY'S</small> <i>Attempt to Reach the
+		North Pole</i>, 1828.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill143">Major Denham and his Party received by the Sheikh of Bornu</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing by Major D<small>ENHAM</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill144">The first European Picture of Timbuktu</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in C<small>AILL&Eacute;'S</small> <i>Tomboctou</i>, 1829.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill145">Richard and John Lander paddling down the Niger</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in the account of L<small>ANDER'S</small> <i>Travels</i>, 1835.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill148">The Rosses on their Journey to the North Magnetic Pole</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in R<small>OSS'S</small> <i>Second Voyage for a North-West
+		Passage</i>, 1835.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill149">"Somerset House," Ross's Winter Quarters on Fury Beach</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in R<small>OSS'S</small> <i>Second Voyage for a North-West
+		Passage</i>, 1835.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill150">Matthew Flinders</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill151">Cape Catastrophe</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From F<small>LINDERS'</small> <i>Voyages</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill152">The Huts of the Crew of the <i>Porpoise</i> on the Sandbank, Wreck Reef</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From F<small>LINDERS'</small> <i>Voyages</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill153">Captain Sturt at the Junction of the Rivers Darling and Murray</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From the <i>Narrative of Sturt's Expedition</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill154">The Burke and Wills Expedition leaving Melbourne, 1860</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing by W<small>ILLIAM</small> S<small>TRUTT</small>, an
+		acquaintance of Burke.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill155">Burke and Wills at Cooper's Creek</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Woodcut in a contemporary Australian account of the
+		expedition.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill156">Part of the Great Southern Ice Barrier</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From R<small>OSS'S</small> <i>Voyage in the Antarctic Regions</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill157">Eskimos at Cape York watching the approach of the <i>Fox</i></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From M<small><sup>c</sup></small>C<small>LINTOCK'S</small> <i>Voyage in
+		Search of Franklin</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill158">The Three Graves on Beechey Island</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From M<small><sup>c</sup></small>C<small>LINTOCK'S</small> <i>Voyage in
+		Search of Franklin</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill159">Exploring Parties starting from the <i>Fox</i></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From M<small><sup>c</sup></small>C<small>LINTOCK'S</small> <i>Voyage in
+		Search of Franklin</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill160">Livingstone, with his Wife and Family, at the Discovery of Lake Ngami</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From L<small>IVINGSTONE'S</small> <i>Missionary Travels</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill161">The "Smoke" of the Zambesi (Victoria) Falls</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>After a Drawing in L<small>IVINGSTONE'S</small> <i>Missionary Travels</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill162">Burton in a Dug-out on Lake Tanganyika</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>After a Drawing by B<small>URTON</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill163">Burton and his Companions on the march to Victoria Nyanza</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Humorous Sketch by B<small>URTON</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill164">The <i>Ma-Robert</i> on the Zambesi</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>After a Drawing in L<small>IVINGSTONE'S</small> <i>Expedition to
+		the Zambesi</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill165">M'tesa, King of Uganda</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From S<small>PEKE'S</small> <i>Journey to Discover the
+		Source of the Nile</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill166">The Ripon Falls on the Victoria Nyanza</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From S<small>PEKE'S</small> <i>Journey to Discover the
+		Source of the Nile</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill167">Captains Speke and Grant</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill168">Baker and his Wife crossing the Nubian Desert</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From B<small>AKER'S</small> <i>Travels</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill169">Baker's Boat in a Storm on Lake Albert Nyanza</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From B<small>AKER'S</small> <i>Albert Nyanza</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill170">The Discovery of Lake Bangweolo, 1868</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From L<small>IVINGSTONE'S</small> <i>Last Journals</i>, by permission of Mr. John
+		Murray.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill171">Livingstone at Work on his Journal</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Sketch by H. M. S<small>TANLEY</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill172">Livingstone entering the Hut at Ilala on the Night that he Died</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From L<small>IVINGSTONE'S</small> <i>Last Journals</i>, by permission of Mr. John
+		Murray.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill173">The last Entries in Livingstone's Diary</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill174">Susi, Livingstone's Servant</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Sketch by H. M. S<small>TANLEY</small>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill175">Stanley and his Men marching through Unyoro</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Sketch, by S<small>TANLEY</small>, in <i>Through the
+		Dark Continent</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill176">"Towards the Unknown": Stanley's Canoes starting from Vinya Njara</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From <i>Through the Dark Continent</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill177">The Seventh Cataract&mdash;Stanley Falls</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From <i>Through the Dark Continent</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill178">The Fight below the Confluence of the Aruwimi and Livingstone Rivers</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Sketch, by S<small>TANLEY</small>, in <i>Through the
+		Dark Continent</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill179">Nordenski&ouml;ld's Ship, the <i>Vega</i>, saluting Cape Chelyuskin</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in H<small>OVGAARD'S</small> <i>Nordenski&ouml;ld's Voyage</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill180">Menka, Chief of the Chukches</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill181">The <i>Vega</i> frozen in for the Winter</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Drawing in H<small>OVGAARD'S</small> <i>Nordenski&ouml;ld's Voyage</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill182">The Potala at Lhasa</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From K<small>IRCHER'S</small> <i>China Illustrata</i>.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill184">Dr. Nansen</a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>After a Photograph.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>	<td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><a href="#ill185">The Ship that went Farthest North: the <i>Fram</i></a></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td><small>From a Photograph.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>A BOOK OF DISCOVERY</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap1"></a><a name="page1"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<h4>A LITTLE OLD WORLD</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>No story is complete unless it begins at the very beginning. But where
+is the beginning? Where is the dawn of geography&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Every day men are patiently digging in the old heaps that were once
+the sites of busy cities, and, as a result of their unwearying toil,
+they are revealing to us the life-stories of those who dwelt therein;
+they are disclosing secrets writ on weather-worn stones and tablets,
+bricks and cylinders, never before even guessed at.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we read the wondrous story of ancient days, and breathlessly
+wonder what marvellous discovery will thrill us next.</p>
+
+<p>For the earliest account of the old world&mdash;a world made up apparently
+of a little land and a little water&mdash;we turn to an old papyrus, the
+oldest in existence, which tells us in familiar words, unsurpassed
+for their exquisite poetry and wondrous simplicity, of that great
+dateless time so full of mystery and awe.</p>
+
+<p>"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth
+was waste and void; and darkness <a name="page2"></a>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 in 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 into 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."</p>
+
+<p>Thus beautifully did the children of men express their earliest idea
+of the world's distribution of land and water.</p>
+
+<a name="ill003"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 3">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="222">
+			<img src="images/003.jpg" alt="THE GARDEN OF EDEN WITH ITS FOUR RIVERS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="222" align="center">
+			<small>THE GARDEN OF EDEN WITH ITS FOUR RIVERS.<br>
+			From the Hereford Map of the World.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>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&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden ... and a river
+went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted,
+and became four heads. The name of the first is Pison ... and the name
+of the second river is Gihon; the name of the third river is Hiddekel
+(Tigris). And the fourth river is Euphrates."</p>
+
+<p>Now look at a modern map of Asia. Between Arabia and Persia there is
+a long valley watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, 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 <a name="page3"></a>and bays and capes, with islands
+and mountains and rivers.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>In this 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 round.</p>
+
+<a name="ill004"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 4">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="251">
+			<img src="images/004.jpg" alt="BABYLONIAN MAP OF THE WORLD ON CLAY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="251" align="center">
+			<small>BABYLONIAN MAP OF THE WORLD ON CLAY.<br>
+			Showing the ocean surrounding the world and the position of Babylon on the Euphrates.
+			In the British Museum.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>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"&mdash;names have been given to various regions round about, and
+cities have arisen on the banks of the rivers. Babylonia, Mesopotamia,
+Chaldea, Assyria&mdash;all these long names belonged to this region, and
+around each centres some of the most interesting history and legend
+in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Rafts on the river and caravans on the land carried <a name="page4"></a>merchandise far
+and wide&mdash;men made their way to the "Sea of the Rising Sun," as they
+called the Persian Gulf, and to the "Sea of the Setting 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&mdash;cedar, pine, and cypress were
+brought from Lebanon to Chaldea, limestone and marble from Syria,
+copper and lead from the shores of the Black Sea.</p>
+
+<p>And these dwellers about Babylonia built up a wonderful civilisation.
+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 (Kerbela), near the
+ancient mouth of the Euphrates, appears a traveller. There had
+doubtless been many before, but records are scanty and hard to piece
+together, and a detailed account of a traveller with a name is very
+interesting.</p>
+
+<p>"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 travelled by the chief caravan routes of Syria into Egypt. Here
+about the fertile mouth of the Nile he would have found an ancient
+civilisation as wonderful as that to which he was accustomed in
+<a name="page5"></a>Babylonia. It was a grain-growing country, and when there was famine
+in other lands, there was always "corn in Egypt"&mdash;thanks to the mighty
+life-giving Nile.</p>
+
+<p>But we must not linger over the old civilisation, 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 tell us this.</p>
+
+<a name="ill005"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 5">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="631">
+			<img src="images/005.jpg" alt="THE OLDEST KNOWN SHIPS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="631" align="center">
+			<small>THE OLDEST KNOWN SHIPS: BETWEEN 6000 AND 5000 <small>B.C.</small><br>
+			From a pre-Egyptian vase-painting.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On the coast of the Red Sea they built their long, narrow ships, which
+were rowed by some twenty 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."</p>
+
+<p>Petrie tells us of an Egyptian sailor who was sent to Punt or Somaliland
+"to fetch for Pharaoh sweet-smelling spices." He was shipwrecked on
+the way, and this is the account of his adventures&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I was going,' he relates, 'to the mines of Pharaoh and I went down
+on the sea on a ship with a hundred and fifty 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; but 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 <a name="page6"></a>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 a burnt-offering unto the gods.
+Suddenly I heard a noise as of thunder, which I thought to be that
+of a wave of the sea. The trees shook and the earth was moved. I
+uncovered my eyes and I saw that a serpent drew near; his body was
+as if overlaid with gold, and his colour as that of true lazuli.'</p>
+
+<p>"'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.</p>
+
+<p>"The sailor told his story kneeling on his knees, with his face bowed
+to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"'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 blest,
+where nothing is lacking and which is filled with all good things.
+Thou shalt be four months in this isle. Then a ship shall come from
+thy land with sailors, and thou shalt 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.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then the grateful sailor promised to bring all the treasures of Egypt
+back to Punt, and 'I shall tell of thy presence unto Pharaoh; I shall
+make him to know of thy greatness,' said the Egyptian stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"But the strange prince of Punt only smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"'Thou shalt never more see this isle,' he said; 'it shall be changed
+into waves.'"</p>
+
+<p>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 cypress, incense, ivory tusks, baboons, and apes, and thus laden
+he sailed home to his own people.</p>
+
+<a name="ill006"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 6">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="692">
+			<img src="images/006.jpg" alt="EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE EXPEDITION TO PUNT, ABOUT 1600 B.C.">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="692" align="center">
+			<small>EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE EXPEDITION TO PUNT, ABOUT 1600 <small>B.C.</small><br>
+			From a rock-carving at Der el Bahari.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Long centuries after this we get another glimpse at <a name="page7"></a>the land of Punt.
+This time it is in the reign of Queen Hatshepsu, who sent a great trading
+expedition into this famous country. Five ships started from Thebes,
+sailing down the river Nile and probably reaching the Red Sea by means
+of a canal. Navigation 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 coasts used by Egyptian merchants as markets
+for mother-of-pearl, emeralds, gold, and sweet-smelling perfumes.
+Thence the 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Why have ye come hither unto this land, which the people of Egypt
+know not?" asked the Chief of Punt. "Have ye come through the sky?
+Did ye sail upon the waters or upon the sea?"</p>
+
+<p>Presents from the Queen of Egypt were at once laid before the Chief
+of Punt, and soon the seashore was alive <a name="page8"></a>with people. The 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 voyaged safely back
+to Thebes with all their booty and with pleasant recollections of the
+people of Somaliland.</p>
+
+<a name="ill007"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 7">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="696">
+			<img src="images/007.jpg" alt="THE ARK ON ARARAT AND THE CITIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="696" align="center">
+			<small>THE ARK ON ARARAT AND THE CITIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON.<br>
+			From Leonardo Dati's map of 1422.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In spite of these little expeditions the Egyptian world seemed still
+very small. The Egyptians thought of the earth with its land and sea
+as a long, oblong sort of box, the centre of which was Egypt. The sky
+stretched over it like an iron ceiling, the part toward the earth being
+sprinkled with lamps hung from 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 tree 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 northern was invisible. And
+why? Because they <a name="page9"></a>thought the Great Sea, the "Very Green," the
+Mediterranean, lay between it and Egypt. Beyond these mountain peaks,
+supporting the world, rolled a great river, an ocean stream, and the
+sun was as a ball of fire placed on a boat and carried round the ramparts
+of the world by the all-encircling water.</p>
+
+<p>So we realise 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.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap2"></a><a name="page10"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h4>EARLY MARINERS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The law of the universe is progress and expansion, and this little
+old world was soon discovered to be larger than men thought.</p>
+
+<p>Now in Syria&mdash;the highway between Babylonia and Egypt&mdash;dwelt a tribe
+of dusky people known as Phoenicians. Some have thought that they were
+related to our old friends in Somaliland, and that long years ago they
+had migrated north to the seacoast of that part of Syria known as
+Canaan.</p>
+
+<p>Living on the seashore, washed by the tideless Mediterranean, they
+soon became skilful sailors. They built ships and ventured forth on
+the deep; they made their way to the islands of Cyprus and Crete and
+thence to the islands of Greece, bringing back goods from other
+countries to barter with their less daring neighbours. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 unknown lands, discovered by these master mariners&mdash;the
+admiration of the ancient world.</p>
+
+<a name="ill008"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 8">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="700">
+			<img src="images/008.jpg" alt="A PHOENICIAN SHIP, ABOUT 700 B.C.">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="700" align="center">
+			<small>A PHOENICIAN SHIP, ABOUT 700 <small>B.C.</small><br>
+			From a bas-relief at Nineveh.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page11"></a>
+<p>"The ships of Tarshish," said the old poet, "did sing of thee in thy
+market, and thou wast replenished and made very glorious in the midst
+of the seas; thy rowers have brought thee into great waters; the east
+wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas."</p>
+
+<p>All the world knew of the Phoenician seaports, Tyre and Sidon. 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 honourable of the earth. "O thou that
+art situate 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 thy 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 which thou spreadest forth to be
+thy sail.... The inhabitants of Sidon ... were thy mariners; thy wise
+men were thy pilots."</p>
+<a name="page12"></a>
+<p>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&mdash;"Lords of the eastern world that knew no west."</p>
+
+<p>England was yet unknown, America undreamt of, Australia still a
+desolate island in an unknown sea. The burning eastern sun shone down
+on to vast stretches of desert-land uninhabited by man, great rivers
+flowed through dreary swamps unrealised, tempestuous waves beat
+against their shores, and melancholy winds swept over the face of
+endless ocean solitudes.</p>
+
+<p>And still, according to their untutored 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A story is told at a later date than this of a Phoenician shipmaster
+who was bound for the Tin 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
+on to a shoal in order to keep the secret of the discovery. When he
+returned home his conduct was upheld by the State!</p>
+
+<p>But though the 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 learnt of "the extreme regions of the world" and
+of the dim <a name="page13"></a>"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 to 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Argo</i>,
+named after the great shipbuilder Argos, to bring back the Golden
+Fleece from Colchis in the Black Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Nowhere in all the history of exploration have we a more poetical
+account of the launching of a ship for distant lands: "Then they have
+stored her well with food and water, and pulled the ladder up on board,
+and settled themselves each man to his oar and kept time to Orpheus'
+harp; and away across the bay they rowed southward, while the people
+lined the cliffs; and the women wept while the men 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 rowed
+on "over the long swell of the sea, past Olympus, past the wooded bays
+of Athos and the sacred isle; and they came past Lemnos to the
+Hellespont, and so on into the Propontis, <a name="page14"></a>which we call Marmora now."
+So they came to the Bosphorus, the "land then as now of bitter blasts,
+the land of cold and misery," and a great battle of the winds took
+place.</p>
+
+<a name="ill009"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 9">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="627">
+			<img src="images/009.jpg" alt="A MAP OF THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGONAUTS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="627" align="center">
+			<small>A MAP OF THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGONAUTS.<br>
+			Drawn according to the principal classical traditions.
+			The voyage through the ocean which, according to the ancient idea,
+			surrounded the world will be especially noted.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Then the Argonauts came out into the open sea&mdash;the Black Sea. No Greek
+had ever crossed it, and even the heroes, for all their courage, feared
+"that dreadful sea and 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."</p>
+
+<p>Wearily they sailed on past the coast of Asia; they passed Sinope and
+the cities of the Amazons, the warlike <a name="page15"></a>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&mdash;Caucasus, the highest of all mountains, the
+father of the rivers of the East. And they rowed three days to the
+eastward, while the Caucasus rose higher hour by hour, till they saw
+the dark stream of Phasis rushing headlong to the sea and, shining
+above the treetops, the golden roofs of the Child of the Sun."</p>
+
+<p>How they reached home no man knows. Some say they sailed up the Danube
+River and so came to the Adriatic, dragging their ship over the snowclad
+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 helmsman cried to them, "Raise up the mast and set the sail and
+face what comes like men."</p>
+
+<p>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 weary and worn, with long, ragged beards and sunburnt
+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 labour, and the gallant comrades they had lost. And the people
+crowded round and asked them, "Who are you that sit weeping here?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are the sons of your princes, who sailed away many a year ago.
+We went to fetch the Golden Fleece and we have brought it back." Then
+there was shouting and <a name="page16"></a>laughing and weeping, and all the kings came
+to the shore, and they led the heroes away to their homes and bewailed
+the valiant dead. Old and charming as is the story of the Argonauts,
+it is made up of travellers' tales, probably told to the Greeks by
+the Phoenicians of their adventures on unknown seas.</p>
+
+<p>The wanderings of Ulysses 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 recognised
+limits. They still dreamt that the earth was flat, and that the ocean
+stream flowed for ever round and round it. There were no maps or charts
+to guide the intrepid mariners who embarked on unknown waters.</p>
+
+<p>The siege of Troy, famous in legend, was over, and the heroes were
+anxious to make their way home. Ulysses was one of the heroes, and
+he sailed forth from Asia Minor into the &AElig;gean Sea. But contrary winds
+drove him as far south as Cape Malea.</p>
+
+<p>"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 rowed the ships landward apace."</p>
+
+<p>Throughout all ages Cape Malea has been renowned for sudden and violent
+storms, dreaded by early mariners as well as those of later times.</p>
+
+<p>"Thence for nine whole days was I borne by ruinous winds over the
+teeming deep; but on the tenth day we set foot on the land of the
+lotus-eaters who eat a flowery food."</p>
+
+<p>Now ten days' sail to the south would have brought <a name="page17"></a>Ulysses to the coast
+of North Africa, and here we imagine the lotus-eaters dwelt. But their
+stay was short. For as soon as the mariners tasted the "honey-sweet
+fruit of the lotus" they forgot their homes, forgot their own land,
+and only wanted to stay with the "mild-eyed melancholy lotus-eaters."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem5">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"They sat them down upon the yellow sand,<br>
+			&nbsp;Between the sun and moon upon the shore;<br>
+			&nbsp;And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,<br>
+			&nbsp;Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore<br>
+			&nbsp;Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,<br>
+			&nbsp;Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.<br>
+			&nbsp;Then someone said: 'We will return no more';<br>
+			&nbsp;And all at once they sang, 'Our island home<br>
+			&nbsp;Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.'"</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Therefore," said Ulysses, "I led 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 Cyclops."</p>
+
+<p>No one knows exactly where the land of the Cyclops is. Some think it
+may be Sicily and the slopes of Mount Etna facing the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The famous rock of Scylla and whirlpool of Charybdis, known to the
+ancients as two sea-monsters, near the Straits of Messina, next
+claimed his attention. Let us see how Ulysses passed them.</p>
+
+<p>"We began to sail up the narrow strait," he says, lamenting. "For on
+the one side lay Scylla and on the other mighty Charybdis sucking down
+the salt sea water. Like a cauldron on a great fire she would seethe
+up through all her troubled deeps, and overhead the spray fell on the
+top of either cliff&mdash;the rock around roared horribly, and pale fear
+gat hold on my men. Toward her, then, we <a name="page18"></a>looked, fearing destruction;
+but Scylla meanwhile caught from out my hollow ships 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."</p>
+
+<p>Some have thought that the terrifying stories of Scylla, Charybdis,
+and the Cyclops were stories invented by the Phoenicians to frighten
+travellers of other nations away from the sea that they wished to keep
+for themselves for purposes of trade.</p>
+
+<p>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 Scylla and Charybdis
+and from thence to the island of Ogygia, "in the centre of the sea."
+Finally he reached his home in Ithaca so changed, so aged and
+weather-worn, that only his dog Argus recognised him.</p>
+
+<p>This, very briefly, is Homer's world-picture of a bygone age, when
+those who were seized with a thirst for travel sailed about the
+Mediterranean in their primitive ships, landing on unnamed coasts,
+cruising about unknown islands, meeting strange people, encountering
+strange adventures.</p>
+
+<p>It all reads like an old fairy tale to us to-day, for we have our maps
+and charts and know the whereabouts of every country and island about
+the tideless Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<a name="ill010"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 10">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="489">
+			<img src="images/010.jpg" alt="The world as known at the time of Homer">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="489" align="center">
+			<small>"THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"&mdash;I.<br>
+			The world as known at the time of Homer.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap3"></a><a name="page19"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h4>IS THE WORLD FLAT?</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Still, although the men of ancient time were learning fast about the
+land and sea, they were woefully ignorant. Hesiod, a Greek poet, who
+lived seven hundred and fifty 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.</p>
+
+<p>Still, there was something beyond the water&mdash;something dim,
+mysterious, unknowable. It might be the "Islands of the Blest"; it
+might be the "sacred isle." One thing he asserted firmly: "Atlas
+upholds the broad Heaven ... standing on earth's verge with head and
+unwearied hands," while the clear-voiced Hesperides guarded their
+beautiful golden apples "beyond the waters of Ocean."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem6">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Hesperus and his daughters three<br>
+			&nbsp;That sung about the golden tree."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But who thinks now of the weary Titan doomed for ever to support the
+ancient world on his head and hands, when the atlas of to-day is brought
+forth for a lesson in geography?</p>
+
+<p>About this time comes a story&mdash;it may be fact or it may be fiction&mdash;that
+the Phoenicians had sailed right round Africa. The voyage was arranged
+by Neco, an enterprising Egyptian king, who built his ships in the
+Red Sea in the year 613 <small>B.C.</small> The story is told by Herodotus, the Greek
+traveller, many years afterwards.</p>
+
+<a name="ill011"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 11">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="273">
+			<img src="images/011.jpg" alt="THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, AS SHOWN IN A MEDI&AElig;VAL MAP">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="273" align="center">
+			<small>THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, AS SHOWN IN A MEDI&AElig;VAL MAP.<br>
+			Higden's Map of the World, 1360 <small>A.D.</small></small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page20"></a>
+<p>"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 Neco,
+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 return to Egypt through them and by the
+Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt
+by way of the Erythr&aelig;an 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."</p>
+
+<p>To modern students, who have learnt 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 verse a delightful account
+of what this voyage may have been like.</p>
+
+<p>Ithobal of Tyre, Chief Captain of the seas, standing <a name="page21"></a>before Neco,
+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 Tarshish, Tyre, and Sidon, he built three goodly ships,
+"Ocean's children," in a "windless creek" on the Red Sea, how he loaded
+them with cloth and beads, "the wares wild 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 south to the unknown world and
+into the great nameless sea, by the coast of that "Large Land whence
+none hath come" they sailed.</p>
+
+<p>Ithobal 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.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem7">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			"We go as far as the sun goes<br>
+			As far as the sea rolls, as far as the stars<br>
+			Shine still in sky. To find for mighty Pharaoh what his world<br>
+			Holds hidden."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>South and ever south they sailed, "day after day and night succeeding
+night, close clinging to the shore." New stars appeared, lower and
+lower sank the sun, moons rose and waned, and still the coast stretched
+southwards till they reached a "Cape of Storms" and found the coast
+was turning north. And now occurred that strange phenomenon mentioned
+by Herodotus, that while sailing westwards the sun was on their right
+hand. "No man had seen that thing in Syria or in Egypt."</p>
+
+<p>A year and a half had now passed away since they <a name="page22"></a>left home, but onward
+to the north they now made their way, past the mouth of the golden
+waters (Orange River), past the Congo, past the Niger, past the island
+of Gorillas described by Hanno, who explored the west coast under Neco
+either before or after this time, until at last the little Phoenician
+ships sailed peacefully into the Mediterranean Sea.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem8">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			"Here is the Ocean-Gate. Here is the Strait<br>
+			Twice before seen, where goes the Middle Sea<br>
+			Unto the Setting Sun and the Unknown&mdash;<br>
+			No more unknown, Ithobal's ships have sailed<br>
+			Around all Africa. Our task is done.<br>
+			These are the Pillars, this the Midland Sea.<br>
+			The road to Tyre is yonder. Every wave<br>
+			Is homely. Yonder, sure, Old Nilus pours<br>
+			Into this Sea, the Waters of the World,<br>
+			Whose secret is his own and thine and mine."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>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
+a 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 neighbours.</p>
+
+<a name="ill012"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 12">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="293">
+			<img src="images/012.jpg" alt="THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, AS SHOWN IN THE ANGLO-SAXON MAP OF THE WORLD, TENTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="293" align="center">
+			<small>THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, AS SHOWN IN THE ANGLO-SAXON
+			MAP OF THE WORLD, TENTH CENTURY.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"I remember," 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 oars, stretchers, ship-hooks, <a name="page23"></a>and spikes were
+there for bringing the ship in and out of the harbour! What numbers
+of shrouds, 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 length 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 favourable
+to those who are negligent or lazy; and it is their goodness that they
+do not destroy us when we are diligent."</p>
+
+<a name="ill013"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 13">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="597">
+			<img src="images/013.jpg" alt="A GREEK GALLEY ABOUT 500 B.C.">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="597" align="center">
+			<small>A GREEK GALLEY ABOUT 500 <small>B.C.</small><br>
+			From a vase-painting.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>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 colonisers themselves, and we have to thank a Greek
+philosopher living in Miletus, on 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&mdash;Anaximander introduced the <a name="page24"></a>idea of map-making to the
+astonished world about the year 580 <small>B.C.</small> What was the map like? It
+was "a bronze tablet, whereupon the whole circuit of the Earth was
+engraved with all its seas and rivers."</p>
+
+<a name="ill014"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 14">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="263">
+			<img src="images/014.jpg" alt="JERUSALEM, THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="263" align="center">
+			<small>JERUSALEM, THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD.<br>
+			From the Hereford Map of the World, thirteenth century.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>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 taught that the world hung free in the midst of the universe,
+or rather in the midst of the waters. The centre of the earth was at
+Delphi. In the world of legend there was a reason for this. Two eagles
+had been let loose, one from the eastern extremity of the world, the
+other from the west, and they met at Delphi&mdash;hence it was assumed that
+Delphi was at the centre 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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way, in those days of imperfect geography, as we hear of
+Delphi being the centre of the Greek world, so we hear of Jerusalem
+being considered the central point of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Jerusalem," says Ezekiel, "in the midst of the nations and
+countries that are round about her." <a name="page25"></a>In the Mappa Mundi (thirteenth
+century) in Hereford Cathedral, Jerusalem is still the centre of the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>Following close on these ideas came another. It, too, came from Miletus,
+now famous for its school of thought and its searchers after truth.</p>
+
+<p>A <i>Tour of the World</i> is the grand-sounding title of the work of
+Hecat&aelig;us, who wrote it about 500 years <small>B.C.</small> It contains an account
+of the coast and islands of the Mediterranean Sea and an outline of
+all the lands the Greeks thought they knew. In the fragments that have
+come down to us, the famous old geographer 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 flowed the everlasting ocean stream.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap4"></a><a name="page26"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h4>HERODOTUS&mdash;THE TRAVELLER</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The greatest traveller of olden times now comes upon the
+scene&mdash;Herodotus, the Greek, the "Father of History."</p>
+
+<p>He is a traveller 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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>His first journey is to Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>"I speak at length about Egypt," he says, "because it contains more
+marvellous things than any other country&mdash;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 in weaving throw the woof 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 <a name="page27"></a>countries the priests
+have long hair; in Egypt their heads are shaven. Other nations fasten
+their ropes and hooks to the outside of their sails, but the Egyptians
+to the inside. The Greeks write and read from left to right, but the
+Egyptians from right to left."</p>
+
+<p>After sailing for some seven hundred 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 Assuan, he
+is more than ever puzzled about its course and the reason of its
+periodical floods.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;and why, as soon
+as that number is past, 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 I obtain any
+explanation from the inhabitants, though I made every inquiry."</p>
+
+<p>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 priest
+volunteers this explanation. On the frontiers of Egypt are two high
+mountain-peaks called Crophi and Mophi; in an unfathomable abyss
+between the two rose the Nile. But Herodotus does not believe in Crophi
+and Mophi; he inclines to the idea that the Nile rises away in the
+west and flows eastward right across Libya.</p>
+
+<p>He travelled a little about Libya himself, little realising <a name="page28"></a>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 one hundred and twenty years&mdash;gold was so abundant that
+it was used even for the prisoners' chains&mdash;he had seen folks who lived
+on meat and milk only, never having seen bread or wine.</p>
+
+<a name="ill015"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 15">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="589">
+			<img src="images/015.jpg" alt="A MERCHANT-SHIP OF ATHENS, ABOUT 500 B.C.">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="589" align="center">
+			<small>A MERCHANT-SHIP OF ATHENS; ABOUT 500 <small>B.C.</small><br>
+			From a vase-painting.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Some thirty days' 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 curve outwards in front
+of their heads, and if they moved forwards these horns would stick
+in the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Right across the desolate sandy desert of the north, Herodotus seems
+to have made his way. The "region of the wild beasts" must have been
+truly perilous, "for this is the tract," he says, "in which huge
+serpents are found, and the lions, the elephants, the bears, and the
+horned asses."</p>
+<a name="page29"></a>
+<p>He also tells us of antelopes, 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 paint themselves red and eat honey and monkeys, another who grow
+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 traveller,
+visiting the famous seaport of Tyre on the way. "I visited 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 two thousand three hundred years old.</p>
+
+<p>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 know now to be three
+hundred 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 this same Black
+Sea.</p>
+
+<p>But here we must leave the old traveller and picture him reading aloud
+to his delighted hearers his account of his discoveries and
+explorations, discussing with the learned Greeks of the day the size
+and wonders of the world as they imagined it.</p>
+
+<a name="ill016"></a><a name="page31"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 16">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="363">
+			<img src="images/016.jpg" alt="THE COAST OF AFRICA, AFTER PTOLEMY (MERCATOR'S EDITION)">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="363" align="center">
+			<small>THE COAST OF AFRICA, AFTER PTOLEMY (MERCATOR'S EDITION).<br>
+			This map shows the extent of Hanno's voyage from the Pillars
+			of Hercules, past the Equator, to what is now called Sierra Leone.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>News travelled 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 Carthaginian, who coasted along the west of North Africa,
+being the first explorer to reach the place we know as "Sierra Leone."</p>
+
+<p>Hanno's "Periplus," or the "Coasting Survey of Hanno," is one of the
+few Phoenician documents that <a name="page30"></a>has lived through the long ages. In it
+the commander of the expedition himself tells his own story. With an
+idea of colonising, he left Carthage&mdash;the most famous of the
+Phoenician colonies&mdash;with sixty ships containing an enormous number
+of men and women.</p>
+
+<p>"When we had set sail," says Hanno shortly, "and passed the pillars
+(of Hercules) after two days' voyage, we founded the first city. Below
+this city lay a great plain. Sailing thence westward we came to a
+promontory of Libya thickly 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 founded cities near to the sea."</p>
+
+<p>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 Cape Verde they reached the mouth of the Gambia, "great
+and broad and full of crocodiles and river-horses," and thence coasted
+twelve days to the south and again five days to the south, which brought
+them to Sierra Leone&mdash;the Lion Mountain as it was called long years
+after by the Portuguese.</p>
+
+<p>Here Hanno and his party landed, but as night approached they saw flames
+issuing from the island and heard the sound of flutes and cymbals and
+drums and the noise of confused shouts.</p>
+
+<p>"Great fear then came upon us; we sailed therefore quickly thence 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 a great mountain which they called the chariot of the <a name="page32"></a>gods."
+They had a last adventure before they turned homewards 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, flaying off their
+skins, carried them to Carthage."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 fifty-six subject States paying tribute to
+her, including the land of Egypt. Efforts to include Greece had failed.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 401 <small>B.C.</small> 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 Cyrus, his brother, a dashing young prince,
+attempted to seize the throne. Collecting a huge army, including the
+famous Ten Thousand Greeks, he led them by way of Phrygia, Cilicia,
+and along the banks of the Euphrates to within fifty miles of the gates
+of Babylon. The journey took nearly five months, a distance of one
+thousand seven hundred miles through recognised tracks. Here a battle
+was fought and Cyrus was slain.</p>
+<a name="page33"></a>
+<p>It was midwinter when the Ten Thousand Greeks who had followed their
+leader so loyally through the plains of Asia Minor found themselves
+friendless and in great danger in the very heart of the enemy's country.</p>
+
+<p>How Xenophon&mdash;a mere Greek volunteer, who had accompanied the army
+from the shores of Asia Minor&mdash;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 neighbourhood of Nineveh, till they reached the
+mountain regions which were known to be inhabited by fierce fighters,
+unconquered even by the powerful Persians.</p>
+
+<p>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 held
+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 tableland of Armenia. They crossed the Tigris near its
+source, and a little farther 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 north-east wind, "whose bitter
+blast was torture," increased their sufferings as they ploughed their
+way on and on through such depths of snow as they had never seen before.</p>
+
+<p>Many died of cold and hunger, many fell grievously sick, and others
+suffered from snow-blindness and frostbite.</p>
+
+<p>But Xenophon led his army on, making his notes of <a name="page34"></a>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, rent the air&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thalassa! Thalassa! The sea! The sea!"</p>
+
+<p>True enough, on the distant horizon, glittering in the sunlight, was
+a narrow silver streak of sea&mdash;the Black Sea&mdash;the goal of all their
+hopes. The long struggle of five months was over; they could sail home
+now along the shores of the Black Sea. They had reached the coast near
+the spot Colchis, where the Argonauts landed to win the Golden Fleece
+long centuries before.</p>
+
+<p>In a work known as the <i>Anabasis</i>, Xenophon wrote the adventures of
+the Ten Thousand Greeks, and no geographical explorer ever recorded
+his travels through unknown countries more faithfully than did the
+Greek leader of twenty-three hundred years ago.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap5"></a><a name="page35"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<h4>ALEXANDER THE GREAT EXPLORES INDIA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>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 the Black Sea when Alexander resolved to break, if possible,
+the power of the Persians.</p>
+
+<p>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 of a
+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 has fought and conquered
+the Persians twice, besieged Tyre, taken the Phoenician fleet,
+occupied Egypt, marched across the desert and crossed the Euphrates,
+passed over the plain 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 Susa, 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.</p>
+<a name="page36"></a>
+<p>So far the whole expedition was over 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&mdash;and they knew it not.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander was a young man yet, only twenty-six. It was four years since
+he had left Europe, and in that short time he had done wonders. He
+had conquered the whole western half of the Persian Empire. Now he
+resolutely turned his face to the unknown east and started forth on
+an expedition of exploration.</p>
+
+<p>Following the main highway from Media, which to-day leads from Teheran,
+capital of modern Persia, into the land of the Turkomans and the borders
+of Russia, he found himself between the great salt desert and the
+mountains, which to-day mark 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 Azof, 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.</p>
+
+<p>Onwards towards the east he marched with his great army. To conciliate
+the tribes through which he passed, he adopted Persian dress. This
+annoyed his Greek countrymen, but, "as they admired his other virtues,
+they thought he might be suffered to please himself a little and enjoy
+his vanity."</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the modern boundary between Persia, Afghanistan, and Russia,
+he and his men pushed on across Afghanistan, by the caravan route that
+had long existed <a name="page37"></a>from the shores of the Caspian, by modern Herat,
+Kandahar,<small><small><sup>1</sup></small></small> which still bears the conqueror's name, and Kabul to
+India. Their way lay through deep snow, deeper than they had ever seen
+before; and by the time they had reached the mountains of Kabul it
+was midwinter.</p>
+
+<blockquote><small>1 Kandahar = Alexandria in a modern form.</small></blockquote>
+
+<p>Between Alexander and India still lay the lofty range of the Hindu
+Koosh or Indian Caucasus. But before going south toward India, he
+turned northwards to explore the unknown country which lay about the
+river Oxus. They found the Oxus, a mighty stream, swollen with melting
+snows. There were no boats and no wood to build them, so Alexander
+pioneered his men across in "life-preservers" made out of their
+leather tent coverings and stuffed with straw. This river impressed
+the Greeks even more than the Euphrates and Tigris, as it impressed
+many an explorer and poet since these early days. Let us recall Matthew
+Arnold's famous description of the Oxus, now seen for the first time
+by the Greeks.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem9">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"But the majestic river floated on,<br>
+			&nbsp;Out of the mist and hum of that low land,<br>
+			&nbsp;Into the frosty starlight, and there moved<br>
+			&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&middot;<br>
+			&nbsp;Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin<br>
+			&nbsp;To hem his watery march and dam his streams,<br>
+			&nbsp;And split his currents; that for many a league<br>
+			&nbsp;The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along<br>
+			&nbsp;Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles&mdash;<br>
+			&nbsp;Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had,<br>
+			&nbsp;In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,<br>
+			&nbsp;A foil'd circuitous wanderer&mdash;till at last<br>
+			&nbsp;The long'd for dash of waves is heard, and wide<br>
+			&nbsp;His luminous home of waters opens, bright<br>
+			&nbsp;And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars<br>
+			&nbsp;Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Here in this valley the Greeks met more determined opposition than
+they had yet encountered since entering <a name="page38"></a>Asia, and over two years were
+occupied in reducing this single district (now Bokhara and Turkestan)
+to submission, though it was only some three hundred and fifty miles
+square, and in one single year Alexander had conquered a kingdom over
+one thousand miles in width.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the spring of 327 <small>B.C.</small> that he was ready to cross the
+Hindu Koosh and begin the great expedition into India. The night before
+the start Alexander discovered that his troops were now so heavily
+laden with spoils that they were quite unfit for the long march. So
+in the early morning, when they were all ready to start, he suddenly
+set fire to his own baggage, and, giving orders that all his men were
+to do the same, the army started for the passes of the lofty mountain
+range. And&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem10">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"... as a troop of pedlars from Kabul<br>
+			&nbsp;Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,<br>
+			&nbsp;That vast sky neighbouring mountain of milk snow;<br><br>
+			&nbsp;Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass<br>
+			&nbsp;Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,<br>
+			&nbsp;Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves<br>
+			&nbsp;Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries&mdash;<br>
+			&nbsp;In single file they move, and stop their breath,<br>
+			&nbsp;For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The banks of the river of Kabul were reached at last. Sending part
+of the army by the now famous Kyber Pass toward the Indus, Alexander
+himself undertook to subdue the mountain tribes and get control of
+the Chitral passes. The shepherds of this region opposed him
+vigorously, but swiftly and pitilessly the King of Asia sacked their
+peaceful homes, and city after city fell to him as he advanced towards
+the boundaries of Kashmir.</p>
+
+<p>At last the valley of the Indus was reached. A bridge of boats was
+hastily thrown over, and Alexander and his army passed to the other
+side.</p>
+
+<p>Porus, the ruler of the country between the Indus <a name="page39"></a>and the river Hydaspes
+(Jehlam), sent presents of welcome to the invader, including three
+thousand animals for sacrifice, ten thousand sheep, thirty elephants,
+two hundred talents of silver, and seven hundred horsemen. The new
+king was also greeted with presents of ivory and precious stones. Even
+from far Kashmir came greetings to Alexander, whose fame was spreading
+rapidly. He now entered the Punjab, the "Land of the Five Rivers."
+But on the other side of the river Hydaspes a different reception
+awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>There the king (Porus) had assembled a sturdy, well-disciplined troop
+to dispute the passage of the river, which still separated the new
+King of Asia from his territory. But under cover of a mighty
+thunderstorm Alexander contrived to cross, though the river was
+rushing down yellow and fierce after the rains. Secretly the Greeks
+put together their thirty-oared galleys hidden in a wood, and utterly
+surprised Porus by landing on the other side. In their strange
+wanderings the Greeks had fought under varying conditions, but they
+had never faced elephants before. Nevertheless, they brilliantly
+repulsed an onslaught of these animals, who slowly retreated, "facing
+the foe, like ships backing water, and merely uttering a shrill, piping
+sound." Despite the elephants the old story was repeated, civilised
+arms triumphed over barbarians, and the army of Porus was annihilated,
+his chariots shattered, and thirty-three thousand men slain.</p>
+
+<p>The kingdom beyond the Hydaspes was now Alexander's. Ordering a great
+fleet of rafts and boats to be built for his proposed voyage to the
+mouth of the Indus, he pushed on to complete the conquest of the Five
+Stream Land, or the Punjab&mdash;the last province of the great Persian
+Empire. This was India&mdash;all that was known at this time. The India
+of the Ganges valley was beyond the knowledge of the Western world&mdash;the
+Ganges itself <a name="page40"></a>unknown to the Persians. And Alexander saw no reason
+to change his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"The great sea surrounds the whole earth," he stoutly maintained.</p>
+
+<p>But when he reached the eastern limit of the Punjab and heard that
+beyond lay a fertile land "where the inhabitants were skilled in
+agriculture, where there were elephants in yet greater abundance and
+men were superior in stature and courage," the world stretched out
+before him in an unexpected direction, and he longed to explore farther,
+to conquer new and utterly unknown worlds!</p>
+
+<p>But at last his men struck. They were weary, some were wounded, some
+were ill; seventy days of incessant rain had taken the heart out of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not ignorant, soldiers," said Alexander to the hesitating troops,
+"that during the last few days the natives of this country have been
+spreading all sorts of rumours to work upon your fears. The Persians
+in this way sought to terrify you with the gates of Cilicia, with the
+plains of Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates, and yet this
+river you crossed by a ford and that by means of a bridge. By my troth,
+we had long ago fled from Asia could fables have been able to scare
+us. We are not standing on the threshold of our enterprise, but at
+the very close. We have already reached the sunrise and the ocean,
+and unless your sloth and cowardice prevent, we shall thence return
+in triumph to our native land, having conquered the earth to its
+remotest bounds. I beseech you that ye desert not your king just at
+the very moment when he is approaching the limits of the inhabited
+world."</p>
+
+<p>But the soldiers, "with their heads bent earthwards," stood in silence.
+It was not that they <i>would</i> not follow him beyond the sunset; they
+<i>could</i> not. Their tears began to flow, sobs reached the ears of
+Alexander, his anger turned to pity, and he wept with his men.</p>
+<a name="page41"></a>
+<p>"Oh, sir," at last cried one of his men, "we have done and suffered
+up to the full measure of the capacity of mortal nature. We have
+traversed seas and lands, and know them better than do the inhabitants
+themselves. We are standing now almost on the earth's utmost verge,
+and yet you are preparing to go in quest of an India unknown even to
+the Indians themselves. You would fain root out, from their hidden
+recesses and dens, a race of men that herd with snakes and wild beasts,
+so that you may traverse as a conqueror more regions than the sun
+surveys. But while your courage will be ever growing, our vigour is
+fast waning to its end. See how bloodless be our bodies, pierced with
+how many wounds and gashed with how many scars! Our weapons are blunt,
+our armour worn out! We have been driven to assume the Persian dress!
+Which of us has a horse? We have conquered all the world, but are
+ourselves destitute of all things."</p>
+
+<p>The conqueror was at last conquered. The order to turn back was
+reluctantly given by the disappointed king and leader. It was received
+with shouts of joy from the mixed multitudes of his followers, and
+the expedition faced for home. Back they marched through the new lands
+where no less than two thousand cities had owned his sway, till they
+came to the banks of the river where the ships were building. Two
+thousand boats were ready, including eighty thirty-oared galleys.</p>
+
+<p>It was now September 326 <small>B.C.</small></p>
+
+<p>Nearchus from Crete was made Admiral of the new fleet, which at dawn
+one October morning pushed out upon the river Hydaspes and set sail
+downstream towards the unknown sea, Alexander standing proudly on the
+prow of the royal galley. The trumpets rang out, the oars moved, and
+the strange argosy, "such as had never been seen before in these parts,"
+made its way down the unknown river to the unknown sea. Natives swarmed
+to the banks <a name="page42"></a>of the river to wonder at the strange sight, marvelling
+specially to see horses as passengers on board! The greater part of
+the army followed the ships on land, marching along the shores. At
+last the waters of the Hydaspes mingled with those of the Indus, and
+onwards down this great river floated the Persian fleet. Alexander
+had no pilots, no local knowledge of the country, but with his
+"unquenchable ambition to see the ocean and reach the boundaries of
+the world," he sailed on, "ignorant of everything on the way they had
+to pass." In vain they asked the natives assembled on the banks how
+far distant was the sea; they had never heard of the sea! At last they
+found a tide mixing its salt waters with the fresh. Soon a flood-tide
+burst upon them, forcing back the current of the river, and scattering
+the fleet. The sailors of the tideless Mediterranean knew nothing of
+the rise and fall of tides. They were in a state of panic and
+consternation. Some tried to push off their ships with long poles,
+others tried to row against the incoming tide; prows were dashed
+against poops, oars were broken, sterns were bumped, until at last
+the sea had flowed over all the level land near the river mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a new danger appeared! The tide turned and the sea began to
+recede. Further misfortunes now befell the ships. Many were left high
+and dry; most of them were damaged in some way or another. Alexander
+sent horsemen to the seashore with instructions to watch for the return
+of the tide and to ride back in haste so that the fleet might be
+prepared.</p>
+
+<p>Thus they got safely out to sea on the next high tide.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander's explorations were now at an end. Leaving Nearchus to
+explore the seacoast at the mouth of the Indus, he left the spot near
+where the town of Hyderabad now stands, and turned his face toward
+the home he was never to reach. We must not linger over his terrible
+<a name="page43"></a>coast journey through the scorching desert of Beluchistan the billows
+of sand, the glare of the barren sea, the awful thirst, the long hungry
+marches of forty miles a day under the burning Eastern sun.</p>
+
+<a name="ill017"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 17">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="699">
+			<img src="images/017.jpg" alt="A SKETCH-MAP OF ALEXANDER'S CHIEF EXPLORATORY MARCHES FROM ATHENS TO HYDERABAD AND GAZA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="699" align="center">
+			<small>A SKETCH-MAP OF ALEXANDER'S CHIEF EXPLORATORY MARCHES
+			FROM ATHENS TO HYDERABAD AND GAZA.<br>
+			The dotted line shows the course of Nearchus' voyage down the river Indus, along the northern shores
+			of the Indian Ocean, and up the Persian Gulf to Babylonia.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Our story is one of discovery, and we must turn to Nearchus, Admiral
+of the fleet, left behind at the mouth of the Indus to explore the
+coast to the Persian Gulf, where he was to meet Alexander if possible.
+Shortly after the fleet had emerged from the mouth of the Indus a
+violent south-west monsoon began to blow and Nearchus was obliged to
+seek shelter in a harbour, which he called the port of Alexander, but
+which to-day is known as Karachi, the most western seaport of India.
+The waters of the Indian Ocean were quite unknown to the Greeks, and
+they could only coast along in sight of land, anchoring at different
+points for the men to land and get water and <a name="page44"></a>food. Past the wild barren
+shores of Beluchistan they made their way; the natives subsisted on
+fish entirely even as they do to-day&mdash;even their huts being made of
+fish bones and their bread of pounded fish.</p>
+
+<p>They had but one adventure in their five months' cruise to the Persian
+Gulf, but we have a graphic account of how the terrified Greeks met
+a shoal of whales and how they frightened the whales away. Here is
+the story. One day towards daybreak they suddenly saw water spouting
+up from the sea, as if being violently carried upwards by whirlwinds.
+The sailors, feeling very frightened, asked their native guides what
+it meant. The natives replied that it was caused by whales blowing
+the water up into the air. At this explanation the Greek sailors were
+panic-stricken and dropped the oars from their hands. Nearchus saw
+that something must be done at once. So he bade the men draw up their
+ships in line as if for battle and row forward side by side towards
+the whales, shouting and splashing with their oars. At a given signal
+they duly advanced, and when they came near the sea-monsters they
+shouted with all their might and blew their trumpets and made all
+possible noise with their oars. On hearing which, says the old story,
+"the whales took fright and plunged into the depths, but not long after
+came to the surface again close to the sterns of the vessels and once
+more spouted great jets of water. Then the sailors shouted aloud at
+their happy and unlooked-for escape," and Nearchus was cheered as the
+saviour of the fleet. It is not uncommon to-day for steamers bound
+from Aden to Bombay to encounter what is called a "school of whales"
+similar to those which alarmed the fleet of Nearchus in the year 323
+<small>B.C.</small></p>
+
+<p>The expedition was completely successful and Nearchus pioneered his
+fleet to the mouth of the Euphrates.</p>
+
+<p>But the death of Alexander the Great and the confusion <a name="page45"></a>that followed
+set back the advance of geographical discovery in this direction for
+some time.</p>
+
+<a name="ill018"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 18">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="544">
+			<img src="images/018.jpg" alt="ALEXANDRIA IN PIZZIGANI'S MAP, FOURTEENTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="544" align="center">
+			<small>ALEXANDRIA IN PIZZIGANI'S MAP, FOURTEENTH CENTURY.<br>
+			The river with the buildings on its bank is the Nile.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Alexandria&mdash;one of the many towns founded by Alexander&mdash;had become
+the world centre of the learned from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Its
+position was unrivalled. Situated at the mouth of the Nile, it
+commanded the Mediterranean Sea, while by means of the Red Sea it held
+easy communication with India and Arabia. When Egypt had come under
+the sway of Alexander, he had made one of his generals ruler over that
+country, and men of intellect collected there to study and to write.
+A library was started, and a Greek, Eratosthenes, held the post of
+librarian at Alexandria for forty years, namely, from 240-196 <small>B.C.</small>
+During this period he made a collection of all the travels and books
+of earth description&mdash;the first the world had ever known&mdash;and stored
+them <a name="page46"></a>in the Great Library of which he must have felt so justly proud.
+But Eratosthenes did more than this. He was the originator of
+Scientific Geography. He realised that no maps could be properly laid
+down till something was known of the size and shape of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>By this time all men of science had ceased to believe that the world
+was flat; they thought of it as a perfect round, but fixed at the centre
+in space. Many had guessed at the size of the earth. Some said it was
+forty thousand miles round, but Eratosthenes was not content with
+guessing. He studied the length of the shadow thrown by the sun at
+Alexandria and compared it with that thrown by the sun at Syene, near
+the first cataract of the Nile, some five hundred miles distant, and,
+as he thought, in the same longitude. The differences in the length
+of these two shadows he calculated would represent one-fiftieth of
+the circumference of the earth which would accordingly be twenty-five
+thousand miles. There was no one to tell him whether he had calculated
+right or wrong, but we know to-day that he was wonderfully right. But
+he must know more. He must find out how much of this earth was habitable.
+To the north and south of the known countries men declared it was too
+hot or too cold to live. So he decided that from north to south, that
+is, from the land of Thule to the land of Punt (Somaliland), the
+habitable earth stretched for some three thousand eight hundred miles,
+while from east to west&mdash;that is, from the Pillars of Hercules (Straits
+of Gibraltar) to India&mdash;would be some eight thousand miles. All the
+rest was ocean. Ignoring the division of the world into three
+continents, he divided it into two, north and south, divided by the
+Mediterranean and by a long range of mountains intersecting the whole
+of Asia.</p>
+
+<p>Then the famous librarian drew a map of the world for his library at
+Alexandria, but it has perished with all <a name="page47"></a>the rest of the valuable
+treasure collected in this once celebrated city. We know that he must
+have made a great many mistakes in drawing a map of his little island
+world which measured eight thousand miles by three thousand eight
+hundred miles. It must have been quaintly arranged. The Caspian Sea
+was connected with a Northern Ocean, the Danube sent a tributary to
+the Adriatic, there was no Bay of Biscay, the British Isles lay in
+the wrong direction, Africa was not half its right size, the Ganges
+flowed into the Eastern Ocean, Ceylon was a huge island stretching
+east and west, while across the whole of Asia a mountain chain stretched
+in one long unbroken line. And yet, with all his errors, he was nearer
+the truth than men three centuries later.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap6"></a><a name="page48"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<h4>PYTHEAS FINDS THE BRITISH ISLES</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>For some centuries past men had been pushing eastward, and to west,
+vast lands lay unexplored, undreamt of, amongst them a little far-off
+island "set in a silver sea." Pytheas was the first explorer to bring
+the world news of the British Isles.</p>
+
+<p>About the time that Alexander was making his way eastward through
+Persia, Pytheas was leaving the Greek colony of Marseilles for the
+west and north. The Phoenicians, with their headquarters at Carthage,
+had complete command of the mineral trade of Spain&mdash;the Mexico of the
+ancient world. They knew where to find the gold and silver from the
+rivers&mdash;indeed, they said that the coast, from the Tagus to the
+Pyrenees, was "stuffed with mines of gold and silver and tin." The
+Greeks were now determined to see for themselves&mdash;the men of Carthage
+should no longer have it all their own way. Where were these tin islands,
+kept so secret by the master-mariners of the ancient world?</p>
+
+<p>A committee of merchants met at Marseilles and engaged the services
+of Pytheas, a great mathematician, and one who made a study of the
+effect of the moon on the tides. All sorts of vague rumours had reached
+the ears of Pytheas about the northern regions he was about to visit.
+He would discover the homes of the tin and amber merchants, he would
+find the people who lived "at the back of the north wind," he would
+reach a land of <a name="page49"></a>perpetual sunshine, where swans sang like nightingales
+and life was one unending banquet.</p>
+
+<p>So Pytheas, the mathematician of Marseilles started off on his
+northern trip. Unfortunately, his diary and book called <i>The Circuit
+of the Earth</i> have perished, and our story of geographical discovery
+is the poorer. But these facts have survived.</p>
+
+<p>The ships first touched at Cadiz, the "Tyre of the West," a famous
+port in those days, where Phoenician merchants lived, "careless and
+secure" and rich. This was the limit of Greek geographical knowledge;
+here were the Pillars of Hercules, beyond which all was dim and
+mysterious and interesting. Five days' sail, that is to say, some three
+hundred miles along the coast of Spain, brought Pytheas to Cape St.
+Vincent.</p>
+
+<p>He thought he was navigating the swift ocean river flowing round the
+world. He was, therefore, surprised to find as he rounded the Cape
+that the current had ceased, or, in his own words, the "ebb came to
+an end." Three days more and they were at the mouth of the Tagus. Near
+this part of the coast lay the Tin Islands, according to Greek ideas,
+though even to-day their exact locality is uncertain. Pytheas must
+have heard the old tradition that the Cassiterides were ten in number
+and lay near each other in the ocean, that they were inhabited by people
+who wore black cloaks and long tunics reaching to the feet, that they
+walked with long staves and subsisted by their cattle. They led a
+wandering life; they bartered hides, tin, and lead with the merchants
+in exchange for pottery, salt, and implements of bronze.</p>
+
+<p>That these islands had already been visited by Himilco the
+Carthaginian seems fairly certain. He had started from Cadiz for the
+north when Hanno started for the south. From the Tin Islands his fleet
+had ventured forth into the open sea. Thick fogs had hidden the sun
+and <a name="page50"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Sea animals," he tells us, "crept upon the tangled weed." It has been
+thought that with a little good fortune Himilco might have discovered
+America two thousand years before the birth of Columbus. But Himilco
+returned home by the Azores or Fortunate Islands, as they were called.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the Tin Islands, Pytheas voyaged on to Cape Finisterre,
+landing on the island of Ushant, where he found a temple served by
+women priests who kept up a perpetual fire in honour of their god.
+Thence Pytheas sailed prosperously on up the English Channel till he
+struck the coast of Kent. Britain, he announced, was several days'
+journey from Ushant, and about one hundred and seventy miles to the
+north. He sailed round part of the coast, making notes of distances,
+but these are curiously exaggerated. This was not unnatural, for the
+only method of determining distance was roughly based on the number
+of miles that a ship could go in an hour along the shore. Measuring
+in this primitive fashion, Pytheas assures us that Britain is a
+continent of enormous size, and that he has discovered a "new world."
+It is, he says, three cornered in shape, something like the head of
+a battleaxe. The south side, lying opposite the coast of France, is
+eight hundred and thirty-five miles in length, the eastern coast is
+sixteen hundred and sixty-five miles, the western two thousand two
+hundred and twenty-two&mdash;indeed, the whole country was thought to be
+over four thousand miles in circumference. These calculations must
+have been very upsetting to the old geographers of that age, because
+up to this time they had decided that the whole world was only three
+thousand four <a name="page51"></a>hundred miles long and six thousand eight hundred broad.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"The natives," he says, "collect the sheaves in great barns and thrash
+out the corn there, because they have so little sunshine that an open
+thrashing-place would be of little use in that land of clouds and rain."
+He seems to have voyaged north as far as the Shetland Islands, but
+he never saw Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Having returned from the north of the Thames, Pytheas crossed the North
+Sea to the mouth of the Rhine, a passage which took about two and a
+half days. He gives a pitiable account of the people living on the
+Dutch coast and their perpetual struggle with the sea. The natives
+had not learnt the art of making dykes and embankments. A high tide
+with a wind setting toward the shore would sweep over the low-lying
+country and swamp their homes. A mounted horseman could barely gallop
+from the rush and force of these strong North Sea tides.</p>
+
+<p>But the Greek geographers would not believe this; they only knew the
+tideless Mediterranean, and they thought Pytheas was lying when he
+told of the fierce northern sea. Pytheas sailed past the mouth of the
+Elbe, noting the amber cast upon the shore by the high spring tides.
+But all these interesting discoveries paled before the famous land
+of Thule, six days' voyage north of Britain, in the neighbourhood of
+the frozen ocean. Grand excitement reigned among geographers when they
+heard of Thule, and a very sea of romance rose up around the name.
+Had Pytheas indeed found the end of the world? Was it an island? Was
+it mainland? In the childhood of the world, when so little was known
+and so much imagined, men's minds caught at the name of Thule&mdash;<a name="page52"></a>Ultima
+Thule&mdash;far-away Thule, and weaved round it many and beautiful legends.
+But to-day we ask: Was it Iceland? Was it Lapland? Was it one of the
+Shetland Isles?</p>
+
+<a name="ill019"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 19">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="502">
+			<img src="images/019.jpg" alt="NORTH BRITAIN AND THE ISLAND OF THULE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="502" align="center">
+			<small>NORTH BRITAIN AND THE ISLAND OF THULE.<br>
+			From Mercator's edition of Ptolemy's map.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Pytheas said that the farthest parts of the world are those which
+lie about Thule, the northernmost of the Britannic Isles, but he never
+said whether Thule was an island or whether the world was habitable
+by man as far as that point. I should think myself"&mdash;the speaker is
+Strabo, a famous Greek traveller who wrote seventeen books of
+geography&mdash;"I should think myself that the northern limit of habitude
+lies much farther to the south, for the writers of our age say nothing
+of any place beyond Ireland, which is situate in front of the northern
+parts of Britain." Pytheas said that Thule was six days' sail north
+of Britain. "But who in his senses would believe this?" cries Strabo
+again. "For Pytheas, who described Thule, has been shown to be the
+falsest of men. A traveller, starting from the middle of Britain and
+going <a name="page53"></a>five hundred miles to the north, would come to a country somewhere
+about Ireland, where living would be barely possible."</p>
+
+<p>The first account of the Arctic regions likewise reads like pure
+romance to the ignorant and untravelled. "After one day's journey to
+the north of Thule," says Pytheas, "men come to a sluggish sea, where
+there is no separation of sea, land, and air, but a mixture of these
+elements like the substance of jelly-fish, through which one can
+neither walk nor sail." Here the nights were very short, sometimes
+only two hours, after which the sun rose again. This, in fact, was
+the "Sleeping Palace of the Sun."</p>
+
+<p>With all this wealth of discovery, Pytheas returned home by the Bay
+of Biscay to the mouth of the Gironde; thence he sailed up the Garonne,
+and from the modern town of Bordeaux he reached Marseilles by an
+overland journey.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap7"></a><a name="page54"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<h4>JULIUS C&AElig;SAR AS EXPLORER</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Our next explorer is Julius C&aelig;sar. As Alexander the Great had combined
+the conqueror with the explorer, so now history repeats itself, and
+we find the Roman C&aelig;sar not only conquering, but exploring. It was
+C&aelig;sar who first dispelled the mist that lay over the country about
+the French Seine, the German Rhine, the English Thames&mdash;C&aelig;sar who
+gives us the first graphic account of crossing the English Channel
+from France to England. Pytheas had hinted at the fog-bound lands of
+the north&mdash;C&aelig;sar brought them into the light of day.</p>
+
+<p>Since the days of Alexander the centre of Empire had shifted from Greece
+to Rome, and Rome was now conquering and annexing land, as Persia had
+done in the olden days. Hence it was that Julius C&aelig;sar was in the
+year 58 <small>B.C.</small> appointed Governor of a new province recently brought
+under Roman sway, stretching from the Alps to the Garonne and northward
+to the Lake of Geneva, which at this time marked the frontier of the
+Roman Empire. C&aelig;sar made no secret of his intentions to subdue the
+tribes to the north of his province and bring all Gaul under the
+dominion of Rome. His appointment carried with it the command of four
+legions, including some twenty thousand soldiers. His chance soon came,
+and we find C&aelig;sar, with all the ability of a great commander, pushing
+forward with his army into the very heart of France one hundred and
+fifty miles beyond the Roman frontier.</p>
+<a name="page55"></a>
+<p>On the banks of the river Sa&ocirc;ne he defeated a large body of Celtic
+people who were migrating from Switzerland to make their homes in the
+warmer and roomier plains at the foot of the Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p>While the defeated Celts returned to their chilly homes among the
+mountains, victorious C&aelig;sar resolved to push on at the head of his
+army toward the Rhine, where some German tribes under a "ferocious
+headstrong savage" threatened to overrun the country. After marching
+through utterly unknown country for three days, he heard that fresh
+swarms of invaders had crossed the Rhine, intending to occupy the more
+fertile tracts on the French side. They were making for the town we
+now call Besan&ccedil;on&mdash;then, as now, strongly fortified, and nearly
+surrounded by the river Doubs. By forced marches night and day, C&aelig;sar
+hastened to the town and took it before the arrival of the invaders.</p>
+
+<p>Accounts of the German tribes even now approaching were brought in
+by native traders and Gaulish chiefs, until the Roman soldiers were
+seized with alarm. Yes, said the traders, these Germans were "men of
+huge stature, incredible valour, and practised skill in wars; many
+a time they had themselves come across them, and had not been able
+to look them in the face or meet the glare of their piercing eyes."</p>
+
+<p>The Romans felt they were in an unknown land, about to fight against
+an unknown foe. Violent panic seized them, "completely paralysing
+every one's judgment and nerve." Some could not restrain their tears;
+others shut themselves up in their tents and bemoaned their fate. "All
+over the camp men were making their wills," until C&aelig;sar spoke, and
+the panic ceased. Seven days' march brought them to the plain of Alsace,
+some fifty miles from the Rhine. A battle was fought with the German
+tribes, and "the enemy all turned tail and did not cease <a name="page56"></a>their flight
+until they reached the Rhine." Some swam across, some found boats,
+many were killed by the Romans in hot pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Romans beheld the German Rhine&mdash;that great river
+that was to form a barrier for so long between them and the tribes
+beyond. But C&aelig;sar's exploration was not to end here. The following
+year found him advancing against the Belg&aelig;&mdash;tribes living between
+the Rhine and the Seine. In one brilliant campaign he subdued the whole
+of north-eastern Gaul from the Seine to the Rhine. Leaving Roman
+soldiers in the newly conquered country, he returned to his province,
+and was some eight hundred miles away when he heard that a general
+rebellion was breaking out in that part we now know as Brittany. He
+at once ordered ships to be built on the Loire, "which flows into the
+ocean," oarsmen to be trained, seamen and pilots assembled.</p>
+
+<p>The spring of 56 <small>B.C.</small> found C&aelig;sar at the seat of war. His ships were
+ready on the Loire. But the navy of the Veneti was strong. They were
+a sea-going folk, who knew their own low rocky coast, intersected by
+shallow inlets of the sea; they knew their tides and their winds. Their
+flat-bottomed boats were suitable to shallows and ebbing tides. Bows
+and stern stood high out of the water to resist heavy seas and severe
+gales; the hulls were built of oak. Leather was used for sails to
+withstand the violent ocean storms. The long Roman galleys were no
+match for these, and things would have gone badly had not C&aelig;sar devised
+a plan for cutting the enemy's rigging with hooks "sharpened at the
+end and fixed to long poles." With these, the Romans cut the rigging
+of the enemy's ships forming the fleet of Brittany; the sails fell
+and the ships were rendered useless. One after another they were easily
+captured, and at sunset the victory lay with the Romans.</p>
+<a name="page57"></a>
+<p>The whole of Gaul, from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, seemed now subdued.
+C&aelig;sar had conquered as he explored, and the skill of his
+well-disciplined army triumphed everywhere over the untrained courage
+of the barbarian tribes.</p>
+
+<p>Still, the German tribes were giving trouble about the country of the
+Rhine, and in the words of the famous <i>Commentaries</i>, "C&aelig;sar was
+determined to cross the Rhine, but he hardly thought it safe to cross
+in boats. Therefore, although the construction of a bridge presented
+great difficulties on account of the breadth, swiftness, and depth
+of the stream, he nevertheless thought it best to make the attempt
+or else not cross at all." Indeed, he wanted to impress the wild German
+people on the other side with a sense of the vast power of the Roman
+Empire. The barbarian tribes beyond must, indeed, have been impressed
+with the skill of the Roman soldier. For in ten days the bridge was
+completed: timber had been hewn from the forest, brought to the banks
+of the Rhine, worked into shape, piles driven into the bed of the river,
+beams laid across. And C&aelig;sar led his army in triumph to the other
+side. They stood for the first time in the land of the Germans, near
+the modern town of Coblenz, and after eighteen days on the farther
+side, they returned to Gaul, destroying the bridge behind them.</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar had now a fresh adventure in view. He was going to make his
+way to Britain. The summer of 55 <small>B.C.</small> was passing, and "in these parts,
+the whole of Gaul having a northerly trend, winter sets in early,"
+wrote C&aelig;sar afterwards. There would be no time to conquer, but he
+could visit the island, find out for himself what the people were like,
+learn about harbours and landing-places, "for of all this the Greeks
+knew practically nothing. No one, indeed, readily undertakes the
+voyage to Britain except <a name="page58"></a>traders, and even they know nothing of it
+except the coast."</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar summoned all the traders he could collect and inquired the size
+of the island, what tribes dwelt there, their names, their customs,
+and the shortest sea passage. Then he sent for the ships which had
+vanquished the fleet of Brittany the previous year; he also assembled
+some eighty merchant ships on the northern coast of Gaul, probably
+not very far from Calais.</p>
+
+<p>It was near the end of August, when soon after midnight the wind served
+and he set sail. A vision of the great Roman&mdash;determined,
+resolute&mdash;rises before us as, standing on the deck of the galley, he
+looks out on to the dark waters of the unknown sea bound for the coast
+of England. After a slow passage the little fleet arrived under the
+steep white cliffs of the southern coast about nine o'clock next
+morning. Armed forces of barbarians stood on the heights above Dover,
+and, finding it impossible to land, C&aelig;sar gave orders to sail some
+seven miles farther along the coast, where they ran the ships aground
+not far from Deal.</p>
+
+<p>But the visit of the Romans to Britain on this occasion lasted but
+three days, for a violent storm scattered the ships with the horses
+on board.</p>
+
+<p>"The same night," says C&aelig;sar, "it happened to be full moon, which
+generally causes very high tides in the ocean, a fact of which our
+men were not aware."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, we may well believe that a night of full moon and an unusually
+high tide would be a mystery to those children of the Mediterranean.
+Their ships had been beached and were lying high and dry when the
+rapidly rising tide overwhelmed them. Cables were broken, anchors lost,
+panic ensued.</p>
+
+<p>But C&aelig;sar's glory lay in overcoming obstacles, and it is well known
+how he got his troops and ships safely back <a name="page59"></a>across the Channel, and
+how preparations were hurried on in Gaul for a second invasion of
+Britain. This is not the place for the story of his campaign. He was
+the first to raise the curtain on the mysterious islands discovered
+by Pytheas.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem11">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Far to the west, in the ocean wide,<br>
+			&nbsp;Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,<br>
+			&nbsp;Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar's remarks on this new-found land are interesting for us to-day.
+He tells us of "a river called the Thames, about eight miles from the
+sea." "The interior of Britain," he says, "is inhabited by a people
+who, according to tradition, are aboriginal. The population is
+immense; homesteads closely resembling those of the Gauls are met with
+at every turn, and cattle are very numerous. Gold coins are in use,
+or iron bars of fixed weight. Hares, fowls, and geese they think it
+wrong to taste; but they keep them for pastime or amusement. The climate
+is more equable than in Gaul, the cold being less severe. The island
+is triangular in shape, one side being opposite Gaul. One corner of
+this side, by Kent&mdash;the landing-place for almost all ships from
+Gaul&mdash;has an easterly, and the lower one a westerly, aspect. The extent
+of this side is about five hundred miles. The second trends off towards
+Spain. Off the coast here is Ireland, which is considered only half
+as large as Britain. Halfway across is an island called 'Man,' and
+several smaller islands also are believed to be situated opposite this
+coast, in which there is continuous night for thirty days. The length
+of this side is eight hundred miles. Thus the whole island is two
+thousand miles in circumference. The people of the interior do not,
+for the most part, cultivate grain, but live on milk and flesh-meat,
+and clothe themselves with skins. All Britons, without exception,
+<a name="page60"></a>stain themselves with woad, which produces a bluish tint. They wear
+their hair long."</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar crossed the Thames. "The river can only be forded at one spot,"
+he tells us, "and there with difficulty." Farther he did not go. And
+so this is all that was known of Britain for many a long year to come.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap8"></a><a name="page61"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<h4>STRABO'S GEOGRAPHY</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Strabo wrote his famous geography near the beginning of the Christian
+era, but he knew nothing of the north of England, Scotland, or Wales.
+He insisted on placing Ireland to the north, and scoffed at Pytheas'
+account of Thule.</p>
+
+<p>And yet he boasted a wider range than any other writer on geography,
+"for that those who had penetrated farther towards the West had
+not gone so far to the East, and those on the contrary who had seen
+more of the East had seen less of the West."</p>
+
+<p>Like Herodotus, Strabo had travelled himself from Armenia and western
+Italy, from the Black Sea to Egypt and up the Nile to Phil&aelig;. But his
+seventeen volumes&mdash;vastly important to his contemporaries&mdash;read like
+a romance to us to-day, and a glance at the map laid down according
+to his descriptions is like a vague and distorted caricature of the
+real thing. And yet, according to the men of his times, he "surpasses
+all the geographical writings of antiquity, both in grandeur of plan
+and in abundance and variety of its materials."</p>
+
+<p>Strabo has summed up for us the knowledge of the ancient world as it
+was in the days of the Emperor C&aelig;sar Augustus of the great Roman Empire,
+as it was when in far-off Syria the Christ was born and the greater
+part of the known earth was under the sway of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>A wall-map had already been designed by order of Augustus to hang in
+a public place in Rome&mdash;the heart <a name="page62"></a>of the Empire&mdash;so that the young
+Romans might realise the size of their inheritance, while a list of
+the chief places on the roads, which, radiating from Rome, formed a
+network over the Empire, was inscribed on the Golden Milestone in the
+Forum.</p>
+
+<a name="ill020"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 20">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="682">
+			<img src="images/020.jpg" alt="A PORTION OF AN OLD ROMAN MAP OF THE WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="682" align="center">
+			<small>A PORTION OF AN OLD ROMAN MAP OF THE WORLD, SHOWING
+			THE ROADS THROUGH THE EMPIRE, RIVERS, MOUNTAINS, AND THE SURROUNDING SEAS.<br>
+			This is a portion&mdash;a few inches&mdash;taken from the famous Peutinger
+			Table, a long strip map on parchment, of the fourth century, derived
+			from Augustan maps according to the measurements of C&aelig;sar Augustus
+			Agrippa. It will be noticed how the roads, beginning with the Twelve
+			Ways, which start from Rome in the centre, go in straight lines over
+			all obstacles to the towns of the Empire. Distances are marked in stadia
+			(about 1/9 mile).</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page63"></a>
+<p>We may well imagine with what keen interest the schoolmen of Alexandria
+would watch the extension of the Roman Empire. Here Strabo had studied,
+here or at Rome he probably wrote his great work toward the close of
+a long life. He has read his Homer and inclines to take every word
+he says as true. Herodotus he will have none of.</p>
+
+<p>"Herodotus and other writers trifle very much," he asserts, "when they
+introduce into their histories the marvellous like an interlude of
+some melody."</p>
+
+<p>In like manner he disbelieves poor Pytheas and his accounts of the
+land of Ultima Thule and his marvellous walks through Britain, while
+he clings to the writings of Eratosthenes.</p>
+
+<p>But in common with them all Strabo believes the world to be one vast
+island, surrounded on all sides by ocean into which the rivers flow,
+and the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf are but inlets. So is also the
+Mediterranean or "Our Sea," as he prefers to call it. This earth-island
+reaches north to south, from Ireland, "barely habitable on account
+of the cold," to the cinnamon country (Somaliland), "the most
+southerly point of the habitable earth." From west to east it stretches
+from the Pillars of Hercules right "through the middle of Our Sea"
+to the shores of Asia Minor, then across Asia by an imaginary chain
+of mountains to an imaginary spot where the Ganges, lately discovered,
+emptied its waters into the world-surrounding ocean stream.</p>
+
+<a name="ill021"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 21">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="456">
+			<img src="images/021.jpg" alt="THE WORLD-ISLAND ACCORDING TO STRABO, 18 A.D.">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="456" align="center">
+			<small>THE WORLD-ISLAND ACCORDING TO STRABO, 18 <small>A.D.</small><br>
+			The blank space within the circle is one vast sea surrounding the world.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The breadth of the habitable earth is three thousand miles, the length
+about seven thousand&mdash;a little world, indeed, with the greater world
+lying all around it, still undreamt of by the old student of geography
+and the traveller after truth.</p>
+
+<p>He begins his book with a detailed account of southern Spain. He tells
+of her two hundred towns. "Those best <a name="page64"></a>known are situated on the rivers,
+estuaries, and seas; but the two which have acquired the greatest name
+and importance are Cordova and Cadiz. After these Seville is the most
+noted.... A vast number of people dwell along the Guadalquivir, and
+you may sail up it almost a hundred and twenty miles from the sea to
+Cordova and the places a little higher up. The banks and little inlets
+of this river are cultivated with the greatest diligence. The eye is
+also delighted with groves and gardens, which in this district are
+met with in the highest perfection. For fifty miles the river is
+navigable for ships of considerable size, but for the cities higher
+up smaller vessels are employed, and thence to Cordova river-boats.
+These are now constructed of planks joined together, but they were
+formerly made out of a single trunk. A chain of mountains, rich in
+metal, runs parallel to the Guadalquivir, approaching the river,
+sometimes more, sometimes less, toward the north."</p>
+
+<p>He grows enthusiastic over the richness of this part of southern Spain, famous
+from ancient days under the name of Tartessus for its wealth.
+"Large quantities of corn and wine are exported, besides much oil,
+which is of the first quality, also wax, honey, and pitch ... the
+country furnishes the timber for their shipbuilding. They have
+likewise mineral salt and not a few salt streams. A considerable
+quantity of salted fish is exported, not only from hence, but also
+from the remainder of the coast beyond the Pillars. Formerly they
+exported large quantities of garments, but they now send the
+unmanufactured wool remarkable for its beauty. The stuffs
+manufactured are of incomparable texture. There is a superabundance
+of cattle and a great variety of game, while on the other hand there
+are certain little hares which burrow in the ground (rabbits). These
+creatures destroy both seeds and trees by gnawing their roots. They
+are met with <a name="page65"></a>throughout almost the whole of Spain. It is said that
+formerly the inhabitants of Majorca and Minorca sent a deputation to
+the Romans requesting that a new land might be given them, as they
+were quite driven out of their country by these animals, being no longer
+able to stand against their vast multitudes." The seacoast on the
+Atlantic side abounds in fish, says Strabo. "The congers are quite
+monstrous, far surpassing in size those of Our Sea. Shoals of rich
+fat tunny fish are driven hither from the seacoast beyond. They feed
+on the fruit of stunted oak, which grows at the bottom of the sea and
+produces very large acorns. So great is the quantity of fruit, that
+at the season when they are ripe the whole coast on either side of
+the Pillars is covered with acorns thrown up by the tides. The tunny
+fish become gradually thinner, owing <a name="page66"></a>to the failure of their food
+as they approach the Pillars from the outer sea."</p>
+
+<p>He describes, too, the metals of this wondrous land&mdash;gold, silver,
+copper, and iron. It is astonishing to think that in the days of Strabo
+the silver mines employed forty thousand workmen, and produced
+something like &pound;900 a day in our modern money!</p>
+
+<p>But we cannot follow Strabo over the world in all his detail. He tells
+us of a people living north of the Tagus, who slept on the ground,
+fed on acorn-bread, and wore black cloaks by day and night. He does
+not think Britain is worth conquering&mdash;Ireland lies to the north, not
+west, of Britain; it is a barren land full of cannibals and wrapped
+in eternal snows&mdash;the Pyrenees run parallel to the Rhine&mdash;the Danube
+rises near the Alps&mdash;even Italy herself runs east and west instead
+of north and south. His remarks on India are interesting.</p>
+
+<p>"The reader," he says, "must receive the accounts of this country with
+indulgence. Few persons of our nation have seen it; the greater part
+of what they relate is from report. Very few of the merchants who now
+sail from Egypt by the Nile and the Arabian Gulf to India have proceeded
+as far as the Ganges."</p>
+
+<p>He is determined not to be led astray by the fables of the great size
+of India. Some had told him it was a third of the whole habitable world,
+some that it took four months to walk through the plain only. "Ceylon
+is said to be an island lying out at sea seven days' sail from the
+most southerly parts of India. Its length is about eight hundred miles.
+It produces elephants."</p>
+
+<p>Strabo died about the year 21 <small>A.D.</small>, and half a century passed before
+Pliny wrote <i>An Account of Countries, Nations, Seas, Towns, Havens,
+Mountains, Rivers, Distances, and Peoples who now Exist or Formerly
+Existed</i>. <a name="page67"></a>Strange to say, he never refers in the most distant way to
+his famous predecessor Strabo. He has but little to add to the
+earth-knowledge of Strabo. But he gives us a fuller account of Great
+Britain, based on the fresh discoveries of Roman generals.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap9"></a><a name="page68"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND PLINY</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>In the year 43 <small>A.D.</small> the Emperor Claudius resolved to send an expedition
+to the British coast, lying amid the mists and fog of the Northern
+Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>A gigantic army landed near the spot where C&aelig;sar had landed just a
+hundred years before. The discovery and conquest of Britain now began
+in real earnest. The Isle of Wight was overrun by Romans; the south
+coast was explored. Roman soldiers lost their lives in the bogs and
+swamps of Gloucestershire. The eastern counties, after fierce
+opposition, submitted at the last. The spirit of Caractacus and
+Boadicea spread from tribe to tribe and the Romans were constantly
+assailed. But gradually they swept the island. They reached the banks
+of the river Tyne; they crossed the Tweed and explored as far as the
+Firths of Clyde and Forth. From the coast of Galloway the Romans beheld
+for the first time the dim outline of the Irish coast. In the year
+83 <small>A.D.</small> Agricola, a new Roman commander, made his way beyond the Firth
+of Forth.</p>
+
+<p>"Now is the time to penetrate into the heart of Caledonia and to
+discover the utmost limits of Britain," cried the Romans, as they began
+their advance to the Highlands of Scotland. While a Roman fleet
+surveyed the coasts and harbours, Agricola led his men up the valley
+of the Tay to the edge of the Highlands, but he could not follow the
+savage Caledonians into their rugged <a name="page69"></a>and inaccessible mountains. To
+the north of Scotland they never penetrated, and no part of Ireland
+ever came under Roman sway, in that air "the Roman eagle never
+fluttered." The Roman account of Britain at this time is interesting.
+"Britain," says Tacitus, "the largest of all the islands which have
+come within the knowledge of the Romans, stretches on the east towards
+Germany, on the west towards Spain, and on the south it is even within
+sight of France.... The Roman fleet, at this period first sailing round
+this remotest coast, gave certain proof that Britain was an island,
+and at the same time discovered and subdued the Orkney Islands, till
+then unknown. Thule was also distinctly seen, which winter and eternal
+snow had hitherto concealed.... The sky in this country is deformed
+by clouds and frequent rains; but the cold is never extremely rigorous.
+The earth yields gold and silver and other metals&mdash;the ocean produces
+pearls."</p>
+
+<p>The account of Ireland is only from hearsay. "This island," continues
+Tacitus, "is less than Britain, but larger than those of Our Sea.
+Situated between Britain and Spain and lying commodiously to the Bay
+of Biscay, it would have formed a very beneficial connection between
+the most powerful parts of the Empire. Its soil, climate, and the
+manners and dispositions of its inhabitants are little different from
+those of Britain. Its ports and harbours are better known from the
+concourse of merchants for the purposes of commerce."</p>
+
+<p>Not only the British Isles, but a good deal of the wild North Sea and
+the low-lying coast on the opposite side were explored by Roman ships
+and Roman soldiers. C&aelig;sar had crossed the Rhine; he had heard of
+a great forest which took a man four months to cross, and in 16 <small>A.D.</small>
+a Roman general, Drusus, penetrated into the interior of Germany.
+Drusus crossed the Rhine near the <a name="page70"></a>coast, made his way across the river
+Weser, and reached the banks of the Elbe. But the fame of Drusus rests
+mainly on his navigation of the German Ocean or North Sea in a Roman
+fleet. Near the mouth of the Rhine a thousand ships were quickly built
+by expert Romans. "Some were short, with narrow stern and prow and
+broad in the middle, the easier to endure the shock of the waves; some
+had flat bottoms that without damage they might run aground; many were
+fitted for carrying horses and provisions, convenient for sails and
+swift with oars."</p>
+
+<p>The Roman troops were in high spirits as they launched their splendid
+fleet on the Northern Ocean and sailed prosperously to the mouth of
+the Elbe, startling the Frisians into submission. But no friendliness
+greeted them on the farther side of the river. The Germans were ready
+to defend their land, and further advance was impossible. Returning
+along the northern coast, the Romans got a taste of the storms of this
+northern ocean, of which they were in such complete ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>"The sea, at first calm," says Tacitus, "resounded with the oars of
+a thousand ships; but presently a shower of hail poured down from a
+black mass of clouds, at the same time storms raging on all sides in
+every variety, the billows rolling now here, now there, obstructed
+the view and made it impossible to manage the ships. The whole expanse
+of air and sea was swept by a south-west wind, which, deriving strength
+from the mountainous regions of Germany, its deep rivers and boundless
+tract of clouded atmosphere, and rendered still harsher by the rigour
+of the neighbouring north, tore away the ships, scattered and drove
+them into the open ocean or upon islands dangerous from precipitous
+rocks or hidden sandbanks. Having got a little clear of these, but
+with great difficulty, the tide turning and flowing in the same
+direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride
+at anchor <a name="page71"></a>or bale out the water that broke in upon them; horses, beasts
+of burthen, baggage, even arms were thrown overboard to lighten the
+holds of the ships, which took in water at their sides, and from the
+waves, too, running over them. Around were either shores inhabited
+by enemies, or a sea so vast and unfathomable as to be supposed the
+limit of the world and unbounded by lands. Part of the fleet was
+swallowed up; many were driven upon remote islands, where the men
+perished through famine. The galley of Drusus or, as he was hereafter
+called, Germanicus, alone reached the mouth of the Weser. Both day
+and night, amid the rocks and prominences of the shore, he reproached
+himself as the author of such overwhelming destruction, and was hardly
+restrained by his friends from destroying himself in the same sea.
+At last, with the returning tide and a favouring gale, the shattered
+ships returned, almost all destitute or with garments spread for
+sails."</p>
+
+<a name="ill022"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 22">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="570">
+			<img src="images/022.jpg" alt="HULL OF A ROMAN MERCHANT-SHIP">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="570" align="center">
+			<small>HULL OF A ROMAN MERCHANT-SHIP.<br>
+			From a Roman model in marble at Greenwich.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The wreck of the Roman fleet in the North Sea made a deep impression
+on the Roman capital, and many a garbled story of the "extreme parts
+of the world" was circulated throughout the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Here was new land outside the boundaries of the Empire&mdash;country great
+with possibilities. Pliny, writer of the <i>Natural History</i>, now arises
+and endeavours to clear the minds of his countrymen by some account
+of these northern regions. Strabo had been dead some fifty <a name="page72"></a>years, and
+the Empire had grown since his days. But Pliny has news of land beyond
+the Elbe. He can tell us of Scandinavia, "an island of unknown extent,"
+of Norway, another island, "the inhabitants of which sailed as far
+as Thule," of the Seamen or Swedes who lived in the "northern half
+of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"It is madness to harass the mind with attempts to measure the world,"
+he asserts, but he proceeds to tell us the size of the world as accepted
+by him. "Our part of the earth, floating as it were in the ocean, which
+surrounds it, stretching out to the greatest extent from India to the
+Pillars at Cadiz, is eight thousand five hundred and sixty-eight
+miles ... the breadth from south to north is commonly supposed to be
+half its length."</p>
+
+<p>But how little was known of the north of Europe at this time is shown
+by a startling statement that "certain Indians sailing from India for
+the purposes of commerce had been driven by tempests into Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"Thus it appears," concludes Pliny, "that the seas flow completely
+round the globe and divide it into two parts."</p>
+
+<p>How Balbus discovered and claimed for the Empire some of the African
+desert is related by Pliny. He tells us, too, how another Roman general
+left the west coast of Africa, marched for ten days, reached Mt. Atlas,
+and "in a desert of dark-coloured sand met a river which he supposed
+to be the Niger."</p>
+
+<p>The home of the Ethiopians in Africa likewise interested Pliny.</p>
+
+<p>"There can be no doubt that the Ethiopians are scorched by their
+vicinity to the sun's heat, and that they are born like persons who
+have been burned, with beard and hair frizzled, while in the opposite
+and frozen parts of the earth there are nations with white skins and
+long light hair."</p>
+<a name="page73"></a>
+<p>Pliny's geography was the basis of much medi&aelig;val writing, and his
+knowledge of the course of the Niger remained unchallenged, till Mungo
+Park re-discovered it many centuries after.</p>
+
+<a name="ill023"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 23">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="621">
+			<img src="images/023.jpg" alt="A ROMAN GALLEY, ABOUT 110 A.D.">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="621" align="center">
+			<small>A ROMAN GALLEY, ABOUT 110 <small>A.D.</small><br>
+			From Trajan's Column at Rome.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap10"></a><a name="page74"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<h4>PTOLEMY'S MAPS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>And so we reach the days of Ptolemy&mdash;the last geographer of the Pagan
+World. This famous Greek was born in Egypt, and the great Roman Empire
+was already showing signs of decay, while Ptolemy was searching the
+great Alexandrian library for materials for his book. Alexandria was
+now the first commercial city of the world, second only to Rome. She
+supplied the great population in the heart of the Empire with Egyptian
+corn. Ships sailed from Alexandria to every part of the known world.
+It was, therefore, a suitable place for Ptolemy to listen to the yarns
+of the merchants, to read the works of Homer, Herodotus, Eratosthenes,
+Strabo, Pliny, and others, to study and observe, and finally to write.</p>
+
+<p>He begins his great geography with the north-west extremities of the
+world&mdash;the British Isles, Iverna, and Albion as he calls Ireland and
+England. But he places Ireland much too far north, and the shape of
+Scotland has little resemblance to the original.<small><small><sup>2</sup></small></small> He realised that
+there were lands to the south of Africa, to the east of Africa, and
+to the north of Europe, all stretching far away beyond his ken. He
+agrees with Pliny about the four islands in the neighbourhood of
+Scandinavia, and draws the Volga correctly, He realises, too, that
+the Caspian is an inland sea, and unconnected with the surrounding
+ocean.</p>
+
+<blockquote><small>2 If Ptolemy's longitudes are adjusted, he becomes
+extraordinarily correct.</small></blockquote>
+
+<a name="ill024"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 24">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="396">
+			<img src="images/024.jpg" alt="THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO PTOLEMY AND THE ROMANS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="395" align="center">
+			<small>"THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"&mdash;II. THE WORLD AS KNOWN
+			TO PTOLEMY AND THE ROMANS.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most remarkable part of Ptolemy's geography is that which
+tells us of the lands beyond the <a name="page75"></a>Ganges. He knows something of the
+"Golden Chersonese" or Malay Peninsula, something of China, where "far
+away towards the north, and bordering on the eastern ocean, there is
+a land containing a great city from which silk is exported, both raw
+and spun and woven into textures."</p>
+
+<p>The wonder is that Ptolemy did not know more of China, for that land
+had one of the oldest civilisations in the world, as wondrous as those
+of Assyria and Egypt. But China had had little or no direct intercourse
+with the West till after the death of Ptolemy. Merchants had passed
+between China and India for long centuries, and "the Indians had made
+journeys in the golden deserts in troops of one or two thousand, and
+it is said that they do not return from these journeys till the third
+or fourth year." This was the Desert of Gobi, called golden because
+it opened the way to wealth.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps the most interesting part of this great geography, which
+was to inform the world for centuries yet to come, was the construction
+of a series of twenty-six maps and a general map of the known world.</p>
+
+<p>This was one of the most important maps ever constructed, and forms
+our frontispiece from medi&aelig;val copies of the original. The twelve
+heads blowing sundry winds on to the world's surface are
+characteristic of the age. The twenty-six maps are in sections. They
+are the first maps to be drawn with lines of latitude and longitude.
+The measurements are very vague. The lines are never ruled; they are
+drawn uncertainly in red; they are neither straight nor regular,
+though the spaces between the lines indicate degrees of fifty miles.
+The maps are crowded with towns, each carefully walled in by little
+red squares and drawn by hand. The water is all coloured a sombre,
+greeny blue, and the land is washed in a rich yellow brown. A copy
+can be seen at the British Museum.</p>
+<a name="page76"></a>
+<p>It is only by looking back that we can realise the progress made in
+earth-knowledge. Ptolemy wrote just a thousand years after Homer, when
+the little world round the Mediterranean had become a great Empire
+stretching from the British Isles to China.</p>
+
+<p>Already the barbaric hordes which haunted the frontiers of the Roman
+Empire were breaking across the ill-defended boundaries, desolating
+streams were bursting over the civilised world, until at last the storm
+broke, the unity of the Empire was ended, commerce broken up, and the
+darkness of ignorance spread over the earth.</p>
+
+<p>During this time little in the way of progress was made, and for the
+next few centuries our only interest lies in filling up some of the
+shadowy places of the earth, without extending its known bounds.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap11"></a><a name="page77"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<h4>PILGRIM TRAVELLERS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Meanwhile a new inspiration had been given to the world, which affected
+travelling to no small extent.</p>
+
+<p>In far-off Roman province of Syria, the Christ had lived, the Christ
+had died. And His words were ringing through the land: "Go ye and make
+disciples of all the nations, preach the gospel to every creature."
+Here at once was a new incentive to travel, a definite reason for men
+to venture forth into the unknown, to brave dangers, to endure hardship.
+They must carry their Master's words "unto the ends of the world."
+The Roman Empire had brought men under one rule; they must now be
+brought to serve one God. So men passed out of Syria; they landed on
+the islands in the Mediterranean, they made their way to Asia Minor
+and across to Greece, until in the year 60 <small>A.D.</small> we get the graphic
+account of Paul the traveller, one of the first and most famous of
+the missionaries of the first century.</p>
+
+<p>Jerusalem now became, indeed, the world centre. A very stream of
+pilgrim travellers tramped to the Holy City from far-away lands to
+see for themselves the land where the Christ had lived and died.</p>
+
+<a name="ill025"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 25">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="256">
+			<img src="images/025.jpg" alt="THE FIRST STAGES OF A MEDIAEVAL PILGRIMAGE: LONDON TO DOVER">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="256" align="center">
+			<small>THE FIRST STAGES OF A MEDI&AElig;VAL PILGRIMAGE: LONDON TO DOVER.<br>
+			From Matthew of Paris's <i>Itinerary</i>, thirteenth century.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The pilgrim age begins with the journey of a woman&mdash;the beautiful and
+learned daughter of the King of Britain, Helena, mother of the Emperor
+Constantine. She was a student of divinity and a devoted Christian.
+In the year 326 she undertook the difficult journey to Jerusalem, <a name="page78"></a>where
+she is reported to have discovered the "true cross," which had been
+buried, with Pilate's inscription in "Hebrew and Greek and Latin."
+When the news of her discovery was noised abroad a very rush of pilgrims
+took place from every part of the world. Indeed, one pilgrim&mdash;his name
+is unknown&mdash;thought it worth while to write a guide-book for the
+benefit of his fellow-travellers. His <i>Itinerary from Bordeaux to
+Jerusalem</i> is very interesting, being the first Christian guide-book
+and one of the earliest travel-documents ever written for the use of
+travellers. This ancient "Bradshaw" has been translated into English
+and throws light on fourth-century travelling. Enthusiastic indeed
+must these early pilgrims have been to undertake the long and toilsome
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>The guide-book takes them, save for crossing the Bosphorus, entirely
+by land. It leads them from the "city of Bordeaux, where is the river
+Garonne in which the ocean ebbs and flows for one hundred leagues more
+or less," to Arles, with thirty changes and eleven halts in <a name="page79"></a>three
+hundred and seventy-two miles. There were milestones along the Roman
+roads to guide them, and houses at regular intervals where horses were
+kept for posting. From Arles the pilgrim goes north to Avignon, crosses
+the Alps, and halts at the Italian frontier. Skirting the north of
+Italy by Turin, Milan, and Padua, he reaches the Danube at Belgrade,
+passes through Servia and Bulgaria and so reaches Constantinople&mdash;the
+great new city of Constantine. "Grand total from Bordeaux to
+Constantinople, two thousand two hundred and twenty-one miles, with
+two hundred and thirty changes and one hundred and twelve halts."</p>
+
+<p>"From Constantinople," continues the guide-book, "you cross the
+strait and walk on through Asia Minor, passing the spot where lies
+King Hannibal, once King of the Africans." Thus onward through the
+long dreary miles to Tarsus, where "was born the Apostle Paul," till
+Syria is reached at last.</p>
+
+<p>Then the "Bradshaw" becomes a "Baedeker." Long and detailed accounts
+are given of the country through which the pilgrim has to pass. From
+C&aelig;sarea he is led to Jezreel by the spot "where David slew Goliath,"
+by "Job's country house" to Sichem, "where Joseph is laid," and thence
+to Jerusalem. Full accounts follow of the Holy City and Mount Sion,
+"the little hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified," the Mount
+of Olives, Jericho, Jordan, Bethlehem, and Hebron. "Here is a monument
+of square form built of stone of wondrous beauty," in which lie Abraham,
+Isaac, Jacob, Sara, Rebecca, and Leah.</p>
+
+<p>"From Constantinople to Jerusalem is one thousand one hundred and
+fifty-nine miles, with sixty-nine changes and fifty-eight halts."</p>
+
+<p>Here the guide-book ends abruptly with a brief summary of distances.
+Thither then flocked the pilgrims, some by <a name="page80"></a>land and some by sea, men
+and women from all parts of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Even the Briton, separated from our world, leaves the setting sun
+and seeks a place known to him only by fame and the narrative of the
+Scriptures."</p>
+
+<p>One of the earliest was Paula of Rome&mdash;a weak, fragile woman accustomed
+to a life of luxury and ease, but, fired with the enthusiasm of her
+religion, she resolved to brave the dangers and hardships of a journey
+to the East. Her travels were written by St. Jerome.</p>
+
+<p>"When the winter was spent and the sea was open," he writes, "she longed
+and prayed to sail.... She went down to the harbour, accompanied by
+her brother, her relatives, her connections and, more than these, by
+her children, who strove to surpass the affection of the kindest of
+mothers. Soon the sails were swelling in the breeze, and the ship,
+guided by the oars, gained the open sea. Little Lexotinus piteously
+stretched forth his hands from the shore. Rufina, a grown-up girl,
+by her tears silently besought her mother to stay until she was married.
+Yet she herself, without a tear, turned her eyes heavenward,
+overcoming her love for her children by her love for God.... Meanwhile
+the ship was ploughing the sea&mdash;the winds were sluggish and all speed
+slow." But the ship passed between Scylla and Charybdis and reached
+Antioch in safety. From this spot she followed the guide-book
+directions until she arrived at Jerusalem. How Paula and one of her
+young daughters walked over the rough ground, endured the hardships
+of desert-life, and finally lived twenty years at Bethlehem, would
+take too long to tell. And she was but one of many.</p>
+
+<a name="ill026"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 26">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="502">
+			<img src="images/026.jpg" alt="JERUSALEM AND THE EAST">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="502" align="center">
+			<small>JERUSALEM AND THE EAST.<br>
+			From Matthew of Paris's <i>Itinerary</i>, thirteenth century.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Sylvia of Aquitaine, travelling at the same time, wrote a strangely
+interesting account of her travels. The early part of her manuscript
+is lost, and we find her first in Arabia. All was new and strange.</p>
+<a name="page81"></a>
+<p>"Meanwhile as we walked we arrived at a certain place, where the
+mountains between which we were passing opened themselves out and formed a
+great valley, very flat and extremely beautiful; and beyond the valley
+appeared Sinai, the holy mount of God.... This is the same great and
+flat valley in which the children of Israel waited during the days
+when holy Moses went up into the Mount of God.... It was late on the
+Sabbath when we came to the mountain, and, arriving at a certain
+monastery, the kindly monks who lived there entertained us, showing
+us all kindliness." Sylvia had to ascend the mountain on foot "because
+the ascent could not be made in a chair," but the view over "Egypt
+and Palestine and the Red Sea and the Mediterranean which leads to
+Alexandria, <a name="page82"></a>also the boundless territory of the Saracens, we saw below
+us, hard though it is to believe, all of which things these holy men
+pointed out to us."</p>
+
+<p>But we must not follow her to Jerusalem, or to Mesopotamia, where she
+saw "the great river Euphrates, rushing down in a torrent like the
+Rhine, but greater." She reached Constantinople by the guide-book
+route, having spent four years in travel, and walked two thousand miles
+to the very "limit of the Roman Empire." Her boundless energy is not
+exhausted yet. "Ladies, my beloved ones," she writes, "whilst I
+prepare this account for your pious zeal, it is already my purpose
+to go to Asia."</p>
+
+<p>But we must turn away for a moment from the stream of pilgrim travellers
+wending their weary way from Britain, France, Spain, and the east to
+Jerusalem, to follow the travels of St. Patrick through the wilds of
+Ireland.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap12"></a><a name="page83"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<h4>IRISH EXPLORERS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Patrick had been a pilgrim to Rome from the banks of the Clyde, where
+he lived, and, having seen the Pope, he had returned to Ireland by
+sea, landing on the Wicklow coast in the year 432. Hungry and tired
+after the long voyage, he tried to get some fish from the fishermen,
+but they replied by throwing stones at him, and he put out to sea again
+and headed north. Past Bray Head, past the Bay of Malahide he sailed,
+but he could get neither fish nor food till he reached a spot between
+the Liffey and the Boyne, where he built his first Christian church.</p>
+
+<p>Now in the fifth century, when light first breaks over Ireland, it
+breaks over a land torn by perpetual tribal strife, a land in the chaos
+of wild heathendom. It was reserved for St. Patrick to save her from
+increasing gloom.</p>
+
+<p>Patrick and his companions now sailed on past Louth, by the low-lying
+shore with long stretches of sandy flats, on under the shadow of great
+peaks frowning over the sea. He landed near Downpatrick, founded
+another church, and spent the winter in these parts, for the autumn
+was far advanced. Spring found him sailing back to the Boyne and
+attacking the fierce heathen king at Tara, the capital of Ireland.
+From Tara five great roads led to different parts of the island. St.
+Patrick now made his way through Meath to the very heart of <a name="page84"></a>the country,
+building churches as he went. Thence he crossed the Shannon, entered
+the great plain of Roscommon, passed by Mayo, and at length reached
+the western sea. He had now been eight years in Ireland, eight laborious
+years, climbing hills, wading through waters, camping out by night,
+building, organising, preaching. He loved the land on the western sea,
+little known as yet.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem12">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			"I would choose<br>
+			To remain here on a little land,<br>
+			After faring around churches and waters.<br>
+			Since I am weary, I wish not to go further."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>St. Patrick climbed the great peak, afterwards called Croaghpatrick,
+and on the summit, exposed to wind and rain, he spent the forty days
+of Lent. From here he could look down on to one of the most beautiful
+bays in Ireland, down on to the hundred little islands in the glancing
+waters below, while away to the north and south stretched the rugged
+coast-line. And he tells us how the great white birds came and sang
+to him there. It would take too long to tell how he returned to Tara
+and started again with a train of thirteen chariots by the great
+north-western road to the spot afterwards known as Downpatrick Head;
+he passed along the broken coast to the extreme north where the great
+ocean surf breaks on the rugged shore, returning again to the Irish
+capital. He travelled over a great part of Ireland, founded three
+hundred and fifty churches, converted heathen tribes to Christianity
+and civilisation, and finally died at Armagh in 493. His work was
+carried on by St. Columba, a native of Ireland, who, "deciding to go
+abroad for Christ," sailed away with twelve disciples to a low rocky
+island off the west coast of Scotland, where he founded the famous
+monastery of Iona, about 563. Thence he journeyed away to the Highlands,
+<a name="page85"></a>making his way through rugged and mountainous country that had stayed
+the warlike Romans long years before. He even sailed across the stormy
+northern sea to the Orkney Islands.</p>
+
+<p>Let us picture the Scotland of the sixth century in order to realise
+those long lonely tramps of St. Columba and his disciples across the
+rough mountains, through the dense forests, across bleak moors and
+wet bogs, till after dreary wanderings they reached the coast, and
+in frail ships boldly faced the wild seas that raged round the northern
+islands.</p>
+
+<p>"We can see Columba and his disciples journeying on foot, as poor and
+as barely provided as were Christ and His disciples, with neither
+silver nor gold nor brass in their purses, and over a wilder country
+and among a wilder people."</p>
+
+<a name="ill027"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 27">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="271">
+			<img src="images/027.jpg" alt="IRELAND AND ST. BRANDON'S ISLE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="271" align="center">
+			<small>IRELAND AND ST. BRANDON'S ISLE.<br>
+			From the Catalan map, 1375.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>These pilgrims tramped to and fro clad in simple tunics over a monkish
+dress of undyed wool, bound round the waist by a strong cord, all their
+worldly goods on their backs and a staff in their hands. The hermit
+instinct was growing, and men were sailing away to lonely islands where
+God might be better served apart from the haunts of men. Perhaps it
+was this instinct that inspired St. Brandon to sail away across the
+trackless ocean in search of the Island of Saints reported in the
+western seas. His voyage suggests the old expedition of Ulysses. A
+good deal of it is mythical, some is added at a later date, but it
+is interesting as being an attempt to cross the wide Atlantic Ocean
+across which no man had yet sailed. For seven years St. Brandon sailed
+on the unknown sea, discovering unknown islands, until he reached the
+Island of Saints&mdash;the goal of his desires. <a name="page86"></a>And the fact remains that
+for ten centuries after this an island, known as Brandon's Isle, was
+marked on maps somewhere to the west of Ireland, though to the end
+it remained as mysterious as the island of Thule.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the old story. Brandon, abbot of a large Irish monastery
+containing one thousand monks, sailed off in an "osier boat covered
+with tanned hides and carefully greased," provisioned for seven years.
+After forty days at sea they reached an island with steep sides, where
+they took in fresh supplies. Thence the winds carried the ship to
+another island, where they found sheep&mdash;"every sheep was as great as
+an ox."</p>
+
+<p>"This is the island of sheep, and here it is ever summer," they were
+informed by an old islander.</p>
+
+<p>This may have been Madeira. They found other islands in the
+neighbourhood, one of which was full of singing-birds, and the passing
+years found them still tossing to and fro on the unknown sea, until
+at last the end came. "And St. Brandon sailed forty days south in full
+great tempest," and another forty days brought the ship right into
+a bank of fog. But when the fog lifted "they saw the fairest country
+eastward that any man might see, it was so clear and bright that it
+was a heavenly sight to behold; and all the trees were charged with
+ripe fruit." And they walked about the island for forty days and could
+not find the end. And there was no night there, and the climate was
+neither hot nor cold.</p>
+
+<p>"Be ye joyful now," said a voice, "for this is the land ye have sought,
+and our Lord wills that you laden your ship with the fruit of this
+land and hie you hence, for ye may no longer abide here, but thou shalt
+sail again into thine own country."</p>
+
+<a name="ill028"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 28">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="693">
+			<img src="images/028.jpg" alt="THE MYSTERIOUS ISLE OF ST. BRANDON IN MARTIN BEHAIM'S MAP, 1492">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="693" align="center">
+			<small>THE MYSTERIOUS ISLE OF ST. BRANDON IN MARTIN BEHAIM'S MAP, 1492.<br>
+			As geographical knowledge increased, map-makers were
+			compelled to put Brandon's Isle farther and farther away from Ireland,
+			until here we find it off the coast of Africa and near the Equator.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So the monks took all the fruit they could carry, and, weeping that
+they might stay no longer in this happy land, they sailed back to
+Ireland. Hazy, indeed, was the <a name="page87"></a>geography of the Atlantic in the sixth
+century. Nor can we leave St. Brandon's story without quoting a modern
+poet, who believed that the voyage was to the Arctic regions and not
+in the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem13">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Saint Brandon sails the Northern Main,<br>
+			&nbsp;The brotherhood of saints are glad.<br>
+			&nbsp;He greets them once, he sails again:<br>
+			&nbsp;So late! Such storms! The saint is mad.<br>
+			&nbsp;He heard across the howling seas<br>
+			&nbsp;Chime convent bells on wintry nights;<br>
+			&nbsp;He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,<br>
+			&nbsp;Twinkle the monastery lights:<br>
+			&nbsp;But north, still north, Saint Brandon steered,<br>
+			&nbsp;And now no bells, no convents more,<br>
+			&nbsp;The hurtling Polar lights are reached,<br>
+			&nbsp;The sea without a human shore."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Some three hundred years were to pass away before further discoveries
+in these quarters revealed new lands, three hundred years before the
+great energy of the Vikings brought to light Iceland, Greenland, and
+even the coast of America.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap13"></a><a name="page88"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<h4>AFTER MOHAMMED</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>So once more we turn back to the East. Jerusalem is still the centre
+of the earth. But a change has passed over the world, which influenced
+not a little the progress of geography. Mohammed in the seventh century
+lived and died in Arabia. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His
+prophet," proclaimed his followers, the Arabs or Saracens as they were
+called. And just as men had travelled abroad to preach Christianity
+to those who knew it not, so now the Mohammedans set forth to teach
+the faith of their Lord and Master. But whereas Christianity was taught
+by peaceful means, Mohammedanism was carried by the sword. The Roman
+provinces of Syria and Egypt had been conquered by the Arabs, and the
+famous cities of Jerusalem and Alexandria were filled with teachers
+of the new faith. The Mohammedans had conquered Spain and were pressing
+by Persia towards India.</p>
+
+<p>What deep root their preaching took in these parts is still evident.
+Still the weary fight between the two religions continues.</p>
+
+<p>The first traveller of note through this distracted Europe was a
+Frenchman named Arculf, a Christian bishop. When he had visited the
+Holy Land and Egypt his ship was caught in a violent storm and driven
+on to the west coast of Scotland. After many adventures Arculf found
+himself at the famous convent of Iona, <a name="page89"></a>made welcome by an Irish monk
+Adamnan, who was deeply interested in Arculf's account of his
+wanderings, and wrote them down at his dictation, first on waxed
+tablets, copied later on to parchment. How tenderly the two monks dwell
+on all the glories of Jerusalem. "But in that beautiful place where
+once the Temple had been, the Saracens now frequent a four-sided house
+of prayer, which they have built, rudely constructing it by raising
+boards and great beams on some remains of ruins, which house can hold
+three thousand men at once." And Arculf draws on the waxed tablet the
+picture of some church or tomb to make his narrative clearer to his
+friend Adamnan.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most interesting part of all the travels is the account
+of the lofty column that Arculf describes in the midst of Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>"This column," he says, "as it stands in the centre <a name="page90"></a>of the heaven,
+shining straight down from above, proves that the city of Jerusalem
+is situated in the middle of the earth."</p>
+
+<p>Arculf's journey aroused great interest among the newly converted
+Christians of the north, and Willibald, a high-born Englishman,
+started off in 721 to explore farther. But the road through Europe
+was now full of danger. The followers of Mohammed were strong, and
+it required true courage to face the perils of the long journey.
+Willibald was undaunted, and with his father and two brothers he sailed
+from Southampton, crossed to France, sailed up the Seine to Rouen,
+and reached Italy. Here the old father died. Willibald and his brothers
+travelled on through "the vast lands of Italy, through the depths of
+the valleys, over the steep brows of the mountains, over the levels
+of the plains, climbing on foot the difficult passes of the Alps, over
+the icebound and snow-capped summits," till they arrived at Rome.
+Thence they made their way to Syria, where they were at once thrown
+into prison by Mohammedan conquerors. They were brought before the
+ruler of the Mohammedan world, or Khalif, whose seat was at Damascus.
+He asked whence they came.</p>
+
+<p>"These men come from the western shore, where the sun sets: and we
+know not of any land beyond them, but water only," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>Such was Britain to the Mohammedans. They never got a footing in that
+country: their Empire lay to the east, and their capital was even now
+shifting to Bagdad.</p>
+
+<a name="ill029"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 29">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="626">
+			<img src="images/029.jpg" alt="THE WORLD-MAP OF COSMAS, SIXTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="626" align="center">
+			<small>THE WORLD-MAP OF COSMAS, SIXTH CENTURY.<br>
+			This is the oldest Christian map. It shows the flat world surrounded by the ocean,
+			with the four winds and the four sacred rivers running out of the
+			terrestrial Paradise; beyond all is the "terra ultra oceanum," "the
+			world beyond the ocean, where men dwelt before the flood."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But before turning to their geographical discoveries we must see how
+Cosmas, the Egyptian merchant-monk, set the clock back by his quaint
+theories of the world in the sixth century. Cosmas hailed from
+"Alexander's great city." His calling carried him into seas and
+countries remote from home. He knew the Mediterranean Sea, <a name="page91"></a>the Persian
+Gulf, and the Red Sea. He had narrowly escaped shipwreck in the Indian
+Ocean, which in those days was regarded with terror on account of its
+violent currents and dense fogs. As the ship carrying the merchant
+approached this dread region, a storm gathered overhead, and flocks
+of albatross, like birds of ill-omen, hovered about the masts.</p>
+
+<p>"We were all in alarm," relates Cosmas, "for all the men of experience
+on board, whether passengers or sailors, began to say that we were
+near the ocean and called out to the pilot: 'Steer the ship to port
+and make for the gulf, or we shall be swept along by the currents and
+carried into the ocean and lost.' For the ocean rushing into the gulf
+was swelling with billows of portentous size, while the currents from
+the gulf were driving the ship into the ocean, and the outlook was
+altogether so dismal that we were kept in a state of great alarm."</p>
+
+<p>That he eventually reached India is clear, for he relates strange
+things concerning Ceylon. "There is a large oceanic island lying in
+the Indian Sea," he tells us. "It has a length of nine hundred miles
+and it is of the like extent in breadth. There are two kings in the
+island, and they <a name="page92"></a>are at feud the one with the other. The island, being
+as it is in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all
+parts of India, and from Persia and Ethiopia, and from the remotest
+countries, it receives silk, aloes, cloves, and other products ...
+farther away is the clove country, then Tzinista (China), which
+produces silk. Beyond this there is no other country, for the ocean
+surrounds it on the east."</p>
+
+<p>Cosmas was the first to realise that China was bounded on the east
+by the ocean. He tells us a good story about the "Lord of India," who
+always went to war with two thousand elephants. "Once upon a time this
+king would lay siege to an island city of the Indians, which was on
+every side protected by water. A long while he sat down before it,
+until, what with his elephants, his horses, and his soldiers, all the
+water had been drunk up. He then crossed over to the city dryshod and
+took it."</p>
+
+<a name="ill030"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 30">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554">
+			<img src="images/030.jpg" alt="THE MOUNTAIN OF COSMAS, CAUSING NIGHT AND DAY AND THE SEASONS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554" align="center">
+			<small>THE MOUNTAIN OF COSMAS, CAUSING NIGHT AND DAY AND THE SEASONS.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But, strange as are the travels and information of Cosmas, still
+stranger is his <i>Christian Topography</i>. His commercial travelling
+done he retired, became a devout Christian monk, and devoted his
+leisure time in trying to reconcile all the progress of geographical
+knowledge with old Biblical ideas.</p>
+
+<p>He assures us that the world is flat and not round, and that it is
+surrounded by an immense wall supporting the firmament. Indeed, if
+we compare the maps of Cosmas in the sixth century with those of the
+Babylonians thousands of years before, there is mighty little
+difference. With amazing courage he refutes all the old theories and
+draws the most astounding maps, which, nevertheless, are the oldest
+Christian maps which survive.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap14"></a><a name="page93"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+
+<h4>THE VIKINGS SAIL THE NORTHERN SEAS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>A more interesting force than the pilgrim travellers now claims our
+attention, and we turn to the frozen north, to the wild region at the
+back of the north wind, for new activity and discovery. Out of this
+land of fable and myth, legend and poetry, the fierce inhabitants of
+Scandinavia begin to take shape. Tacitus speaks of them as "mighty
+in fame," Ptolemy as "savage and clothed in the skins of wild beasts."</p>
+
+<p>From time to time we have glimpses of these folk sailing about in the
+Baltic Sea. They were known to the Finns of the north as "sea-rovers."
+"The sea is their school of war and the storm their friend; they are
+sea-wolves that live on the pillage of the world," sang an old Roman
+long years ago. The daring spirit of their race had already attracted
+the attention of Britons across the seas. The careless glee with which
+they seized either sword or oar and waged war with the stormy seas
+for a scanty livelihood, raiding all the neighbouring coasts, had
+earned them the name of Vikings or creek men. Their black-sailed ships
+stood high out of the water, prow and stern ending in the head and
+tail of some strange animal, while their long beards, their loose
+shirts, and battleaxe made them conspicuous. "From the fury of the
+Northmen save us, Lord," prayed those who had come in contact with
+these Vikings.</p>
+
+<p>In the ninth century they spring into fame as <a name="page94"></a>explorers by the discovery
+of Iceland. It was in this wise. The chief of a band of pirates, one
+Naddod, during a voyage to the Faroe Islands was driven by a storm
+upon the eastern coast of an unknown land. Not a soul was to be seen.
+He climbed a high mountain covered with snow and took a look round,
+but though he could see far and wide, not a human being could he detect.
+So he named it Snow-land and sailed home to relate his adventures.</p>
+
+<p>A few years later another Viking, Gardar, bound for the west coast
+of Scotland, was likewise blown by a storm on to the coast of Snow-land.
+He sailed right round and found it to be an island. Considering that
+it was unsafe to navigate the icy northern seas in winter, he built
+himself a hut on the island, lived there till the spring, and returned
+home. His account of the island fired the enthusiasm of an old Viking
+called Floki, who sailed away, meaning to take possession of the newly
+discovered country. At the Faroe Islands he let fly three ravens. The
+first returned, the second came back to the ship, the third guided
+the navigator to the island which he sought. He met a quantity of drift
+ice about the northern part of the island and called it Ice-land, the
+name it has borne ever since. But amid the Arctic ice he spent a desolate
+winter; the island seemed full of lofty mountains covered with eternal
+snow. His companions, however, were delighted with the climate and
+the soil.</p>
+
+<p>"Milk drops from every plant and butter from every twig," they said;
+"this was a land where men might live free from the tyranny of kings."
+Free, indeed, for the island was totally uninhabited.</p>
+
+<a name="ill031"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 31">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="698">
+			<img src="images/031.jpg" alt="A VIKING SHIP">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="698" align="center">
+			<small>A VIKING SHIP.<br>
+			A reconstruction (from Prof. Montelius's book on Scandinavian arch&aelig;ology)
+			of an actual Viking ship found, almost complete, at Gokstad, Norway.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Iceland soon became a refuge for pirates and other lawless characters.
+Among these was a young Viking called Erik the Red. He was too lawless
+even for Iceland, <a name="page95"></a>and, being banished for three years, he sailed away
+in 985 in search of new lands. At the end of his three years he returned
+and reported that he had discovered land with rich meadows, fine woods,
+and good fishing, which he had named Green-land. So glowing was his
+description that soon a party of men and women, with household goods
+and cattle, started forth in twenty-five ships to colonise the new
+land. Still the passion for discovery continued, and Erik's son Lief
+fitted out a vessel to carry thirty-five men in quest of land already
+sighted to the west.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the year 1000 that they reached the coast of North America.
+It was a barren and rocky shore to which Lief gave the name of Rock-land.
+Sailing farther, they found a low coast wooded to its edge, to which
+they gave the simple name of Woody-land. Two days later an island
+appeared, and on the mainland they discovered a river up which they
+sailed. On low bushes by the <a name="page96"></a>banks of the river they found sweet berries
+or wild grapes from which a sort of wine was made, so Lief called the
+land Vin-land. It is now supposed that Vinland and Woodyland are really
+Newfoundland and Labrador on the shores of North America. After this,
+shipload followed shipload from Iceland to colonise Vinland. But
+without success.</p>
+
+<p>So the Viking discoveries in these cold and inhospitable regions were
+but transitory. The clouds lifted but for a moment to settle down again
+over America, till it was rediscovered some five hundred years later.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving these northern explorers let us remind ourselves of
+the old saga so graphic in its description of their ocean lives&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem14">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Down the fiord sweep wind and rain;<br>
+			&nbsp;Our sails and tackle sway and strain;<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;Wet to the skin<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;We're sound within.<br>
+			&nbsp;Our sea-steed through the foam goes prancing,<br>
+			&nbsp;While shields and spears and helms are glancing<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;From fiord to sea,<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;Our ships ride free,<br>
+			&nbsp;And down the wind with swelling sail<br>
+			&nbsp;We scud before the gathering gale."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Now, while these fierce old Vikings were navigating unknown seas,
+Alfred the Great was reigning over England. Among his many and varied
+interests he was deeply thrilled in the geography of the world. He
+was always ready to listen to those who had been on voyages of discovery,
+and in his account of the geography of Europe he tells us of a famous
+old sea captain called Othere, who had navigated the unknown seas to
+the north of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>"Othere told his lord, King Alfred, that he dwelt northmost of all
+Northmen, on the land by the western sea. He said that the land is
+very long thence to the <a name="page97"></a>north; but it is all waste save that in a few
+places here and there Finns reside. He said that he wished to find
+out how far the land lay right north, or whether any man dwelt to the
+north of the waste. Then he went right north near the land, and he
+left all the way the waste land on the right and the wide sea on the
+left for three days. There was he as far north as the whale-hunters
+ever go. He then went yet right north, as far as he could sail in the
+next three days. After sailing for another nine days he came to a great
+river; they turned up into the river, but they durst not sail beyond
+it on account of hostility, for the land was all inhabited on the other
+side. He had not before met with any inhabited land since he came from
+his own home, for the land was uninhabited all the way on his right
+save by fishermen, hunters, and fowlers, and they were all Finns, and
+there was always a wide sea on his left."</p>
+
+<p>And as a trophy of distant lands and a proof of his having reached
+farthest north, Othere presented the King with a "snow-white walrus
+tooth."</p>
+
+<p>But King Alfred wanted his subjects to know more of the world around
+them, and even in the midst of his busy life he managed to write a
+book in Anglo-Saxon, which sums up for us the world's knowledge some
+nine hundred years after Ptolemy&mdash;nine hundred barren years as far
+as much geographical progress was concerned. Alfred does not even
+allude to Iceland, Greenland, or Vinland. The news of these
+discoveries had evidently not reached him. He repeats the old legend
+of Thule to the north-west of Ireland, "which is known to few, on
+account of its very great distance."</p>
+
+<p>So ends the brief but thrilling discoveries of the Northmen, who knew
+not fear, and we turn again to landsmen and the east.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap15"></a><a name="page98"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3>
+
+<h4>ARAB WAYFARERS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>And now we leave the fierce energy of the Northmen westwards and turn
+to another energy, which was leading men toward the east, to the lands
+beyond the Euphrates, to India, across central Asia, even into far
+Cathay.</p>
+
+<p>These early travellers to the east were for the most part Arabs.
+Mohammed had bidden his followers to spread his teaching far and wide;
+this teaching had always appealed more to the eastern than to the
+western mind. So farther and farther to the east travelled the Arabs,
+converting the uncivilised tribes that Christianity had not reached.</p>
+
+<a name="ill032"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 32">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="315">
+			<img src="images/032.jpg" alt="A KHALIF ON HIS THRONE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="315" align="center">
+			<small>A KHALIF ON HIS THRONE.<br>
+			From the Ancona map, 1497.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>What a contrast are these Arabs to the explorers of the vigorous north.
+They always travelled by land and not by that sea which was life to
+the Viking folk. To the Arabs the encircling ocean was a very "Sea
+of Darkness"; indeed, the unknown ocean beyond China was called the
+"Sea of Pitchy Darkness." Their creed taught that the ocean was
+boundless, so that ships dared not venture out of sight of land, for
+there was no inhabited country beyond, and mariners would assuredly
+be lost in mists and fogs. So, while the Vikings tossed fearlessly
+about the wild northern seas, the Arab wayfarers rode eastward by
+well-known caravan tracks, trading and teaching the ways of Mohammed.
+Arabic enterprise had pushed on far beyond Ptolemy's world. The Arab
+centre lay in the city of Bagdad, the headquarters of <a name="page99"></a>the ruler or
+Khalif of the Mohammedan world. They had already opened up a
+considerable trade with the rapidly rising Mongol Empire, which no
+European had yet reached.</p>
+
+<p>But as this country was to play a large part in the travels of the
+near future, it will be interesting to hear the account given by two
+Mohammedan friends who journeyed thither in the year 831, just four
+hundred years before Marco Polo's famous account. The early part of
+their story is missing, and we raise the curtain when they have arrived
+in the land of China itself, then a very small empire compared with
+what it is now.</p>
+
+<p>"The Emperor of China reckons himself next after the King of the Arabs,
+who they all allow to be the first and beyond all dispute the most
+powerful of kings, because he is the head of a great religion. In this
+great kingdom of China they tell us there are over two hundred cities;
+each city has four gates, at each of which are five trumpets, which
+the Chinese sound at certain hours of the day and of the night. There
+are also within each city ten drums, which they beat at the same time
+as a public token of their obedience to the Emperor, as also to signify
+the hour of the day and of the night, to which end they also have dials
+and clocks with weights.</p>
+
+<p>"China is a pleasant and fruitful country; the air is much better than
+the Indian provinces: much rain falls in both these countries. In India
+are many desert tracts, but China is inhabited and peopled throughout
+its whole <a name="page100"></a>extent. The Chinese are handsomer than the Indians, and come
+nearer the Arabs, not only in countenance, but in dress, in their way
+of riding, in their manners, and in their ceremonies. They wear long
+garments and girdles in form of belts. The Chinese are dressed in silk
+both winter and summer, and this kind of dress is common to the prince
+and the peasant. Their food is rice, which they often eat with a broth
+which they pour upon the rice. They have several sorts of fruits, apples,
+lemons, quinces, figs, grapes, cucumbers, walnuts, almonds, plums,
+apricots, and cocoanuts."</p>
+
+<a name="ill033"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 33">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="462">
+			<img src="images/033.jpg" alt="A CHINESE EMPEROR GIVING AUDIENCE, NINTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="462" align="center">
+			<small>A CHINESE EMPEROR GIVING AUDIENCE, NINTH CENTURY.<br>
+			From an old Chinese MS. at Paris, showing an Emperor of the dynasty that
+			was ruling when the two Mohammedans visited China in 831.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Here, too, we get the first mention of tea, which was not introduced
+into Europe for another seven hundred years, but which formed a Chinese
+drink in the ninth century. This Chinese drink "is a herb or shrub,
+more bushy than the pomegranate tree an of a more pleasant scent, but
+somewhat bitter to the taste. The Chinese boil water and pour it in
+scalding hot upon this leaf, and this infusion keeps them from all
+distempers."</p>
+
+<p>Here, too, we get the first mention of china ware. "They have an
+excellent kind of earth, wherewith they make a ware of equal fineness
+with glass and equally transparent."</p>
+
+<p>There is no time here to tell of all the curious manners and customs
+related by these two Mohammedans. One thing struck them as indeed it
+must strike us to-day. <a name="page101"></a>"The Chinese, poor and rich, great and small,
+learn to read and write. There are schools in every town for teaching
+the poor children, and the masters are maintained at public charge....
+The Chinese have a stone ten cubits high erected in the public squares
+of their cities, and on this stone are engraved the names of all the
+medicines, with the exact price of each; and when the poor stand in
+need of physic they go to the treasury where they receive the price
+each medicine is rated at."</p>
+
+<p>It was out of such travels as these that the famous romance of "Sindbad
+the Sailor" took shape&mdash;a true story of Arab adventures of the ninth
+and tenth centuries in a romantic setting. As in the case of Ulysses,
+the adventures of many voyages are ascribed to one man and related
+in a collection of tales which bears the title of <i>The Arabian Nights</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Sindbad was a native of Bagdad, the Arab centre of everything
+at this time, and of course he journeyed eastwards as did most
+Mohammedans.</p>
+
+<p>"It occurred to my mind," says Sindbad, "to travel to the countries
+of other people; then I arose and collected what I had of effects and
+apparel and sold them, after which I sold my buildings and all that
+my hand possessed and amassed three thousand pieces of silver. So I
+embarked in a ship, and with a company of merchants we traversed the
+sea for many days and nights. We had passed by island after island
+and from sea to sea and land to land, and in every place we sold and
+bought and exchanged merchandise. We continued our voyage until we
+arrived at an island like one of the gardens of Paradise."</p>
+
+<p>Here they anchored and lit fires, when suddenly the master of the ship
+cried aloud in great distress: "Oh, ye passengers, come up quickly
+into the ship, leave your merchandise and flee for your lives, for
+this apparent <a name="page102"></a>island, upon which ye are, is not really an island, but
+it is a great fish that hath become stationary in the midst of the
+sea, and the sand hath accumulated upon it and trees have grown upon
+it, and when ye lighted a fire it felt the heat, and now it will descend
+with you into the sea and ye will all be drowned." As he spoke the
+island moved and "descended to the bottom of the sea with all that
+were upon it, and the roaring sea, agitated with waves, closed over
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Let Sindbad continue his own story: "I sank in the sea with the rest.
+But God delivered me and saved me from drowning and supplied me with
+a great wooden bowl, and I laid hold upon it and gat into it and beat
+the water with my feet as with oars, while the waves sported with me.
+I remained so a day and a night, until the bowl came to a stoppage
+under a high island whereupon were trees overhanging the sea. So I
+laid hold upon the branch of a lofty tree and clung to it until I landed
+on the island. Then I threw myself upon the island like one dead."</p>
+
+<p>After wandering about he found servants of the King of Borneo, and
+all sailed together to an island beyond the Malay Peninsula. And the
+King of Borneo sent for Sindbad and heaped him with honours. He gave
+him costly dress and made him superintendent of the seaport and adviser
+of affairs of state. And Sindbad saw many wonders in this far-distant
+sea. At last "one day I stood upon the shore of the sea, with a staff
+in my hand, as was my custom, and lo! a great vessel approached wherein
+were many merchants." They unloaded their wares, telling Sindbad that
+the owner of their goods, a man from Bagdad, had been drowned and they
+were selling his things.</p>
+
+<p>"What was the name of the owner of the goods?" asked Sindbad.</p>
+
+<p>"His name was Sindbad of the Sea."</p>
+<a name="page103"></a>
+<p>Then Sindbad cried: "Oh, master, know that I am the owner of the goods
+and I am Sindbad of the Sea."</p>
+
+<p>Then there was great rejoicing and Sindbad took leave of this King
+of Borneo and set sail for Bagdad&mdash;the Abode of Peace.</p>
+
+<a name="ill034"></a>
+<table width="685" align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" summary="illustration 34">
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2">
+			<img src="images/034.jpg" alt="THE SCENE OF SINDBAD'S VOYAGES AS SHOWN IN EDRISI'S MAP, 1154">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><small>
+			The romance of "Sindbad the Sailor" is really a true story
+			of Arab adventures at sea during the ninth and tenth centuries, put
+			into a romantic setting and ascribed to one man. In the above map,
+			which is a portion of the map of the world made by the famous Arab
+			geographer, Edrisi, in 1154 <small>A.D.</small>, many of the places to which Sindbad's
+			story relates have been identified. Their modern names are as
+			follows:&mdash;</small><br><br></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td><small>Kotroba is (probably) Socotra.</small></td>
+		<td><small>Rami, the "Island of Apes," is Sumatra.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td><small>Koulam Meli is Coulan, near Cape Comorin.</small></td>
+		<td><small>Maid Dzaba, the "island with the volcano," is Banca.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td><small>H<small>IND</small> is I<small>NDIA</small>.</small></td>
+		<td><small>Senf is Tsiampa, S. Cochin&mdash;China.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td><small>Serendib is Ceylon.</small></td>
+		<td><small>Mudza (or Mehrage) is Borneo.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td><small>Murphili (or Monsul), the "Valley of Diamonds," is Masulipatam.</small></td>
+		<td><small>Kamrun is Java.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td><small>Roibahat, the "Clove Islands," are the Maldive Islands.</small></td>
+		<td><small>Maid, the Camphor Island, is Formosa.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td colspan="2"><center><small>Edrisi's names are those which are used in the <i>Arabian Nights</i>.</small></center></td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But the spirit of unrest was upon him and soon he was off again. Indeed,
+he made seven voyages in all, but there is only room here to note a
+few of the most important points in each. This time he sailed to the
+coast of Zanzibar, East Africa, and, anchoring on the beautiful island
+of Madagascar, amid sweet-smelling flowers, pure rivers, and warbling
+birds, Sindbad fell asleep. He awoke to find the ship had sailed away,
+leaving him without food or drink, and not a human being was to be
+seen on the island.</p>
+<a name="page104"></a>
+<p>"Then I climbed up into a lofty tree and began to look from it to the
+right and left, but saw nothing save sky and water and trees and birds
+and islands and sands."</p>
+
+<p>At last he found an enormous bird. Unwinding his turban, he twisted
+it into a rope and, tying one end round his wrist, tied the other to
+one of the bird's great feet. Up flew the giant bird high into the
+sky and Sindbad with it, descending somewhere in India in the Valley
+of Diamonds. This bird was afterwards identified as an enormous eagle.</p>
+
+<p>"And I arose and walked in that valley," says Sindbad, "and I beheld
+its ground to be composed of diamonds, with which they perforate
+minerals and jewels, porcelain, and the onyx, and it is a stone so
+hard that neither iron nor rock have any effect upon it. All that valley
+was likewise occupied by serpents and venomous snakes."</p>
+
+<p>Here Sindbad found the camphor trees, "under each of which trees a
+hundred men might shade themselves." From these trees flowed liquid
+camphor. "In this island, too, is a kind of wild beast, called
+rhinoceros&mdash;it is a huge beast with a single horn, thick, in the middle
+of its head, and it lifteth the great elephant upon its horn."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, after collecting heaps of diamonds, Sindbad returned to
+Bagdad&mdash;a rich man.</p>
+
+<a name="ill035"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 35">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="496">
+			<img src="images/035.jpg" alt="SINDBAD'S GIANT ROC">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="496" align="center">
+			<small>SINDBAD'S GIANT ROC.<br>
+			From an Oriental miniature painting.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Again his soul yearns for travel. This time he starts for China, but
+his ship is driven out of its course and cast on the Island of Apes,
+probably Sumatra. These apes, "the most hideous of beasts, covered
+with hair like black felt," surrounded the ship. They climbed up the
+cables and severed them with their teeth to Sindbad's great alarm.
+He escaped to the neighbouring islands known as the Clove Islands,
+and again reached Bagdad safely. Again and yet again he starts forth
+on fresh adventures. Now he is sailing on the seas beyond <a name="page105"></a>Ceylon, now
+his ship is being pursued by a giant roc whose young have been killed
+and eaten by Sindbad. Sindbad as usual escapes upon a plank, and sails
+to an island, where he meets the "Old Man of the Sea," probably a huge
+ape from Borneo. On he passed to the "Island of Apes," where, every
+night, the people who reside in it go forth from the doors of the city
+that open upon the sea in their fear of the apes lest they should come
+down upon them in the night from the mountains. After this we find
+Sindbad trading in pepper on the Coromandel coast of modern India and
+discovering a wealth of pearls by the seashore of Ceylon. But at last
+he grew tired of seafaring, which was never congenial to Arabs.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem15">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Hateful was the dark blue sky,<br>
+			&nbsp;Vaulted o'er the dark blue sea;<br>
+			&nbsp;Sore task to heart, worn out by many wars;<br>
+			&nbsp;And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot stars."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So he leaves private adventuring alone and is appointed by the Khalif
+of Bagdad to convey a letter and present to the Indian prince of
+Ceylon&mdash;an expedition that lasts him twenty-seven years. The presents
+were magnificent. They included a horse worth ten thousand pieces of
+gold, with its saddle adorned with gold set with jewels, a book, a
+splendid dress, and some beautiful white Egyptian cloth, Greek carpets,
+and a crystal cup. Having duly delivered these gifts, he took his leave,
+meaning to return to his own country. But the usual adventures befell
+<a name="page106"></a>him. This time his ship was surrounded by a number of boats on board
+of which were men like little devils with swords and daggers. These
+attacked the ship, captured Sindbad, and sold him to a rich man as
+a slave. He set him to shoot elephants from a tree with bows and arrows.
+At last, after many other adventures and having made seven long voyages,
+poor Sindbad reached his home.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap16"></a><a name="page107"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3>
+
+<h4>TRAVELLERS TO THE EAST</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>But if the Sindbad saga is based on the stories of Mohammedan travellers
+and sum up Arab adventure by sea in the tenth century, we must turn
+to another Arab&mdash;Massoudy by name&mdash;for land travel of the same period.
+Massoudy left his home at Bagdad very young and seems to have penetrated
+into every Mohammedan country from Spain to farther India. In his
+famous <i>Meadows of Gold</i>, with its one hundred and thirty-two chapters,
+dedicated to "the most illustrious Kings," he describes the various
+lands through which he has travelled, giving us at the same time a
+good deal of incorrect information about lands he has never seen.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem16">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"I have gone so far towards the setting sun<br>
+			&nbsp;That I have lost all remembrance of the east,<br>
+			&nbsp;And my course has taken me so far towards the rising sun<br>
+			&nbsp;That I have forgotten the very name of west."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>One cannot but look with admiration on the energetic Arab traveller,
+when one remembers the labour of travel even in the tenth century.
+There were the long, hot rides through central Asia, under a burning
+sun, the ascent of unknown mountains, the crossing of unbridged rivers.
+From his lengthy work we will only extract a few details. Though he
+had "gone so far toward the setting sun," his knowledge of the West
+was very limited, and while Vikings tossed on the Atlantic westwards,
+Massoudy <a name="page108"></a>tells us that it is "impossible to navigate beyond the Pillars
+of Hercules, for no vessel sails on that sea; it is without cultivation
+or inhabitant, and its end, like its depth, is unknown." Such was the
+"Green Sea of Darkness" as it was called by the Arabs. Massoudy is
+more at home when he journeys towards the rising sun to the East, but
+his descriptions of China, the "Flowery Land," the "Celestial
+Country," were to be excelled by others.</p>
+
+<p>We must pass over Edrisi, who in 1153 wrote on "The going abroad of
+a curious Man to explore all the Wonders of the World," which wonders
+he explored very imperfectly, though he has left us a map of the world,
+which may be seen to-day at the Bodleian Library at Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>But we cannot pass over Benjamin of Tudela in so few words. "Our
+Benjamin" he is called by Pinkerton, who in the eighteenth century
+made a wonderful collection of voyages and travels of all ages. "Our
+Benjamin" was a Jew hailing from Tudela in Spain, and he started forth
+on his travels with a view to ascertaining the condition and numbers
+of Jews living in the midst of the great Mohammedan Empire. Benjamin
+made his way in the year 1160 to the "exceeding great city" of
+Constantinople, which "hath none to compare with it except Bagdad&mdash;the
+mighty city of the Arabs." With the great temple of St. Sophia and
+its pillars of gold and silver, he was immensely struck. In wrapt
+admiration he gazed at the Emperor's palace with its walls of beaten
+gold, its hanging crown suspended over the Imperial throne, blazing
+with precious stones, so splendid that the hall needed no other light.
+No less striking were the crimson embroidered garments worn by the
+Greeks, who rode to and from the city like princes on horseback.
+Benjamin turns sadly to the Jewish quarter. No Jew might ride on
+horseback here. All were treated as objects of contempt; they were
+herded together, often beaten in the streets.</p>
+<a name="page109"></a>
+<a name="ill036"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 36">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="409">
+			<img src="images/036.jpg" alt="JERUSALEM AND THE PILGRIMS' WAYS TO IT IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="409" align="center">
+			<small>JERUSALEM AND THE PILGRIMS' WAYS TO IT IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.<br>
+			From a map of the twelfth century at Brussels.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>From the wealth and luxury of Constantinople Benjamin makes his way
+to Syria. At Jerusalem he finds some two hundred Jews commanding the
+dyeing trade. And here we must remind ourselves that the second crusade
+was over and the third had not yet taken place, that Jerusalem, the
+City of Peace, had been in the hands of the Mohammedans or Saracens
+till 1099, when it fell into the hands of the Crusaders. From Jerusalem,
+by way of Damascus, Benjamin entered Persia, and he gives us an
+interesting account of Bagdad and its Khalifs. The Khalif was the head
+of the Mohammedans in the same way that the Pope was the head of the
+Christians. "He was," says "Our Benjamin," "a very dignified personage,
+friendly towards the Jews, a kind-hearted man, but never to be seen."
+Pilgrims from distant lands, passing through Bagdad on their way to
+Mecca, prayed to be allowed to see "the brightness of his face," but
+they were only allowed to kiss one end of his garment. Now, although
+Benjamin describes the journey from Bagdad to China, it is very
+doubtful if he ever got to China himself, so we will leave him
+delighting in the glories of Bagdad, with its palm trees, its gardens
+and orchards, rejoicing in <a name="page110"></a>the statistics of Jews, and turn to the
+adventures of one, Carpini, who really did reach Tartary.</p>
+
+<p>This Carpini, or Friar John, was a Franciscan who was chosen by the
+Pope to go to the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which was threatening
+to overrun Christendom. On 16th April 1245, Friar John left the
+cloister for the unknown tract of country by which he had to pass into
+China. By way of Bohemia he passed into Russia, and, having annexed
+Brother Benedict in Poland and Brother Stephen in Bohemia, together
+with a guide, Carpini made his way eastwards. It was mid-winter; the
+travellers had to ride on Tartar horses, "for they alone could find
+grass under the snow, or live, as animals must in Tartary, without
+hay or straw." Sometimes Friar John fell so ill that he had to be placed
+in a cart and carried through the deep snow.</p>
+
+<a name="ill037"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 37">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="345">
+			<img src="images/037.jpg" alt="TWO EMPERORS OF TARTARY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="345" align="center">
+			<small>TWO EMPERORS OF TARTARY.<br>
+			From the Catalan map, 1375.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was Easter 1246, just a year after their start, that Friar John
+and his companions began the last section of their journey beyond the
+Volga, and "most tearfully we set out," not knowing whether it was
+"for life or for death." So thin had they all become that not one of
+them could ride. Still they toiled on, till one July day they entered
+Mongolia and found the headquarters of the Great Khan about half a
+day's journey from Karakorum. They arrived in time to witness the
+enthronement of the new Khan in August. Here were crowds of ambassadors
+from Russia and Persia as well as from outlying parts of the growing
+Mongol Empire. These were laden with gifts&mdash;indeed, there were no less
+than five hundred crates full of silks, satins, <a name="page111"></a>brocades, fur, gold
+embroidery. Friar John and his companions had no gifts to offer save
+the letter from the Pope.</p>
+
+<p>Impressive, indeed, in the eyes of the once cloistered friar must have
+been this first sight of Eastern splendour. High on a neighbouring
+hill stood the Khan's tent, resting on pillars plated with gold, top
+and sides covered with silk brocades, while the great ceremony took
+place. But the men of the West were not welcomed by the new Emperor
+of the East. It was supposed that he intended shortly to unfurl his
+Standard against the whole of the Western world, and in November Friar
+John and his companions found themselves formally dismissed with a
+missive from the Great Khan to the Pope, signed and sealed by the Khan
+himself.</p>
+
+<a name="ill038"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 38">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="285">
+			<img src="images/038.jpg" alt="A TARTAR CAMP">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="285" align="center">
+			<small>A TARTAR CAMP.<br>
+			From the Borgian map, 1453.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The return journey was even more trying; winter was coming on, and
+for nearly seven months the Pope's faithful envoys struggled on across
+the endless open plains of Asia towards Russia, resting their eyes
+on vast expanses of snow. At last they reached home, and Friar John
+wrote his <i>Book of the Tartars</i>, in which he informs us that Mongolia
+is in the east part of the world and that Cathay is "a country in the
+east of Asia." To the south-west of Mongolia he heard of a vast desert,
+where lived certain wild men unable to speak and with no joints in
+their legs. These occupy themselves in making felt out of camel's hair
+for garments to protect them from the weather.</p>
+
+<p>Again Carpini tells us about that mythical character figuring in the
+travel books of this time&mdash;Prester John. "The Mongol army," he says,
+"marched against the <a name="page112"></a>Christians dwelling in the greater India, and
+the king of that country, known by the name of Prester John, came forth
+with his army to meet them. This Prester John caused a number of hollow
+copper figures to be made, resembling men, which were stuffed with
+combustibles and set upon horses, each having a man behind on the horse,
+with a pair of bellows to stir up the fire. At the first onset of the
+battle these mounted figures were sent forward to the charge; the men
+who rode behind them set fire to the combustibles and then strongly
+blew with the bellows; immediately the Mongol horses and men were burnt
+with wild-fire and the air was darkened with smoke."</p>
+
+<p>We shall hear of Prester John again. For within a few years of the
+return of Friar John, another Franciscan friar, William de Rubruquis,
+was sent forth, this time by the French king, Louis, to carry letters
+to the Great Khan begging him to embrace Christianity and acknowledge
+the supremacy of the Pope. William and his chosen companions had a
+painful and difficult journey of some months before they reached the
+camps on the Volga of one of the great Mongol lords. Indeed, "if it
+had not been for the grace of God and the biscuit which we brought
+with us, we had surely perished," remarks the pious friar in the history
+of his adventures. Never once did they enjoy the shelter of a house
+or tent, but passed the nights in the open air in a cart. At last they
+were ordered to appear at the Court of the great ruler with all their
+books and vestments.</p>
+
+<p>"We were commanded to array ourselves in our sacred vestments to
+appear before the prince. Putting on, therefore, our most precious
+ornaments, I took a cushion in my arms, together with the Bible I had
+from the King of France and the beautiful Psalter which the Queen
+bestowed upon me: my companion at the <a name="page113"></a>same time carried the missal
+and a crucifix; and the clerk, clothed in his surplice, bore a censer
+in his hand. In this order we presented ourselves ... singing the Salve
+Regina." It is a strange picture this&mdash;the European friars, in all
+the vestments of their religion, standing before the Eastern prince
+of this far-off country. They would fain have carried home news of
+his conversion, but they were told in angry tones that the prince was
+"not a Christian, but a Mongol."</p>
+
+<a name="ill039"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 39">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="316">
+			<img src="images/039.jpg" alt="INITIAL LETTER FROM THE MS. OF RUBRUQUIS AT CAMBRIDGE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="316" align="center">
+			<small>INITIAL LETTER FROM THE MS. OF RUBRUQUIS AT CAMBRIDGE.<br>
+			Probably representing the friars starting on their journey.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They were dismissed with orders to visit the Great Khan at Karakorum.
+Resuming their journey early in August, the messengers did not arrive
+at the Court of the Great Khan till the day after Christmas. They were
+miserably housed in a tiny hut with scarcely room for their beds and
+baggage. The cold was intense. The bare feet of the friars caused great
+astonishment to the crowds of onlookers, who stared at the strange
+figures as though they had been monsters. However, they could not keep
+their feet bare long, for very soon Rubruquis found that his toes were
+frozen.</p>
+
+<p>Chanting in Latin the hymn of the Nativity, the visitors were at last
+admitted to the Imperial tent, hung about with cloth of gold, where
+they found the Khan. He was seated on a couch&mdash;a "little man of moderate
+height, aged about forty-five, and dressed in a skin spotted and glossy
+like a seal." The Mongol Emperor asked numerous questions about the
+kingdom of France and the possibility of conquering it, to the
+righteous <a name="page114"></a>indignation of the friars. They stayed in the country till
+the end of May, when they were dismissed, having failed in their mission,
+but having gained a good deal of information about the great Mongol
+Empire and its somewhat mysterious ruler.</p>
+
+<p>But while the kingdoms in Europe trembled before the growing expansion
+of the Mongol Empire and the dangers of Tartar hordes, the merchants
+of Venice rejoiced in the new markets which were opening for them in
+the East.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap17"></a><a name="page115"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII</h3>
+
+<h4>MARCO POLO</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Now Venice at this time was full of enterprising merchants&mdash;merchants
+such as we hear of in Shakspere's <i>Merchant of Venice</i>. Among these
+were two Venetians, the brothers Polo. Rumours had reached them of
+the wealth of the mysterious land of Cathay, of the Great Khan, of
+Europeans making their way, as we have seen, through barren
+wildernesses, across burning deserts in the face of hardships
+indescribable, to open up a highway to the Far East.</p>
+
+<p>So off started Maffio and Niccolo Polo on a trading enterprise, and,
+having crossed the Mediterranean, came "with a fair wind and the
+blessing of God" to Constantinople, where they disposed of a large
+quantity of their merchandise. Having made some money, they directed
+their way to Bokhara, where they fell in with a Tartar nobleman, who
+persuaded them to accompany him to the Court of the Great Khan himself.
+Ready for adventure, they agreed, and he led them in a north-easterly
+direction; now they were delayed by heavy snows, now by the swelling
+of unbridged rivers, so that it was a year before they reached Pekin,
+which they considered was the extremity of the East. They were
+courteously received by the Great Khan, who questioned them closely
+about their own land, to which they replied in the Tartar language
+which they had learnt on the way.</p>
+
+<p>Now since the days of Friar John there was a new Khan named Kublai,
+who wished to send messengers to <a name="page116"></a>the Pope to beg him to send a hundred
+wise men to teach the Chinese Christianity. He chose the Polo brothers
+as his envoys to the Pope, and accordingly they started off to fulfil
+his behests. After an absence of fifteen years they again reached
+Venice. The very year they had left home Niccolo's wife had died, and
+his boy, afterwards to <a name="page117"></a>become the famous traveller, Marco Polo, had
+been born. The boy was now fifteen.</p>
+
+<a name="ill040"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 40">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="525">
+			<img src="images/040.jpg" alt="HOW THE BROTHERS POLO SET OUT FROM CONSTANTINOPLE WITH THEIR NEPHEW MARCO FOR CHINA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="525" align="center">
+			<small>HOW THE BROTHERS POLO SET OUT FROM CONSTANTINOPLE WITH
+			THEIR NEPHEW MARCO FOR CHINA.<br>
+			From a miniature painting in the fourteenth century <i>Livre des Merveilles</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The stories told by his father and uncle of the Far East and the Court
+of the greatest Emperor on earth filled the boy with enthusiasm, and
+when in 1271 the brothers Polo set out for their second journey to
+China, not only were they accompanied by the young Marco, but also
+by two preaching friars to teach the Christian faith to Kublai Khan.</p>
+
+<a name="ill041"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 41">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="532">
+			<img src="images/041.jpg" alt="MARCO POLO LANDS AT ORMUZ">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="532" align="center">
+			<small>MARCO POLO LANDS AT ORMUZ.<br>
+			From a miniature in the <i>Livre des Merveilles</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Their journey lay through Armenia, through the old city of Nineveh
+to Bagdad, where the last Khalif had been butchered by the Tartars.
+Entering Persia as traders, the Polo family passed on to Ormuz, hoping
+to take ship from here to China. But, for some unknown reason, this
+was impossible, and the travellers made their way north-eastwards to
+the country about the sources of the river Oxus. Here young Marco fell
+sick of a low fever, and for a whole year they could not proceed.
+Resuming <a name="page118"></a>their journey at last "in high spirits," they crossed the
+great highlands of the Pamirs, known as the "roof of the world," and,
+descending on Khotan, found themselves face to face with the great
+Gobi Desert. For thirty days they journeyed over the sandy wastes of
+the silent wilderness, till they came to a city in the province of
+Tangut, where they were met by messengers from the Khan, who had heard
+of their approach. But it was not till May 1275 that they actually
+reached the Court of Kublai Khan after their tremendous journey of
+"one thousand days." The preaching friars had long since turned
+homewards, alarmed at the dangers of the way, so only the three
+stout-hearted Polos were left to deliver the Pope's message to the
+ruler of the Mongol Empire.</p>
+
+<a name="ill042"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 42">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="421">
+			<img src="images/042.jpg" alt="THE POLOS LEAVING VENICE FOR THEIR TRAVELS TO THE FAR EAST">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="421" align="center">
+			<small>THE POLOS LEAVING VENICE FOR THEIR TRAVELS TO THE FAR EAST.<br>
+			From a miniature which stands at the head of a late 14th century
+			MS. of the <i>Travels of Marco Polo</i> (or the Book of the Grand Khan)
+			in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The drawing shows the Piazzetta at
+			Venice, with the Polos embarking, and in the foreground indications
+			of the strange lands they visited.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"The lord of all the earth," as he was called by his people, received
+them very warmly. He inquired at once who was the young man with them.</p>
+
+<p>"My lord," replied Niccolo, "he is my son and your servant."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the Khan, "he is welcome. I am much pleased with him."</p>
+
+<p>So the three Venetians abode at the Court of Kublai Khan. His summer
+palace was at Shang-tu, called Xanadu by the poet Coleridge&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem17">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan<br>
+			&nbsp;A stately pleasure dome decree,<br>
+			&nbsp;Where Alph, the sacred river, ran<br>
+			&nbsp;Through caverns measureless to man<br>
+			&nbsp;Down to a sacred sea.<br>
+			&nbsp;So twice five miles of fertile ground,<br>
+			&nbsp;With walls and towers were girdled round:<br>
+			&nbsp;And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,<br>
+			&nbsp;Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;<br>
+			&nbsp;And here were forests ancient as the hills,<br>
+			&nbsp;Enfolding sunny spots of greenery."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So the three Venetians abode at the Court of the <a name="page119"></a>Chinese Emperor for
+no less than seventeen years. Young Marco displayed so great
+intelligence that he was sent on a mission for the Khan some six months'
+journey distant; and so well did he describe the things he had seen
+and the lands through which he had passed, that the Khan heaped on
+him honours and riches. Let us hear what Marco says of his lord and
+master.</p>
+
+<a name="ill043"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 43">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="280">
+			<img src="images/043.jpg" alt="KUBLAI KHAN">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="280" align="center">
+			<small>KUBLAI KHAN.<br>
+			From an old Chinese Encyclop&aelig;dia at Paris.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"The Great Khan, lord of lords, named Kublai, is of middle stature,
+neither too full nor too short: he has a beautiful fresh complexion,
+his colour is fair, his eyes dark."</p>
+
+<p>The capital of the Empire, Pekin, two days' journey from the sea, and
+the residence of the Court during the months of December, January,
+and February, called out the unbounded enthusiasm of the Polos. The
+city, two days' journey from the ocean, in the extreme north-east of
+Cathay, had been newly rebuilt in a regular square, six miles on each
+side, surrounded by walls of earth and having twelve gates.</p>
+
+<p>"The streets are so broad and so straight," says Marco, "that from
+one gate another is visible. It contains many beautiful houses and
+palaces, and a very large one in the midst, containing a steeple with
+a large bell which at night sounds three times, after which no man
+must leave the city. At each gate a thousand men keep guard, not from
+dread of any enemy, but in reverence of the monarch who dwells within
+it, and to prevent injury by robbers."</p>
+<a name="page120"></a>
+<p>This square form of Pekin, the great breadth of the straight streets,
+the closing of the gates by sound of a bell&mdash;the largest in the
+world&mdash;is noted by all travellers to this far-eastern city of Cathay.</p>
+
+<p>But greater even than Pekin was the city of Kin-sai (Hang-tcheou-fou),
+the City of Heaven, in the south of China. It had but lately fallen
+into the hands of Kublai Khan.</p>
+
+<p>"And now I will tell you all its nobleness," says Marco, "for without
+doubt it is the largest city in the world. The city is one hundred
+miles in circumference and has twelve thousand stone bridges, and
+beneath the greater part of these a large ship might pass. And you
+need not wonder there are so many bridges, because the city is wholly
+on the water and surrounded by it like Venice. The merchants are so
+numerous and so rich that their wealth can neither be told nor believed.
+They and their ladies do nothing with their own hands, but live as
+delicately as if they were kings. These females also are of most angelic
+beauty, and live in the most elegant manner. The people are idolaters,
+subject to the Great Khan, and use paper money. They eat the flesh
+of dogs and other beasts, such as no Christian would touch for the
+world. In this city, too, are four thousand baths, in which the citizens,
+both men and women, take great delight and frequently resort thither,
+because they keep their persons very cleanly. They are the largest
+and most beautiful baths in the world, insomuch that one hundred of
+either sex may bathe in them at once. Twenty-five miles from thence
+is the ocean, and there is a city (Ning-po) which has a very fine port,
+with large ships and much merchandise of immense value from India and
+other quarters."</p>
+
+<a name="ill044"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 44">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448">
+			<img src="images/044.jpg" alt="The world as known at the end of the thirteenth century after the travels of Marco Polo and his contemporaries">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448" align="center">
+			<small>"THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"&mdash;III.<br>
+			The world as known at the end of the thirteenth century after the travels of Marco Polo
+			and his contemporaries.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But though Marco revels in the description of wonderful cities, he
+is continually leading us back to the Great Khan himself. His festivals
+were splendid. The tables were <a name="page121"></a>arranged so that the Emperor sat higher
+than all the others, always with his face to the south. His sons and
+daughters were placed so that their heads were on a level with his
+feet. Some forty thousand people feast on these occasions, but the
+Khan himself is served only by his great barons, their mouths wrapped
+in rich towels embroidered in gold and silver, that their breath might
+not blow upon the plates. His presents were on a colossal scale; it
+was no rare occurrence for him to receive five thousand camels, one
+hundred thousand beautiful horses, and five thousand elephants
+covered with cloth of gold and silver.</p>
+
+<p>"And now I will relate a wonderful thing," says Marco. "A large lion
+is led into his presence, which, as soon as it sees him, drops down
+and makes a sign of deep humility, owning him its lord and moving about
+without any chain."</p>
+
+<p>His kingdom was ruled by twelve barons all living at Pekin. His
+provinces numbered thirty-four, hence their method of communication
+was very complete.</p>
+
+<p>"Messengers are sent to divers provinces," says Marco, "and on all
+the roads they find at every twenty-five miles a post, where the
+messengers are received. At each is a large edifice containing a bed
+covered with silk and everything useful and convenient for a
+traveller ... here, too, they find full four hundred horses, whom the
+prince has ordered to be always in waiting to convey them along the
+principal roads.... Thus they go through the provinces, finding
+everywhere inns and horses for their reception. Moreover, in the
+intervals between these stations, at every three miles are erected
+villages of about forty houses inhabited by foot-runners also employed
+on these dispatches. They wear large girdles set round with bells,
+which are heard at a great distance. Receiving a letter or packet,
+one runs full speed to the next village, when his approach being
+announced by bells, another is <a name="page122"></a>ready to start and proceed to the next,
+and so on. By these pedestrian messengers the Khan receives news in
+one day and night from places ten days' journey distant; in two days
+from those twenty off, and in ten from those a hundred days' journey
+distant. Thus he sends his messengers through all his kingdoms and
+provinces to know if any of his subjects have had their crops injured
+through bad weather; and, if any such injury has happened, he does
+not exact from them any tribute for that season&mdash;nay, he gives them
+corn out of his own stores to subsist on."</p>
+
+<p>This first European account of China is all so delightful that it is
+difficult to know where to stop. The mention of coal is interesting.
+"Throughout the whole province of Cathay," says Marco, "are a kind
+of black stones cut from the mountains in veins, which burn like logs.
+They maintain the fire better than wood. If you put them on in the
+evening they will preserve it the whole night, and it will be found
+burning in the morning. Throughout the whole of Cathay this fuel is
+used. They have also wood, but the stones are much less expensive."</p>
+
+<p>Neither can we pass over Marco's account of the wonderful stone bridge
+with its twenty-four arches of pure marble across the broad river,
+"the most magnificent object in the whole world," across which ten
+horsemen could ride abreast, or the Yellow River (Hoang-ho), "so large
+and broad that it cannot be crossed by a bridge, and flows on even
+to the ocean," or the wealth of mulberry trees throughout the land,
+on which lived the silkworms that have made China so famous for her
+silk.</p>
+
+<p>Then there are the people famous for their manufacture of fine
+porcelain ware. "Great quantities of porcelain earth were here
+collected into heaps and in this way exposed to the action of the
+atmosphere for some forty years, during which time it was never
+disturbed. By this <a name="page123"></a>process it became refined and fitted for
+manufacture." Such is Marco's only allusion to china ware. With regard
+to tea he is entirely silent.</p>
+
+<a name="ill045"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 45">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="202">
+			<img src="images/045.jpg" alt="MARCO POLO">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="202" align="center">
+			<small>MARCO POLO.<br>
+			From a woodcut in the first printed edition
+			of Marco Polo's <i>Travels</i>, Nuremburg, 1477.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But he is the first European to tell us about the islands of Japan,
+fifteen hundred miles from the coast of China, now first discovered
+to the geographers of the West.</p>
+
+<p>"Zipangu," says Marco, "is an island situated at a distance from the
+mainland. The people are fair and civilised in their manners&mdash;they
+possess precious metals in extraordinary abundance. The people are
+white, of gentle manners, idolaters in religion under a king of their
+own. These folk were attacked by the fleet of Kublai Khan in 1264 for
+their gold, for the King's house, windows, and floors were covered
+with it, but the King allowed no exportation of it."</p>
+
+<p>Thus Marco Polo records in dim outline the existence of land beyond
+that ever dreamed of by Europeans&mdash;indeed, denied by Ptolemy and other
+geographers of the West. In the course of his service under Kublai
+Khan he opened up the eight provinces of Tibet, the whole of south-east
+Asia from Canton to Bengal, and the archipelago of farther India. He
+tells us, too, of Tibet, that wide country "vanquished and wasted by
+the Khan for the space of twenty days' journey"&mdash;a great wilderness
+wanting people, but overrun by wild beasts. Here were great Tibetan
+dogs as large as asses. Still on duty for <a name="page124"></a>Kublai Khan, Marco reached
+Bengal, "which borders upon India." But he was glad enough to return
+to his adopted Chinese home, "the richest and most famous country of
+all the East."</p>
+
+<p>At last the Polo family wearied of Court honours, and they were anxious
+to return to their own people at Venice. However, the Khan was very
+unwilling to let them go. One day their chance came. The Persian ruler
+was anxious to marry a princess of the house of Kublai Khan, and it
+was decided to send the lady by sea under the protection of the trusted
+Polos, rather than to allow her to undergo the hardships of an overland
+journey from China to Persia.</p>
+
+<p>So in the year 1292 they bade farewell to the great Kublai Khan, and
+with the little princess of seventeen and her suite they set sail with
+an escort of fourteen ships for India. Passing many islands "with gold
+and much trade," after three months at sea they reached Java, at this
+time supposed to be the greatest island in the world, above three
+thousand miles round. At Sumatra they were detained five months by
+stress of weather, till at last they reached the Bay of Bengal. Sailing
+on a thousand miles westwards, they reached Ceylon&mdash;"the finest island
+in the world," remarks Marco. It was not till two years after their
+start and the loss of six hundred sailors that they arrived at their
+destination, only to find that the ruler of Persia was dead. However,
+they gave the little bride to his son and passed on by Constantinople
+to Venice, where they arrived in 1295.</p>
+
+<a name="ill046"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 46">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="628">
+			<img src="images/046.jpg" alt="A JAPANESE FIGHT AGAINST THE CHINESE AT THE TIME WHEN MARCO POLO FIRST SAW JAPANESE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="628" align="center">
+			<small>A JAPANESE FIGHT AGAINST THE CHINESE AT THE TIME WHEN
+			MARCO POLO FIRST SAW JAPANESE.<br>
+			From an ancient Japanese painting.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And now follows a strange sequel to the story. After their long absence,
+and in their travel-stained garments, their friends and relations
+could not recognise them, and in vain did they declare that they were
+indeed the Polos&mdash;father, son, and uncle&mdash;who had left Venice
+twenty-four long years ago. It was no use; no one believed their <a name="page125"></a>story.
+So this is what they did. They arranged for a great banquet to be held,
+to which they invited all their relations and friends. This they
+attended in robes of crimson satin. Then suddenly Marco rose from the
+table and, going out of the room, returned with the three coarse,
+travel-stained garments. They ripped open seams, tore out the lining,
+and a quantity of precious stones, rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and
+emeralds poured forth. The company were filled with wonder, and when
+the story spread all the people of Venice came forth to do honour to
+their famous fellow-countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>Marco was surnamed Marco of the Millions, and never tired of telling
+the wonderful stories of Kublai Khan, the great Emperor who combined
+the "rude magnificence of the desert with the pomp and elegance of
+the most civilised empire in the Old World."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap18"></a><a name="page126"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE END OF MEDI&AElig;VAL EXPLORATION</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The two names of Ibn Batuta and Sir John Mandeville now conclude our
+medi&aelig;val period of travel to the Eastward. Both the Arab and the
+Englishman date their travels between the years 1325 and 1355; but
+while Ibn Batuta, the traveller from Tangiers, adds very valuable
+information to our geographical knowledge, we have to lay the travel
+volumes of Sir John Mandeville aside and acknowledge sadly that his
+book is made up of borrowed experiences, that he has wantonly added
+fiction to fact, and distorted even the travel stories told by other
+travellers. And yet, strange to say, while the work of Ibn Batuta
+remains entirely disregarded, the delightful work of the Englishman
+is still read vigorously to-day and translated into nearly every
+European language. In it we read strange stories of Prester John, "the
+great Emperor of India, who is served by seven kings, seventy-two dukes,
+and three hundred and sixty earls"; he speaks of the "isle of Cathay":
+he repeats the legend of the island near Java on which Adam and Eve
+wept for one hundred years after they had been driven from Paradise;
+he speaks of giants thirty feet high, and of Pigmies who came dancing
+to see him.</p>
+
+<a name="ill047"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 47">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="460">
+			<img src="images/047.jpg" alt="SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE ON HIS TRAVELS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="460" align="center">
+			<small>SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE ON HIS TRAVELS.<br>
+			From a MS. in the British Museum.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>We turn to the Arab traveller for a solid document, which rings more
+true, and we cannot doubt his accounts of shipwreck and hardships
+encountered by the way. Ibn Batuta left Tangiers in the year 1324 at
+the early <a name="page127"></a>age of twenty-one on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He made his way across
+the north of Africa to Alexandria. Here history relates he met a learned
+and pious man named Imam.</p>
+
+<p>"I perceive," said Imam, "that you are fond of visiting distant
+countries?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is so," answered Ibn Batuta.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must visit my brother in India, my brother in Persia, and
+my brother in China, and when you see them present my compliments to
+them."</p>
+
+<p>Ibn Batuta left Alexandria with a resolve to visit these three persons,
+and indeed, wonderful to say, he found them all three and presented
+to them their brother's compliments.</p>
+
+<p>He reached Mecca and remained there for three years, after which he
+voyaged down the Red Sea to Aden, a port of much trade. Coasting along
+the east coast of Africa, he reached Mombasa, from which port, so soon
+to fall into the hands of the Portuguese, he sailed to Ormuz, a "city
+on the seashore," at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Here he tells
+us of the head of a fish "that might be compared to a hill: its eyes
+were like two doors, so that people could go in at one eye and out
+at the other." Crossing central Arabia and the Black Sea, he found
+himself for the first time in a Christian <a name="page128"></a>city, and was much dismayed
+at all the bells ringing. He was anxious to go north through Russia
+to the Land of Darkness, of which he had heard such wonderful tales.
+It was a land where there were neither trees, nor stones, nor houses,
+where dogs with nails in their feet drew little sledges across the
+ice. Instead he went to Constantinople, arriving at sunset when the
+bells were ringing so loud "that the very horizon shook with the noise."
+Ibn was presented to the Emperor as a remarkable traveller, and a letter
+of safe conduct was given to him.</p>
+
+<p>He then made his way through Bokhara and Herat, Kandahar and Kabul,
+over the Hindu Koosh and across the Indus to Delhi, "the greatest city
+in the world." But at this time it was a howling wilderness, as the
+inhabitants had fled from the cruelty of the Turkish Emperor. Into
+his presence our traveller was now called and graciously received.</p>
+
+<p>"The lord of the world appoints you to the office of judge in Delhi,"
+said the Emperor; "he gives you a dress of honour with a saddled horse
+and a large yearly salary."</p>
+
+<p>Ibn held this office for eight years, till one day the Emperor called
+him and said: "I wish to send you as ambassador to the Emperor of China,
+for I know you are fond of travelling in foreign countries."</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor of China had sent presents of great value to the Emperor
+of India, who was now anxious to return the compliment. Quaint, indeed,
+were the gifts from India to China. There were one hundred high-bred
+horses, one hundred dancing girls, one hundred pieces of cotton stuff,
+also silk and wool, some black, some white, blue-green or blue. There
+were swords of state and golden candlesticks, silver basins, brocade
+dresses, and gloves embroidered with pearls. But so many adventures
+did Ibn Batuta have on his way to China that it is certain that none
+of <a name="page129"></a>these things ever reached that country, for eighty miles from Delhi
+the cavalcade was attacked and Ibn was robbed of all he had. For days
+he wandered alone in a forest, living on leaves, till he was rescued
+more dead than alive, and carried back to Delhi. The second start was
+also unfortunate. By a circuitous route he made his way to Calicut
+on the Malabar coast, where he made a stay of three months till the
+monsoons should permit him to take ship for China. The harbour of
+Calicut was full of great Chinese ships called junks. These junks
+struck him as unlike anything he had seen before. "The sails are made
+of cane reed woven together like a mat, which, when they put into port,
+they leave standing in the wind. In some of these vessels there will
+be a thousand men, sailors and soldiers. Built in the ports of China
+only, they are rowed with large oars, which may be compared to great
+masts. On board are wooden houses in which the higher officials reside
+with their wives."</p>
+
+<a name="ill048"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 48">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="261">
+			<img src="images/048.jpg" alt="AN EMPEROR OF TARTARY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="261" align="center">
+			<small>AN EMPEROR OF TARTARY.<br>
+			From the map ascribed to Sebastian Cabot, 1544.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The time of the voyage came; thirteen huge junks were taken, and the
+imperial presents were embarked. All was ready for a start on the morrow.
+Ibn stayed on shore praying in the mosque till starting-time. That
+night a violent hurricane arose and most of the ships in the harbour
+were destroyed. Treasure, crew, and officers all perished, and Ibn
+was left alone and almost penniless. He feared to return to Delhi,
+so he took ship, which landed him on one of a group of a thousand islands,
+which Ibn calls "one of the wonders of the world." The chief <a name="page130"></a>island
+was governed by a woman. Here he was made a judge, and soon became
+a great personage. But after a time he grew restless and set sail for
+Sumatra. Here at the court of the king, who was a zealous disciple
+of Mohammed, Ibn met with a kind reception, and after a fortnight,
+provided with provisions, the "restless Mohammedan" again voyaged
+northwards into the "Calm Sea," or the Pacific as we call it now. It
+was so still, "disturbed by neither wind nor waves," that the ship
+had to be towed by a smaller ship till they reached China.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a vast country," writes Ibn, "and it abounds in all sorts
+of good things&mdash;fruit, corn, gold, and silver. It is traversed by a
+great river&mdash;the Waters of Life&mdash;which runs through the heart of China
+for a distance of six months' journey. It is bordered with villages,
+cultivated plains, orchards, and markets, just like the Nile in
+Egypt."</p>
+
+<p>Ibn gives an amusing account of the Chinese poultry. "The cocks and
+hens are bigger than our geese. I one day bought a hen," he says, "which
+I wanted to boil, but one pot would not hold it and I was obliged to
+take two. As for the cocks in China, they are as big as ostriches."</p>
+
+<p>"'Pooh,' cried an owner of Chinese fowls, 'there are cocks in China
+much bigger than that,' and I found he had said no more than the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Silk is very plentiful, for the worms which produce it require little
+attention. They have silk in such abundance that it is used for clothing
+even by poor monks and beggars. The people of China do not use gold
+and silver coin in their commercial dealings. Their buying and selling
+is carried on by means of pieces of paper about the size of the palm
+of the hand, carrying the seal of the Emperor." The Arab traveller
+has much to say about the superb painting of China. They study and
+paint every stranger that visits their country, and the portrait thus
+taken is exposed on the city wall. Thus, should a <a name="page131"></a>stranger do anything
+to make flight necessary, his portrait would be sent out into every
+province and he would soon be discovered.</p>
+
+<p>"China is the safest as well as the pleasantest of all the regions
+on the earth for a traveller. You may travel the whole nine months'
+journey to which the Empire extends without the slightest cause to
+fear, even if you have treasure in your charge. But it afforded me
+no pleasure. On the contrary, my spirit was sorely troubled within
+me to see how Paganism had the upper hand."</p>
+
+<a name="ill049"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 49">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/049.jpg" alt="A CARAVAN IN CATHAY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562" align="center">
+			<small>A CARAVAN IN CATHAY.<br>
+			From the Catalan map, 1375.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Troubles now broke out among the Khan's family, which led to civil
+wars and the death of the Great Khan. He was buried with great pomp.
+A deep chamber was dug in the earth, into which a beautiful couch was
+placed, on which was laid the dead Khan with his arms and all his rich
+apparel, the earth over him being heaped to the height of a large hill.</p>
+
+<p>Batuta now hurried from the country, took a junk to Sumatra, thence
+to Calicut and by Ormuz home to Tangier, where he arrived in 1348.
+He had done what he set forth to do. He had visited the three brothers
+of Imam in Persia, India, and China. In addition he had travelled <a name="page132"></a>for
+twenty-four years and accomplished in all about seventy-five thousand
+miles.</p>
+
+<p>With him the history of medi&aelig;val exploration would seem to end, for
+within eighty years of his death the modern epoch opens with the
+energies and enthusiasm of Prince Henry of Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>For the last few centuries we have found all travel undertaken more
+or less as a religious crusade.</p>
+
+<p>So far during the last centuries, travel had been for the most part
+by land. Few discoveries had been made by sea. Voyages were too
+difficult and dangerous. The Phoenicians had ventured far with
+intrepid courage. The Vikings had tossed fearlessly over their stormy
+northern seas to the yet unknown land of America, but this was long
+ago. Throughout the Middle Ages hardly a sail was to be seen on the
+vast Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, no ships ventured on what was held
+to be the Sea of Darkness, no man was emboldened to risk life and money
+on the unknown waters beyond his own safe home.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap19"></a><a name="page133"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX</h3>
+
+<h4>MEDI&AElig;VAL MAPS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>We cannot pass from the subject of medi&aelig;val exploration without a
+word on the really delightful, if ignorant, maps of the period, for
+they illustrate better than any description the state of geography
+at this time. The Ptolemy map, summing up all the Greek and Roman
+learning, with its longitudes and latitudes, with its shaped
+continents and its many towns and rivers, "indicates the high-water
+mark of a tide that was soon to ebb."</p>
+
+<p>With the decline of the Roman Empire and the coming of Christianity
+we get a new spirit inspiring our medi&aelig;val maps, in which Jerusalem,
+hitherto totally obscure, dominates the whole situation.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Christian Topography</i> of Cosmas in the sixth century sets a new
+model. Figures blowing trumpets representing the winds still blow on
+to the world, as they did in the days of Ptolemy, but the earth is
+once more flat and it is again surrounded by the ocean stream. Round
+this ocean stream, according to Cosmas, is an outer earth, the seat
+of Paradise, "the earth beyond the ocean where men dwelt before the
+Flood."</p>
+
+<p>Although these maps of Cosmas were but the expression of one man's
+ideas, they served as a model for others.</p>
+
+<p>There is, at Turin, a delightful map of the eighth century with the
+four winds and the ocean stream as usual. The world is divided into
+three&mdash;Asia, Africa, <a name="page134"></a>and Europe. Adam and Eve stand at the top; to
+the right of Adam lies Armenia and the Caucasus; to the left of Eve
+are Mount Lebanon, the river Jordan, Sidon, and Mesopotamia. At their
+feet lie Mount Carmel, Jerusalem, and Babylon.</p>
+
+<a name="ill050"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 50">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="660">
+			<img src="images/050.jpg" alt="THE TURIN MAP OF THE WORLD, EIGHTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="660" align="center">
+			<small>THE TURIN MAP OF THE WORLD, EIGHTH CENTURY.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In Europe we find a few names such as Constantinople, Italy, France.
+Britannia and Scotland are islands in the encircling sea. Africa is
+suitably represented by the Nile.</p>
+
+<a name="ill051"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 51">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="192">
+			<img src="images/051.jpg" alt="A T-MAP, TENTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="192" align="center">
+			<small>A T-MAP, TENTH CENTURY.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Of much the same date is another map known as the Albi, preserved in
+the library at Albi in Languedoc. <a name="page135"></a>The world is square, with rounded
+corners; Britain is an island off the coast of Spain, and a beautiful
+green sea flows round the whole.</p>
+
+<a name="ill052"></a>
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 52">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="302">
+			<img src="images/052.jpg" alt="A T-MAP, TENTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="302" align="center">
+			<small>A T-MAP, THIRTEENTH CENTURY.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>An example of tenth-century map-making, known as the Cottoniana or
+Anglo-Saxon map, is in the British Museum. Here is a mixture of Biblical
+and classical knowledge. Jerusalem and Bethlehem are in their place
+and the Pillars of Hercules stand at the entrance of the Mediterranean
+Sea. The British Isles are still distorted, and quantities of little
+unnamed islands lie about the north of Scotland. In the extreme east
+lies an enormous Ceylon; in the north-east corner of Asia is drawn
+a magnificent lion with mane and curling tail, with the words around
+him: "Here lions abound." Africa as usual is made up of the Nile,
+Alexandria at its mouth, and its source in a lake.</p>
+
+<p>There is another form of these early maps. They are quite small and
+round. They are known as T-maps, being divided into three
+parts&mdash;Europe, Asia, and Africa. Jerusalem is always in the centre,
+and the ocean stream flows round.</p>
+
+<p>After the manner of these, only on a very large scale, is the famous
+<i>Mappa Mundi</i>, by Richard of Haldingham, on the walls of the Hereford
+Cathedral of the thirteenth century. Jerusalem is in the centre, and
+the Crucifixion <a name="page136"></a>is there depicted. At the top is the Last Judgment,
+with the good and bad folk divided on either side. Adam and Eve are
+there, so are the Pillars of Hercules, Scylla and Charybdis, the Red
+Sea coloured red, the Nile and the Mountains of the Moon, strange beasts
+and stranger men.</p>
+
+<a name="ill053"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 53">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="768">
+			<img src="images/053.jpg" alt="THE HEREFORD MAPPA MUNDI OF 1280">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="768" align="center">
+			<small>THE HEREFORD MAPPA MUNDI OF 1280.<br>
+			Drawn by Richard de Haldingham and Lafford, who was Prebendary of Lincoln
+			(hence his name Lafford) before 1283, and Prebendary of Hereford in 1305. The original
+			map hangs in the Chapter House Library of Hereford Cathedral. In it
+			the original green of the seas reproduced here as green has become
+			a dark brown by age.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>With the Hereford map came in that pictorial geography that makes the
+maps of the later Middle Ages so delightful.</p>
+
+<a name="ill054"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 54">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="300">
+			<img src="images/054.jpg" alt="THE KAISER HOLDING THE WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="300" align="center">
+			<small>THE KAISER HOLDING THE WORLD.<br>
+			From a twelfth-century MS.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"This is indeed the true way to make a map," says a modern writer.
+"If these old maps erred in the course of their rivers and the lines
+of their mountains and space, they are not so misleading as your modern
+atlas with its too accurate measurements. For even your most primitive
+map, with Paradise in the east&mdash;a gigantic Jerusalem in the
+centre&mdash;gives a less distorted impression than that which we obtain
+from the most scientific chart on Mercator's projection."</p>
+<a name="page137"></a>
+<a name="ill055"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 55">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="659">
+			<img src="images/055.jpg" alt="THE ANGLO-SAXON MAP OF THE WORLD, DRAWN ABOUT 990 A.D.">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="659" align="center">
+			<small>THE "ANGLO-SAXON" MAP OF THE WORLD, DRAWN ABOUT 990 <small>A.D.</small><br>
+			This map, which is found in one of the Cotton MSS. in the British
+			Museum, is a geographical achievement remarkable in the age which
+			produced it. It may perhaps be the work of an Irish scholar-monk. It
+			shows real knowledge and scientific insight in one of the gloomiest
+			of the "dark ages" of Europe.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap20"></a><a name="page138"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XX</h3>
+
+<h4>PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>But now a new era was about to begin&mdash;a new age was dawning&mdash;and we
+open a wonderful chapter in the history of discovery, perhaps the most
+wonderful in all the world. In Portugal a man had arisen who was to
+awaken the slumbering world of travel and direct it to the high seas.</p>
+
+<p>And the name of this man was Henry, a son of King John of Portugal.
+His mother was an Englishwoman, daughter of "John of Gaunt,
+time-honoured Lancaster." The Prince was, therefore, a nephew of Henry
+<small>IV</small>. and great-grandson of Edward <small>III</small>. of England. But if English blood
+flowed in his veins he, too, was the son of the "greatest King that
+ever sat on the throne of Portugal," and at the age of twenty he had
+already learned something of the sea that lay between his father's
+kingdom and the northern coast of Africa. Thus, when in the year 1415
+King John planned a great expedition across the narrow seas to Ceuta,
+an important Moorish city in North Africa, it fell to Prince Henry
+himself to equip seven triremes, six biremes, twenty-six ships of
+burden, and a number of small craft. These he had ready at Lisbon when
+news reached him that the Queen, his mother, was stricken ill. The
+King and three sons were soon at her bedside. It was evident that she
+was dying.</p>
+
+<p>"What wind blows so strongly against the side of the house?" she asked
+suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"The wind blows from the north," replied her sons.</p>
+<a name="page139"></a>
+<p>"It is the wind most favourable for your departure," replied Philippa.
+And with these words the English Queen died.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place to tell how the expedition started at once as
+the dead Queen had wished, how Ceuta was triumphantly taken, and how
+Prince Henry distinguished himself till all Europe rang with his fame.
+Henry <small>V</small>. of England begged him to come over and take command of his
+forces. The Emperor of Germany sent the same request. But he had other
+schemes for his life. He would not fight the foes of England or of
+Germany, rather would he fight the great ocean whose waves dashed high
+against the coast of Portugal. He had learned something of inland
+Africa, of the distant coast of Guinea, and he was fired with the idea
+of exploring along this west coast of Africa and possibly reaching
+India by sea.</p>
+
+<p>Let us recall what was known of the Atlantic only six centuries ago.
+"It was," says an old writer, "a vast and boundless ocean, on which
+ships dared not venture out of sight of land. For even if the sailors
+knew the direction of the winds they would not know whither those winds
+would carry them, and, as there is no inhabited country beyond, they
+would run great risk of being lost in mist and vapour. The limit of
+the West is the Atlantic Ocean."</p>
+
+<p>The ocean was a new and formidable foe, hitherto unconquered and
+unexplored. At last one had arisen to attempt its conquest. As men
+had lifted the veil from the unknown land of China, so now the mists
+were to be cleared from the Sea of Darkness.</p>
+
+<p>On the inhospitable shores of southern Portugal, amid the "sadness
+of a waste of shifting sand, in a neighbourhood so barren that only
+a few stunted trees struggled for existence, on one of the coldest,
+dreariest spots of sunny Portugal," Prince Henry built his naval
+arsenal. <a name="page140"></a>In this secluded spot, far from the gaieties of Court life,
+with the vast Atlantic rolling measureless and mysterious before him,
+Prince Henry took up the study of astronomy and mathematics. Here he
+gathered round him men of science; he built ships and trained
+Portuguese sailors in the art of navigation, so far as it was known
+in those days.</p>
+
+<p>Then he urged them seawards. In 1418 two gentlemen of his household,
+Zarco and Vaz, volunteered to sail to Cape Bojador towards the south.
+They started off and as usual hugged the coast for some way, but a
+violent storm arose and soon they were driven out to sea. They had
+lost sight of land and given themselves up for lost when, at break
+of day, they saw an island not far off. Delighted at their escape,
+they named it Porto Santo and, overjoyed at their discovery, hastened
+back to Portugal to relate their adventures to Prince Henry. They
+described the fertile soil and delicious climate of the newly found
+island, the simplicity of its inhabitants, and they requested leave
+to return and make a Portuguese settlement there. To reward them,
+Prince Henry gave them three ships and everything to ensure success
+in their new enterprise. But unfortunately he added a rabbit and her
+family. These were turned out and multiplied with such astonishing
+rapidity that in two years' time they were numerous enough to destroy
+all the vegetation of the island.</p>
+
+<p>So Porto Santo was colonised by the Portuguese, and one Perestrello
+was made Governor of the island; and it is interesting to note that
+his daughter became the wife of Christopher Columbus. But the original
+founders, Zarco and Vaz, had observed from time to time a dark spot
+on the horizon which aroused their curiosity. Sailing towards it, they
+found an island of considerable size, uninhabited and very attractive,
+but so covered with woods that they named it Madeira, the Island of
+Woods.</p>
+
+<p>But although these two islands belong to Portugal <a name="page141"></a>to-day, and although
+Portugal claimed their discovery, it has been proved that already an
+Englishman and his wife had been there, and the names of the islands
+appear on an Italian map of 1351.</p>
+
+<a name="ill056"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 56">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="383">
+			<img src="images/056.jpg" alt="AFRICA&mdash;FROM CEUTA TO MADEIRA, THE CANARIES, AND CAPE BOJADOR">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="383" align="center">
+			<small>AFRICA&mdash;FROM CEUTA TO MADEIRA, THE CANARIES, AND CAPE BOJADOR.<br>
+			From Fra Mauro's map, 1457.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The story of this first discovery is very romantic. In the reign of
+Edward <small>III</small>. a young man named Robert Machin sailed away from Bristol
+with a very wealthy lady. A north-east wind carried them out of their
+course, and after thirteen days' driving before a storm they were cast
+on to an island. It was uninhabited and well wooded and watered. But
+the sufferings and privations proved too much for the poor English
+lady, who died after three days, and Machin died a few days later of
+grief and exposure. The crew of the ship sailed away to the coast of
+Africa, there to be imprisoned by the Moors. Upon their escape in 1416
+they made known their discovery.</p>
+
+<p>So Zarco and Vaz divided the island of Madeira, calling half of it
+Funchal (the Portuguese for fennel, which grew here in great
+quantities) and the other half Machico after the poor English
+discoverer Machin. The first two Portuguese children born in the
+island of Madeira were called Adam and Eve.</p>
+
+<p>Year after year Prince Henry launched his little ships on the yet
+unknown, uncharted seas, urging his <a name="page142"></a>captains to venture farther and
+ever farther. He longed for them to reach Cape Bojador, and bitter
+was his disappointment when one of his squires, dismayed by
+travellers' tales, turned back from the Canary Islands.</p>
+
+<p>"Go out again," urged the enthusiastic Prince, "and give no heed to
+their opinions, for, by the grace of God, you cannot fail to derive
+from your voyage both honour and profit."</p>
+
+<a name="ill057"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 57">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="349">
+			<img src="images/057.jpg" alt="THE VOYAGE TO CAPE BLANCO FROM CAPE BOJADOR">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="349" align="center">
+			<small>THE VOYAGE TO CAPE BLANCO FROM CAPE BOJADOR.<br>
+			From Fra Mauro's map, 1457.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And the squire went forth from the commanding presence of the Prince
+resolved to double the Cape, which he successfully accomplished in
+1434. Seven years passed away, till in 1441 two men&mdash;Gonsalves, master
+of the wardrobe (a strange qualification for difficult navigation),
+and Nuno Tristam, a young knight&mdash;started forth on the Prince's
+service, with orders to pass Cape Bojador where a dangerous surf,
+breaking on the shore, had terrified other navigators. There was a
+story, too, that any man who passed Cape Bojador would be changed from
+white into black, that there were sea-monsters, sheets of burning
+flame, and boiling waters beyond. The young knight Tristam discovered
+the white headland beyond Cape Bojador, named it Cape Blanco, and took
+home some Moors of high rank to the Prince. A large sum was offered
+for their ransom, so Gonsalves conveyed them back <a name="page143"></a>to Cape Blanco and
+coasted along to the south, discovering the island of Arguin of the
+Cape Verde group and reaching the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone,
+reached by Hanno many centuries before this.</p>
+
+<p>Here he received some gold dust, and with this and some thirty negroes
+he returned to Lisbon, where the strange black negroes "caused the
+most lively astonishment among the people." The small quantity of gold
+dust created a sensation among the Portuguese explorers, and the
+spirit of adventure grew. No longer had the Prince to urge his
+navigators forth to new lands and new seas; they were ready and willing
+to go, for the reward was now obvious. The news was soon noised abroad,
+and Italians, then reckoned among the most skilful seamen of the time,
+flocked to Portugal, anxious to take service under the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"Love of gain was the magic wand that drew them on and on, into unknown
+leagues of waters, into wild adventures and desperate affrays."</p>
+
+<p>The "Navigator" himself looked beyond these things. He would find a
+way to India; he would teach the heathen to be Christians. He was always
+ready to welcome those with superior knowledge of navigation; so in
+1454 he sent an Italian, known to history as Cadamosto, to sail the
+African seas. The young Venetian was but twenty-one, and he tells his
+story simply.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I&mdash;Luigi Ca da Mosto&mdash;had sailed nearly all the Mediterranean
+coasts, but, being caught by a storm off Cape St. Vincent, had to take
+refuge in the Prince's town, and was there told of the glorious and
+boundless conquests of the Prince, the which did exceedingly stir my
+soul&mdash;eager it was for gain above all things else. My age, my vigour,
+my skill are equal to any toil; above all, my passionate desire to
+see the world and explore the unknown set me all on fire with
+eagerness."</p>
+<a name="page144"></a>
+<p>In 1455 Cadamosto sailed from Portugal for Madeira, now "thickly
+peopled with Portuguese." From Madeira to the Canaries, from the
+Canaries to Cape Blanco, "natives black as moles were dressed in white
+flowing robes with turbans wound round their heads." Here was a great
+market of Arab traders from the interior, here were camels laden with
+brass, silver, and gold, as well as slaves innumerable.</p>
+
+<p>But Cadamosto pushed on for some four hundred miles by the low, sandy
+shore to the Senegal River. The Portuguese had already sailed by this
+part of the coast, and the negroes had thought their ships to be great
+birds from afar cleaving the air with their white wings. When the crews
+furled their sails and drew into shore the natives changed their minds
+and thought they were fishes, and all stood on the shore gazing stupidly
+at this new wonder.</p>
+
+<p>Cadamosto landed and pushed some two hundred and fifty miles up the
+Senegal River, where he set up a market, exchanging cotton and cloth
+for gold, while "the negroes came stupidly crowding round me,
+wondering at our white colour, which they tried to wash off, our dress,
+our garments of black silk and robes of blue cloth."</p>
+
+<p>Joined by two other ships from Portugal, the Italian explorer now
+sailed on to Cape Verde, so called from its green grass.</p>
+
+<p>"The land here," he tells us, "is all low and full of fine, large trees,
+which are continually green. The trees never wither like those in
+Europe; they grow so near the shore that they seem to drink, as it
+were, the water of the sea. The coast is most beautiful. Many countries
+have I been in, to East and West, but never did I see a prettier sight."</p>
+
+<p>But the negroes here&mdash;big, comely men&mdash;were lawless and impossible
+to approach, shooting at the Portuguese explorers with poisoned arrows.
+They discovered that <a name="page145"></a>the capital of the country was called Gambra,
+where lived a king, but the negroes of the Gambra were unfriendly;
+there was little gold to be had; his crews fell sick and ill, and
+Cadamosto turned home again. But he had reached a point beyond all
+other explorers of the time, a point where "only once did we see the
+North Star, which was so low that it seemed almost to touch the sea."
+We know that he must have been to within eleven degrees of the Equator,
+and it is disappointing to find the <a name="page146"></a>promising young Italian
+disappearing from the pages of history.</p>
+
+<a name="ill058"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 58">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543">
+			<img src="images/058.jpg" alt="A PORTION OF AFRICA FROM FRA MAURO'S MAP ILLUSTRATING CADAMOSTO'S VOYAGE BEYOND CAPE BLANCO">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543" align="center">
+			<small>A PORTION OF AFRICA FROM FRA MAURO'S MAP ILLUSTRATING
+			CADAMOSTO'S VOYAGE BEYOND CAPE BLANCO.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And now we come to the last voyage planned by Prince Henry, that of
+Diego Gomez, his own faithful servant. It followed close on
+Cadamosto's return.</p>
+
+<p>No long time after, the Prince equipped a ship called the <i>Wren</i> and
+set over it Diego Gomez, with two other ships, of which he was
+commander-in-chief. Their orders were to go as far as they could. Gomez
+wrote his own travels, and his adventures are best told in his own
+words. We take up his story from the far side of Cape Blanco.</p>
+
+<p>"After passing a great river beyond Rio Grande we met such strong
+currents in the sea that no anchor could hold. The other captains and
+their men were much alarmed, thinking we were at the end of the ocean,
+and begged me to put back. In the mid-current the sea was very clear,
+and the natives came off from the shore and brought us their merchandise.
+As the current grew even stronger we put back and came to a land, where
+were groves of palms near the shore, with their branches broken. There
+we found a plain covered with hay and more than five thousand animals
+like stags, but larger, who showed no fear of us. Five elephants with
+two young ones came out of a small river that was fringed by trees.
+We went back to the ships, and next day made our way from Cape Verde
+and saw the broad mouth of a great river, which we entered and guessed
+to be the Gambia. We went up the river as far as Cantor (some five
+hundred miles). Farther than this the ships could not go, because of
+the thick growth of trees and underwood. When the news spread through
+the country that the Christians were in Cantor, they came from Timbuktu
+in the north, from Mount Gelu in the south. Here I was told there is
+gold in plenty, and caravans of camels cross over there with goods
+from Carthage, Tunis, Fez, Cairo, and all the land <a name="page147"></a>of the Saracens.
+I asked the natives of Cantor about the road to the gold country. They
+told me the King lived in Kukia and was lord of all the mines on the
+right side of the river of Cantor, and that he had before the door
+of this palace a mass of gold just as it was taken from the earth,
+so large that twenty men could hardly move it, and that the King always
+fastened his horse to it. While I was thus trafficking with these
+negroes, my men became worn out with the heat, and so we returned
+towards the ocean."</p>
+
+<a name="ill059"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 59">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="640">
+			<img src="images/059.jpg" alt="SKETCH OF AFRICA FROM FRA MAURO'S GREAT MAP OF THE WORLD, 1457">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="640" align="center">
+			<small>SKETCH OF AFRICA FROM FRA MAURO'S GREAT MAP OF THE WORLD, 1457.<br>
+			In the African portions of Fra Mauro's map which have already
+			been given they are shown exactly as Fra Mauro drew them, with the
+			north at the <i>bottom</i> and the south at the <i>top</i>, as is nearly always
+			the case in medi&aelig;val maps. In this outline of Africa, which is
+			generally supposed to show the results of Prince Henry's labours, the
+			map has been put the right way up. It was prepared between 1457 and 1459.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page148"></a>
+<p>But Diego Gomez had succeeded in making friends with the hostile
+natives of this part. He left behind him a better idea of Christian
+men than some of the other explorers had done. His own account of the
+conversion of the Mohammedan King who lived near the mouth of the river
+Gambia, which was visited on the return voyage, is most interesting.</p>
+
+<p>"Now the houses here are made of seaweed, covered with straw, and while
+I stayed here (at the river mouth) three days, I learned all the
+mischief that had been done to the Christians by a certain King. So
+I took pains to make peace with him and sent him many presents by his
+own men in his own canoes. Now the King was in great fear of the
+Christians, lest they should take vengeance upon him. When the King
+heard that I always treated the natives kindly he came to the river-side
+with a great force, and, sitting down on the bank, sent for me. And
+so I went and paid him all respect. There was a Bishop there of his
+own faith, who asked me about the God of the Christians, and I answered
+him as God had given me to know. At last the King was so pleased with
+what I said that he sprang to his feet and ordered the Mohammedan Bishop
+to leave his country within three days."</p>
+
+<p>So when the Portuguese returned home, Prince Henry sent a priest and
+a young man of his own household to the black King at the mouth of
+the Gambia. This was in 1458.</p>
+
+<p>"In the year of our Lord 1460, Prince Henry fell ill in his town on
+Cape St. Vincent," says his faithful explorer and servant, Diego Gomez,
+"and of that sickness he died."</p>
+
+<p>Such was the end of the man who has been called the "originator of
+modern discovery." What had he done? He had inspired and financed the
+Portuguese navigators to sail for some two thousand miles down the
+West African <a name="page149"></a>coast. "From his wave-washed home he inspired the courage
+of his men and planned their voyages, and by the purity of his actions
+and the devotion of his life really lived up to his inspiring motto,
+'Talent de bien faire.'" And more than this. For each successive
+discovery had been carefully noted at the famous Sagres settlement,
+and these had been worked up by an Italian monk named Fra Mauro into
+an enormous wall-map over six feet across, crammed with detail&mdash;the
+work of three years' incessant labour.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap21"></a><a name="page150"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI</h3>
+
+<h4>BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ REACHES THE STORMY CAPE</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>But though Prince Henry was dead, the enthusiasm he had aroused among
+Portuguese navigators was not dead, and Portuguese ships still stole
+forth by twos and threes to search for treasure down the West African
+coast. In 1462 they reached Sierra Leone, the farthest point attained
+by Hanno of olden days. Each new headland was now taken in the name
+of Portugal: wooden crosses already marked each successive discovery,
+and many a tree near the coast bore the motto of Prince Henry carved
+roughly on its bark. Portugal had officially claimed this "Kingdom
+of the Seas" as it was called, and henceforth stone crosses some six
+feet high, inscribed with the arms of Portugal, the name of the
+navigator, and the date of discovery, marked each newly found spot.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until 1471 that the navigators unconsciously crossed the
+Equator, "into a new heaven and a new earth." They saw stars unknown
+in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Northern Pole star sank nearly
+out of sight. Another thirteen years and Diego Cam, a knight of the
+King's household, found the mouth of the Congo and erected a great
+Portuguese pillar on the famous spot. It was in the year 1484 that
+Diego Cam was ordered to go "as far to the south as he could." He crossed
+the Equator, which for past years had been the limit of knowledge,
+and, continuing southwards he reached the mouth of the mighty river
+Congo, <a name="page151"></a>now known as the second of all the African rivers for size.
+The explorer ascended the river, falling in with peacefully inclined
+natives. But they could not make themselves understood, so Cam took
+back four of them to Portugal, where they learned enough Portuguese
+to talk a little. They were much struck with Portugal and the kind
+treatment they received from the King, who sent them back to their
+country laden with presents for their black King at home. So with Diego
+Cam they all sailed back to the Congo River. They were received by
+the King in royal state. Seated on a throne of ivory raised on a lofty
+wooden platform, he could be seen from all sides, his "black and
+glittering skin" shining out above a piece of damask given to him to
+wear by the Portuguese explorer. From his shoulder hung a dressed
+horse's tail, a symbol of royalty; on his head was a cap of palm leaves.</p>
+
+<p>It was here in this Congo district that the first negro was baptized
+in the presence of some twenty-five thousand heathen comrades. The
+ceremony was performed by Portuguese priests, and the negro King
+ordered all idols to be destroyed throughout his dominions. Here, too,
+a little Christian church was built, and the King and Queen became
+such earnest Christians that they sent their children to Portugal to
+be taught.</p>
+
+<a name="ill060"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 60">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="211">
+			<img src="images/060.jpg" alt="NEGRO BOYS, FROM CABOT'S MAP, 1544">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="211" align="center">
+			<small>NEGRO BOYS, FROM CABOT'S MAP, 1544.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But even the discoveries of Diego Cam pale before the great achievement
+of Bartholomew Diaz, who was now to accomplish the great task which
+Prince Henry the Navigator had yearned to see fulfilled&mdash;the rounding
+of the Cape of Storms.</p>
+<a name="page152"></a>
+<p>The expedition set sail for the south in August 1486. Passing the spot
+where Diego Cam had erected his farthest pillar, Diaz reached a
+headland, now known as Diaz Point, where he, too, placed a Portuguese
+pillar that remained unbroken till about a hundred years ago. Still
+to the south he sailed, struggling with wind and weather, to Cape Voltas,
+close to the mouth of the Orange River. Then for another fortnight
+the little ships were driven before the wind, south and ever south,
+with half-reefed sails and no land in sight. Long days and longer nights
+passed to find them still drifting in an unknown sea, knowing not what
+an hour might bring forth. At last the great wind ceased to blow and
+it became icy cold. They had sailed to the south of South Africa.
+Steering north, Diaz now fell in with land&mdash;land with cattle near the
+shore and cowherds tending them, but the black cowherds were so alarmed
+at the sight of the Portuguese that they fled away inland.</p>
+
+<p>We know now, what neither Diaz nor his crew even suspected, that he
+had actually rounded, without seeing, the Cape of Good Hope. The coast
+now turned eastward till a small island was reached in a bay we now
+call Algoa Bay. Here Bartholomew Diaz set up another pillar with its
+cross and inscription, naming the rock Santa Cruz. This was the first
+land beyond the Cape ever trodden by European feet. Unfortunately the
+natives&mdash;Kafirs&mdash;threw stones at them, and it was impossible to make
+friends and to land. The crews, too, began to complain. They were worn
+out with continual work, weary for fresh food, terrified at the heavy
+seas that broke on these southern shores. With one voice they protested
+against proceeding any farther. But the explorer could not bear to
+turn back; he must sail onwards now, just three days more, and then
+if they found nothing he would turn back. They sailed on and came to
+the <a name="page153"></a>mouth of a large river&mdash;the Great Fish River. Again the keen
+explorer would sail on and add to his already momentous discoveries.
+But the crews again began their complaints and, deeply disappointed,
+Diaz had to turn. "When he reached the little island of Santa Cruz
+and bade farewell to the cross which he had there erected, it was with
+grief as intense as if he were leaving his child in the wilderness
+with no hope of ever seeing him again." To him it seemed as though
+he had endured all his hardships in vain. He knew not what he had really
+accomplished as yet. But his eyes were soon to be opened. Sailing
+westward, Diaz at last came in sight of "that remarkable Cape which
+had been hidden from the eyes of man for so many centuries."</p>
+
+<a name="ill061"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 61">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="480">
+			<img src="images/061.jpg" alt="THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="480" align="center">
+			<small>THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA.<br>
+			From Martin Behaim's map, 1492.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Remembering their perils past, he called it "the Stormy Cape" and
+hastened home to the King of Portugal with his great news. The King
+was overjoyed, but he refused to name it the Cape of Storms. Would
+not such a name deter the seamen of the future? <a name="page154"></a>Was not this the
+long-sought passage to India? Rather it should be called the Cape of
+Good Hope, the name which it has held throughout the centuries. In
+the course of one voyage, Diaz had accomplished the great task which
+for the past seventy years Prince Henry had set before his people.
+He had lifted for the first time in the history of the world the veil
+that had hung over the mysterious extremity of the great African
+continent. The Phoenicians may have discovered it some seventeen
+hundred years before Diaz, but the record of tradition alone exists.</p>
+
+<p>Now with the new art of printing, which was transforming the whole
+aspect of life, the brilliant achievement of Bartholomew Diaz was made
+known far and wide.</p>
+
+<p>It was shortly to be followed by a yet more brilliant feat by a yet
+more brilliant navigator, "the most illustrious that the world has
+seen." The very name of Christopher Columbus calls up the vision of
+a resolute man beating right out into the westward unknown seas and
+finding as his great reward a whole new continent&mdash;a New World of whose
+existence mankind had hardly dreamt.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap22"></a><a name="page155"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXII</h3>
+
+<h4>CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Every event in the eventful life of Christopher Columbus is of supreme
+interest. We linger over all that leads up to the momentous start
+westwards: we recall his birth and early life at Genoa towards the
+middle of the fifteenth century, his apprenticeship to his father as
+a weaver of cloth, his devotion to the sea, his love of the little
+sailing ships that passed in and out of the busy Genoese harbour from
+all parts of the known world. At the age of fourteen the little
+Christoforo went to sea&mdash;a red-haired, sunburnt boy with bright blue
+eyes. He learnt the art of navigation, he saw foreign countries, he
+learnt to chart the seas, to draw maps, and possibly worked with some
+of the noted Italian draughtsmen. At the age of twenty-eight, in 1474,
+he left Genoa for Portugal, famous throughout the world for her recent
+discoveries, though as yet the Stormy Cape lay veiled in mystery.
+Columbus wanted to learn all he could about these discoveries; he made
+voyages to Guinea, Madeira, and Porto Santo. He also went to England
+and "sailed a hundred leagues to the island of Thule in 1477."</p>
+
+<p>He was now a recognised seaman of distinction, with courteous manners
+and fine appearance. He set himself to study maps and charts at Lisbon,
+giving special attention to instruments for making observations at
+sea. For many long years he had been revolving a scheme for reaching
+India by sailing westward instead of the route <a name="page156"></a>by Africa. The more
+he studied these things the more convinced he became that he was right.</p>
+<a name="page157"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem18">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy,<br>
+			&nbsp;Judged that the earth like an orange was round.<br>
+			&nbsp;None of them ever said, 'Come along, follow me,<br>
+			&nbsp;Sail to the West and the East will be found.'"</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was not till the year 1480 that Columbus proposed to the King of
+Portugal his idea of sailing westwards. He explained his reasons: how
+there were grounds for thinking there was an unknown land to the west,
+how artistically sculptured pieces of wood had been driven across the
+ocean by the west wind, suggesting islands not yet discovered, how
+once the corpses of two men with broad faces, unlike Europeans, had
+been washed ashore, how on the west coast of Ireland seeds of tropical
+plants had been discovered.</p>
+
+<p>The King listened and was inclined to believe Columbus. But his
+councillors persuaded him to get from the Genoese navigator his plans,
+and while they kept Columbus waiting for the King's answer they sent
+off some ships privately to investigate the whole matter. The ships
+started westward, encountered a great storm, and returned to Lisbon,
+scoffing at the scheme of the stranger. When this news reached his
+ears, Columbus was very angry. He would have nothing more to do with
+Portugal, but left that country at once for Spain to appeal to the
+King and Queen of that land.</p>
+
+<p>Ferdinand and Isabella were busy with affairs of state and could not
+give audience to the man who was to discover a New World. It was not
+till 1491 that he was summoned before the King and Queen. Once more
+his wild scheme was laughed at, and he was dismissed the Court. Not
+only was he again indignant, but his friends were indignant too. They
+believed in him, and would not rest till they had persuaded the Queen
+to take up his cause. He demanded a good deal. He must be made Admiral
+and Viceroy of all the new seas and lands he <a name="page158"></a>might discover, as well
+as receiving a large portion of his gains. The Queen was prevailed
+on to provide means for the expedition, and she became so enthusiastic
+over it that she declared she would sell her own jewels to provide
+the necessary supplies. Columbus was created Admiral of the Ocean in
+all the islands and continents he might discover; two little ships
+were made ready, and it seemed as though the dream of his life might
+be fulfilled. The explorer was now forty-six; his red hair had become
+grey with waiting and watching for the possibility of realising his
+great scheme.</p>
+
+<a name="ill062"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 62">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="462">
+			<img src="images/062.jpg" alt="THE PARTING OF COLUMBUS WITH FERDINAND AND ISABELLA, 3RD AUGUST 1492">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="462" align="center">
+			<small>THE PARTING OF COLUMBUS WITH FERDINAND AND ISABELLA, 3RD AUGUST 1492.<br>
+			From De Bry's account of the <i>Voyages to India</i>, 1601.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At last the preparations were complete. The <i>Santa Maria</i> was to lead
+the way with the Admiral on board; she was but one hundred tons' burden,
+with a high poop and a forecastle. It had been difficult enough to
+find a crew; men were shy about venturing with this stranger from Genoa
+on unknown seas, and it was a motley party that finally took service
+under Columbus. The second ship, the <i>Pinta</i>, was but half the size
+of the flagship; she had a crew of eighteen and was the fastest sailer
+of the little squadron, while the third, the <i>Nina</i> of forty tons,
+also carried eighteen men.</p>
+
+<a name="ill063"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 63">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="342">
+			<img src="images/063.jpg" alt="COLUMBUS'S SHIP, THE SANTA MARIA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="342" align="center">
+			<small>COLUMBUS'S SHIP, THE <i>SANTA MARIA</i>.<br>
+			From a woodcut of 1493 supposed to be after a drawing by Columbus himself.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On 3rd August 1492 the little fleet sailed forth from Spain on a quest
+more perilous perhaps than any yet on record. No longer could they
+sail along with a coast always in sight; day after day and night after
+night they must sail on an unknown sea in search of an unknown <a name="page159"></a>land.
+No one ever expected to see them again. It has well been said that,
+"looking back at all that has grown out of it in the four centuries
+that have elapsed, we now know that the sailing of those three little
+boats over the bar was, since the Fall of Rome, the most momentous
+event in the world's history." The ships steered for the Canary Islands,
+and it was not till 9th September that the last land faded from the
+eyes of that daring little company.</p>
+
+<p>Something of a panic among the sailors ensued when they realised their
+helpless position; some even burst into tears, begging to be taken
+home. The days passed on. By the 16th they had come within the influence
+of the trade winds.</p>
+
+<p>"The weather was like April," says Columbus in his journal. Still
+westward they sailed, eagerly looking for signs of land. Now they see
+two pelicans, "an indication that land was near," now a large dark
+cloud to the north, another "sign that land is near."</p>
+
+<p>As the days pass on, their hopes die away and "the temper of the crews
+was getting uglier and uglier as the three little vessels forged
+westward through the blue weed-strewn waters." On 9th October hope
+revives; all night they hear birds passing through the still air.</p>
+
+<a name="ill064"></a>
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 64">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="317">
+			<img src="images/064.jpg" alt="THE BEST PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="317" align="center">
+			<small>THE BEST PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS.<br>
+			From the original painting (by an unknown artist) in the Naval Museum at Madrid.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On the evening of the 11th a light was seen glimmering in the distance;
+from the high stern deck of the <i>Santa Maria</i> it could be plainly seen,
+and when the sun rose on that memorable morning the low shores of land
+a few miles distant could be plainly seen. "Seabirds are wheeling
+overhead heedless of the intruders, but on the shore human beings are
+assembling to watch the strange birds which now spread their wings
+and sail towards the island.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Pinta</i> leads and her crew are raising the 'Te Deum.' The crews
+of the <i>Santa Maria</i> and the <i>Nina</i> <a name="page160"></a>join in the solemn chant and many
+rough men brush away tears. Columbus, the two Pinzons, and some of
+the men step into the cutter and row to the shore." Columbus, fully
+armed under his scarlet cloak, sprang ashore, the unclothed natives
+fleeing away at sight of the first white man who had ever stepped on
+their shores. Then, unfurling the royal standard of Spain and setting
+up a large cross, the great navigator fell on his knees and gave thanks
+to God for this triumphant ending to his perilous voyage. He named
+the island San Salvador and formally took possession of it for Spain.
+It was one of the Bahama group, and is now known as Watling Island
+(British).</p>
+
+<p>"Thus was the mighty enterprise achieved, mighty in its conception,
+still more important in its results."</p>
+
+<p>But Columbus thought he had discovered the Indies, a new route to the
+east and the Cathay of Marco Polo. He had done more than this; he had
+discovered another continent. He had sailed over three thousand miles
+without seeing land, a feat unparalleled in the former history of
+discovery.</p>
+
+<p>He made friends with the natives, who resembled those of the Canary
+Islands. "I believe they would easily become Christians," wrote
+Columbus. "If it please our Lord at the time of my departure, I will
+take six from <a name="page161"></a>here that they may learn to speak." He also notes that
+they will make good slaves.</p>
+
+<a name="ill065"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 65">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="351">
+			<img src="images/065.jpg" alt="COLUMBUS LANDING ON HISPANIOLA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="351" align="center">
+			<small>COLUMBUS LANDING ON HISPANIOLA.<br>
+			From a woodcut of 1494.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>From island to island he now made his way, guided by natives. He hoped
+to find gold; he hoped to find Cathay, for he had a letter from Ferdinand
+and Isabella to deliver to the Great Khan. The charm and beauty of
+these enchanted islands were a source of joy to the explorer: "The
+singing of the little birds is such that it appears a man would wish
+never to leave here, and the flocks of parrots obscure the sun." The
+island of Cuba "seemed like heaven itself," but Columbus could not
+forget that he was searching for gold, for Oriental spices, for the
+land of Marco Polo, as he hastened from point to point, from island
+to island. Already the <i>Pinta</i> under Martin Pinzon had gone off
+independently in search of a vague land of gold, to the vexation of
+the Admiral. A worse disaster was now to befall him. On Christmas Day,
+off the island of Hayti, the <i>Santa Maria</i> struck upon a reef and went
+over. Columbus and his crew escaped on board the little <i>Nina</i>. But
+she was too small to carry home the double crew, and Columbus made
+a little fortress on the island where the native King was friendly,
+and left there a little colony of Spaniards.</p>
+
+<p>He now prepared for the homeward voyage, and one January day in 1493
+he left the newly discovered islands and set his face for home in
+company with the <i>Pinta</i>, which by this time had returned to him. For
+some weeks they got on fairly well. Then the wind rose. A violent storm
+came on; the sea was terrible, the waves breaking right over the little
+homeward-bound ships, which tossed about helplessly for long days and
+nights. Suddenly the <i>Pinta</i> disappeared. The wind and sea increased.
+The little forty-ton <i>Nina</i> was in extreme peril, and the crew gave
+themselves up for lost; their provisions were nearly finished.
+Columbus was agonised lest he should perish <a name="page162"></a>and the news of his great
+discovery should never reach Spain. Taking a piece of parchment, he
+noted down as best he could amid the tossing of the ship a brief account
+of his work, and, wrapping it in a waxed cloth, he put it into an empty
+cask and threw it overboard. Then, while the mountainous seas
+threatened momentary destruction, he waited and prayed.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the storm abated, and on 18th February they reached the Azores.
+A few days for refreshment and on he sailed again, feverishly anxious
+to reach Spain and proclaim his great news. But on 3rd March the wind
+again rose to a hurricane and death stared the crew in the face. Still,
+"under bare poles and in a heavy cross-sea," they scudded on, until
+they reached the mouth of the Tagus. The news of his arrival soon spread,
+and excited crowds hurried to see the little ship that had crossed
+the fierce Atlantic. Bartholomew Diaz came aboard the <i>Nina</i>, and for
+a short time the two greatest explorers of their century were together.
+An enthusiastic welcome awaited him in Spain. Was he not the "Admiral
+of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy of the Western Indies," the only man who
+had crossed the unknown for the sake of a cherished dream?</p>
+
+<p>"Seven months had passed since Columbus had sailed from Spain in the
+dim light of that summer morning. Now he was back. Through tempestuous
+seas and raging winter gales he had guided his ship well, and Spain
+knew how to do him honour. His journey from the coast to the Court
+was like a royal progress. The roads were lined with excited people;
+the air was rent with shouts of joy."</p>
+
+<a name="ill066"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 66">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="597">
+			<img src="images/066.jpg" alt="THE FIRST REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NEW WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="597" align="center">
+			<small>THE FIRST REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NEW WORLD.<br>
+			From a woodcut published at Augsburg between 1497 and 1504. The only
+			copy known is in the British Museum. The inscription states that the
+			Americans "eat each other," "become a hundred and fifty years of age,
+			and have no government."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On Palm Sunday, 1493, he passed through the streets of Seville. A
+procession preceded him in which walked the six natives, or Indians
+as they were called, brought home by Columbus; parrots and other birds
+with strange <a name="page163"></a>and radiant colouring were also borne before the
+triumphant explorer, who himself rode on horseback among the mounted
+chivalry of Spain. From windows and roofs a dense throng watched
+Christopher Columbus as he rode through the streets of Seville. From
+here he passed on to Barcelona, to be received by the King and Queen.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem19">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			"The city decked herself<br>
+			To meet me, roar'd my name: the king, the queen,<br>
+			Bad me be seated, speak, and tell them all<br>
+			The story of my voyage, and while I spoke<br>
+			The crowd's roar fell as at the 'Peace be still.'<br>
+			And when I ceased to speak, the king, the queen,<br>
+			Sank from their thrones, and melted into tears,<br>
+			And knelt, and lifted hand and heart and voice<br>
+			In praise to God who led me thro' the waste.<br>
+			And then the great 'Laudamus' rose to heaven."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page164"></a>
+<p>It is curious to think what a strange mistake caused all their rejoicing.
+Not only Spain, but the whole civilised world firmly believed that
+Columbus had discovered some islands off the coast of Asia, not far
+from the land of the Great Khan, in the Indian seas. Hence the islands
+were called the West Indies, which name they have kept to this day.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap23"></a><a name="page165"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIII</h3>
+
+<h4>A GREAT NEW WORLD</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The departure of Columbus six months later on his second voyage was
+a great contrast to the uncertain start of a year ago. The new fleet
+was ready by September 1493. The three largest ships were some four
+hundred tons' burden, with fourteen smaller craft and crews of fifteen
+thousand men. There was no dearth of volunteers this time. High-born
+Spaniards, thirsting for the wealth of the Indies, offered their
+services, while Columbus took his brother James and a Benedictine monk
+chosen by the Pope. They took orange and lemon seeds for planting in
+the new islands, horses, pigs, bulls, cows, sheep, and goats, besides
+fruit and vegetables.</p>
+
+<p>So, full of hope and joyful expectation, they set sail; and so well
+had Columbus calculated his distance and direction with but imperfect
+instruments at his disposal, that he arrived at the islands again on
+3rd November. It was another new island, which he named Domenica, as
+the day was Sunday. Making for the island of Hayti, where he had left
+his little Spanish colony, he passed many islands, naming Guadeloupe,
+San Martin, Santa Cruz, and others. Porto Rico was also found, but
+they arrived at Hayti to find no trace of Spaniards. Disaster had
+overtaken the colony, and the deserted men had been killed by the
+natives who had apparently been so friendly. Another spot was selected
+by Columbus, and a town was soon built to which he gave the name of
+Isabella.</p>
+<a name="page166"></a>
+<a name="ill067"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 67">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="327">
+			<img src="images/067.jpg" alt="THE TOWN OF ISABELLA AND THE COLONY FOUNDED BY COLUMBUS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="327" align="center">
+			<small>THE TOWN OF ISABELLA AND THE COLONY FOUNDED BY COLUMBUS.<br>
+			From a woodcut of 1494.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This is not the place to tell of the miserable disputes and squabbles
+that befell the little Spanish colony. We are here concerned with the
+fuller exploration of the West Indies by Columbus. Taking three ships
+provisioned for six months, with a crew of fifty-two, he set out for
+the coast of Cathay. Instead of this, he found the island of Jamaica,
+with its low, hazy, blue coast of extreme beauty. Still convinced that
+he was near the territory of the Great Khan, he explored the coast
+of Cuba, not realising that it was an island. He sailed about among
+the islands, till he became very ill, fever seized him, and at last
+his men carried him ashore at Isabella, thinking that he must die.
+He recovered to find a discontented colony, members of which had
+already sent back stories to Spain of the misdeeds of their founder.
+Columbus made up his mind to return to Spain to carry a true report
+of the difficulties of colonisation in the Indies.</p>
+
+<p>"It was June 1496 before he found himself again in the harbour of Cadiz.
+People had crowded down to greet the great discoverer, but instead
+of a joyous crew, flushed with new success and rich with the spoils
+of the golden Indies, a feeble train of wretched men crawled on
+shore&mdash;thin, miserable, and ill. Columbus himself was dressed as a
+monk, in a long gown girded with a cord. His beard was long and unshaven.
+The whole <a name="page167"></a>man was utterly broken down with all he had been through."</p>
+
+<p>But after a stay of two years in Spain, Columbus again started off
+on his third voyage. With six ships he now took a more southerly
+direction, hoping to find land to the south of the West Indies. And
+this he did, but he never lived to know that it was the great continent
+of South America. Through scorching heat, which melted the tar of their
+rigging, they sailed onwards till they were rewarded by the sight of
+land at last. Columbus had promised to dedicate the first land he saw
+to the Holy Trinity. What, then, was his surprise when land appeared
+from which arose three distinct peaks, which he at once named La
+Trinidad. The luxuriance of the island pleased the Spaniards, and as
+they made their way slowly along the shore their eyes rested for the
+first time, and unconsciously, on the mainland of South America. It
+appeared to the explorer as a large island which he called Isla Santa.
+Here oysters abounded and "very large fish, and parrots as large as
+hens." Between the island and the mainland lay a narrow channel through
+which flowed a mighty current. While the ships were anchoring here
+a great flood of fresh water came down with a great roar, nearly
+destroying the little Spanish ships and greatly alarming both Columbus
+and his men. It was one of the mouths of the river Orinoco, to which
+they gave the name of the Dragon's Mouth. The danger over, they sailed
+on, charmed with the beautiful shores, the sight of the distant
+mountains, and the sweetness of the air.</p>
+
+<a name="ill068"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 68">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="478">
+			<img src="images/068.jpg" alt="The world as known at the end of the fifteenth century after the discoveries of Columbus and his age">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="478" align="center">
+			<small>"THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"&mdash;IV.<br>
+			The world as known at the end of the fifteenth century after the discoveries of Columbus
+			and his age.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Columbus decided that this must be the centre of the earth's surface,
+and with its mighty rivers surely it was none other than the earthly
+Paradise with the rivers of the Garden of Eden, that "some of the
+Fathers had declared to be situated in the extreme east of the Old
+World, and in a region so high that the flood had not <a name="page168"></a>overwhelmed it."
+The world then, said Columbus, could not be a perfect round, but
+pear-shaped. With these conclusions he hastened across to Hayti where
+his brother was ruling over the little colony in his absence. But
+treachery and mutiny had been at work. Matters had gone ill with the
+colony, and Columbus did not improve the situation by his presence.
+He was a brilliant navigator, but no statesman. Complaints reached
+Spain, and a Spaniard was sent out to replace Columbus. This high-handed
+official at once put the poor navigator in chains and placed him on
+board a ship bound for Spain. Queen Isabella was overwhelmed with grief
+when the snowy-haired explorer once again stood before her, his face
+lined with suffering. He was restored to royal favour and provided
+with ships to sail forth on his fourth and last voyage. But his
+hardships and perils had told upon him, and he was not really fit to
+undertake the long voyage to the Indies. However, he arrived safely
+off the coast of Honduras and searched for the straits that he felt
+sure existed, but which were not to be found till some eighteen years
+later by Magellan. The natives brought him cocoanuts, which the
+Spaniards now tasted for the first time; they also brought merchandise
+from a far land denoting some high civilisation. Columbus believed
+that he had reached the golden east, whence the gold had been obtained
+for Solomon's temple.</p>
+
+<p>Had Columbus only sailed west he might have discovered Mexico with
+all its wealth, and "a succession of splendid discoveries would have
+shed fresh glory on his declining age, instead of his sinking amidst
+gloom, neglect, and disappointment." At the isthmus of Darien,
+Columbus gave up the search. He was weary of the bad weather. Incessant
+downpours of rain, storms of thunder and lightning with terrific
+seas&mdash;these discouraged him. Disaster followed disaster. The food was
+nearly finished; <a name="page169"></a>the biscuit "was so full of maggots that the people
+could only eat it in the dark, when they were not visible." Columbus
+himself seemed to be at the point of death. "Never," he wrote, "was
+the sea seen so high, so terrific, so covered with foam; the waters
+from heaven never ceased&mdash;it was like a repetition of the deluge."</p>
+
+<p>He reached Spain in 1504 to be carried ashore on a litter, and to learn
+that the Queen of Spain was dead. He was friendless, penniless, and
+sick unto death.</p>
+
+<p>"After twenty years of toil and peril," he says pitifully, "I do not
+own a roof in Spain."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem20">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"I, lying here, bedridden and alone,<br>
+			&nbsp;Cast off, put by, scouted by count and king,<br>
+			&nbsp;The first discoverer starves."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And so the brilliant navigator, Christopher Columbus, passed away,
+all unconscious of the great New World he had reached. Four centuries
+have passed away, but&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem21">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"When shall the world forget<br>
+			&nbsp;The glory and the debt,<br>
+			&nbsp;Indomitable soul,<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;Immortal Genoese?<br>
+			&nbsp;Not while the shrewd salt gale<br>
+			&nbsp;Whines amid shroud and sail,<br>
+			&nbsp;Above the rhythmic roll<br>
+			&nbsp;And thunder of the seas."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It has been well said, "injustice was not buried with Columbus," and
+soon after his death an attempt was made, and made successfully, to
+name the New World after another&mdash;a Florentine pilot, Amerigo
+Vespucci.</p>
+
+<a name="ill069"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 69">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="338">
+			<img src="images/069.jpg" alt="MAP OF THE WORLD, DRAWN IN 1500, THE FIRST TO SHOW AMERICA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="338" align="center">
+			<small>MAP OF THE WORLD, DRAWN IN 1500, THE FIRST TO SHOW AMERICA.<br>
+			By Juan de la Cosa, who is supposed to have been the pilot
+			of Columbus. At the top, between the two green masses representing
+			America, La Cosa has drawn Columbus as St. Christopher carrying the
+			infant Christ, according to the legend.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was but natural that when the first discoveries by Columbus of land
+to westward had been made known, that others should follow in the track
+of the great navigator. Among these was a handsome young Spaniard&mdash;one
+Hojeda&mdash;who had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage. Soon after,
+he fitted out an <a name="page170"></a>expedition, 1499, reaching the mainland of the yet
+unknown continent near the Trinidad of Columbus. With him was Amerigo
+Vespucci. Here they found a native village with houses built on tree
+trunks and connected by bridges. It was so like a bit of old Venice
+that the explorers named it Little Venice or Venezuela, which name
+it bears to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing was publicly known of this voyage till a year after the death
+of Columbus, when men had coasted farther to the south of Venezuela
+and discovered that this land was neither Asia nor Africa, that it
+was not the land of Marco Polo, but a new continent indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"It is proper to call it a New World," says Amerigo Vespucci. "Men
+of old said over and over again that there was no land south of the
+Equator. But this last voyage of mine has proved them wrong, since
+in southern regions I have found a country more thickly inhabited by
+people and animals than our Europe or Asia or Africa."</p>
+
+<a name="ill070"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 70">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="509">
+			<img src="images/070.jpg" alt="AMERIGO VESPUCCI">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="509" align="center">
+			<small>From the sculpture by Grazzini in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>These words among others, and an account of his voyages published in
+Paris, 1507, created a deep impression. A letter from Columbus
+announcing his discoveries had been published in 1493, but he said
+nothing, because he knew nothing, of a New World. Men therefore said
+that Amerigo Vespucci had discovered a new continent, "wherefore the
+new continent ought to be called America from its discoverer Amerigo,
+a man of rare ability, inasmuch as Europe and Asia derived their names
+from women."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap24"></a><a name="page171"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIV</h3>
+
+<h4>VASCO DA GAMA REACHES INDIA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Thus the name of America was gradually adopted for the New World, though
+the honour and glory of its first discovery must always belong to
+Christopher Columbus.</p>
+
+<p>But while all this wonderful development westwards was thrilling the
+minds of men, other great discoveries were being made to the East,
+whither the eyes of the Portuguese were still straining. Portugal had
+lost Columbus; she could lay no claim to the shores of America
+discovered by Spaniards, but the sea-route to India by the East was
+yet to be found by one of her explorers, Vasco da Gama. His achievement
+stands out brilliantly at this time; for, within a few years of the
+discovery of the New World, he had been able to tell the world that
+India and the East could be reached by the Cape of Good Hope!</p>
+
+<p>The dream of Prince Henry the Navigator was fulfilled!</p>
+
+<p>How Vasco da Gama was chosen for the great command has been graphically
+described by a Portuguese historian, whose words are received with
+caution by modern authorities. The King of Portugal&mdash;Dom
+Manuel&mdash;having set his kingdom in order, "being inspired by the Lord,
+took the resolution to inform himself about the affairs of India."
+He knew that the province of India was very far away, inhabited by
+dark people who had great riches and merchandise, and there was much
+risk in crossing <a name="page172"></a>the wide seas and land to reach it. But he felt it
+a sacred duty to try and reach it. He ordered ships to be built according
+to a design of Bartholomew Diaz, the Hero of the Cape, "low amidships,
+with high castles towering fore and aft; they rode the water like
+ducks." The ships ready, the King prayed the Lord "to show him the
+man whom it would please Him to send upon this voyage." Days passed.
+One day the King was sitting in his hall with his officers when he
+raised his eyes and saw a gentleman of his household crossing the hall.
+It suddenly occurred to the King that this was the man for his command,
+and, calling Vasco da Gama, he offered him the command at once. He
+was courageous, resolute, and firm of purpose. On his knees he accepted
+the great honour. A silken banner blazing with the Cross of the Order
+of Christ was bestowed upon him; he chose the <i>S. Gabriel</i> for his
+flagship, appointed his brother to the <i>S. Raphael</i>, and prepared for
+his departure. Books and charts were supplied, Ptolemy's geography
+was on board, as well as the <i>Book of Marco Polo</i>. All being ready,
+Vasco da Gama and his captains spent the night in the little chapel
+by the sea at Belem, built for the mariners of Henry the Navigator.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning&mdash;it was July&mdash;they walked in solemn procession to the
+shore, lighted candles in their hands, priests chanting a solemn
+litany as they walked. The beach was crowded with people. Under the
+blazing summer sun they knelt once more before taking leave of the
+weeping multitudes. Listen to the Portuguese poet, Camoens, who makes
+Vasco da Gama the hero of his "Lusiad"&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem22">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"The neighbouring mountains murmur'd back the sound,<br>
+			&nbsp;As if to pity moved for human woe;<br>
+			&nbsp;Uncounted as the grains of golden sand,<br>
+			&nbsp;The tears of thousands fell on Belem's strand."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page173"></a>
+<p>So the Portuguese embarked, weighed anchor, and unfurled the sails
+that bore the red cross of the Order of Christ. The four little ships
+started on what was to be the longest and most momentous voyage on
+record, while crowds stood on the shore straining their eyes till the
+fleet, under full sail, vanished from their sight.</p>
+
+<a name="ill071"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 71">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="299">
+			<img src="images/071.jpg" alt="VASCO DA GAMA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="299" align="center">
+			<small>VASCO DA GAMA.<br>
+			From a contemporary portrait.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>After passing Cape Verde, in order to escape the currents of the Gulf
+of Guinea, Vasco da Gama steered south-west into an unknown part of
+the South Atlantic. He did not know that at one time he was within
+six hundred miles of the coast of South America. Day after day, week
+after week passed in dreary monotony as they sailed the wide ocean
+that surrounds St. Helena, "a lonely, dreary waste of seas and
+boundless sky." Everything ends at last, and, having spent ninety-six
+days out of sight of land and sailed some four thousand five hundred
+miles, they drifted on to the south-west coast of Africa. It was a
+record voyage, for even Columbus had only been two thousand six hundred
+miles without seeing land. November found them in a broad bay, "and,"
+says the old log of the voyage, "we named it St. Helena," which name
+it still retains. After a skirmish with some tawny-coloured Hottentots
+the explorers sailed on, putting "their trust in the Lord to double
+the Cape."</p>
+<a name="page174"></a>
+<p>But the sea was all broken with storm, high rolled the waves, and so
+short were the days that darkness prevailed. The crews grew sick with
+fear and hardship, and all clamoured to put back to Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>With angry words Vasco da Gama bade them be silent, though "he well
+saw how much reason they had at every moment to despair of their lives";
+the ships were now letting in much water, and cold rains soaked them
+all to the skin.</p>
+
+<p>"All cried out to God for mercy upon their souls, for now they no longer
+took heed of their lives." At last the storm ceased, the seas grew
+calm, and they knew that, without seeing it, they had doubled the
+dreaded Cape, "on which great joy fell upon them and they gave great
+praise to the Lord."</p>
+
+<p>But their troubles were not yet over. The sea was still very rough,
+"for the winter of that country was setting in," and even the pilot
+suggested turning back to take refuge for a time. When Vasco da Gama
+heard of turning backward he cried that they should not speak such
+words, because as he was going out of the bar of Lisbon he had promised
+God in his heart not to turn back a single span's breadth of the way,
+and he would throw into the sea whosoever spoke such things. None could
+withstand such an iron will, and they struggled on to Mossel Bay,
+already discovered by Diaz. Here they landed "and bought a fat ox for
+three bracelets. This ox we dined off on Sunday; we found him very
+fat, and his meat nearly as toothsome as the beef of Portugal"&mdash;a
+pleasant meal, indeed, after three months of salted food. Here, too,
+they found "penguins as large as ducks, which had no feathers on their
+wings and which bray like asses."</p>
+
+<p>But there was no time to linger here. They sailed onwards till they
+had passed and left behind the last <a name="page175"></a>pillar erected by Diaz, near the
+mouth of the Great Fish River. All was new now. No European had sailed
+these seas, no European had passed this part of the African coast.
+On Christmas Day they found land to which, in commemoration of Christ's
+Nativity, they gave the name of Natal. Passing Delagoa Bay and Sofala
+without sighting them, Vasco da Gama at last reached the mouth of a
+broad river, now known as Quilimane River, but called by the weary
+mariners the River of Mercy or Good Tokens. Here they spent a month
+cleaning and repairing, <a name="page176"></a>and here for the first time in the history
+of discovery the fell disease of scurvy broke out. The hands and feet
+of the men swelled, their gums grew over their teeth, which fell out
+so that they could not eat. This proved to be one of the scourges of
+early navigation&mdash;the result of too much salted food on the high seas,
+and no cure was found till the days of Captain Cook. Arrived at
+Mozambique&mdash;a low-lying coral island&mdash;they found no less than four
+ocean-going ships belonging to Arab traders laden with gold, silver,
+cloves, pepper, ginger, rubies, and pearls from the East.</p>
+
+<a name="ill072"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 72">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="637">
+			<img src="images/072.jpg" alt="AFRICA AS IT WAS KNOWN AFTER DA GAMA'S EXPEDITIONS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="637" align="center">
+			<small>AFRICA AS IT WAS KNOWN AFTER DA GAMA'S EXPEDITIONS.<br>
+			From Juan de la Cosa's map of 1500.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>There were rumours, too, of a land belonging to Prester John where
+precious stones and spices were so plentiful that they could be
+collected in baskets. His land could only be reached by camels. "This
+information rendered us so happy that we cried with joy, and prayed
+God to grant us health that we might behold what we so desired," relates
+the faithful journal. But difficulties and delays prevented their
+reaching the ever-mythical land of Prester John. Their next
+landing-place was Mombasa. Here they were nearly killed by some
+treacherous Mohammedans, who hated these "dogs of Christians" as they
+called them. And the Portuguese were glad to sail on to Melindi, where
+the tall, whitewashed houses standing round the bay, with their
+coco-palms, maize fields, and hop gardens, reminded them of one of
+their own cities on the Tagus. Here all was friendly. The King of
+Melindi sent three sheep and free leave for the strangers to enter
+the port. Vasco, in return, sent the King a cassock, two strings of
+coral, three washhand basins, a hat, and some bells. Whereupon the
+King, splendidly dressed in a damask robe with green satin and an
+embroidered turban, allowed himself to be rowed out to the flagship.
+He was protected from the sun by a crimson satin umbrella.</p>
+<a name="page177"></a>
+<p>Nine days were pleasantly passed in the port at Melindi, and then,
+with a Christian pilot provided by the King, the most thrilling part
+of the voyage began with a start across the Arabian Gulf to the west
+coast of India. For twenty-three days the ships sailed to the
+north-east, with no land visible. Suddenly the dim outline of land
+was sighted and the whole crew rushed on deck to catch the first glimpse
+of the unknown coast of India. They had just discerned the outline
+of lofty mountains, when a thunderstorm burst over the land and a
+downpour of heavy rain blotted out the view.</p>
+
+<a name="ill073"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 73">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="665">
+			<img src="images/073.jpg" alt="CALICUT AND THE SOUTHERN INDIAN COAST">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="665" align="center">
+			<small>CALICUT AND THE SOUTHERN INDIAN COAST.<br>
+			From Juan de la Cosa's map of 1500.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At last on 21st May&mdash;nearly eleven months after the start from
+Portugal&mdash;the little Portuguese ships anchored off Calicut.</p>
+
+<p>"What has brought you hither?" cried the natives, probably surprised
+at their foreign dress; "and what seek ye so far from home?"</p>
+<a name="page178"></a>
+<p>"We are in search of Christians and spice," was the ready answer.</p>
+
+<p>"A lucky venture. Plenty of emeralds. You owe great thanks to God for
+having brought you to a country holding such riches," was the
+Mohammedan answer.</p>
+
+<p>"The city of Calicut," runs the diary, "is inhabited by Christians.
+They are of a tawny complexion. Some of them have big beards and long
+hair, whilst others clip their hair short as a sign that they are
+Christians. They also wear moustaches."</p>
+
+<p>Within the town, merchants lived in wooden houses thatched with palm
+leaves. It must have been a quaint sight to see Vasco da Gama,
+accompanied by thirteen of his Portuguese, waving the flag of their
+country, carried shoulder high through the densely crowded streets
+of Calicut on his way to the chief temple and on to the palace of the
+King. Roofs and windows were thronged with eager spectators anxious
+to see these Europeans from so far a country. Many a scuffle took place
+outside the palace gates; knives were brandished, and men were injured
+before the successful explorer reached the King of Calicut. The royal
+audience took place just before sunset on 28th May 1498. The King lay
+on a couch covered with green velvet under a gilt canopy, while Vasco
+da Gama related an account of Portugal and his King, the "lord of many
+countries and the possessor of great wealth exceeding that of any King
+of these parts, adding that for sixty years the Portuguese had been
+trying to find the sea-route to India. The King gave leave for the
+foreigners to barter their goods, but the Indians scoffed at their
+offer of hats, scarlet hoods, coral, sugar, and oil.</p>
+
+<p>"That which I ask of you is gold, silver, corals, and scarlet cloth,"
+said the King, "for my country is rich in cinnamon, cloves, ginger,
+pepper, and precious stones."</p>
+<a name="page179"></a>
+<p>Vasco da Gama left India with a scant supply of Christians and spices,
+but with his great news he now hurried back to Portugal. What if he
+had lost his brother Paul and over one hundred of his men after his
+two years' absence, he had discovered the ocean-route to India&mdash;a
+discovery more far-reaching than he had any idea of at this time.</p>
+
+<p>"And the King," relates the old historian, "overjoyed at his coming,
+sent a Nobleman and several Gentlemen to bring him to Court; where,
+being arrived through Crowds of Spectators, he was received with
+extraordinary honour. For this Glorious Price of Service, the
+Privilege of being called Don was annexed to his Family: To his Arms
+was added Part of the King's. He had a Pension of three thousand Ducats
+yearly, and he was afterwards presented to greater Honours for his
+Services in the Indies, where he will soon appear again."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap25"></a><a name="page180"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXV</h3>
+
+<h4>DISCOVERY OF THE SPICE ISLANDS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>It was but natural that the Portuguese, flushed with victory, should
+at once dispatch another expedition to India.</p>
+
+<p>Was there some vexation in the heart of the "Admiral of India" when
+the command of the new fleet was given to Pedro Cabral? History is
+silent. Anyhow, in the March of 1500 we find this "Gentleman of Great
+Merit" starting off with thirteen powerfully armed ships and some
+fifteen hundred men, among them the veteran explorer Bartholomew Diaz,
+a party of eight Franciscan friars to convert the Mohammedans, eight
+chaplains, skilled gunners, and merchants to buy and sell in the King's
+name at Calicut. The King himself accompanied Cabral to the waterside.
+He had already adopted the magnificent title, "King, by the Grace of
+God, of Portugal, and of the Algarves, both on this side the sea and
+beyond it in Africa, Lord of Guinea and of the Conquest, Navigation,
+and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India."</p>
+
+<p>Then Cabral, flying a banner with the royal arms of Portugal, started
+on a voyage which was to secure for Portugal "an empire destined to
+be richer and greater than all her dominions in Asia." Sailing far
+to the west, he fell in with the South American continent and was
+carried to a new land. The men went on shore and brought word that
+"it was a fruitful country, full of trees <a name="page181"></a>and well inhabited. The people
+were swarthy and used bows and arrows." That night a storm arose and
+they ran along the coast to seek a port. Here Mass was said and parrots
+exchanged for paper and cloth. Then Cabral erected a cross (which was
+still shown when Lindley visited Brazil three hundred years later)
+and named the country the "Land of the Holy Cross." This name was,
+however, discarded later when the new-found land was identified with
+Brazil already sighted by Pinzon in one of the ships of Christopher
+Columbus.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, unconscious of the importance of this discovery, Cabral
+sailed on towards the Cape of Good Hope. There is no time to tell of
+the great comet that appeared, heralding a terrific storm that
+suddenly burst upon the little fleet. In the darkness and tempest four
+ships went down with all hands&mdash;amongst them old Bartholomew Diaz,
+the discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope, who thus perished in the waters
+he had been the first to navigate.</p>
+
+<p>September found Cabral at last at anchor off Calicut. He found the
+King yet more resplendent than Vasco da Gama the year before. The old
+historians revel in their descriptions of him. "On his Head was a Cap
+of Cloth of Gold, at his Ears hung Jewels, composed of Diamonds,
+Sapphires, and Pearls, two of which were larger than Walnuts. His Arms,
+from the Elbow to the Wrist and from the knees downwards, were loaded
+with bracelets set with infinite Precious Stones of great Value. His
+Fingers and Toes were covered with Rings. In that on his great Toe
+was a large Rubie of a surprising Lustre. Among the rest there was
+a Diamond bigger than a large Bean. But all this was nothing, in
+comparison to the Richness of his Girdle, made with precious stones
+set in Gold, which cast a Lustre that dazzled every Body's Eyes."</p>
+<a name="page182"></a>
+<p>He allowed Cabral to establish a d&eacute;p&ocirc;t at Calicut for European goods,
+so a house was selected by the waterside and a flag bearing the arms
+of Portugal erected on the top. For a time all went well, but the
+Mohammedans proved to be difficult customers, and disputes soon arose.
+A riot took place; the infuriated native traders stormed the d&eacute;p&ocirc;t
+and killed the Portuguese within. Cabral in revenge bombarded the city,
+and, leaving the wooden houses in flames, he sailed away to Cochin
+and Cananor on the coast of Malabar. Soon after this he returned home
+with only six out of the thirteen ships, and from this time he
+disappears from the pages of history.</p>
+
+<p>Just before his return, the King of Portugal, thinking trade was well
+established between India and his own country, dispatched a "valiant
+gentleman" in command of four ships to carry merchandise to the newly
+discovered country. But his voyage and adventures are only important
+inasmuch as he discovered the island of Ascension when outward bound
+and the island of St. Helena on the way home. So favourable was the
+account of this island that all Portugal admirals were ordered for
+the future to touch there for refreshments.</p>
+
+<p>The news of Cabral's adventures at Calicut inspired a yet larger
+expedition to the East, and Vasco da Gama, now Admiral of the Eastern
+seas, was given command of some fifteen ships which sailed from the
+Tagus in February 1502. The expedition, though avowedly Christian,
+was characterised by injustice and cruelty. Near the coast of Malabar
+the Portuguese fleet met with a large ship full of Mohammedan pilgrims
+from Mecca. The wealth on board was known to be enormous, and Don Vasco
+commanded the owners to yield up their riches to the King of Portugal.
+This they somewhat naturally refused to do. Whereupon the Portuguese
+fired, standing calmly to watch the blazing ships with their human
+<a name="page183"></a>freight of men, women, and children. True, one historian declares that
+all the children were removed to the Portuguese ship to be converted
+into good little Catholics. Another is more nearly concerned with the
+money. "We took a Mecca ship on board of which were three hundred and
+eighty men and many women and children, and we took from it fully twelve
+thousand ducats, with goods worth at least another ten thousand. And
+we burned the ship and all the people on board with gunpowder on the
+first day of October."</p>
+
+<a name="ill074"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 74">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="350">
+			<img src="images/074.jpg" alt="THE MALABAR COAST">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="350" align="center">
+			<small>THE MALABAR COAST.<br>
+			From Fra Mauro's map.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Their instructions to banish every Mohammedan in Calicut was
+faithfully obeyed. Don Vasco seized and hanged a number of helpless
+merchants quietly trading in the harbour. Cutting off their heads,
+hands, and feet, he had them flung into a boat, which was allowed to
+drift ashore, with a cruel suggestion that the severed limbs would
+make an Indian curry. Once more Calicut was bombarded and Don Vasco
+sailed on to other ports on the Malabar coast, where he loaded his
+ships with spices taken from poor folk who dared not refuse. He then
+sailed home again, reaching Portugal "safe and sound, <i>Deo gratias</i>,"
+but leaving behind him hatred and terror and a very quaint idea of
+these Christians who felt it their duty to exterminate all followers
+of Mohammed.</p>
+
+<p>Conquest usually succeeds discovery, and the Portuguese, having
+discovered the entire coast of West, South, <a name="page184"></a>and a good deal of East
+Africa and western coast of India, now proceeded to conquer it for
+their own. It was a far cry from Portugal to India in these days, and
+the isolated d&eacute;p&ocirc;ts on the coast of Malabar were obviously in danger,
+when the foreign ships laden with spoil left their shores. True, Vasco
+da Gama had left six little ships this time under Sodrez to cruise
+about the Indian seas, but Sodrez wanted treasure, so he cruised
+northwards and found the southern coasts of Arabia as well as the island
+of Socotra. He had been warned of the tempestuous seas that raged about
+these parts at certain seasons, but, heeding not the warning, he
+perished with all his knowledge and treasure.</p>
+
+<p>Expedition after expedition now left Portugal for the east coast of
+Africa and India. There were the two cousins Albuquerque, who built
+a strong fort of wood and mud at Cochin, leaving a garrison of one
+hundred and fifty trained soldiers under the command of one Pacheco,
+who saved the fort and kept things going under great difficulties.
+On the return of Albuquerque, the hero of Cochin, the King decided
+to appoint a Viceroy of India. He would fain have appointed Tristan
+d'Acunha,&mdash;the discoverer of the island that still bears his
+name,&mdash;but he was suddenly struck with blindness, and in his stead
+Dom Francisco Almeida, "a nobleman of courage and experience," sailed
+off with the title of Viceroy. Not only was he to conquer, but to command,
+not only to sustain the sea-power of Portugal, but to form a government.</p>
+
+<p>There is a story told of the ignorance of the men sent to man the ships
+under Almeida. So raw were they that they hardly knew their right hand
+from their left, still less the difference between starboard and
+larboard, till their captain hit on the happy notion of tying a bundle
+of garlic over one side of the ship and a handful of onions over the
+other, so the pilot gave orders to the helmsman thus: "Onion your helm!"
+or "Garlic your helm!"</p>
+<a name="page185"></a>
+<a name="ill075"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 75">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="497">
+			<img src="images/075.jpg" alt="A SHIP OF ALBUQUERQUE'S FLEET">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="497" align="center">
+			<small>A SHIP OF ALBUQUERQUE'S FLEET.<br>
+			From a very fine woodcut, published about 1516, of Albuquerque's
+			siege and capture of Aden. In the British Museum.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On the way out, Almeida built a strong fortress near Zanzibar,
+organised a regular Portuguese Indian pilot service, and established
+his seat of government at Cochin. Then he sent his son, a daring youth
+of eighteen, to bombard the city of Quilon, whose people were
+constantly intriguing against the Portuguese. Having carried out his
+orders, young Lorenzo, ordered to explore the Maldive Islands, was
+driven by a storm to an "island opposite <a name="page186"></a>Cape Comorin, called Ceylon,
+and separated from thence by a narrow sea," where he was warmly received
+by the native King, whose dress sparkled with diamonds. Lorenzo
+erected here a marble pillar with the arms of Portugal carved thereon
+and took possession of the island. He also sent back to Portugal the
+first elephant ever sent thither.</p>
+
+<p>Ceylon was now the farthest point which flew the flag of Portugal toward
+the east. Doubtless young Lorenzo would have carried it farther, but
+he was killed at the early age of twenty-one, his legs being shattered
+by a cannon-ball during a sea-fight. He sat by the mainmast and
+continued to direct the fighting till a second shot ended his short
+but brilliant career. The Viceroy, "whose whole being was centred in
+his devotion to his only son, received the tidings with outward
+stoicism." "Regrets," he merely remarked, "regrets are for women."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless he revenged the death of his son by winning a victory
+over the opposing fleet and bidding his captains rejoice over "the
+good vengeance our Lord has been pleased, of His mercy, to grant us."</p>
+
+<p>But the days of Almeida were numbered. He had subdued the Indian coast,
+he had extended Portuguese possessions in various directions, his term
+of office was over, and he was succeeded by the famous Albuquerque,
+who had already distinguished himself in the service of Portugal by
+his efforts to obtain Ormuz for the Portuguese. Now Viceroy of India,
+he found full scope for his boundless energy and vast ambition. He
+first attacked Calicut and reduced it to ashes. Then he turned his
+attention to Goa, which he conquered, and which became the commercial
+capital of the Portuguese in India for the next hundred years. Not
+only this, but it was soon the wealthiest city on the face of the earth
+and the <a name="page187"></a>seat of the government. Albuquerque's next exploit was yet
+more brilliant and yet more important.</p>
+
+<a name="ill076"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 76">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="488">
+			<img src="images/076.jpg" alt="A SHIP OF JAVA AND THE CHINA SEAS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="488" align="center">
+			<small>A SHIP OF JAVA AND THE CHINA SEAS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.<br>
+			From Linschoten's <i>Navigatio ac Itinerarium</i>, 1598.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In 1509 he had sent a Portuguese explorer Sequira with a small squadron
+to make discoveries in the East. He was to cross the Bay of Bengal
+and explore the coast of Malacca. Sequira reached the coast and found
+it a centre for trade from east and west, "most rich and populous."
+But he had reason to suspect the demonstrations of friendship by the
+king of these parts, and refused to attend a festival prepared in his
+honour. This was fortunate, for some of his companions who landed for
+trade were killed. He sailed about the island of Sumatra, "the first
+land in which we knew of men's flesh being eaten by certain people
+in the mountains who gild their teeth. In their opinion the flesh of
+the blacks is sweeter than that of whites." Many were the strange tales
+brought back to Cochin by Sequira from the new lands&mdash;<a name="page188"></a>rivers of
+oil&mdash;hens with flesh as black as ink&mdash;people with tails like sheep.</p>
+
+<p>Anyhow, Albuquerque resolved that Malacca should belong to the
+Portuguese, and with nineteen ships and fourteen hundred fighting men
+he arrived off the coast of Sumatra, spreading terror and dismay among
+the multitudes that covered the shore. The work of destruction was
+short, though the King of Pahang and King Mahomet came out in person
+on huge elephants to help in the defence of their city. At last every
+inhabitant of the city was driven out or slain, and the Portuguese
+plundered the city to their hearts' content. The old historian waxes
+eloquent on the wealth of the city, and the laden ships started back,
+leaving a fort and a church under the care of Portuguese conquerors.
+The amount of booty mattered little, as a violent storm off the coast
+of Sumatra disposed of several ships and a good deal of treasure.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of Malacca was one of vast importance to the Portuguese. Was
+it not the key to the Eastern gate of the Indian Ocean&mdash;the gate through
+which the whole commerce of the Spice Islands, the Philippines, Japan,
+and far Cathay passed on its road to the Mediterranean? Was it not
+one of the largest trade markets in Asia, where rode the strange ships
+of many a distant shore? The fame of Albuquerque spread throughout
+the Eastern world. But he was not content with Malacca. The Spice
+Islands lay beyond&mdash;the Spice Islands with all their cloves and
+nutmegs and their countless riches must yet be won for Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this year, 1511, they had not been reached by the Portuguese.
+But now Francisco Serrano was sent off from Malacca to explore farther.
+Skirting the north of Java, he found island after island rich in cloves
+and nutmeg. So struck was he with his new discoveries that he wrote
+to his friend Magellan: "I have <a name="page189"></a>discovered yet another new world larger
+and richer than that found by Vasco da Gama."</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to remember how vastly important was this little group
+of islands&mdash;now part of the Malay Archipelago and belonging to the
+Dutch&mdash;to the explorers of the sixteenth century. Strange tales as
+usual reached Portugal about these newly found lands. Here lived men
+with "spurs on their ankles like cocks," hogs with horns, hens that
+laid their eggs nine feet under ground, rivers with living fish, yet
+so hot that they took the skin off any man that bathed in their waters,
+poisonous crabs, oysters with shells so large that they served as fonts
+for baptizing children.</p>
+
+<p>Truly these mysterious Spice Islands held more attractions for the
+Portuguese explorers than did the New World of Columbus and Vespucci.
+Their possession meant riches and wealth and&mdash;this was not the end.
+Was there not land beyond? Indeed, before the Spice Islands were
+conquered by Portugal, trade had already been opened up with China
+and, before the century was half over, three Portuguese seamen had
+visited Japan.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap26"></a><a name="page190"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVI</h3>
+
+<h4>BALBOA SEES THE PACIFIC OCEAN</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>It is said that Ferdinand Magellan, the hero of all geographical
+discovery, with his circumnavigation of the whole round world, had
+cruised about the Spice Islands, but what he really knew of them from
+personal experience no one knows. He had served under Almeida, and
+with Albuquerque had helped in the conquest of Malacca. After seven
+years of a "vivid life of adventure by sea and land, a life of siege
+and shipwreck, of war and wandering," inaction became impossible. He
+busied himself with charts and the art of navigation. He dreamt of
+reaching the Spice Islands by sailing <i>west</i>, and after a time he laid
+his schemes before the King of Portugal. Whether he was laughed at
+as a dreamer or a fool we know not. His plans were received with cold
+refusal. History repeats itself. Like Christopher Columbus twenty
+years before, Magellan now said good-bye to Portugal and made his way
+to Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Since the first discovery of the New World by Spain, that country had
+been busy sending out explorer after explorer to discover and annex
+new portions of America. Bold navigators, Pinzon, Mendoza, Bastidas,
+Juan de la Cosa, and Solis&mdash;these and others had almost completed the
+discovery of the east coast, indeed, Solis might have been the first
+to see the great Pacific Ocean had he not been killed and eaten at
+the mouth of the river La Plata. This great discovery was left to Vasco
+Nunez <a name="page191"></a>de Balboa, who first saw beyond the strange New World from the
+Peak of Darien. Now his discovery threw a lurid light on to the
+limitation of land that made up the new country and illuminated the
+scheme of Magellan.</p>
+
+<p>Balboa was "a gentleman of good family, great parts, liberal education,
+of a fine person, and in the flower of his age." He had emigrated to
+the new Spanish colony of Hayti, where he had got into debt. No debtor
+was allowed to leave the island, but Balboa, the gentleman of good
+family, yearned for further exploration; he "yearned beyond the
+sky-line where the strange roads go down." And one day the yearning
+grew so great that he concealed himself in a bread cask on board a
+ship leaving the shores of Hayti. For some days he remained hidden.
+When the ship was well out to sea he made his appearance. Angry, indeed,
+was the captain&mdash;so angry that he threatened to land the stowaway on
+a desert island. He was, however, touched by the entreaties of the
+crew, and Balboa was allowed to sail on in the ship. It was a fortunate
+decision, for when, soon after, the ship ran heavily upon a rock, it
+was the Spanish stowaway Balboa who saved the party from destruction.
+He led the shipwrecked crew to a river of which he knew, named Darien
+by the Indians. He did <i>not</i> know that they stood on the narrow neck
+of land&mdash;the isthmus of Panama&mdash;which connects North and South America.
+The account of the Spanish intrusion is typical: "After having
+performed their devotions, the Spaniards fell resolutely on the
+Indians, whom they soon routed, and then went to the town, which they
+found full of provisions to their wish. Next day they marched up the
+country among the neighbouring mountains, where they found houses
+replenished with a great deal of cotton, both spun and unspun, plates
+of gold in all to the value of ten thousand pieces of fine gold."</p>
+<a name="page192"></a>
+<p>A trade in gold was set up by Balboa, who became governor of the new
+colony formed by the Spaniards; but the greed of these foreigners quite
+disgusted the native prince of these parts.</p>
+
+<p>"What is this, Christians? Is it for such a little thing that you
+quarrel? If you have such a love of gold, I will show you a country
+where you may fulfil your desires. You will have to fight your way
+with great kings whose country is distant from our country six suns."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he pointed away to the south, where he said lay a great
+sea. Balboa resolved to find this great sea. It might be the ocean
+sought by Columbus in vain, beyond which was the land of great riches
+where people drank out of golden cups. So he collected some two hundred
+men and started forth on an expedition full of doubt and danger. He
+had to lead his troops, worn with fatigue and disease, through deep
+marshes rendered impassable with heavy rains, over mountains covered
+with trackless forest, and through defiles from which the Indians
+showered down poisoned arrows.</p>
+
+<p>At last, led by native guides, Balboa and his men struggled up the
+side of a high mountain. When near the top he bade his men stop. He
+alone must be the first to see the great sight that no European had
+yet beheld. With "transports of delight" he gained the top and, "silent
+upon a peak in Darien," he looked down on the boundless ocean, bathed
+in tropical sunshine. Falling on his knees, he thanked God for his
+discovery of the Southern Sea. Then he called up his men. "You see
+here, gentlemen and children mine, the end of our labours."</p>
+
+<p>The notes of the "Te Deum" then rang out on the still summer air, and,
+having made a cross of stones, the little party hurried to the shore.
+Finding two canoes, they sprang in, crying aloud joyously that they
+were the first <a name="page193"></a>Europeans to sail on the new sea, whilst Balboa himself
+plunged in, sword in hand, and claimed possession of the Southern Ocean
+for the King of Spain. The natives told him that the land to the south
+was <i>without end</i>, and that it was possessed by powerful nations who
+had abundance of gold. And Balboa thought this referred to the Indies,
+knowing nothing as yet of the riches of Peru.</p>
+
+<a name="ill077"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 77">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548">
+			<img src="images/077.jpg" alt="ONE OF THE FIRST MAPS OF THE PACIFIC">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548" align="center">
+			<small>ONE OF THE FIRST MAPS OF THE PACIFIC.<br>
+			From Diego Ribero's map, 1529.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It is melancholy to learn that the man who made this really great
+discovery was publicly hanged four years later in Darien. But his news
+had reached Magellan. There was then a great Southern Ocean beyond
+the New World. He was more certain than ever now that by this sea he
+could reach the Spice Islands. Moreover, he persuaded the young King
+of Spain that his country had a right to these valuable islands, and
+promised that he <a name="page194"></a>would conduct a fleet round the south of the great
+new continent westward to these islands. His proposal was accepted
+by Charles <small>V</small>., and the youthful Spanish monarch provided Spanish ships
+for the great enterprise. The voyage was not popular, the pay was low,
+the way unknown, and in the streets of Seville the public crier called
+for volunteers. Hence it was a motley crew of some two hundred and
+eighty men, composed of Spaniards, Portuguese, Genoese, French,
+Germans, Greeks, Malays, and one Englishman only. There were five
+ships. "They are very old and patched," says a letter addressed to
+the King of Portugal, "and I would be sorry to sail even for the Canaries
+in them, for their ribs are soft as butter."</p>
+
+<p>Magellan hoisted his flag on board the <i>Trinidad</i> of one hundred and
+ten tons' burden. The largest ship, <i>S. Antonio</i>, was captained by
+a Spaniard&mdash;Cartagena; the <i>Conception</i>, ninety tons, by Gaspar
+Quesada; the <i>Victoria</i> of eighty-five tons, who alone bore home the
+news of the circumnavigation of the world, was at first commanded by
+the traitor Mendoza; and the little <i>Santiago</i>, seventy-five tons,
+under the brother of Magellan's old friend Serrano.</p>
+
+<p>What if the commander himself left a young wife and a son of six months
+old? The fever of discovery was upon him, and, flying the Spanish flag
+for the first time in his life, Magellan, on board the <i>Trinidad</i>,
+led his little fleet away from the shores of Spain. He never saw wife
+or child again. Before three years had passed all three were dead.</p>
+
+<p>Carrying a torch or faggot of burning wood on the poop, so that the
+ships should never lose sight of it, the <i>Trinidad</i> sailed onwards.</p>
+
+<p>"Follow the flagship and ask no questions."</p>
+
+<p>Such were his instructions to his not too loyal captains.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap27"></a><a name="page195"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVII</h3>
+
+<h4>MAGELLAN SAILS ROUND THE WORLD</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>They had left Seville on 20th September 1519. A week later they were
+at the Canaries. Then past Cape Verde, and land faded from their sight
+as they made for the south-west. For some time they had a good run
+in fine weather. Then "the upper air burst into life" and a month of
+heavy gales followed. The Italian count, who accompanied the fleet,
+writes long accounts of the sufferings of the crew during these
+terrific Atlantic storms.</p>
+
+<p>"During these storms," he says, "the body of St. Anselm appeared to
+us several times; one night that it was very dark on account of the
+bad weather the saint appeared in the form of a fire lighted at the
+summit of the mainmast and remained there near two hours and a half,
+which comforted us greatly, for we were in tears only expecting the
+hour of perishing; and, when that holy light was going away from us,
+it gave out so great a brilliancy in the eyes of each, that we were
+like people blinded and calling out for mercy. For without any doubt
+nobody hoped to escape from that storm."</p>
+
+<p>Two months of incessant rain and diminished rations added to their
+miseries. The spirit of mutiny now began to show itself. Already the
+Spanish captains had murmured against the Portuguese commander.</p>
+
+<p>"Be they false men or true, I will fear them not; I will do my appointed
+work," said the commander firmly.</p>
+<a name="page196"></a>
+<p>It was not till November that they made the coast of Brazil in South
+America, already sighted by Cabral and explored by Pinzon. But the
+disloyal captains were not satisfied, and one day the captain of the
+<i>S. Antonio</i> boarded the flagship and openly insulted Magellan. He
+must have been a little astonished when the Portuguese commander
+seized him by the collar, exclaiming: "You are my prisoner!" giving
+him into custody and appointing another in his place.</p>
+
+<p>Food was now procurable, and a quantity of sweet pine-apples must have
+had a soothing effect on the discontented crews. The natives traded
+on easy terms. For a knife they produced four or five fowls; for a
+comb, fish for ten men; for a little bell, a basket full of sweet
+potatoes. A long drought had preceded Magellan's visit to these parts,
+but rain now began with the advent of the strangers, and the natives
+made sure that they had brought it with them. Such an impression once
+made there was little difficulty in converting them to the Christian
+faith. The natives joined in prayer with the Spaniards, "remaining
+on their knees with their hands joined in great reverence so that it
+was a pleasure to see them," writes one of the party.</p>
+
+<p>The day after Christmas again found them sailing south by the coast,
+and early in the New Year they anchored at the mouth of the Rio de
+la Plata, where Solis had lost his life at the hands of the cannibals
+some five years before. He had succeeded Vespucci in the service of
+Spain, and was exploring the coast when a body of Indians, "with a
+terrible cry and most horrible aspect," suddenly rushed out upon them,
+killed, roasted, and devoured them.</p>
+
+<p>Through February and March, Magellan led his ships along the shores
+of bleak Patagonia seeking for an outlet for the Spice Islands. Winter
+was coming on and no <a name="page197"></a>straits had yet been found. Storm after storm
+now burst over the little ships, often accompanied by thunder and
+lightning; poops and forecastles were carried away, and all expected
+destruction, when "the holy body of St. Anselm appeared and
+immediately the storm ceased."</p>
+
+<a name="ill078"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 78">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551">
+			<img src="images/078.jpg" alt="AN ATLANTIC FLEET OF MAGELLAN'S TIME">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551" align="center">
+			<small>AN ATLANTIC FLEET OF MAGELLAN'S TIME.<br>
+			From Mercator's <i>Mappe Monde</i>, 1569, where the drawing is spoken of as "Magellan's
+			ships."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was quite impossible to proceed farther to the unknown south, so,
+finding a safe and roomy harbour, Magellan decided to winter there.
+Port St. Julian he named it, and he knew full well that there they
+must remain some four or five months. He put the crew on diminished
+rations for fear the food should run short before they achieved their
+goal. This was the last straw. Mutiny had long been smouldering. The
+hardships of the voyage, the terrific Atlantic storms, the prospect
+of a long Antarctic winter of inaction on that wild Patagonian
+coast&mdash;these alone caused officers and men to grumble and to demand
+an immediate return to Spain.</p>
+
+<p>But the "stout heart of Magellan" was undaunted.</p>
+
+<p>On Easter Day the mutiny began. Two of the Spanish captains boarded
+the <i>S. Antonio</i>, seized the Portuguese captain thereof, and put him
+in chains. Then stores were broken open, bread and wine generously
+handed round, <a name="page198"></a>and a plot hatched to capture the flagship, kill Magellan,
+seize his faithful Serrano, and sail home to Spain.</p>
+
+<p>The news reached Magellan's ears. He at once sent a messenger with
+five men bearing hidden arms to summon the traitor captain on board
+the flagship. Of course he stoutly refused. As he did so, the messenger
+sprang upon him and stabbed him dead. As the rebellious captain fell
+dead on the deck of his ship, the dazed crew at once surrendered. Thus
+Magellan by his prompt measures quelled a mutiny that might have lost
+him the whole expedition. No man ever tried to mutiny again while he
+lived and commanded.</p>
+
+<a name="ill079"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 79">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="342">
+			<img src="images/079.jpg" alt="FERDINAND MAGELLAN, THE FIRST CIRCUMNAVIGATOR OF THE WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="342" align="center">
+			<small>FERDINAND MAGELLAN, THE FIRST CIRCUMNAVIGATOR OF THE WORLD.<br>
+			After the engraving by Selma in Navarrete's <i>Coleccion de los Viages</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The fleet had been two whole months in the Port S. Julian without seeing
+a single native.</p>
+
+<p>"However, one day, without any one expecting it, we saw a giant, who
+was on the shore of the sea, dancing and leaping and singing. He was
+so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist; he was well
+built; he had a large face, painted red all round, and his eyes also
+were painted yellow around them, and he had two hearts painted on his
+cheeks; he had but little hair on his head and it was painted white."</p>
+
+<p>The great Patagonian giant pointed to the sky to know whether these
+Spaniards had descended from above. He was soon joined by others
+evidently greatly surprised to see such large ships and such little
+men. Indeed, the heads of the Spaniards hardly reached the giants'
+waists, and they must have been greatly astonished when two of them
+ate a large basketful of biscuits and rats without skinning them and
+drank half a bucket of water at each sitting.</p>
+
+<p>With the return of spring weather in October 1520, Magellan led the
+little fleet upon its way. He was rewarded a few days later by finding
+the straits for which he and others had been so long searching.</p>
+<a name="page199"></a>
+<p>"It was the straight," says the historian simply, "now cauled the
+straight of Magellans."</p>
+
+<p>A struggle was before them. For more than five weeks the Spanish
+mariners fought their way through the winding channels of the unknown
+straits. On one side rose high mountains covered with snow. The weather
+was bad, the way unknown. Do we wonder to read that "one of the ships
+stole away privily and returned into Spain," and the remaining men
+begged piteously to be taken home? Magellan spoke "in measured and
+quiet tones": "If I have to eat the leather of the ships' yards, yet
+will I go on and do my work." His words came truer than he knew. On
+the southern side of the strait constant fires were seen, which led
+Magellan to give the land the name it bears to-day&mdash;Tierra del Fuego.
+It was not visited again for a hundred years.</p>
+
+<a name="ill080"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 80">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="244">
+			<img src="images/080.jpg" alt="A SHIP OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="244" align="center">
+			<small>A SHIP OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.<br>
+			From Amoretti's translation of <i>Magellan's Voyage round the World</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At last the ships fought their way to the open sea&mdash;Balboa's Southern
+Ocean&mdash;and "when the Captain Magellan was past the strait and saw the
+way open to the other main sea he was so glad thereof that for joy
+the tears fell from his eyes."</p>
+
+<p>The expanse of calm waters seemed so pleasant after the heavy tiring
+storms that he called the still waters before him the Pacific Ocean.
+Before following him across the unknown waters, let us recall the
+quaint lines of Camoens&mdash;</p>
+<a name="page200"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem23">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Along these regions, from the burning zone<br>
+			&nbsp;To deepest south, he dares the course unknown.<br>
+			&nbsp;A land of giants shall his eyes behold,<br>
+			&nbsp;Of camel strength, surpassing human mould;<br>
+			&nbsp;And, onward still, thy fame his proud heart's guide,<br>
+			&nbsp;Beneath the southern stars' cold gleam he braves<br>
+			&nbsp;And stems the whirls of land-surrounded waves,<br>
+			&nbsp;For ever sacred to the hero's fame,<br>
+			&nbsp;These foaming straits shall bear his deathless name.<br>
+			&nbsp;Through these dread jaws of rock he presses on<br>
+			&nbsp;Another ocean's breast, immense, unknown,<br>
+			&nbsp;Beneath the south's cold wings, unmeasur'd, wide,<br>
+			&nbsp;Received his vessels, through the dreary tide,<br>
+			&nbsp;In darkling shades, where never man before<br>
+			&nbsp;Heard the waves howl, he dares the nameless shore."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Three little ships had now emerged, battered and worn, manned by crews
+gaunt and thin and shivering. Magellan took a northerly course to avoid
+the intense cold, before turning to cross the strange obscure ocean,
+which no European had yet realised. Just before Christmas the course
+was altered and the ships were turned to the north-west, in which
+direction they expected soon to find the Spice Islands. No one had
+any idea of the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.</p>
+
+<a name="ill081"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 81">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="603">
+			<img src="images/081.jpg" alt="HONDIUS HIS MAP OF THE MAGELLAN STREIGHT">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="603" align="center">
+			<small>"HONDIUS HIS MAP OF THE MAGELLAN STREIGHT."<br>
+			From a map by Jodocus Hondius, about 1590. It gives a particularly clear picture
+			of the ideas held by the age following Magellan's discovery of the
+			land which, it was supposed, enveloped the southern point of South
+			America.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Well was it named the Pacific," remarks the historian, "for during
+three months and twenty days we met with no storm."</p>
+
+<p>Two months passed away, and still they sailed peacefully on, day after
+day, week after week, across a waste of desolate waters.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem24">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Alone, alone, all, all alone,<br>
+			&nbsp;Alone on a wide, wide sea."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At last one January day they sighted a small wooded island, but it
+was uninhabited; they named it S. Paul's Island and passed on their
+way. They had expected to find the shores of Asia close by those of
+America. The size of the world was astounding. Another island was
+passed. Again no people, no consolation, only many <a name="page201"></a>sharks. There was
+bitter disappointment on board. They had little food left. "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 to prevent the chafing
+against the rigging. These hides we exposed to the sun first to soften
+them by putting them overboard for four or five days, after which we
+put them on the embers and ate them thus. We had also to make use of
+sawdust for food, and rats became a great delicacy." No wonder scurvy
+broke out in its worst form&mdash;nineteen died and thirteen lay too ill
+to work.</p>
+
+<p>For ninety-eight days they sailed across the unknown sea, "a sea so
+vast that the human mind can scarcely grasp it," till at last they
+came on a little group of islands <a name="page202"></a>peopled with savages of the lowest
+type&mdash;such expert thieves that Magellan called the new islands the
+Ladrones or isle of robbers. Still, there was fresh food here, and
+the crews were greatly refreshed before they sailed away. The food
+came just too late to save the one Englishman of the party&mdash;Master
+Andrew of Bristol&mdash;who died just as they moved away. Then they found
+the group afterwards known as the Philippines (after Philip <small>II</small>. of
+Spain). Here were merchants from China, who assured Magellan that the
+famous Spice Islands were not far off. Now Magellan had practically
+accomplished that he set out to do, but he was not destined to reap
+the fruits of his victory.</p>
+
+<p>With a good supply of fresh food the sailors grew better, and Magellan
+preferred cruising about the islands, making friends of the natives
+and converting them to Christianity, to pushing on for the Spice
+Islands. Here was gold, too, and he busied himself making the native
+rulers pay tribute to Spain. Easter was drawing near, and the Easter
+services were performed on one of the islands. A cross and a crown
+of thorns was set upon the top of the highest mountain that all might
+see it and worship. Thus April passed away and Magellan was still busy
+with Christians and gold. But his enthusiasm carried him too far. A
+quarrel arose with one of the native kings. Magellan landed with armed
+men, only to be met by thousands of defiant natives. A desperate fight
+ensued. Again and again the explorer was wounded, till "at last the
+Indians threw themselves upon him with iron-pointed bamboo spears and
+every weapon they had and ran him through&mdash;our mirror, our light, our
+comforter, our true guide&mdash;until they killed him."</p>
+
+<p>Such was the tragic fate of Ferdinand Magellan, "the greatest of
+ancient and modern navigators," <a name="page203"></a>tragic because, after dauntless
+resolution and unwearied courage, he died in a miserable skirmish at
+the last on the very eve of victory.</p>
+
+<a name="ill082"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 82">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="541">
+			<img src="images/082.jpg" alt="THE FIRST SHIP THAT SAILED ROUND THE WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="541" align="center">
+			<small>THE FIRST SHIP THAT SAILED ROUND THE WORLD.<br>
+			Magellan's <i>Victoria</i>, from Hulsius's <i>Collection of Voyages</i>, 1602.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>With grief and despair in their hearts, the remaining members of the
+crew, now only one hundred and fifteen, crowded on to the <i>Trinidad</i>
+and <i>Victoria</i> for the homeward voyage. It was September 1522 when
+they reached the Spice Islands&mdash;the goal of all their hopes. Here they
+took on board some precious cloves and birds of Paradise, spent some
+pleasant months, and, laden with spices, resumed their journey. But
+the <i>Trinidad</i> was too overladen with cloves and too rotten to
+undertake so long a voyage till she had undergone repair, so the little
+<i>Victoria</i> alone sailed <a name="page204"></a>for Spain with sixty men aboard to carry home
+their great and wonderful news. Who shall describe the terrors of that
+homeward voyage, the suffering, starvation, and misery of the weary
+crew? Man after man drooped and died, till by the time they reached
+the Cape Verde Islands there were but eighteen left.</p>
+
+<p>When the welcome shores of Spain at length appeared, eighteen gaunt,
+famine-stricken survivors, with their captain, staggered ashore to
+tell their proud story of the first circumnavigation of the world by
+their lost commander, Ferdinand Magellan.</p>
+
+<p>We miss the triumphal return of the conqueror, the audience with the
+King of Spain, the heaped honours, the crowded streets, the titles,
+and the riches. The proudest crest ever granted by a sovereign&mdash;the
+world, with the words: "Thou hast encompassed me"&mdash;fell to the lot
+of Del Cano, the captain who brought home the little <i>Victoria</i>. For
+Magellan's son was dead, and his wife Beatrix, "grievously sorrowing,"
+had passed away on hearing the news of her husband's tragic end.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap28"></a><a name="page205"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVIII</h3>
+
+<h4>CORTES EXPLORES AND CONQUERS MEXICO</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>One would have thought that the revelation of this immense sheet of
+water on the far side of America would have drawn other explorers to
+follow, but news was slowly assimilated in those days, and it was not
+till fifty-three years later that the Pacific was crossed a second
+time by Sir Francis Drake.</p>
+
+<p>In the maps of the day, Newfoundland and Florida were both placed in
+Asia, while Mexico was identified with the Quinsay of Marco Polo. For
+even while Magellan was fighting the gales of the Atlantic <i>en route</i>
+for his long-sought strait, another strange and wonderful country was
+being unveiled and its unsurpassed wealth laid at the feet of Spain.
+The starting-place for further Spanish exploration had been, from the
+days of Columbus, the West Indies. From this centre, the coast of
+Florida had been discovered in 1513; from here, the same year, Balboa
+had discovered the Pacific Ocean; from here in 1517 a little fleet
+was fitted out under Francisco Hernando de Cordova, "a man very prudent
+and courageous and strongly disposed to kill and kidnap Indians." As
+pilot he had been with Columbus on his fourth voyage some fourteen
+years before. He suggested that his master had heard rumours of land
+to the West, and sure enough, after sailing past the peninsula of
+Yucatan, they found signs of the Eastern civilisation so long sought
+in vain.</p>
+<a name="page206"></a>
+<p>"Strange-looking towers or pyramids, ascended by stone steps, greeted
+their eyes, and the people who came out in canoes to watch the ships
+were clad in quilted cotton doublets and wore cloaks and brilliant
+plumes."</p>
+
+<p>They had heard of the Spaniards. Indeed, only one hundred miles of
+sea divided Yucatan from Cuba, and they were anything but pleased to
+see these strangers off their coast.</p>
+
+<p>"Couez cotoche" (Come to my house), they cried, for which reason
+Cordova called the place Cape Catoche, as it is marked in our maps
+to-day. Along the coast sailed the Spaniards to a place called by the
+Indians Quimpeche, now known as Campechy Bay. They were astonished
+to find how civilised were these natives, and how unlike any others
+they had met in these parts. But the inhabitants resented the landing
+of Cordova and his men, and with arrows and stones and darts they killed
+or wounded a great number of Spaniards, including the commander
+himself, who sent an account of his voyage to the Governor of Cuba
+and died a few days later.</p>
+
+<p>His information was interesting and inspiring, and soon young Juan
+Grijalva was on his way to the same land, accompanied by "two hundred
+and fifty stout soldiers" and the old pilot, Alvarado, who had led
+both Columbus and Cordova. Grijalva explored for the first time the
+coast of this great new country.</p>
+
+<p>"Mexico, Mexico," repeated the Indians with whom they conversed. Gold,
+too, was produced, gold ornaments, gold workmanship, until the young
+and handsome Grijalva was fitted out completely with a complete suit
+of gold armour. He returned enthusiastic over the new land where lived
+a powerful ruler over many cities. Surely this was none other than
+the Great Khan of Marco Polo fame, with the riches and magnificence
+of an Eastern potentate&mdash;a land worthy of further exploration.</p>
+<a name="page207"></a>
+<p>The conqueror of Mexico now comes upon the scene&mdash;young, bold, devout,
+unscrupulous, "a respectable gentleman of good birth"&mdash;Hernando
+Cortes. Great was the enthusiasm in Cuba to join the new expedition
+to the long-lost lands of the Great Khan; men sold their lands to buy
+horses and arms, pork was salted, armour was made, and at last Cortes,
+a plume of feathers and a gold medal in his cap, erected on board his
+ship a velvet flag with the royal arms embroidered in gold and the
+words: "Brothers, follow the cross in faith, for under its guidance
+we shall conquer."</p>
+
+<a name="ill083"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 83">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="297">
+			<img src="images/083.jpg" alt="HERNANDO CORTES, CONQUEROR OF MEXICO">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="297" align="center">
+			<small>HERNANDO CORTES, CONQUEROR OF MEXICO.<br>
+			After the original portrait at Mexico.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>His address to his men called forth their devotion: "I hold out to
+you a glorious prize, but it is to be won by incessant toil. Great
+things are achieved only by great exertions, and glory was never the
+reward of sloth. If I have laboured hard and staked my all on this
+undertaking, it is for the love of that renown, which is the noblest
+recompense of man. But if any among you covet riches more, be but true
+to me, as I will make you masters of such as our countrymen have never
+dreamed of. You are few in number, but strong in resolution; doubt
+not but that the Almighty, who has never deserted the Spaniard in his
+contest with the infidel, will shield you, for your cause is <a name="page208"></a>a just
+cause, and you are to fight under the banner of the Cross."</p>
+
+<p>In this spirit of enthusiasm the fleet sailed from the shores of Cuba
+on 18th February 1519, and was soon on its way to the land of Mexico.
+The pilot Alvarado was with this expedition also. Rounding Cape
+Catoche and coasting along the southern shores of Campechy Bay, with
+a pleasant breeze blowing off the shore, Cortes landed with all his
+force&mdash;some five hundred soldiers&mdash;on the very spot where now stands
+the city of Vera Cruz. "Little did the conqueror imagine that the
+desolate beach on which he first planted his foot was one day to be
+covered by a flourishing city, the great mart of European and Oriental
+trade&mdash;the commercial capital of New Spain."</p>
+
+<p>On a wide, level plain Cortes encamped, his soldiers driving in stakes
+and covering them with boughs to protect themselves from the scorching
+rays of the fierce, tropical sun. Natives came down to the shore,
+bringing their beautiful featherwork cloaks and golden ornaments.
+Cortes had brought presents for the great King&mdash;the Khan as he
+thought&mdash;and these he sent with a message that he had come from the
+King of Spain and greatly desired an audience with the Great Khan.
+The Indians were greatly surprised to hear that there was another King
+in the world as powerful as their Montezuma, who was more god than
+king, who ate from dishes of gold, on whose face none dared look, in
+whose presence none dared speak without leave.</p>
+
+<p>To impress the messengers of the King, Cortes ordered his soldiers
+to go through some of their military exercises on the wet sands. The
+bold and rapid movement of the troops, the glancing of the weapons,
+and the shrill cry of the trumpet filled the spectators with
+astonishment; but when they heard the thunder of the cannon and
+witnessed the volumes of smoke and flame issuing from <a name="page209"></a>these terrible
+engines, the rushing of the balls as they hissed through the trees
+of the neighbouring forest shivering their branches, they were filled
+with consternation.</p>
+
+<p>To the intense surprise of the Spaniards, these messengers sketched
+the whole scene on canvas with their pencils, not forgetting the
+Spanish ships or "water-houses" as they called them, with their dark
+hulls and snow-white sails reflected in the water as they swung lazily
+at anchor.</p>
+
+<p>Then they returned to the King and related the strange doings of the
+white strangers who had landed on their shores; they showed him their
+picture-writing, and Montezuma, king of the great Mexican empire which
+stretched from sea to sea, was "sore troubled." He refused to see the
+Spaniards&mdash;the distance of his capital was too great, since the
+journey was beset with difficulties. But the presents he sent were
+so gorgeous, so wonderful, that Cortes resolved to see for himself
+the city which produced such wealth, whatever its ruler might decree.
+Here was a plate of gold as large as a coach wheel representing the
+sun, one in silver even larger, representing the moon; there were
+numbers of golden toys representing dogs, lions, tigers, apes, ducks,
+and wonderful plumes of green feathers.</p>
+
+<p>The man who had sailed across two thousand leagues of ocean held lightly
+the idea of a short land journey, however difficult, and Cortes began
+his preparations for the march to Mexico. He built the little
+settlement at Vera Cruz, "The Rich Town of the True Cross," on the
+seashore as a basis for operations. Although the wealth allured them,
+there were many who viewed with dismay the idea of the long and
+dangerous march into the heart of a hostile land. After all they were
+but a handful of men pitted against a powerful nation. Murmurs arose
+which <a name="page210"></a>reached the ears of Cortes. He was equal to the occasion and
+resolutely burnt all the ships in the harbour save one. Then panic
+ensued. Mutiny threatened.</p>
+
+<p>"I have chosen my part!" cried Cortes. "I will remain here while there
+is one to bear me company. If there be any so craven as to shrink from
+sharing the dangers of our glorious enterprise, let them go home. There
+is still one vessel left. Let them take that and return to Cuba. They
+can tell there how they have deserted their commander and their
+comrades, and patiently wait till we return loaded with the spoils
+of Mexico."</p>
+
+<p>He touched the right chord. Visions of future wealth and glory rose
+again before them, confidence in their leader revived, and, shouting
+bravely, "To Mexico! to Mexico!" the party started off on their
+perilous march. It was 16th August 1519 when the little army, "buoyant
+with high hopes and lofty plans of conquest," set forth. The first
+part of the way lay through beautiful country rich in cochineal and
+vanilla, with groves of many-coloured birds and "insects whose
+enamelled wings glistened like diamonds in the blazing sun of the
+tropics."</p>
+
+<p>Then came the long and tedious ascent of the Cordilleras leading to
+the tableland of Mexico. Higher and higher grew the mountains. Heavy
+falls of sleet and hail, icy winds, and driving rain drenched the little
+Spanish party as they made their way bravely upwards, till at last
+they reached the level of seven thousand feet to find the great
+tableland rolling out along the crest of the Cordilleras.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto they had met with no opposition among the natives they had
+met. Indeed, as the little army advanced, it was often found that the
+inhabitants of the country fled awestruck from before them. Now the
+reason was this. The Mexicans believed in a god called the Bird-Serpent,
+around whom many a legend had grown up. Temples had been built in his
+honour and horrible human <a name="page211"></a>sacrifices offered to appease him, for was
+he not the Ruler of the Winds, the Lord of the Lightning, the Gatherer
+of the Clouds? But the bright god had sailed away one day, saying he
+would return with fair-skinned men to possess the land in the fulness
+of time. Surely, then, the time had come and their god had come again.
+Here were the fair-skinned men in shining armour marching back to their
+own again, and Cortes at their head&mdash;was he not the god himself? The
+cross, too, was a Mexican symbol, so Cortes was allowed to put it up
+in the heathen temples without opposition.</p>
+
+<p>The inhabitants of Tlascala&mdash;fierce republicans who refused to own
+the sway of Montezuma&mdash;alone offered resistance, and how Cortes fought
+and defeated them with his handful of men is truly a marvel.</p>
+
+<p>It was three months before they reached the goal of all their
+hopes&mdash;even the golden city of Mexico. The hardships and horrors of
+the march had been unsurpassed, but as the beautiful valley of Mexico
+unfolded itself before them in the early light of a July morning, the
+Spaniards shouted with joy: "It is the promised land! Mexico!
+Mexico!"</p>
+
+<p>"Many of us were disposed to doubt the reality of the scene before
+us and to suspect we were in a dream," says one of the party. "I thought
+we had been transported by magic to the terrestrial paradise."</p>
+
+<p>Water, cultivated plains, shining cities with shadowy hills beyond
+lay like some gorgeous fairyland before and below them. At every step
+some new beauty appeared in sight, and the wonderful City of the Waters
+with its towers and shining palaces arose out of the surrounding mists.</p>
+
+<p>The city was approached by three solid causeways some five miles long.
+It was crowded with spectators "eager to behold such men and animals
+as had never been seen in that part of the world."</p>
+<a name="page212"></a>
+<p>At any moment the little army of four hundred and fifty Spaniards might
+have been destroyed, surrounded as they were by overwhelming numbers
+of hostile Indian foes. It was a great day in the history of European
+discovery, when the Spaniard first set foot in the capital of the
+Western world. Everywhere was evidence of a crowded and thriving
+population and a high civilisation. At the walls of the city they were
+met by Montezuma himself. Amid a crowd of Indian nobles, preceded by
+officers of state bearing golden wands, was the royal palanquin
+blazing with burnished gold. It was borne on the shoulders of the nobles,
+who, barefooted, walked slowly with eyes cast to the ground.
+Descending from his litter, Montezuma then advanced under a canopy
+of gaudy featherwork powdered with jewels and fringed with silver.
+His cloak and sandals were studded with pearls and precious stones
+among which emeralds were conspicuous. Cortes dismounted, greeted the
+King, and spoke of his mission to the heathen and of his master, the
+mighty ruler of Spain. Everywhere Cortes and his men were received
+with friendship and reverence, for was he not the long-lost Child of
+the Sun? The Spanish explorer begged Montezuma to give up his idols
+and to stop his terrible human sacrifices. The King somewhat naturally
+refused. Cortes grew angry. He was also very anxious. He felt the
+weakness of his position, the little handful of men in this great
+populous city, which he had sworn to win for Spain. The King must go.
+"Why do we waste time on this barbarian? Let us seize him and, if he
+resists, plunge our swords into his body!" cried the exasperated
+commander.</p>
+
+<p>This is no place for the pathetic story of Montezuma's downfall.
+Prescott's <i>Conquest of Mexico</i> is within the reach of all. It tells
+of the Spanish treachery, of the refusal of the Mexican ruler to accept
+the new faith, of his final appeal <a name="page213"></a>to his subjects, of chains,
+degradation, and death. It tells of the three great heaps of gold,
+pearls, and precious stones taken by Cortes, of the final siege and
+conquest.</p>
+
+<a name="ill084"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 84">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554">
+			<img src="images/084.jpg" alt="THE BATTLES OF THE SPANIARDS IN MEXICO">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554" align="center">
+			<small>THE BATTLES OF THE SPANIARDS IN MEXICO.<br>
+			From an ancient Aztec drawing, showing a leader of the Spaniards with his native allies
+			defeating the Mexicans.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The news of this immense Mexican Empire, discovered and conquered for
+Spain, brought honours from the King, Charles <small>V</small>., to the triumphant
+conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did Cortes stop even after this achievement. As Governor and
+Captain-General of Mexico, he sent off ships to explore the
+neighbouring coasts. Hearing that Honduras possessed rich mines and
+that a strait into the <a name="page214"></a>Pacific Ocean might be found, Cortes led an
+expedition by land. Arrived at Tabasco, he was provided with an Indian
+map of cotton cloth, whereon were painted all the towns, rivers,
+mountains, as far as Nicaragua. With this map and the mariner's compass,
+he led his army through gloomy woods so thick that no sun ever
+penetrated, and after a march of one thousand miles reached the
+seacoast of Honduras, took over the country for Spain to be governed
+with Mexico by himself.</p>
+
+<p>This enormous tract of country was known to the world as "New Spain."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap29"></a><a name="page215"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIX</h3>
+
+<h4>EXPLORERS IN SOUTH AMERICA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The success of Cortes and his brilliant conquest of Mexico gave a new
+impulse to discovery in the New World. The spirit of exploration
+dominated every adventurous young Spaniard, and among those living
+in the West Indies there were many ready to give up all for the golden
+countries in the West, rumours of which were always reaching their
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had these rich lands been realised than the news of Magellan's
+great voyage revealed the breadth of the ocean between America and
+Asia, and destroyed for ever the idea that the Spice Islands were near.
+Spanish enterprise, therefore, lay in the same direction as heretofore,
+and we must relate the story of how Pizarro discovered Peru for the
+King of Spain. He had accompanied Balboa to Darien, and had with him
+gazed out on to the unknown waters of the Pacific Ocean below. With
+Balboa after crossing the isthmus of Darien he had reached Panama on
+the South Sea, where he heard of a great nation far to the south. Like
+Mexico, it was spoken of as highly civilised and rich in mines of gold
+and silver. Many an explorer would have started off straightway for
+this new country, but there was a vast tract of dark forest and tangled
+underwood between Panama and Peru, which had damped the ardour of even
+the most ardent of Spanish explorers.</p>
+
+<p>But Pizarro was a man of courage and dauntless resolution, and he was
+ready to do and dare the impossible. <a name="page216"></a>He made a bad start. A single
+ship with some hundred men aboard left Panama under the command of
+Pizarro in 1526. He was ignorant of southern navigation, the Indians
+along the shore were hostile, his men died one by one, the rich land
+of Peru was more distant than they had thought, and, having at length
+reached the island of Gallo near the Equator, they awaited
+reinforcements from Panama. Great, then, was the disappointment of
+Pizarro when only one ship arrived and no soldiers. News of hardships
+and privations had spread through Panama, and none would volunteer
+to explore Peru. By this time the handful of wretched men who had
+remained with Pizarro, living on crabs picked up on the shore, begged
+to be taken home&mdash;they could endure no longer. Then came one of those
+tremendous moments that lifts the born leader of men above his fellows.
+Drawing his sword, Pizarro traced a line on the sand from east to west.
+"Friends," he cried, turning to the south, "on that side are toil,
+hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death, and on
+this side ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches, here
+Panama and its poverty. For my part, I go south."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he stepped across the line. Twelve stout-hearted men
+followed him. The rest turned wearily homewards. The reduced but
+resolute little party then sailed south, and a voyage of two days
+brought them within sight of the long-sought land of Peru.
+Communication with the natives assured them that here was wealth and
+fortune to be made, and they hurried back to Panama, whence Pizarro
+sailed for Spain, for permission to conquer the empire of Peru. It
+is interesting to find Cortes contributing some of his immense wealth
+from Mexico towards this new quest.</p>
+
+<p>In February 1531 three small ships with one hundred and eighty soldiers
+and thirty-six horses sailed south under <a name="page217"></a>Pizarro. It was not till the
+autumn of 1532 that he was ready to start on the great march to the
+interior. A city called Cuzco was the capital&mdash;the Holy City with its
+great Temple of the Sun, the most magnificent building in the New World,
+had never yet been seen by Europeans. But the residence of the King
+was at Caxamalea, and this was the goal of the Spaniards for the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>Already the news was spreading through the land that "white and bearded
+strangers were coming up from the sea, clad in shining panoply, riding
+upon unearthly monsters, and wielding deadly thunderbolts."</p>
+
+<a name="ill085"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 85">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="248">
+			<img src="images/085.jpg" alt="PIZARRO">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="248" align="center">
+			<small>PIZARRO.<br>
+			From the portrait at Cuzco.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Pizarro's march to the heart of Peru with a mere handful of men was
+not unlike that of Cortes' expedition to Mexico. Both coveted the rich
+empire of unknown monarchs and dared all&mdash;to possess. Between Pizarro
+and his goal lay the stupendous mountain range of the Andes or South
+American Cordilleras, rock piled upon rock, their crests of
+everlasting snow glittering high in the heavens. Across these and over
+narrow mountain passes the troops had now to pass. So steep were the
+sides that the horsemen had to dismount and scramble up, leading their
+horses as best they might. Frightful chasms yawned below them,
+terrific peaks rose above, and at any moment they might be utterly
+destroyed by bodies of Peruvians in overwhelming numbers. It was
+bitterly cold as they mounted higher and higher up the dreary heights,
+till at last they reached the crest. Then <a name="page218"></a>began the
+descent&mdash;precipitous and dangerous&mdash;until after seven days of this
+the valley of Caxamalea unrolled before their delighted eyes, and the
+little ancient city with its white houses lay glittering in the sun.
+But dismay filled the stoutest heart when, spread out below for the
+space of several miles, tents as thick as snowflakes covered the ground.
+It was the Peruvian army. And it was too late to turn back. "So, with
+as bold a countenance as we could, we prepared for our entrance into
+Caxamalea."</p>
+
+<p>The Peruvians must already have seen the cavalcade of Spaniards, as
+with banners streaming and armour glistening in the rays of the evening
+sun Pizarro led them towards the city. As they drew near, the King,
+Atahualpa, covered with plumes of feathers and ornaments of gold and
+silver blazing in the sun, was carried forth on a throne followed by
+thirty thousand men to meet the strangers. It seemed to the Spanish
+leader that only one course was open. He must seize the person of this
+great ruler at once. He waved his white scarf. Immediately the cavalry
+charged and a terrible fight took place around the person of the ruler
+of Peru until he was captured and taken prisoner. Atahualpa tried to
+regain his liberty by the offer of gold, for he had discovered&mdash;amid
+all their outward show of religious zeal&mdash;a greed for wealth among
+these strange white men from over the stormy seas. He suggested that
+he should fill with gold the room in which he was confined as high
+as he could reach. Standing on tiptoe, he marked the wall with his
+hand. Pizarro accepted the offer, and the Spaniards greedily watched
+the arrival of their treasure from the roofs of palace and temple.
+They gained a sum of something like three million sterling and then
+put the King to death. Pizarro was the conqueror of Peru, and he had
+no difficulty in controlling the awestruck Peruvians, who regarded
+the relentless <a name="page220"></a>Spaniards as supernatural&mdash;the Children of the Sun
+indeed.</p>
+
+<a name="ill086"></a><a name="page219"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 86">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="456">
+			<img src="images/086.jpg" alt="PERU AND SOUTH AMERICA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="456" align="center">
+			<small>PERU AND SOUTH AMERICA.<br>
+			From the Map of the World of 1544, usually ascribed to Sebastian
+			Cabot. At the top is shown the river Amazon, discovered by Orellana in 1541.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>A year later these Children of the Sun entered the old town of
+Cuzco&mdash;the capital of this rich empire&mdash;where they found a city of
+treasure surpassing all expectation. Meanwhile Almagro, one of the
+most prominent among the Spanish explorers, had been granted a couple
+of hundred miles along the coast of Chili, which country he now
+penetrated; but the cold was so intense that men and horses were frozen
+to death, while the Chilians, clad in skins, were difficult to subdue.
+Almagro decided that Cuzco belonged to him, and miserable disputes
+followed between him and Pizarro, ending in the tragic end of the
+veteran explorer, Almagro.</p>
+
+<p>As the shiploads of gold reached the shores of Spain, more and more
+adventurers flocked over to the New World. They swarmed into "Golden
+Castile," about the city of Panama, and journeyed into the interior
+of the yet new and unknown world. There are terrible stories of their
+greed and cruelty to the native Indians. One story says that the Indians
+caught some of these Spaniards, tied their hands and feet together,
+threw them on the ground, and poured liquid gold into their mouths,
+crying, "Eat, eat gold, Christian!"</p>
+
+<p>Amongst other adventurers into South America at this time was Orellana,
+who crossed the continent from ocean to ocean. He had accompanied one
+of Pizarro's brothers into the land of the cinnamon forests, and with
+him had crossed the Andes in search of another golden kingdom beyond
+Quito. The expedition under Pizarro, consisting of some three hundred
+and fifty Spaniards, half of whom were horsemen, and four thousand
+Indians, set forward in the year 1540 to penetrate to the remote regions
+in the Hinterland, on the far side of the Andes. Their sufferings were
+intense. Violent <a name="page221"></a>thunderstorms and earthquakes terrified man and
+beast; the earth opened and swallowed up five hundred houses; rain
+fell in such torrents as to flood the land and cut off all communication
+between the explorers and cultivated regions; while crossing the lofty
+ridge of the Andes the cold was so intense that numbers of the party
+were literally frozen to death. At length they reached the land of
+the cinnamon trees, and, still pushing on, came to a river which must
+be crossed to reach the land of gold. They had finished their provisions,
+and had nothing to subsist on now save the wild fruit of the country.
+After following the course of the river for some way, Pizarro decided
+to build a little vessel to search for food along the river. All set
+to work, Pizarro and Orellana, one of his chief captains, working as
+hard as the men. They set up a forge for making nails, and burnt charcoal
+with endless trouble owing to the heavy rains which prevented the
+tinder from taking fire. They made nails from the shoes of the horses
+which had been killed to feed the sick. For tar they used the resin
+from the trees, for oakum they used blankets and old shirts. Then they
+launched the little home-made boat, thinking their troubles would be
+at an end. For some four hundred miles they followed the course of
+the river, but the supply of roots and berries grew scarcer and men
+perished daily from starvation. So Pizarro ordered Orellana to go
+quickly down the river with fifty men to some inhabited land of which
+they had heard, to fill the boat with provisions, and return.</p>
+
+<p>Off started Orellana down the river, but no villages or cultivated
+lands appeared; nothing was to be seen save flooded plains and gloomy,
+impenetrable forests. The river turned out to be a tributary of a much
+larger river. It was, indeed, the great river Amazon. Orellana now
+decided to go on down this great river and to desert <a name="page222"></a>Pizarro. True,
+his men were utterly weary, the current was too strong for them to
+row against, and they had no food to bring to their unhappy companions.
+There was likewise the possibility of reaching the kingdom of gold
+for which they were searching. There were some among his party who
+objected strongly to the course proposed by Orellana, to whom he
+responded by landing them on the edge of the dense forest and there
+leaving them to perish of hunger.</p>
+
+<p>It was the last day of 1540 that, having eaten their shoes and saddles
+boiled with a few wild herbs, they set out to reach the kingdom of
+gold. It was truly one of the greatest adventures of the age, and
+historic, for here we get the word El Dorado, used for the first time
+in the history of discovery&mdash;the legendary land of gold which was never
+found, but which attracted all the Elizabethan sailors to this
+romantic country. It would take too long to tell how they had to fight
+Indian tribes in their progress down the fast-flowing river, how they
+had to build a new boat, making bellows of their leather buskins and
+manufacturing two thousand nails in twenty days, how they found women
+on the banks of the river fighting as valiantly as men, and named the
+new country the Amazon land, and how at long last, after incredible
+hardship, they reached the sea in August 1541. They had navigated some
+two thousand miles. They now made their rigging and ropes of grass
+and sails of blankets, and so sailed out into the open sea, reaching
+one of the West India islands a few days later.</p>
+
+<p>And the deserted Pizarro? Tired of waiting for Orellana, he made his
+way sorrowfully home, arriving after two years' absence in Peru, with
+eighty men left out of four thousand three hundred and fifty, all the
+rest having perished in the disastrous expedition. And <a name="page223"></a>so we must leave
+the Spanish conquerors for the present, still exploring, still
+conquering, in these parts, ever adding glory and riches to Spain.
+Indeed, Spain and Portugal, as we have seen, entirely monopolise the
+horizon of geographical discovery till the middle of the sixteenth
+century, when other nations enter the arena.</p>
+
+<a name="ill087"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 87">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="609">
+			<img src="images/087.jpg" alt="PERUVIAN WARRIORS OF THE INCA PERIOD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="609" align="center">
+			<small>PERUVIAN WARRIORS OF THE INCA PERIOD.<br>
+			From an ancient Peruvian painting.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap30"></a><a name="page224"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXX</h3>
+
+<h4>CABOT SAILS TO NEWFOUNDLAND</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>It was no longer possible for the Old World to keep secret the wealth
+of the New World. English eyes were already straining across the seas,
+English hands were ready to grasp the treasure that had been Spain's
+for the last fifty years. While Spain was sending Christopher Columbus
+to and fro across the Atlantic to the West Indies, while Portugal was
+rejoicing in the success of Vasco da Gama, John Cabot, in the service
+of England, was making his way from Bristol to the New World. News
+of the first voyage of Columbus had been received by the Cabots&mdash;John
+and his son Sebastian&mdash;with infinite admiration. They believed with
+the rest of the world that the coast of China had been reached by sailing
+westward. Bristol was at this time the chief seaport in England, and
+the centre of trade for the Iceland fisheries. The merchants of the
+city had already ventured far on to the Atlantic, and various little
+expeditions had been fitted out by the merchants for possible
+discovery westward, but one after another failed, including the "most
+scientific mariner in all England," who started forth to find the
+island of Brazil to the west of Ireland, but, after nine miserable
+weeks at sea, was driven back to Ireland again by foul weather.</p>
+
+<p>Now Columbus had crossed the Atlantic, Cabot got leave from the English
+King, Henry <small>VII</small>., "to sail to the east, west, or north, with five ships
+carrying the English <a name="page225"></a>flag, to seek and discover all the islands,
+countries, regions, or provinces of pagans in whatever part of the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>Further, the King was to have one-fifth of the profits, and at all
+risks any conflict with Spain must be avoided. Nothing daunted, Cabot
+started off to fulfil his lord's commands in a tiny ship with eighteen
+men. We have the barest outlines of his proceedings. Practically all
+is contained in this one paragraph. "In the year 1497 John Cabot, a
+Venetian, and his son Sebastian discovered on the 24th of June, about
+five in the morning, that land <a name="page226"></a>to which no person had before ventured
+to sail, which they named Prima Vista or first seen, because, as I
+believe, it was the first part seen by them from the sea. The
+inhabitants use the skins and furs of wild beasts for garments, which
+they hold in as high estimation as we do our finest clothes. The soil
+yields no useful production, but it abounds in white bears and deer
+much larger than ours. Its coasts produce vast quantities of large
+fish&mdash;great seals, salmons, soles above a yard in length, and
+prodigious quantities of cod."</p>
+
+<a name="ill088"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 88">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="650">
+			<img src="images/088.jpg" alt="PART OF NORTH AMERICA, SHOWING SEBASTIAN CABOT'S VOYAGE TO NEWFOUNDLAND">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="650" align="center">
+			<small>PART OF NORTH AMERICA, SHOWING SEBASTIAN CABOT'S
+			VOYAGE TO NEWFOUNDLAND.<br>
+			From the Map of 1544, usually ascribed to Cabot.
+			The names in brackets are inserted in order to make this extract and
+			its reference to Cabot's discoveries clear.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So much for the contemporary account of this historic voyage. A letter
+from England to Italy describes the effect of the voyage on England.
+"The Venetian, our countryman, who went with a ship from Bristol in
+quest of new islands, is returned and says that seven hundred leagues
+hence he discovered land, the territory of the Great Khan. He coasted
+for three hundred leagues and landed; he saw no human beings, but he
+has brought hither to the King certain snares which had been set to
+catch game and a needle for making nets. He also found some felled
+trees. Wherefore he supposed there were inhabitants, and returned to
+his ships in alarm. He was there three months on the voyage, and on
+his return he saw two islands to starboard, but would not land, time
+being precious, as he was short of provisions. He says the tides are
+slack and do not flow as they do here. The King of England is much
+pleased with this intelligence. The King has promised that in the
+spring our countryman shall have ten ships to his order, and at his
+request has conceded to him all the prisoners to man his fleet. The
+King has also given him money wherewith to amuse himself till then,
+and he is now at Bristol with his wife and sons. His name is Cabot,
+and he is styled the great Admiral. Vast honour is paid to him; he
+dresses in silk, and the English run after him like mad people."</p>
+<a name="page227"></a>
+<p>Yet another letter of the time tells how "Master John Cabot has won
+a part of Asia without a stroke of the sword." This Master John, too,
+"has the description of the world in a chart and also in a solid globe
+which he has made, and he shows where he landed. And they say that
+it is a good and temperate country, and they think that Brazil wood
+and silks grow there, and they affirm that that sea is covered with
+fishes."</p>
+
+<p>But "Master John" had set his heart on something greater. Constantly
+hugging the shore of America, he expected to find the island of Cipango
+(Japan) in the equinoctial region, where he should find all the spices
+of the world and any amount of precious stones.</p>
+
+<p>But after all this great promise Master John disappears from the pages
+of history and his son Sebastian continues to sail across the Atlantic,
+not always in the service of England, though in 1502 we find him
+bringing to the King of England three men taken in the Newfoundland,
+clothed in beasts' skins and eating raw flesh, and speaking a language
+which no man could understand. They must have been kindly dealt with
+by the King, for two years later the poor savages are "clothed like
+Englishmen."</p>
+
+<p>Though England claimed the discovery of this Newfoundland, the
+Portuguese declared that one of their countrymen, Cortereal&mdash;a
+gentleman of the royal household&mdash;had already discovered the "land
+of the cod-fish" in 1463. But then had not the Vikings already
+discovered this country five hundred years before?</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap31"></a><a name="page228"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXI</h3>
+
+<h4>JACQUES CARTIER EXPLORES CANADA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>All the nations of Europe were now straining westward for new lands
+to conquer. French sailors had fished in the seas washing the western
+coast of North America; Verazzano, a Florentine, in the service of
+France, had explored the coast of the United States, and a good deal
+was known when Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman, steps upon the scene and
+wins for his country a large tract of land about the river St. Lawrence.
+His object was to find a way across America to Cathay. With two little
+ships of sixty tons and sixty-one "chosen men," Cartier left St. Malo
+on 20th April 1534. With prosperous weather he tells us he made the
+coast of Newfoundland in three weeks, which would mean sailing over
+one hundred miles a day. He was a little too early in the season, for
+the easterly winds which had helped him on his way had blocked the
+east coast of the island with Arctic ice. Having named the point at
+which he first touched land Cape Bona Vista, he cruised about till,
+the ice having melted, he could sail down the straits of Belle Isle
+between the mainland of Labrador and Newfoundland, already discovered
+by Breton fishermen. Then he explored the now familiar Gulf of St.
+Lawrence&mdash;the first European to report on it. All through June the
+little French ships sailed about the Gulf, darting across from island
+to island and cape to cape. Prince Edward Island appealed to him
+strongly. "It is very pleasant to behold," he tells <a name="page229"></a>us. "We found
+sweet-smelling trees as cedars, yews, pines, ash, willow. Where the
+ground was bare of trees it seemed very fertile and was full of wild
+corn, red and white gooseberries, strawberries, and blackberries, as
+if it had been cultivated on purpose." It now grew hotter, and Cartier
+must have been glad of a little heat. He sighted Nova Scotia and sailed
+by the coast of New Brunswick, without naming or surveying them. He
+describes accurately the bay still called Chaleur Bay: "We named this
+the Warm Bay, for the country is warmer even than Spain and exceedingly
+pleasant." They sailed up as far as they could, filled with hope that
+this might be the long-sought passage to the Pacific Ocean. Hope Cape
+they named the southern point, but they were disappointed by finding
+only a deep bay, and to-day, by a strange coincidence, the point
+opposite the northern shore is known as Cape Despair&mdash;the Cap d'Espoir
+of the early French mariners. Sailing on to the north amid strong
+currents and a heavy sea, Cartier at last put into a shelter (Gasp&eacute;
+Bay). Here, "on the 24th of July, we made a great cross thirty feet
+high, on which we hung up a shield with three fleurs-de-lis, and
+inscribed the cross with this motto: 'Vive le roi de France.' When
+this was finished, in presence of all the natives, we all knelt down
+before the cross, holding up our hands to heaven and praising God."</p>
+
+<a name="ill089"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 89">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="291">
+			<img src="images/089.jpg" alt="JACQUES CARTIER">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="291" align="center">
+			<small>JACQUES CARTIER.<br>
+			From an old pen drawing at the Biblioth&egrave;que Nationale, Paris.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page230"></a>
+<p>Storms and strong tides now decided Cartier to return to France. He
+knew nothing of the Cabot Strait between Newfoundland and the land
+afterwards called Nova Scotia, so he guided his little ships right
+through the Straits of Belle Isle, and after being "much tossed by
+a heavy tempest from the east, which we weathered by the blessing of
+God," he arrived safely home on 5th September, after his six months'
+adventure. He was soon commissioned to continue the navigation of
+these new lands, and in May 1535 he safely led three ships slightly
+larger than the last across the stormy Atlantic. Contrary winds, heavy
+gales, and thick fogs turned the voyage of three weeks into five&mdash;the
+ships losing one another not to meet again till the coast of Labrador
+was reached. Coasting along the southern coast, Cartier now entered
+a "very fine and large bay, full of islands, and with channels of
+entrance and exit in all winds." Cartier named it "Baye Saint Laurens,"
+because he entered it on 10th August&mdash;the feast of St. Lawrence.</p>
+
+<p>Do any of the English men and women who steam up the Gulf of St. Lawrence
+in the great ocean steamers to-day, on their way to Canada, ever give
+a thought to the little pioneer French ships that four hundred years
+ago thought they were sailing toward Cathay?</p>
+
+<p>"Savages," as Cartier calls the Indians, told him that he was near
+the mouth of the great river Hochelaga (now the St. Lawrence), which
+became narrower "as we approach towards Canada, where the water is
+fresh."</p>
+
+<p>"On the first day of September," says Cartier, "we set sail from the
+said harbour for Canada." Canada was just a native word for a town
+or village. It seems strange to read of the "lord of Canada" coming
+down the river with twelve canoes and many people to greet the first
+white men he had ever seen; strange, too, to find Cartier arriving
+at "the place called Hochelaga&mdash;twenty-five <a name="page231"></a>leagues above Canada,"
+where the river becomes very narrow, with a rapid current and very
+dangerous on account of rocks. For another week the French explorers
+sailed on up the unknown river. The country was pleasant, well-wooded,
+with "vines as full of grapes as they would hang." On 2nd October,
+Cartier arrived at the native town of Hochelaga. He was welcomed by
+hundreds of natives,&mdash;men, women, and children,&mdash;who gave the
+travellers as "friendly a welcome as if we had been of their own nation
+come home after a long and perilous absence." The women carried their
+children to him to touch them, for they evidently thought that some
+supernatural being had come up from the sea. All night they danced
+to the light of fires lit upon the shore.</p>
+
+<a name="ill090"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 90">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="649">
+			<img src="images/090.jpg" alt="CANADA AND THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE, SHOWING QUEBEC (KEBEC)">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="649" align="center">
+			<small>CANADA AND THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE, SHOWING QUEBEC (KEBEC).<br>
+			From Lescarbot's <i>Histoire de la Nouvelle France</i>, 1609.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The next morning Cartier, "having dressed himself splendidly," went
+ashore with some of his men. All were well armed, though the natives
+seemed peacefully disposed. They marched along a well-beaten track
+to the Indian city, which stood in the midst of cultivated fields of
+Indian corn and maize. Again the inhabitants met them with signs of
+joy and gladness, and the King <a name="page232"></a>was carried shoulder high, seated on
+a large deer-skin with a red wreath round his head made of the skins
+of hedgehogs instead of a crown.</p>
+
+<p>A curious scene then took place. The King placed his crown on the head
+of the French explorer, before whom he humbled himself as before a
+god. Thus evidently did the people regard him, for they brought to
+him their blind, their lame, and their diseased folk that he might
+cure them. Touched with pity at the groundless confidence of these
+poor people, Cartier signed them with the sign of the cross. "He then
+opened a service book and read the passion of Christ in an audible
+voice, during which all the natives kept a profound silence, looking
+up to heaven and imitating all our gestures. He then caused our trumpets
+and other musical instruments to be sounded, which made the natives
+very merry."</p>
+
+<p>Cartier and his men then went to the top of the neighbouring mountain.
+The extensive view from the top created a deep impression on the French
+explorer; he grew enthusiastic over the beauty of the level valley
+below and called the place Mont Royal&mdash;a name communicated to the busy
+city of Montreal that lies below.</p>
+
+<p>Winter was now coming on, and Cartier decided against attempting the
+homeward voyage so late in the year; but to winter in the country he
+chose a spot between Montreal and Quebec, little thinking what the
+long winter months would bring forth. The little handful of Frenchmen
+had no idea of the severity of the Canadian climate; they little dreamt
+of the interminable months of ice and snow when no navigation was
+possible. Before Christmas had come round the men were down with
+scurvy; by the middle of February, "out of one hundred and ten persons
+composing the companies of our three ships, there were not ten in
+perfect health. Eight were dead already. The sickness increased <a name="page233"></a>to
+such a pitch that there were not above three sound men in the whole
+company; we were obliged to bury such as died under the snow, as the
+ground was frozen quite hard, and we were all reduced to extreme
+weakness, and we lost all hope of ever returning to France." From
+November to March four feet of snow lay upon the decks of their little
+ships. And yet, shut up as they were in the heart of a strange and
+unknown land, with their ships icebound and nought but savages around,
+there is no sound of murmur or complaint. "It must <a name="page234"></a>be allowed that
+the winter that year was uncommonly long" is all we hear.</p>
+
+<a name="ill091"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 91">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="573">
+			<img src="images/091.jpg" alt="NEW FRANCE, SHOWING NEWFOUNDLAND, LABRADOR, AND THE ST. LAWRENCE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="573" align="center">
+			<small>NEW FRANCE, SHOWING NEWFOUNDLAND, LABRADOR, AND THE ST. LAWRENCE.<br>
+			From Jocomo di Gastaldi's Map, about 1550. The "Isola
+			de Demoni" is Labrador, and "Terra Nuova" and the islands south of
+			it make up Newfoundland. The snaky-like line represents a sandbank,
+			which was then thought, and agreed, to be the limit of fishing. Montreal
+			(Port Real) will be noticed on the coast.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>May found them free once more and making for home with the great news
+that, though they had not found the way to Cathay, they had discovered
+and taken a great new country for France.</p>
+
+<p>A new map of the world in 1536 marks Canada and Labrador, and gives
+the river St. Lawrence just beyond Montreal. A map of 1550 goes further,
+and calls the sea that washes the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador
+the "Sea of France," while to the south it is avowedly the "Sea of
+Spain."</p>
+
+<a name="ill092"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 92">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="1024">
+			<img src="images/092.jpg" alt="THE DAUPHIN MAP OF THE WORLD. MADE BY PIERRE DESCELIERS, 1546, TO THE ORDER OF FRANCIS I., FOR THE DAUPHIN (HENRI II. OF FRANCE)">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="1024" align="center">
+			<small>THE "DAUPHIN" MAP OF THE WORLD. MADE BY PIERRE
+			DESCELIERS, 1546, TO THE ORDER OF FRANCIS <small>I</small>., FOR THE DAUPHIN (HENRI <small>II</small>. OF FRANCE).<br>
+			This map gives a remarkably clear and interesting view
+			of geographical knowledge in the first half of the sixteenth century.
+			(It is to be noted that all objects on one side of the Equinoctial
+			are reversed.)</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap32"></a><a name="page235"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXII</h3>
+
+<h4>SEARCH FOR A NORTH-EAST PASSAGE</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>England was now awaking from her sleep&mdash;too late to possess the Spice
+Islands&mdash;too late for India and the Cape of Good Hope&mdash;too late, it
+would seem, for the New World. The Portuguese held the eastern route,
+the Spaniards the western route to the Spice Islands. But what if there
+were a northern route? All ways apparently led to Cathay. Why should
+England not find a way to that glorious land by taking a northern
+course?</p>
+
+<p>"If the seas toward the north be navigable we may go to these Spice
+Islands by a shorter way than Spain and Portugal," said Master Thorne
+of Bristol&mdash;a friend of the Cabots.</p>
+
+<p>"But the northern seas are blocked with ice and the northern lands
+are too cold for man to dwell in," objected some.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>There is no land uninhabitable, nor sea unnavigable</i>," was the
+heroic reply.</p>
+
+<p>"It was in this belief, and in this heroic temper, that England set
+herself to take possession of her heritage, the north. But it was not
+till the reign of Edward <small>VI</small>. that a Company of Merchant Adventurers
+was formed for the discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and
+places unknown," with old Sebastian Cabot as its first governor, and
+not till the year 1553 that three little ships under Sir Hugh Willoughby
+and Richard Chancellor <a name="page236"></a>were fitted out for a northern cruise. They
+carried letters of introduction from the boy-king of England to "all
+Kings, Princes, Rulers, Judges, and Governors of the Earth in all
+places under the universal heaven," including those "inhabiting the
+north-east parts of the world toward the mighty Empire of Cathay."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Hugh Willoughby, "a most valiant gentleman," hoisted the English
+flag on the <i>Bona Esperanza</i>, a good little ship of one hundred and
+twenty tons. The next in command was Richard Chancellor, "a man of
+great estimation for many good parts of wit in him," who sailed the
+<i>Edward Bonadventure</i>, which though not so fast as the flag-ship, was
+slightly larger. So certain were the promoters that the ships would
+reach the hot climates beyond Cathay that they had them sheathed with
+lead to protect them from worms which had proved so destructive in
+the tropics before.</p>
+
+<p>The account of the start of these first English Arctic explorers is
+too quaint to be passed in silence. "It was thought best that by the
+20th of May the Captains and Mariners should take shipping and depart
+if it pleased God. They, having saluted their acquaintance, one his
+wife, another his children, another his kinsfolk, and another his
+friends dearer than his kinsfolk, were ready at the day appointed.
+The greater ships are towed down with boats and oars, and the mariners,
+being all apparelled in sky-coloured cloth, made way with diligence.
+And being come near to Greenwich (where the Court then lay), the
+Courtiers came running out and the common people flocked together,
+standing very thick upon the shore: the Privy Council, they looked
+out of the windows of the Court, and the rest ran up to the tops of
+the towers, and the mariners shouted in such sort that the sky rang
+again with the noise thereof. But, alas! the good King <a name="page237"></a>Edward&mdash;he only
+by reason of his sickness was absent from this show."</p>
+
+<p>The ships dropped down to Woolwich with the tide and coasted along
+the east coast of England till "at the last with a good wind they hoisted
+up sail and committed themselves to the sea, giving their last adieu
+to their native country&mdash;many of them could not refrain from tears."
+Richard Chancellor himself had left behind two little sons, and his
+poor mind was tormented with sorrow and care.</p>
+
+<p>By the middle of July the North Sea had been crossed, and the three
+small ships were off the shores of Norway, coasting among the islands
+and fiords that line that indented kingdom. Coasting still northward,
+Willoughby led his ships to the Lofoten Islands, "plentifully
+inhabited by very gentle people" under the King of Denmark. They sailed
+on&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem25">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"To the west of them was the ocean,<br>
+			&nbsp;To the right the desolate shore."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>till they had passed the North Cape, already discovered by Othere,
+the old sea-captain who dwelt in Helgoland.</p>
+
+<p>A terrible storm now arose, and "the sea was so outrageous that the
+ships could not keep their intended course, but some were driven one
+way and some another way to their great peril and hazard." Then Sir
+Hugh Willoughby shouted across the roaring seas to Richard Chancellor,
+begging him not to go far from him. But the little ships got separated
+and never met again. Willoughby was blown across the sea to Nova Zembla.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem26">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"The sea was rough and stormy,<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;The tempest howled and wailed,<br>
+			&nbsp;And the sea-fog like a ghost<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;Haunted that dreary coast.<br>
+			&nbsp;But onward still I sailed."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page238"></a>
+<p>The weather grew more and more Arctic, and he made his way over to
+a haven in Lapland where he decided to winter. He sent men to explore
+the country, but no signs of mankind could be found; there were bears
+and foxes and all manner of strange beasts, but never a human being.
+It must have been desperately dreary as the winter advanced, with ice
+and snow and freezing winds from the north. What this little handful
+of Englishmen did, how they endured the bitter winter on the desolate
+shores of Lapland, no man knows. Willoughby was alive in January
+1554&mdash;then all is silent.</p>
+
+<p>And what of Richard Chancellor on board the <i>Bonadventure</i>? "Pensive,
+heavy, and sorrowful," but resolute to carry out his orders, "Master
+Chancellor held on his course towards that unknown part of the world,
+and sailed so far that he came at last to the place where he found
+no night at all, but a continual light and brightness of the Sun,
+shining clearly upon the huge and mighty Sea." After a time he found
+and entered a large bay where he anchored, making friends with the
+fisher folk on the shores of the White Sea to the north of Russia.
+So frightened were the natives at the greatness of the English ships
+that at first they ran away, half-dead with fear. Soon, however, they
+regained confidence and, throwing themselves down, they began to kiss
+the explorer's feet, "but he (according to his great and singular
+courtesy) looked pleasantly upon them." By signs and gestures he
+comforted them until they brought food to the "new-come guests," and
+went to tell their king of the arrival of "a strange nation of singular
+gentleness and courtesy."</p>
+
+<p>Then the King of Russia or Muscovie&mdash;Ivan Vasiliwich&mdash;sent for Master
+Chancellor to go to Moscow. The journey had to be made in sledges over
+the ice and snow. A long and weary journey it must have been, for his
+guide lost the way, and they had travelled nearly one thousand five
+<a name="page239"></a>hundred miles before Master Chancellor came at last to Moscow, the
+chief city of the kingdom, "as great as the city of London with all
+its suburbs," remarks Chancellor. Arrived at the King's palace, Master
+Chancellor was received by one hundred Russian courtiers dressed in
+cloth of gold to the very ankles. The King sat aloft on a high throne,
+with a crown of gold on his head, holding in his hand a glittering
+sceptre studded with precious stones. The Englishman and his
+companions saluted the King, who received them graciously and read
+the letter from Edward <small>VI</small>. with interest. They did not know that the
+boy-king was dead, and that his sister Mary was on the throne of England.
+The King was much interested in the long beards grown by the Englishmen.
+That of one of the company was five foot two inches in length, "thick,
+broad, and yellow coloured." "This is God's gift," said the Russians.</p>
+
+<a name="ill093"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 93">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="323">
+			<img src="images/093.jpg" alt="IVAN VASILIWICH, KING OF MUSCOVIE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="323" align="center">
+			<small>IVAN VASILIWICH, KING OF MUSCOVIE.<br>
+			From a sixteenth century woodcut.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>To Edward <small>VI</small>. of England the King sent a letter by the hands of Richard
+Chancellor, giving leave readily for England to trade with Russia.</p>
+
+<p>Master Chancellor seems to have arrived home again safely with his
+account of Russia, which encouraged the Merchant Adventurers to send
+forth more ships to develop <a name="page240"></a>trade with this great new country of which
+they knew so little.</p>
+
+<p>To this end Anthony Jenkinson, "a resolute and intelligent gentleman,"
+was selected, and "with four tall, well-appointed ships he sailed on
+12th May 1557 toward the land of Russia." He reached Cape North on
+2nd July, and a few days later he passed the spot where Sir Hugh
+Willoughby and all his company had perished. Anchoring in the Bay of
+St. Nicholas, he took a sledge for Moscow, where he delivered his
+letters safely to the King. So icebound was the country that it was
+April 1558 before he was able to leave Moscow for the south, to
+accomplish, if possible, the orders of the Merchant Adventurers to
+find an overland route to Cathay. With letters of introduction from
+the Russian King to the princes and kings through whose dominions he
+was to pass, Master Jenkinson made his way to the Volga, whence he
+continued his voyage with a Russian captain who was travelling south
+in great style to take up a command at Astrakan with five hundred boats
+laden with soldiers, stores, food, and merchandise.</p>
+
+<p>After three months' travelling, and having passed over some one
+thousand two hundred miles, the Englishman reached the south. The city
+of Astrakan offered no attractions and no hope of trade, so Jenkinson
+boldly took upon himself to navigate the mouth of the Volga and to
+reach the Caspian Sea. He was the first Englishman to cross Russia
+from the White Sea to the Caspian. Never before on the Caspian had
+the red cross of St. George been seen flying from the masthead of a
+ship sailed by Englishmen. After three weeks' buffeting by contrary
+winds, they found themselves on the eastern shores, and, getting
+together a caravan of one thousand camels, they went forward. No sooner
+had they landed than they found themselves in a land of thieves and
+robbers. Jenkinson hastened to <a name="page241"></a>the Sultan of these parts, a noted
+robber himself, to be kindly received by the Tartar Prince, who set
+before him the flesh of a wild horse and some mare's milk. Then the
+little English party travelled on for three weeks through desolate
+land with no rivers, no houses, no inhabitants, till they reached the
+banks of the Oxus. "Here we refreshed ourselves," says the explorer,
+"having been three days without water and drink, and tarried there
+all the next day making merry with our slain horses and camels." For
+a hundred miles they followed the course of this great river until
+they reached another desert, where they were again attacked by bands
+of thieves and robbers.</p>
+
+<p>It was Christmas Eve when they at last reached Bokhara, only to find
+that the merchants were so poor that there was no hope of any trade
+worth following, though the city was full of caravans from India and
+the Far East. And here they heard that the way to Cathay was barred
+by reason of grievous wars which were going on. Winter was coming on;
+so Jenkinson remained for a couple of months before starting on his
+long journey home. With a caravan of six hundred camels he made his
+way back to the Caspian, and on 2nd September he had reached Moscow
+safely with presents of "a white cow's tail of Cathay and a drum of
+Tartary" for the King, which seemed to give that monarch the greatest
+pleasure. He evidently stayed for a time in Russia, for it is not till
+the year 1560 that we find him writing to the Merchant Adventurers
+that "at the next shipping I embark myself for England."</p>
+
+<a name="ill094"></a><a name="page242"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 94">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="648">
+			<img src="images/094.jpg" alt="ANTHONY JENKINSON'S MAP OF RUSSIA, MUSCOVY, AND TARTARY, PUBLISHED IN 1562">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="648" align="center">
+			<small>ANTHONY JENKINSON'S MAP OF RUSSIA, MUSCOVY, AND
+			TARTARY, PUBLISHED IN 1562.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>While Jenkinson was endeavouring to reach the Far East by land, a
+Portuguese named Pinto had succeeded in reaching it by sea. The
+discovery of Japan is claimed by three people. Antonio de Mota had
+been thrown by a storm on to the island of Nison, called by the Chinese
+Jepwen&mdash;Japan&mdash;in the year 1542. Pinto claims to have <a name="page244"></a>discovered it
+the same year. It seems that the Japanese were expecting the return
+of a god, and as the white men hove in sight they exclaimed: "These
+are certainly the Chinchi cogies spoken of in our records, who, flying
+over the waters, shall come to be lords of the lands where God has
+placed the greatest riches of the world. It will be fortunate for us
+if they come as friends."</p>
+
+<p>Now men of the time refused to believe in the travels of Mendex Pinto.
+"He should be called Mendax Pinto," said one, "whose book is one
+continued chain of monstrous fiction which deserves no credit," while
+a hundred and fifty years later Congreve wrote&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem27">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Ferdinando Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee,<br>
+			&nbsp;Thou liar of the first magnitude."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap33"></a><a name="page245"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIII</h3>
+
+<h4>MARTIN FROBISHER SEARCHES FOR A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>So far the expeditions of Willoughby, Chancellor, and Jenkinson had
+all failed to reach the Far East. The Spanish had a way thither by
+Magellan's Strait, the Portuguese by the Cape of Good Hope. England
+in the middle of the sixteenth century had no way. What about a
+North-West Passage leading round Labrador from the Atlantic to the
+Pacific? England was waking up to possibilities of future exploration.
+She was also ready and anxious to annoy Spain for having monopolised
+the riches and wealth of the New World. And so it was that Queen
+Elizabeth turned with interest to the suggestions of one of her
+subjects&mdash;Martin Frobisher&mdash;"a mariner of great experience and
+ability," when he enthusiastically consulted her on the navigation
+of the North-West Passage. For the last fifteen years he had been trying
+to collect ships and men for the enterprise. "It is the only thing
+in the world left undone whereby a notable mind might be made famous
+and fortunate," he affirmed.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not till the year 1576 that he got a chance of fitting out
+two small ships&mdash;two very small ships&mdash;the <i>Gabriel</i> of twenty tons,
+the <i>Michael</i> of twenty-five tons, to explore the icy regions of the
+north. A wave of the Queen's hand gladdened his heart as he sailed
+past the palace of Greenwich, where the Court resided, and he was soon
+sailing northward harassed and battered by many storms. <a name="page246"></a>His little
+ten-ton pinnace was lost, and the same storm that overtook the little
+fleet to the north of Scotland so terrified the captain of the <i>Michael</i>
+that he deserted and turned home with the news that Frobisher had
+perished with all hands.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Frobisher, resolute in his undertaking, was nearing the
+coast of Greenland&mdash;alone in the little <i>Gabriel</i> with a mere handful
+of men all inexperienced in the art of navigating the Polar seas.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem28">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"And now there came both mist and snow,<br>
+			&nbsp;And it grew wondrous cold"</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>as Frobisher sailed his storm-beaten ship across the wintry seas. But
+"I will sacrifice my life to God rather than return home without
+discovering a north-west passage to Cathay," he told his eighteen men
+with sublime courage. Passing Cape Farewell, he sailed north-west with
+the Greenland current, which brought him to the icebound shores near
+Hudson's Bay. He did not see the straits afterwards discovered by
+Hudson, but, finding an inlet farther north, he sailed some hundred
+miles, in the firm belief that this was the passage for which he was
+searching, that America lay on his left and Asia on his right. Magellan
+had discovered straits in the extreme south; Frobisher made sure that
+he had found corresponding straits to the extreme north, and
+Frobisher's Straits they were accordingly named, and as such they
+appeared on the maps of the day till they had to be renamed Lumley's
+Inlet. The snow and ice made further navigation impossible for this
+year, and full of their great news they returned home accompanied by
+an Eskimo. These natives had been taken for porpoises by our English
+explorers, but later they were reported to be "strange infidels whose
+like was never seen, read, or heard of before."</p>
+<a name="page247"></a>
+<a name="ill095"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 95">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/095.jpg" alt="GREENLANDERS AS SEEN BY MARTIN FROBISHER">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562" align="center">
+			<small>GREENLANDERS AS SEEN BY MARTIN FROBISHER.<br>
+			From Captain Beste's account of Frobisher's voyages, 1578.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Martin Frobisher was received with enthusiasm and "highly commended
+of all men for his great and notable attempt, but specially famous
+for the great hope he brought of the passage to Cathay." Besides the
+Eskimo the explorers carried home a black stone, which, when thrown
+on the fire by one of the sailor's wives, glittered like gold. The
+gold refiners of London were hastily called in, and they reported that
+it contained a quantity of gold.</p>
+
+<p>A new incentive was now given to Polar exploration. The Queen herself
+contributed a tall ship of some two hundred tons to the new expedition
+that was eagerly fitted out, and the High Admiral of all seas and waters,
+countries, lands, and isles, as Frobisher was now called, sailed away
+again for the icy north, more to search for gold than to discover the
+North-West Passage. He added nothing <a name="page248"></a>more to the knowledge of the world,
+and though he sailed through the strait afterwards known as Hudson's
+Strait, he never realised his discovery. His work was hampered by the
+quest for gold, for which England was eagerly clamouring, and he
+disappears from our history of discovery.</p>
+
+<p>The triumphant return of Francis Drake in 1580 laden with treasure
+from the Spice Islands put into the shade all schemes for a north-west
+passage for the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, this voyage of Martin Frobisher is important in the
+history of exploration. It was the first attempt of an Englishman to
+make search amid the ice of the Arctic regions&mdash;a search in which so
+many were yet to lay down their lives.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap34"></a><a name="page249"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIV</h3>
+
+<h4>DRAKE'S FAMOUS VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD</h4>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem29">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Call him on the deep sea, call him up the sound,<br>
+			&nbsp;Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;<br>
+			&nbsp;Where the old trade's plyin' and the old flag flyin',<br>
+			&nbsp;They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!"<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;H<small>ENRY</small> N<small>EWBOLT</small></small>.
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<p>Drake's famous voyage, as it is known to history (1577-1580), was
+indeed famous, for although Magellan's ship had sailed round the world
+fifty years before, Drake was the first Englishman to do so, and,
+further, he discovered for us land to the south of Magellan's Strait
+round which washed the waters of Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, showing
+that the mysterious land marked on contemporary maps as Terra
+Australis and joined to South America was a separate land altogether.
+He also explored the coast of America as far north as Vancouver Island,
+and disclosed to England the secret of <a name="page250"></a>the Spice Islands. The very
+name of Drake calls up a vision of thrilling adventure on the high
+seas. He had been at sea since he was a boy of fifteen, when he had
+been apprenticed to the master of a small ship trading between England
+and the Netherlands, and many a time he had sailed on the grey North
+Sea. "But the narrow seas were a prison for so large a spirit born
+for greater undertakings," and in 1567 we find Drake sailing forth
+on board the <i>Judith</i> in an expedition over to the Spanish settlements
+in America under his kinsman, John Hawkins. Having crossed the
+Atlantic and filled his ships with Spanish treasure from "the Spanish
+Main," and having narrowly escaped death from the hands of the
+Spaniards, Drake had hurried home to tell of the riches of this new
+country still closed to all other nations. Two years later Drake was
+off again, this time in command himself of two ships with crews of
+seventy-three young men, their modest aim being nothing less than to
+seize one of the Spanish ports and empty into their holds the "Treasure
+House of the World." What if this act of reckless daring was
+unsuccessful? The undertaking was crowned with a higher success than
+that of riches, for Drake was the first Englishman to see the waters
+of the Pacific Ocean. His expedition was not unlike that of Balboa
+some sixty years before, as with eighteen chosen companions he climbed
+the forest-clad spurs of the ridge dividing the two great oceans.
+Arrived at the top, he climbed up a giant tree, and the Golden Sea
+of which he had so often heard&mdash;the Pacific Ocean of Magellan, the
+waters washing the golden shores of Mexico and Peru&mdash;all lay below
+him. Descending from the heights, he sank upon his knees and "humbly
+besought Almighty God of His goodness to give him life and leave to
+sail once in an English ship in that sea."</p>
+
+<a name="ill096"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 96">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="299">
+			<img src="images/096.jpg" alt="SIR FRANCIS DRAKE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="299" align="center">
+			<small>SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.<br>
+			From Holland's <i>Heroologia</i>, 1620.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Jealously had the Spanish guarded this beautiful Southern Sea, now
+her secrets were laid bare, for an <a name="page251"></a>Englishman had gazed upon it and
+he was not likely to remain satisfied with this alone.</p>
+
+<p>In 1573 Drake came home with his wonderful news, and it was not long
+before he was eagerly talking over with the Queen a project for a raid
+into this very Golden Sea guarded by the Spaniards. Elizabeth promised
+help on condition that the object of the expedition should remain a
+secret. Ships were bought for "a voyage to Egypt"; there was the
+<i>Pelican</i> of one hundred tons, the <i>Marygold</i> of thirty tons, and a
+provision ship of fifty tons. A fine new ship of eighty tons, named
+the <i>Elizabeth</i>, mysteriously added itself to the little fleet, and
+the crews numbered in all some one hundred and fifty men. No expense
+was spared in the equipment of the ships. Musicians were engaged for
+the voyage, the arms and ammunition were of the latest pattern. The
+flagship was lavishly furnished: there were silver bowls and mugs and
+dishes richly gilt and engraved with the family arms, while the
+commander's cabin was full of sweet-smelling perfumes presented by
+the Queen herself. Thus, complete at last, Drake led his gay little
+squadron out of Plymouth harbour on 15th November 1577, bound for
+Alexandria&mdash;so the crews thought.</p>
+
+<p>Little did Drake know what was before him, as, dressed in his seaman's
+shirt, his scarlet cap with its gold band on his head, he waved farewell
+to England. Who could foresee the terrible beginning, with treachery
+and mutiny at work, or the glorious ending when the young Englishman
+sailed triumphantly home after his three years' voyage&mdash;the world
+encompassed?</p>
+
+<p>Having reached the Cape de Verde Islands in safety, the object of the
+expedition could no longer remain a secret, and Drake led his squadron
+boldly across the Atlantic Ocean.</p>
+
+<a name="ill097"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 97">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="378">
+			<img src="images/097.jpg" alt="THE SILVER MAP OF THE WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="378" align="center">
+			<small>THE SILVER MAP OF THE WORLD.<br>
+			From the medallion in the British Museum, probably struck in 1581, showing the line of Drake's
+			voyage from England in 1577 westwards through the Magellan Strait to
+			California and New Albion.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On 5th April the coast of Brazil appeared, but fogs and heavy weather
+scattered the ships and they had to run <a name="page252"></a>into the mouth of the La Plata
+for shelter. Then for six weary weeks the ships struggled southward,
+battered by gales and squalls during which nothing but the daring
+seamanship of the English navigators saved the little vessels from
+destruction. It was not till 20th June that they reached Port St. Julian
+of Magellan fame, on the desolate shores of Patagonia. As they entered
+the harbour, a grim sight met their eyes. On that windswept shore was
+the skeleton of the man hung by Magellan years before.</p>
+
+<p>History was to repeat itself, and the same fate was now to befall an
+unhappy Englishman guilty of the same conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Drake had long had reason to suspect the second in command, Doughty,
+though he was his dear friend. He had been guilty of worse than
+disobedience, and the very success of the voyage was threatened. So
+Drake called a council together and Doughty was tried according to
+English law. After two days' trial he was found guilty and condemned
+to die. One of the most touching scenes in the history of exploration
+now took place. One sees the little English crews far away on that
+desolate shore, the ships lying at anchor in the harbour, the block
+prepared, the altar raised beside it, the two old friends, Drake and
+Doughty, kneeling side by side, then the flash of the sword and Drake
+holding up the head of his friend with the words, "Lo, this is the
+end of traitors."</p>
+
+<a name="ill098"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 98">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="377">
+			<img src="images/098.jpg" alt="THE SILVER MAP OF THE WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="377" align="center">
+			<small>THE SILVER MAP OF THE WORLD.<br>
+			The reverse half, showing the route of Drake's voyage home from
+			California in 1579-1580, through the Spice Islands and the Indian
+			Ocean. The end of the homeward track, round the Azores, will be
+			seen on the previous Silver Map illustration.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page253"></a>
+<p>It was now midwinter, and for six weeks they remained in harbour till
+August came, and with three ships they emerged to continue their way
+to the Straits of Magellan. At last it was found and boldly they entered.
+From the towering mountains that guarded the entry, tempests of wind
+and snow swept down upon the "daring intruders." As they made their
+way through the rough and winding waters, they imagined with all the
+other geographers of their time that the unknown land to the south
+was one great continent leading beyond the boundaries of the world.
+Fires lit by the natives on this southern coast added terror to the
+wild scene. But at the end of sixteen days they found themselves once
+more in the open sea. They were at last on the Pacific Ocean. But it
+was anything but pacific. A terrible tempest arose, followed by other
+storms no less violent, and the ships were driven helplessly southward
+and westward far beyond Cape Horn. When they once more reached the
+coast they found in the place of the great southern continent an
+indented wind-swept shore washed by waves terrific in their height
+and strength. In the ceaseless gale the <i>Marygold</i> foundered with all
+hands and was never heard of again. A week later the captain of the
+<i>Elizabeth</i> turned home, leaving the <i>Pelican</i>, now called the <i>Golden
+Hind</i>, to struggle on alone. After nearly two months of storm, Drake
+anchored <a name="page254"></a>among the islands southward of anything yet known to the
+geographers, where Atlantic and Pacific rolled together in one
+boisterous flood. Walking alone to the farthest end of the island,
+Drake is said to have laid himself down and with his arms embraced
+the southernmost point of the known world.</p>
+
+<a name="ill099"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 99">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="362">
+			<img src="images/099.jpg" alt="SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO SAIL ROUND THE WORLD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="362" align="center">
+			<small>SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO SAIL ROUND THE WORLD.<br>
+			After the engraving attributed to Hondius.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>He showed that the Tierra del Fuego, instead of being part of a great
+continent&mdash;the Terra Australis&mdash;was a group of islands with open sea
+to east, south, and west. This discovery was first shown on a Dutch
+silver medallion struck in Holland about 1581, known as The Silver
+Map of the world, and may be seen to-day in the British Museum.</p>
+
+<p>Remarking that the ocean he was now entering would have been better
+called "Mare Furiosum" than "Mare Pacificum," Drake now directed his
+course along the western coast of South America. He found the coast
+of Chili, but not as the general maps had described it, "wherefore
+it appeareth that this part of Chili hath not been truly hitherto
+discovered," remarked one on board the <i>Golden Hind</i>. Bristling with
+guns, the little English ship sailed along the unknown coast, till
+they reached Valparaiso. Here they found a great Spanish ship laden
+with treasure from Peru. Quickly boarding her, the English sailors
+bound the Spaniards, stowed them under the hatches, and hastily
+transferred the cargo on to the <i>Golden Hind</i>. They sailed on
+northwards to Lima and Panama, chasing the ships of Spain, plundering
+as they went, till they were deeply laden with stolen Spanish treasure
+and knew that they had made it impossible to return home by that coast.
+So Drake resolved to go on northward and discover, if possible, a way
+home by the north. He had probably heard of Frobisher's Strait, and
+hoped to find a western entrance.</p>
+
+<p>As they approached the Arctic regions the weather grew <a name="page255"></a>bitterly cold,
+and "vile, thick, stinking fogs" determined them to sail southward.
+They had reached a point near what we now know as Vancouver Island
+when contrary winds drove them back and they put in at a harbour, now
+known as San Francisco, to repair the ship for the great voyage across
+the Pacific and home by the Cape of Good Hope. Drake had sailed past
+seven hundred miles of new coast-line in twelve days, and he now turned
+to explore the new country, to which he gave the name of New Albion.
+The Indians soon began to gather in large quantities on the shore,
+and the King himself, tall and comely, advanced in a friendly manner.
+Indeed, he took off his crown and set it on the head of Drake and,
+hanging chains about his neck, the Indians made him understand that
+the land was now his and that they were his vassals.</p>
+
+<a name="ill100"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 100">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="295">
+			<img src="images/100.jpg" alt="THE GOLDEN HIND AT NEW ALBION">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="295" align="center">
+			<small>THE <i>GOLDEN HIND</i> AT NEW ALBION.<br>
+			From the Chart of Drake's Voyages. 1589.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Little did King Drake dream, as he named his country New Albion, that
+Californian gold was so near. His subjects were loving and peaceable,
+evidently regarding the English as gods and reverencing them as such.
+The chronicler is eloquent in his detailed description of all the royal
+doings.</p>
+
+<p>"Before we left," he says, "our General caused to be set up a monument
+of our being there, as also of Her Majesty's right and title to that
+kingdom, namely, a plate of brass, fast nailed to a great and firm
+post, whereon is engraved Her Grace's name and the day and year of
+our arrival here, and of the free giving up of the province, both by
+the people and king, into Her Majesty's hands, together with Her
+Highness' picture and arms in a piece of <a name="page256"></a>sixpence current money. The
+Spanish never so much as set foot in this country&mdash;the utmost of their
+discoveries reaching only to many degrees southward of this place.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, as the time of our departure was perceived by the people,
+so did the sorrows and miseries seem to increase upon them&mdash;not only
+did they lose on a sudden all mirth, joy, glad countenance, pleasant
+speeches, agility of body, but with signs and sorrowings, with heavy
+hearts and grieved minds, they poured out woeful complaints and moans,
+with bitter tears and wringing of their hands, tormenting themselves.
+And, as men refusing all comfort, they only accounted themselves as
+those whom the gods were about to forsake."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the poor Indians looked on these Englishmen as gods, and, when
+the day came for them to leave, they ran to the top of the hills to
+keep the little ship in sight as long as possible, after which they
+burnt fires and made sacrifices at their departure.</p>
+
+<p>Drake left New Albion on 23rd July 1579, to follow the lead of Magellan
+and to pass home by the southern seas and the Atlantic Ocean. After
+sixty-eight days of quick and straight sailing, with no sight of land,
+they fell in with the Philippine Islands, and on 3rd November with
+the famous Spice Islands. Here they were well received by the King&mdash;a
+magnificent person attired in cloth of gold, with bare legs and shoes
+of Cordova skins, rings of gold in his hair, and a chain "of perfect
+gold" about his neck. The Englishmen were glad enough to get fresh
+food after their long crossing, and fared sumptuously on rice, hens,
+"imperfect and liquid sugar," sugar-canes, and a fruit they call figo,
+with plenty of cloves. On a little island near Celebes the <i>Golden
+Hind</i> was thoroughly repaired for her long voyage home. But the little
+treasure-laden ship was nearly wrecked <a name="page257"></a>before she got away from the
+dangerous shoals and currents of these islands.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon the 9th of January we ran suddenly upon a rock, where we stuck
+fast from eight of the clock at night till four of the clock in the
+afternoon the next day, being, indeed, out of all hope to escape the
+danger; but our General, as he had always hitherto showed himself
+courageous, so now he and we did our best endeavours to save ourselves,
+which it pleased God so to bless, that in the end we cleared ourselves
+most happily of the danger."</p>
+
+<a name="ill101"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 101">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="295">
+			<img src="images/101.jpg" alt="THE GOLDEN HIND AT JAVA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="295" align="center">
+			<small>THE <i>GOLDEN HIND</i> AT JAVA.<br>
+			From the Chart of Drake's Voyages.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Then they ran across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope
+in calm weather, abusing the Portuguese for calling it the most
+dangerous Cape in the world for intolerable storms, for "This Cape,"
+said the English, "is a most stately thing and the finest Cape we saw
+in the whole circumference of the earth."</p>
+
+<p>And so they came home. After nearly three years' absence Drake
+triumphantly sailed his little <i>Golden Hind</i> into Plymouth harbour,
+where he had long ago been given up as lost. Shouts of applause rang
+through the land at the news that an Englishman had circumnavigated
+the world. The Queen sent for Drake to tell his wonderful story, to
+which she listened spellbound. A great banquet was held on board the
+little ship, at which Elizabeth was present and knighted Drake, while
+she ordered that the <i>Golden Hind</i> should be preserved "as a worthy
+rival of Magellan's <i>Victoria</i>" and as "a monument to all posterity
+of that famous and worthy exploit of Sir Francis <a name="page258"></a>Drake." It was
+afterwards taken to pieces, and the best parts of wood were made into
+a chair at Oxford, commemorated by Cowley's lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem30">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"To this great ship, which round the world has run<br>
+			&nbsp;And matched in race the chariot of the sun;<br>
+			&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&middot;<br>
+			&nbsp;Drake and his ship could ne'er have wished from fate<br>
+			&nbsp;A happier station or more blest estate;<br>
+			&nbsp;For lo, a seat of endless rest is given<br>
+			&nbsp;To her in Oxford and to him in Heaven."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Sir Francis Drake died at sea in 1596.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem31">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"The waves became his winding sheet, the waters were his tomb,<br>
+			&nbsp;But for his fame the ocean sea was not sufficient room."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br><br>
+
+<a name="ill102"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 102">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448">
+			<img src="images/102.jpg" alt="The world as known after its circumnavigation by Sir Francis Drake in the years 1577-1580">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448" align="center">
+			<small>"THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"&mdash;V.<br>
+			The world as known after its circumnavigation by Sir Francis Drake in the years
+			1577-1580.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap35"></a><a name="page259"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXV</h3>
+
+<h4>DAVIS STRAIT</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>But even while Drake was sailing round the world, and Frobisher's
+search for a north-west passage had been diverted into a quest for
+gold, men's minds were still bent on the achievement of reaching Cathay
+by some northern route. A discourse by Sir Humphrey Gilbert to prove
+the existence of a passage by the north-west to Cathay and the East
+Indies, in ten chapters, was much discussed, and the Elizabethan
+seamen were still bent on its discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"When I gave myself to the study of geography," said Sir Humphrey,
+"and came to the fourth part of the world, commonly called America,
+which by all descriptions I found to be an island environed round by
+sea, having on the south side of it the Strait of Magellan, on the
+west side the Sea of the South, which sea runneth toward the north,
+separating it from the east parts of Asia, and on the north side the
+sea that severeth it from Greenland, through which Northern Seas the
+Passage lieth which I take now in hand to discover."</p>
+
+<p>The arguments of Sir Humphrey seemed conclusive, and in 1585 they chose
+John Davis, "a man well grounded in the principles of the art of
+navigation," to search for the North-West Passage to China. They gave
+him two little ships, the <i>Sunshine</i> of fifty tons, with a crew of
+seventeen seamen, four musicians, and a boy, and the <i>Moonshine</i> of
+thirty-five tons. It was a daring venture, but the expedition was
+ill-equipped to battle with the icebound <a name="page260"></a>seas of the frozen north.
+The ships left Dartmouth on 7th June, and by July they were well out
+on the Atlantic with porpoises and whales playing round them. Then
+came a time of fog and mist, "with a mighty great roaring of the sea."
+On 20th July they sailed out of the fog and beheld the snow-covered
+mountains of Greenland, beyond a wide stream of pack-ice&mdash;so gloomy,
+so "waste, and void of any creatures," so bleak and inhospitable that
+the Englishmen named it the Land of Desolation and passed on to the
+north. Rounding the point, afterwards named by Davis Cape Farewell,
+and sailing by the western coast of Greenland, they hoped to find the
+passage to Cathay. Landing amid the fiords and the "green and pleasant
+isles" about the coast, they anchored a while to refresh, and named
+their bay Gilbert Sound, after Sir Humphrey and Davis' own little boy,
+Gilbert, left at home.</p>
+
+<p>"The people of the country," says Davis, "having espied our ships,
+came down unto us in their canoes, holding up their right hand toward
+the sun. We doing the like, the people came aboard our ships, men of
+good stature, unbearded, small-eyed, and of tractable conditions. We
+bought the clothes from their backs, which were all made of seals'
+skins and birds' skins, their buskins, their hose, their gloves, all
+being commonly sewed and well dressed."</p>
+
+<a name="ill103"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 103">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="286">
+			<img src="images/103.jpg" alt="AN ESKIMO">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="286" align="center">
+			<small>AN ESKIMO.<br>
+			From a water-colour drawing by John White, about 1585, who may
+			have seen Eskimo either in Frobisher's or Davis's voyages.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>These simple Greenlanders who worshipped the sun gave Davis to
+understand that there was a great and open sea to the north-west, and
+full of hope he sailed on. But he soon abandoned the search, for the
+season was advancing, and, crossing the open sea, he entered the broad
+channel named after him Davis Strait, crossed the Arctic Circle, and
+anchored under a promontory, "the cliffs whereof were orient as gold,"
+naming it Mount Raleigh. Here they found four white bears of "a
+monstrous bigness," which they took to be goats or wolves, till on
+nearer <a name="page261"></a>acquaintance they were discovered to be great Polar bears.
+There were no signs of human life, no wood, no grass, no earth, nothing
+but rock, so they coasted southwards, and to their joy they found an
+open strait to the west free from ice. Eagerly they sailed the little
+<i>Moonshine</i> and <i>Sunshine</i> up the opening, which they called
+Cumberland Sound, till thick fogs and adverse winds drove them back.
+Winter was now advancing, the six months' provisions were ended, and,
+satisfied with having found an open passage westward, Davis sailed
+home in triumph to fit out another expedition as soon as spring came
+round. His news was received with delight. "The North-West Passage
+is a matter nothing doubtful," he affirmed, "but at any time almost
+to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air tolerable, and
+the waters very deep."</p>
+
+<p>With this certainty of success the merchants readily fitted out
+another expedition, and Davis sailed early in May 1586 with four ships.
+The little <i>Moonshine</i> and <i>Sunshine</i> were included in the new fleet,
+but Davis himself commanded the <i>Mermaid</i> of one hundred and twenty
+tons. The middle of June found him on the west coast of Greenland,
+battling his way with great blocks of ice to his old quarters at Gilbert
+Sound. What a warm welcome they received <a name="page262"></a>from their old Eskimo friends;
+"they rowed to the boat and took hold on the oars and hung about with
+such comfortable joy as would require a long discourse to be uttered."
+Followed by a wondering crowd of natives eager to help him up and down
+the rocks, Davis made his way inland to find an inviting country, "with
+earth and grass such as our moory and waste grounds of England are";
+he found, too, mosses and wild flowers in the sheltered places. But
+his business lay in the icy waters, and he boldly pushed forward. But
+ice and snow and fog made further progress impossible; shrouds, ropes,
+and sails were turned into a frozen mass, and the crew was filled with
+despair. "Our men began to grow sick and feeble and hopeless of good
+success, and they advised me that in conscience I ought to regard the
+safety of mine own life with the preservation of theirs, and that I
+should not through my over-boldness leave their widows and fatherless
+children to give me bitter curses."</p>
+
+<p>So Davis rearranged his crews and provisions, and with the <i>Moonshine</i>
+and a selection of his best men he determined to voyage on "as God
+should direct him," while the <i>Mermaid</i> should carry the sick and
+feeble and fainthearted home. Davis then crossed over the strait
+called by his name and explored the coast about Cumberland Sound. Again
+he tried here to discover the long-sought passage, but the brief summer
+season was almost past and he had to content himself with exploring
+the shores of Labrador, unconsciously following the track made by John
+Cabot eighty-nine years before.</p>
+
+<p>But on his return home the merchants of London were disappointed. Davis
+had indeed explored an immense extent of coast-line, and he had brought
+back a cargo of cod-fish and five hundred seal skins, but Cathay seemed
+as far off as ever. One merchant prince, Sanderson by name, was still
+very keen, and he helped Davis to fit out yet <a name="page263"></a>another expedition. With
+three ships, the <i>Sunshine</i>, the <i>Elizabeth</i>, and the <i>Helen</i>, the
+undaunted Arctic explorer now found himself for the third summer in
+succession at his old halting-place, Gilbert's Sound, on the west
+coast of Greenland.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving his somewhat discontented crews to go fishing off the coast
+of Labrador, he took the little twenty-ton pinnace, with a small party
+of brave spirits like his own, and made his way northwards in a free
+and open sea. The weather was hot, land was visible on both sides,
+and the English mariners were under the impression that they were
+sailing up a gulf. But the passage grew wider and wider, till Davis
+found himself with the sea all open to west and north. He had crossed
+the Arctic Circle and reached the most northerly point ever yet reached
+by an explorer. Seeing on his right a lofty cliff, he named it
+"Sanderson his Hope," for it seemed to give hope of the long-sought
+passage to Cathay.</p>
+
+<p>It was a memorable day in the annals of discovery, 30th June 1587,
+when Davis reached this famous point on the coast of Greenland. "A
+bright blue sea extended to the horizon on the north and west,
+obstructed by no ice, but here and there a few majestic icebergs with
+peaks snowy shooting up into the sky." To the eastward were the granite
+mountains of Greenland, and beyond them the white line of the mightiest
+glacier in the world. Rising immediately above the tiny vessel was
+the beetling wall of Hope Sanderson, with its summit eight hundred
+and fifty feet above sea-level. At its base the sea was a sheet of
+foam and spray. It must have been a scene like fairyland, for, as Davis
+remarked, there was "no ice towards the north, but a great sea, free,
+large, very salt and blue, and of an unsearchable depth."</p>
+
+<p>But again disappointment awaited him. That night a wind from the north
+barred further advance as a mighty <a name="page264"></a>bank of ice some eight feet thick
+came drifting down toward the Atlantic. Again and again he attempted
+to get on, but it was impossible, and reluctantly enough he turned
+the little ship southwards.</p>
+
+<p>"This Davis hath been three times employed; why hath he not found the
+passage?" said the folk at home when he returned and reported his doings.
+How little they realised the difficulties of the way. The commander
+of the twenty-ton <i>Ellen</i> had done more than any man had done before
+him in the way of Arctic exploration. He had discovered seven hundred
+and thirty-two miles of coast from Cape Farewell to Sanderson's Hope;
+he had examined the whole coast of Labrador; he had "converted the
+Arctic regions from a confused myth into a defined area." "He lighted
+Baffin into his bay. He lighted Hudson into his strait. He lighted
+Hans Egede to the scene of his Greenland labour." And more than this,
+says his enthusiastic biographer: "His true-hearted devotion to the
+cause of Arctic discovery, his patient scientific research, his
+loyalty to his employers, his dauntless gallantry and enthusiasm form
+an example which will be a beacon-light to maritime explorers for all
+time to come."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem32">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"And Davis three times forth for the north-west made,<br>
+			&nbsp;Still striving by that course t'enrich the English trade;<br>
+			&nbsp;And as he well deserved, to his eternal fame,<br>
+			&nbsp;There, by a mighty sea, immortalised his name."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap36"></a><a name="page265"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVI</h3>
+
+<h4>BARENTS SAILS TO SPITZBERGEN</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>With the third failure of John Davis to find the North-West Passage
+the English search for Cathay came to an end for the present. But the
+merchants of Amsterdam took up the search, and in 1594 they fitted
+out an expedition under William Barents, a burgher of Amsterdam and
+a practical seaman of much experience. The three voyages of Barents
+form some of the most romantic reading in the history of geographical
+discovery, and the preface to the old book compiled for the Dutch after
+the death of Barents sums up in pathetic language the tragic story
+of the "three Voyages, so strange and wonderful that the like hath
+never been heard of before." They were "done and performed three
+years," says the old preface, "one after the other, by the ships of
+Holland, on the North sides of Norway, Muscovy, and Tartary, towards
+the kingdoms of Cathay and China, showing discoveries of the Country
+lying under 80 degrees: which is thought to be Greenland; where never
+any man had been before, with the cruel Bears and other Monsters of
+the sea and the unsupportable and extreme cold that is found to be
+in these places. And how that in the last Voyage the Ship was enclosed
+by the Ice, that it was left there, whereby the men were forced to
+build a house in the cold and desert country of Nova Zembla, wherein
+they continued ten months together and never saw nor heard of any man,
+in most great cold and extreme misery; and <a name="page266"></a>how after that, to save
+their lives, they were constrained to sail about one thousand miles
+in little open boats, along and over the main Seas in most great danger
+and with extreme labour, unspeakable troubles, and great hunger."</p>
+
+<a name="ill104"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 104">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="253">
+			<img src="images/104.jpg" alt="A SHIP OF THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="253" align="center">
+			<small>A SHIP OF THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.<br>
+			From Ortelius, 1598.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Surely no more graphic summary of disaster has ever appeared than these
+words penned three hundred and fourteen years ago, which cry to us
+down the long, intervening ages of privation and suffering endured
+in the cause of science.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1594, then, four ships were sent forth from Amsterdam with
+orders to the wise and skilful pilot, William Barents, that he was
+to sail into the North Seas and "discover the kingdoms of Cathay and
+China." In the month of July the Dutch pilot found himself off the
+south coast of Nova Zembla, whence he sailed as the wind pleased to
+take him, ever making for the north and hugging the coast as close
+as possible. On 9th July they found a creek very far north to which
+they gave the name of Bear Creek, because here they suddenly discovered
+their first Polar bear. It tried to get into their boat, so they shot
+it with a musket, "but the bear showed most wonderful strength, for,
+notwithstanding that she was shot into the body, yet she leapt up and
+swam in the water; the men that were in the boat, rowing after her,
+cast a rope about her neck and drew her at the stern of the boat, for,
+not having seen the like bear before, they thought to have carried
+her alive in the ship and to have showed her for a <a name="page267"></a>strange wonder in
+Holland; but she used such force that they were glad they were rid
+of her, and contented themselves with her skin only." This they brought
+back to Amsterdam in great triumph&mdash;their first white Polar bear. But
+they went farther north than this, until they came to a plain field
+of ice and encountered very misty weather. Still they kept sailing
+on, as best they might, round about the ice till they found the land
+of Nova Zembla was covered with snow. From "Ice Point" they made their
+way to islands which they named Orange Islands after the Dutch Prince.
+Here they found two hundred walrus or sea-horses lying on the shore
+and basking in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"The sea-horse is a wonderful strong monster of the sea," they brought
+back word, "much bigger than an ox, <a name="page268"></a>having a skin like a seal, with
+very short hair, mouthed like a lion; it hath four feet, but no ears."
+The little party of Dutchmen advanced boldly with hatchets and pikes
+to kill a few of these monsters to take home, but it was harder work
+than they thought. The wind suddenly rose, too, and rent the ice into
+great pieces, so they had to content themselves by getting a few of
+their ivory teeth, which they reported to be half an ell long. With
+these and other treasures Barents was now forced to return from these
+high latitudes, and he sailed safely into the Texel after three and
+a half months' absence.</p>
+
+<a name="ill105"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 105">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543">
+			<img src="images/105.jpg" alt="NOVA ZEMBLA AND THE ARCTIC REGIONS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543" align="center">
+			<small>NOVA ZEMBLA AND THE ARCTIC REGIONS.<br>
+			From a map in De Bry's <i>Grands Voyages</i>, 1598.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>His reports of Nova Zembla encouraged the merchants of Amsterdam to
+persevere in their search for the kingdoms of Cathay and China by the
+north-east, and a second expedition was fitted out under Barents the
+following year; but it started too late to accomplish much, and we
+must turn to the third expedition for the discovery which has for ever
+made famous the name of William Barents. It was yet early in the May
+of 1596 when he sailed from Amsterdam with two ships for the third
+and last time, bound once more for the frozen northern seas. By 1st
+June he had reached a region where there was no night, and a few days
+later a strange sight startled the whole crew, "for on each side of
+the sun there was another sun and two rainbows more, the one compassing
+round about the suns and the other right through the great circle,"
+and they found they were "under 71 degrees of the height of the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>Sighting the North Cape of Lapland, they held on a north-westerly
+course till on 9th June they came upon a little island which they named
+Bear Island. Here they nearly met their end, for, having ascended a
+steep snow mountain on the island to look around them, they found it
+too slippery to descend. "We thought we should all have broken our
+necks, it was so slippery, but we sat up <a name="page269"></a>on the snow and slid down,
+which was very dangerous for us, and break both our arms and legs for
+that at the foot of the hill there were many rocks." Barents himself
+seems to have sat in the boat and watched them with intense anxiety.
+They were once more amid ice and Polar bears. In hazy weather they
+made their way north till on the 19th they saw land, and the "land
+was very great." They thought it was Greenland, but it was really
+Spitzbergen, of which he was thus the discoverer.</p>
+
+<p>Many things astonished the navigators here. Although they were in such
+high latitudes, they saw grass and leafy trees and such animals as
+bucks and harts, while several degrees to the south "there groweth
+neither leaves nor grass nor any beasts that eat grass or leaves, but
+only such beasts as eat flesh, as bears and foxes."</p>
+
+<a name="ill106"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 106">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="616">
+			<img src="images/106.jpg" alt="BARENTS IN THE ARCTIC">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="616" align="center">
+			<small>BARENTS IN THE ARCTIC: "HUT WHEREIN WE WINTERED."<br>
+			From De Veer's account of the voyages of Barents, 1598.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page270"></a>
+<p>By 1st July he had explored the western shore and was sailing south
+to Bear Island. He never landed on the coast of Spitzbergen: so we
+have no further account of this Arctic discovery. Sailing across the
+wide northern sea now known as Barents Sea, he made land again in the
+north of Nova Zembla, and, hugging the western shore, came to Ice Point.
+Here they were sorely harassed by Polar bears and floating ice and
+bitter gales of wind. Still they coasted on till they had rounded the
+northern end of Nova Zembla and unexpectedly sailed into a good harbour
+where they could anchor. The wind now blew with redoubled vigour, the
+"ice came mightily driving in" until the little ship was nearly
+surrounded, "and withal the wind began more and more to rise and the
+ice still drave harder and harder, so that our boat was broken in pieces
+between the ship and the ice, and it seemed as if the ship would be
+crushed in pieces too."</p>
+
+<p>As the August days passed on, they tried to get out of their prison,
+but it was impossible, and there was nothing for it but to winter "in
+great cold, poverty, misery, and grief" in this bleak and barren spot.
+The successful pilot was to explore no more, but the rest of the tragic
+tale must be shortly told. With the ice heaping high, "as the salt
+hills that are in Spain," and the ship in danger of going to pieces,
+they collected trees and roots driven on to the desolate shores from
+Tartary, "wherewith as if God had purposely sent them unto us we were
+much comforted." Through the September days they drew wood across the
+ice and snow to build a house for the winter. Only sixteen men could
+work and they were none too strong and well.</p>
+
+<a name="ill107"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 107">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="610">
+			<img src="images/107.jpg" alt="BARENTS'S SHIP AMONG THE ARCTIC ICE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="610" align="center">
+			<small>BARENTS'S SHIP AMONG THE ARCTIC ICE.<br>
+			From a coloured woodcut in the account of Barents's three voyages by Gerard de Veer,
+			published in 1598.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Throughout October and November they were snowed up in their winter
+hut, with "foul stormie weather" outside, the wind blowing ceaselessly
+out of the north and snow lying deep around. They trapped a few foxes
+from <a name="page271"></a>day to day to eat, making warm caps out of their fur; they heated
+stones and took them into their cabin beds, but their sheets froze
+as they washed them and at last their clock froze too.</p>
+
+<p>"They looked pitifully upon one another, being in great fear that if
+the extremity of the cold grew to be more and more we should all die
+there with the cold." Christmas came and went and they comforted one
+another by remembering that the sun was as low as it could go, and
+that it must begin to come to them again; but "as the day lengthens,
+so the cold strengthens," and the snow now lay deeper until it covered
+the roof of their house.</p>
+
+<p>The New Year found them still imprisoned, "with great cold, danger,
+and disease." January, February, March, April passed and still the
+little ship was stuck fast in the ice. But as the sun began to gain
+power, hope revived, and they began to repair their boats, to make
+new sails, and repair tackle. They were too weak and ill to do much
+work, but by the middle of June the boats were fairly ready and they
+could cut a way through the ice to the open sea. This was their only
+hope of escape, to leave the ship behind and embark in two little open
+boats for the open sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Then William Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a musket's
+charge and hanged it up in the chimney, showing how we came out of
+Holland to sail to the kingdom of China, and how we had been forced
+in our extremity to make that house and had dwelt ten months therein,
+and how we were forced to put to sea in two small open boats, for that
+the ship lay fast in the ice."</p>
+
+<p>Barents himself was now too ill to walk, so they carried him to one
+of the little boats, and on 14th June 1597 the little party put off
+from their winter quarters and sailed round to Ice Point. But the pilot
+was dying. "Are we about Ice Point?" he asked feebly. "If we be, then
+I pray you lift me up, for I must view it once again."</p>
+<a name="page272"></a>
+<p>Then suddenly the wind began to rise, driving the ice so fast upon
+them "that it made our hair stand upright upon our heads, it was so
+fearful to behold, so that we thought verily that it was a foreshadowing
+of our last end."</p>
+
+<p>They drew the boats up on to the ice and lifted the sick commander
+out and laid him on the icy ground, where a few days later he died&mdash;"our
+chief guide and only pilot on whom we reposed ourselves next under
+God." The rest of the story is soon told.</p>
+
+<p>On 1st November 1597 some twelve gaunt and haggard men, still wearing
+caps of white fox and coats of bearskin, having guided their little
+open boats all the way from Nova Zembla, arrived at Amsterdam and told
+the story of their exploration to the astonished merchants, who had
+long since given them up as dead.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till 1871 that Barents' old winter quarters on Nova Zembla
+were discovered. "There stood the cooking-pans over the fireplace,
+the old clocks against the wall, the arms, the tools, the drinking
+vessels, the instruments and the books that had beguiled the weary
+hours of that long night, two hundred and seventy-eight years ago."
+Among the relics were a pair of small shoes and a flute which had
+belonged to a little cabin-boy who had died during the winter.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap37"></a><a name="page273"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVII</h3>
+
+<h4>HUDSON FINDS HIS BAY</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Henry Hudson was another victim to perish in the hopeless search for
+a passage to China by the north. John Davis had been dead two years,
+but not till after he had piloted the first expedition undertaken by
+the newly formed East India Company for commerce with India and the
+East. It was now more important than ever to find a short way to these
+countries other than round by the Cape of Good Hope. So Henry Hudson
+was employed by the Muscovy Company "to discover a shorter route to
+Cathay <i>by sailing over the North Pole</i>." He knew the hardships of
+the way; he must have realised the fate of Willoughby, the failure
+of Frobisher, the sufferings of Barents and his men, the difficulties
+of Davis&mdash;indeed, it is more than probable that he had listened to
+Davis speaking on the subject of Arctic exploration to the merchants
+of London at his uncle's house at Mortlake.</p>
+
+<p>Never did man start on a bolder or more perilous enterprise than did
+this man, when he started for the North Pole in a little boat of eighty
+tons, with his little son Jack, two mates, and a crew of eight men.</p>
+
+<p>"Led by Hudson with the fire of a great faith in his eyes, the men
+solemnly marched to St. Ethelburga Church, off Bishopsgate Street,
+London, to partake of Holy Communion and ask God's aid. Back to the
+muddy water <a name="page274"></a>front, opposite the Tower, a hearty God-speed from the
+gentlemen of the Muscovy Company, pompous in self-importance and lace
+ruffles&mdash;and the little crew steps into a clumsy river-boat with
+brick-red sails."</p>
+
+<p>After a six weeks' tumble over a waste of waters, Hudson arrived off
+the coast of Greenland, the decks of the little <i>Hopewell</i> coated with
+ice, her rigging and sails hard as boards, and a north-east gale of
+wind and snow against her. A barrier of ice forbade further advance;
+but, sailing along the edge of this barrier&mdash;the first navigator to
+do so&mdash;he made for the coast of Spitzbergen, already roughly charted
+by Barents. Tacking up the west coast to the north, Hudson now explored
+further the fiords, islands, and harbours, naming some of
+them&mdash;notably Whale Bay and Hakluyt Headland, which may be seen on
+our maps of to-day. By 13th July he had reached his Farthest North,
+farther than any explorer had been before him, farther than any to
+be reached again for over one hundred and fifty years. It was a land
+of walrus, seal, and Polar bear; but, as usual, ice shut off all further
+attempts to penetrate the mysteries of the Pole, thick fog hung around
+the little ship, and with a fair wind Hudson turned southward. "It
+pleased God to give us a gale and away we steered," says the old ship
+log. Hudson would fain have steered Greenland way and had another try
+for the north. But his men wanted to go home, and home they went, through
+"slabbie" weather.</p>
+
+<p>But the voice of the North was still calling Hudson, and he persuaded
+the Muscovy Company to let him go off again. This he did in the following
+year. Only three of his former crew volunteered for service, and one
+of these was his son. But this expedition was devoid of result. The
+icy seas about Nova Zembla gave no hope of a passage in this direction,
+and, "being void of hope, <a name="page275"></a>the wind stormy and against us, much ice
+driving, we weighed and set sail westward."</p>
+
+<a name="ill108"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 108">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="627">
+			<img src="images/108.jpg" alt="HUDSON'S MAP OF HIS VOYAGES IN THE ARCTIC">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="627" align="center">
+			<small>HUDSON'S MAP OF HIS VOYAGES IN THE ARCTIC.<br>
+			From his book published in 1612.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Hudson's voyages for the Muscovy Company had already come under the
+notice of the Dutch, who were vying with the English for the discovery
+of this short route to the East. Hudson was now invited to undertake
+an expedition for the Dutch East India Company, and he sailed from
+Amsterdam in the early spring of 1609 in a Dutch ship called the
+<i>Half-Moon</i>, with a mixed crew of Dutch and English, including once
+more his own son. Summer found the enthusiastic explorer off the coast
+of Newfoundland, where some cod-fishing refreshed the crews before
+they sailed on south, partly seeking an opening to the west, partly
+looking for the colony of Virginia, under Hudson's friend, Captain
+John Smith. In hot, misty weather they cruised along the coast. They
+passed what is now Massachusetts, "an Indian country of great hills&mdash;a
+very sweet land." On 7th August, Hudson was near the modern town of
+New York, so long known as New Amsterdam, but mist hid the low-lying
+hills and the <i>Half-Moon</i> drifted on to James River; then, driven back
+by a heat hurricane, he made for the inlet on the old charts, which
+might lead yet east.</p>
+<a name="page276"></a>
+<p>It was 2nd September when he came to the great mouth of the river that
+now bears his name. He had been beating about all day in gales and
+fogs, when "the sun arose and we saw the land all like broken islands.
+From the land which we had first sight of, we came to a large lake
+of water, like drowned land, which made it to rise like islands. The
+mouth hath many shores and the sea breaketh on them. This is a very
+good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see. At three of
+the clock in the afternoon we came to three great rivers. We found
+a very good harbour and went in with our ship. Then we took our nets
+to fish and caught ten great mullets of a foot and a half long each,
+and a ray as great as four men could haul into the ship. The people
+of the country came aboard of us, seeming very glad of our coming,
+and brought green tobacco&mdash;they go in deer skins, well-dressed, they
+desire clothes and are very civil&mdash;they have great store of maize,
+whereof they make good bread. The country is full of great and tall
+oaks." To this he adds that the women had red copper tobacco pipes,
+many of them being dressed in mantles of feathers or furs, but the
+natives proved treacherous. Sailing up the river, Hudson found it a
+mile broad, with high land on both sides. By the night of 19th September
+the little <i>Half-Moon</i> had reached the spot where the river widens
+near the modern town of Albany. He had sailed for the first time the
+distance covered to-day by magnificent steamers which ply daily
+between Albany and New York city. Hudson now went ashore with an old
+chief of the country. "Two men were dispatched in quest of game," so
+records Hudson's manuscript, "who brought in a pair of pigeons. They
+likewise killed a fat dog and skinned it with great haste with shells.
+The land is the finest for cultivation that ever I in my life set foot
+upon."</p>
+
+<p>Hudson had not found a way to China, but he had <a name="page277"></a>found the great and
+important river that now bears his name. Yet he was to do greater things
+than these, and to lose his life in the doing. The following year,
+1610, found him once more bound for the north, continuing the endless
+search for a north-west passage&mdash;this time for the English, and not
+for the Dutch. On board the little <i>Discovery</i> of fifty-five tons,
+with his young son, Jack, still his faithful companion, with a
+treacherous old man as mate, who had accompanied him before, with a
+good-for-nothing young spendthrift taken at the last moment "because
+he wrote a good hand," and a mixed crew, Hudson crossed the wide
+Atlantic for the last time. He sailed by way of Iceland, where "fresh
+fish and dainty fowl, partridges, curlew, plover, teale, and goose"
+much refreshed the already discontented crews, and the hot baths of
+Iceland delighted them. The men wanted to return to the pleasant land
+discovered in the last expedition, but the mysteries of the frozen
+North still called the old explorer, and he steered for Greenland.
+He was soon battling with ice upon the southern end of "Desolation,"
+whence he crossed to the snowy shores of Labrador, sailing into the
+great straits that bear his name to-day. For three months they sailed
+aimlessly about that "labyrinth without end" as it was called by Abacuk
+Prickett who wrote the account of this fourth and last voyage of Henry
+Hudson. But they could find no opening to the west, no way of escape.</p>
+
+<a name="ill109"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 109">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="411">
+			<img src="images/109.jpg" alt="A SHIP OF HUDSON'S FLEET">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="411" align="center">
+			<small>A SHIP OF HUDSON'S FLEET.<br>
+			From his <i>Voyages</i>, 1612.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page278"></a>
+<p>Winter was coming on, "the nights were long and cold, and the earth
+was covered with snow." They were several hundred miles south of the
+straits, and no way had been found to the Pacific; they had followed
+the south shore "to the westernmost bay of all," James Bay, but lo!
+there was no South Sea. Hudson recognised the fact that he was
+land-bound and winter-bound in a desolate region, with a discontented
+crew, and that the discontent was amounting to mutiny. On 1st November
+they hauled up the ship and selected a wintering place. Ten days later
+they were frozen in, and snow was falling continuously every day. "We
+were victualled for six months, and of that which was good," runs the
+record. For the first three months they shot "partridges as white as
+milk," but these left with the advent of spring, and hunger seized
+on the handful of Englishmen wintering in this unknown land. "Then
+we went into the woods, hills, and valleys&mdash;and the moss and the frog
+were not spared." Not till the month of May did the ice begin to melt
+and the men could fish. The first day this was possible they caught
+"five hundred fish as big as good herrings and some trout," which
+revived their hopes and their health. Hudson made a last despairing
+effort to find a westward passage. But now the men rose in mutiny.
+"We would rather be hanged at home than starved abroad!" they cried
+miserably.</p>
+
+<p>So Hudson "fitted all things for his return, and first delivered all
+the bread out of the bread room (which came to a pound apiece for every
+man's share), and he wept when he gave it unto them." It was barely
+sufficient for fourteen days, and even with the fourscore small fish
+they had caught it was "a poor relief for so many hungry bellies."</p>
+
+<p>With a fair wind in the month of June, the little <i>Discovery</i> was headed
+for home. A few days later she <a name="page279"></a>was stopped by ice. Mutiny now burst
+forth. The "master" and his men had lost confidence in each other.
+There were ruffians on board, rendered almost wild by hunger and
+privation. There is nothing more tragic in the history of exploration
+than the desertion of Henry Hudson and his boy in their newly discovered
+bay. Every detail of the conspiracy is given by Prickett. We know how
+the rumour spread, how the crew resolved to turn the "master" and the
+sick men adrift and to share the remaining provisions among themselves.
+And how in the early morning Hudson was seized and his arms bound behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"What does this mean?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You will know soon enough when you are in the shallop," they replied.</p>
+
+<p>The boat was lowered and into it Hudson was put with his son, while
+the "poor, sick, and lame men were called upon to get them out of their
+cabins into the shallop." Then the mutineers lowered some powder and
+shot, some pikes, an iron pot, and some meal into her, and the little
+boat was soon adrift with her living freight of suffering, starving
+men&mdash;adrift in that icebound sea, far from home and friends and all
+human help. At the last moment the carpenter sprang into the drifting
+boat, resolved to die with the captain sooner than desert him. Then
+the <i>Discovery</i> flew away with all sail up as from an enemy.</p>
+
+<p>And "the master" perished&mdash;how and when we know not.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately the mutineers took home Hudson's journals and charts.
+Ships were sent out to search for the lost explorer, but the silence
+has never been broken since that summer's day three hundred years ago,
+when he was deserted in the waters of his own bay.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap38"></a><a name="page280"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h3>
+
+<h4>BAFFIN FINDS HIS BAY</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Two years only after the tragedy of Henry Hudson, another Arctic
+explorer appears upon the scene. William Baffin was already an
+experienced seaman in the prime of life; he had made four voyages to
+the icy north, when he was called on by the new Company of Merchants
+of London&mdash;"discoverers of the North-West Passage"&mdash;formed in 1612,
+to prepare for another voyage of discovery. Distressed beyond measure
+at the desertion of Henry Hudson, the Muscovy Company had dispatched
+Sir Thomas Button with our old friend Abacuk Prickett to show him the
+way. Button had reached the western side of Hudson's Bay, and after
+wintering there returned fully convinced that a north-west passage
+existed in this direction. Baffin returned from an expedition to
+Greenland the same year. The fiords and islets of west Greenland, the
+ice-floes and glaciers of Spitzbergen, the tidal phenomena of Hudson's
+Strait, and the geographical secrets of the far-northern bay were all
+familiar to him. "He was, therefore, chosen as mate and associate"
+to Bylot, one of the men who had deserted Hudson, but who had sailed
+three times with him previously and knew well the western seas. So
+in "the good ship called the <i>Discovery</i>," of fifty-five tons, with
+a crew of fourteen men and two boys, William Baffin sailed for the
+northern seas. May found the expedition on the coast of Greenland,
+with a gale of wind and great islands of ice. However, Baffin crossed
+<a name="page281"></a>Davis Strait, and after a struggle with ice at the entrance to Hudson's
+Strait he sailed along the northern side till he reached a group of
+islands which he named Savage Islands. For here were Eskimos
+again&mdash;very shy and fearful of the white strangers. "Among their
+tents," relates Baffin, "all covered with seal skins, were running
+up and down about forty dogs, most of them muzzled, about the bigness
+of our mongrel mastiffs, being a brindled black colour, looking almost
+like wolves. These dogs they used instead of horses, or rather as the
+Lapps do their deer, to draw their sledges from place to place over
+the ice, their sledges being shod or lined with bones of great fishes
+to keep them from wearing out, and the dogs have furniture and collars
+very fitting."</p>
+
+<p>The explorers went on bravely till they were stopped by masses of ice.
+They thought they must be at the mouth of a large bay, and, seeing
+no prospect of a passage to the west, they turned back. When, two
+hundred years later, Parry sailed in Baffin's track he named this place
+Baffin Land "out of respect to the memory of that able and enterprising
+navigator."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Discovery</i> arrived in Plymouth Sound by September, <i>without the
+loss of one man</i>&mdash;a great achievement in these days of salt junk and
+scurvy.</p>
+
+<p>"And now it may be," adds Baffin, "that some expect I should give my
+opinion concerning the Passage. To these my answer must be that
+doubtless there <i>is</i> a Passage. But within this Strait, which is called
+Hudson Strait, I am doubtful, supposing to the contrary."</p>
+
+<p>Baffin further suggested that if there was a Passage it must now be
+sought by Davis Strait.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly another expedition was fitted out and Baffin had his
+instructions: "For your course, you must make all possible haste to
+Cape Desolation; and from hence you, William Baffin, as pilot, keep
+along the coast of <a name="page282"></a>Greenland and up Davis Strait, until you come toward
+the height of 80 degrees, if the land will give you leave. Then shape
+your course west and southerly, so far as you shall think it convenient,
+till you come to the latitude of 60 degrees, then direct your course
+to fall in with the land of <i>Yedzo</i>, leaving your further sailing
+southward to your own discretion: although our desires be if your
+voyage prove so prosperous that you may have the year before you that
+you go far south as that you may touch the north part of Japan from
+whence we would have you bring home one of the men of the country and
+so, God blessing you, with all expedition to make your return home
+again."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Discovery</i> had proved a good little ship for exploration, so she
+was again selected by Baffin for this new attempt in the far north.
+Upon 26th March 1616 she sailed from Gravesend, arriving off the coast
+of Greenland in the neighbourhood of Gilbert Sound about the middle
+of May. Working against terrible winds, they plied to the northward,
+the old ship making but slow progress, till at last they sighted
+"Sanderson his Hope," the farthest point of Master Davis. Once more
+English voices broke the silence of thirty years. The people who
+appeared on the shore were wretchedly poor. They lived on seals' flesh,
+which they ate raw, and clothed themselves in the skins. Still
+northwards they sailed, cruising along the western coast. Though the
+ice was beginning to disappear the weather kept bitterly cold, and
+on Midsummer Day the sails and ropes were frozen too hard to be handled.
+Stormy weather now forced them into a sound which they named Whale
+Sound from the number of whales they discovered here. It was declared
+by Baffin to be the "greatest and largest bay in these parts."</p>
+
+<p>But beyond this they could not go; so they sailed across the end of
+what we now know as Baffin's Bay and explored the opposite coast of
+America, naming one of <a name="page283"></a>the greater openings Lancaster Sound, after
+Sir James Lancaster of East India Company fame.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," says Baffin pitifully, "our hope of Passage began to grow less
+every day."</p>
+
+<p>It was the old story of ice, advancing season, and hasty conclusions.</p>
+
+<a name="ill110"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 110">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="641">
+			<img src="images/110.jpg" alt="BAFFIN'S MAP OF HIS VOYAGES TO THE NORTH">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="641" align="center">
+			<small>BAFFIN'S MAP OF HIS VOYAGES TO THE NORTH.<br>
+			From the original MS., drawn by Baffin, in the British Museum.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"There is no hope of Passage to the north of Davis' Straits," the
+explorer further asserts; but he asserts wrongly, for Lancaster Sound
+was to prove an open channel to the West.</p>
+
+<p>So he returned home. He had not found the Passage, but he had discovered
+the great northern sea that now bears his name. The size of it was
+for long plunged in obscurity, and the wildest ideas centred round
+the extent of this northern sea. A map of 1706 gives it an indefinite
+amount of space, adding vaguely: "Some will have Baffin's Bay to run
+as far as this faint Shadow," while a map of 1818 marks the bay, but
+adds that "it is not now believed."</p>
+
+<p>For the next two hundred years the icebound regions <a name="page284"></a>of the north were
+practically left free from invasion, silent, inhospitable,
+unapproachable.</p>
+
+<p>But while these Arctic explorers were busy battling with the northern
+seas to find a passage which should lead them to the wealth of the
+East, others were exploring the New World and endeavouring by land
+and river to attain the same end.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap39"></a><a name="page285"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIX</h3>
+
+<h4>SIR WALTER RALEIGH SEARCHES FOR EL DORADO</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>It is pleasant to turn from the icy regions of North America to the
+sunny South, and to follow the fortunes of that fine Elizabethan
+gentleman, Sir Walter Raleigh, to "the large, rich, and beautiful
+Empire of Guiana and the Great and Golden City of Manoa (which the
+Spaniards call El Dorado)." Ever since the conquest of Peru, sixty
+years before, there had floated about rumours of a great kingdom
+abounding in gold. The King of this Golden Land was sprinkled daily
+with gold dust, till he shone as the sun, while Manoa was full of golden
+houses and golden temples with golden furniture. The kingdom was
+wealthier than Peru; it was richer than Mexico. Expedition after
+expedition had left Spain in search of this El Dorado, but the region
+was still plunged in romantic mists. Raleigh had just failed to
+establish an English colony in Virginia. To gain a rich kingdom for
+his Queen, to extend her power and enrich her treasury was now his
+greatest object in life. What about El Dorado?</p>
+
+<blockquote><small>"Oh, unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it
+seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and
+but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires
+of El Dorado."</small></blockquote>
+
+<p>February 1595 found him ready and leaving England with five ships and,
+after a good passage of forty-six days, landing on the island of
+Trinidad, and thence making his way to the mouth of the Orinoco. Here
+Raleigh soon found <a name="page286"></a>that it was impossible to enter the Orinoco with
+his English ships, but, nothing daunted, he took a hundred men and
+provisions for a month in three little open boats, and started forward
+to navigate this most difficult labyrinth of channels, out of which
+they were guided by an old Indian pilot named Ferdinando. They had
+much to observe. The natives, living along the river-banks, dwelt in
+houses all the summer, but in the winter months they constructed small
+huts to which they ascended by means of ladders.</p>
+
+<p>These folk were cannibals, but cannibals of a refined sort, who "beat
+the bones of their lords into powder" and mixed the powder with their
+drinks. The stream was very strong and rapid, and the men rowed against
+it in great discomfort, "the weather being extreme hot, the river
+bordered with very high trees that kept away the air, and the current
+against us every day stronger than the other," until they became, as
+Raleigh tells us, "wearied and scorched and doubtful."</p>
+
+<p>The heat increased as they advanced, and the crews grew weaker as the
+river "ran more violently against them." But Raleigh refused to return
+yet, lest "the world would laugh us to scorn."</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately delicious fruits hung over the banks of the Orinoco, and,
+having no bread and for water only the thick and troubled water of
+the river, they refreshed themselves gladly. So they rowed on up the
+great river, through province after province of the Indians, but no
+El Dorado appeared. Suddenly the scene changed as if by magic, the
+high banks giving way to low-lying plains; green grass grew close to
+the water's edge, and deer came down to feed.</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw a more beautiful country," says Raleigh, "nor more lively
+prospects, hills raised here and there over the valleys, the river
+winding into different branches, <a name="page287"></a>plains without bush or stubble, all
+fair green grass, deer crossing our path, the birds towards evening
+singing on every tree with a thousand several tunes, herons of white,
+crimson, and carnation perching on the riverside, the air fresh with
+a gentle wind, and every stone we stooped to pick up promised either
+gold or silver." His account of the great cataract at the junction
+of the tributary Caroni is very graphic. They had already heard the
+roar, so they ran to the tops of some neighbouring hills, discovering
+the wonderful "breach of waters" which ran down Caroli, and from that
+"mountain see the river how it ran in three parts, about twenty miles
+off, and there appeared some ten or twelve overfalls in sight, every
+one as high over the other as a church tower, which fell with that
+fury that the rebound of waters made it seem as if it had been all
+covered over with a great shower of rain; and in some places we took
+it at the first for a smoke that had risen over some great town."</p>
+
+<a name="ill111"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 111">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="342">
+			<img src="images/111.jpg" alt="SIR WALTER RALEIGH">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="342" align="center">
+			<small>SIR WALTER RALEIGH.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The country was the province of Guiana, but it was not El Dorado, the
+object of their quest. And though it was very beautiful, it was
+inhabited by cannibals; moreover, winter was advancing, and they were
+already some four hundred miles from their ships in little open boats
+and in the heart of a strange country.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, too, the river began to rise, to "rage and <a name="page288"></a>overflow very
+fearfully," rain came down in torrents accompanied by great gusts of
+wind, and the crews with no change of clothes got wet through, sometimes
+ten times a day. "Whosoever had seen the fury of that river after it
+began to rise would perchance have turned his back somewhat sooner
+than we did if all the mountains had been gold or precious stones,"
+remarked Raleigh, who indeed was no coward. So they turned the boats
+for home, and at a tremendous rate they spun down the stream, sometimes
+doing as much as one hundred miles a day, till after sundry adventures
+they safely reached their ships at anchor off Trinidad. Raleigh had
+not reached the golden city of Manoa, but he gave a very glowing account
+of this country to his Queen.</p>
+
+<p>"Guiana," he tells her, "is a country that hath yet her maidenhood.
+The face of the earth hath not been torn, the graves have not been
+opened for gold. It hath never been entered by any army of strength,
+and never conquered by any Christian prince. Men shall find here more
+rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with gold, than either
+Cortes found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru, and the shining glory of
+this conquest will eclipse all those of the Spanish nation."</p>
+
+<p>But Raleigh had brought back no gold, and his schemes for a conquest
+of Guiana were received coldly by the Queen. She could not share his
+enthusiasm for the land&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem33">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Where Orinoco, in his pride,<br>
+			&nbsp;Rolls to the main no tribute tide,<br>
+			&nbsp;But 'gainst broad Ocean wages far<br>
+			&nbsp;A rival sea of roaring war;<br>
+			&nbsp;While in ten thousand eddies driven<br>
+			&nbsp;The billows fling their foam to heaven;<br>
+			&nbsp;And the pale pilot seeks in vain<br>
+			&nbsp;Where rolls the river, where the main."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<a name="ill112"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 112">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="600">
+			<img src="images/112.jpg" alt="RALEIGH'S MAP OF GUINEA, EL DORADO, AND THE ORINOCO COAST">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="600" align="center">
+			<small>RALEIGH'S MAP OF GUINEA, EL DORADO, AND THE ORINOCO COAST.<br>
+			From the original map, drawn by Raleigh, in the British Museum.
+			This map, like so many of the older charts, is drawn upside down, the
+			South being at the top and the East on the left, while the Panama Isthmus
+			is at the bottom on the right. The river above the "Lake of Manoa" is the Amazon.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But, besides the Orinoco in South America, there was <a name="page289"></a>the St. Lawrence
+in North America, still very imperfectly known. Since Jacques Cartier
+had penetrated the hitherto undisturbed regions lying about the "river
+of Canada," little had been explored farther west, till Samuel
+Champlain, one of the most remarkable men of his day, comes upon the
+scene, and was still discovering land to the west when Raleigh was
+making his second expedition to Guiana in the year 1617.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap40"></a><a name="page290"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XL</h3>
+
+<h4>CHAMPLAIN DISCOVERS LAKE ONTARIO</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>To discover a passage westward was still the main object of those who
+made their way up the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. This, too, was the
+object of Samuel Champlain, known as "the Father of New France," when
+he arrived with orders from France to establish an industrial colony
+"which should hold for that country the gateway of the Golden East."
+He had already ascended the river Saguenay, a tributary of the St.
+Lawrence, till stopped by rapids and rocks, and the natives had told
+him of a great salt sea to the north, which was Hudson's Bay, discovered
+some seven years later, in 1610. He now made his way to a spot called
+by the natives Quebec, a word meaning the strait or narrows, this being
+the narrowest place in the whole magnificent waterway. He had long
+been searching for a suitable site for a settlement, but "I could find
+none more convenient," he says, "or better situated than the point
+of Quebec, so called by the savages, which was covered with nut trees."
+Accordingly here, close to the present Champlain market, arose the
+nucleus of the city of Quebec&mdash;the great warehouse of New France.</p>
+
+<a name="ill113"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 113">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="379">
+			<img src="images/113.jpg" alt="THE FIRST SETTLEMENT AT QUEBEC">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="379" align="center">
+			<small>THE FIRST SETTLEMENT AT QUEBEC.<br>
+			From Champlain's <i>Voyages</i>, 1613. The bigger house in front is Champlain's own
+			residence.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Having passed the winter of 1608 at Quebec, the passion of exploration
+still on him, in a little two-masted boat piloted by Indians, he went
+up the St. Lawrence, towards Cartier's Mont Royal. From out the thick
+forest land that lined its banks, Indians discovered the steel-clad
+strangers and gazed at them from the river-banks in <a name="page291"></a>speechless wonder.
+The river soon became alive with Indian canoes, but the Frenchmen made
+their way to the mouth of the Richelieu River, where they encamped
+for a couple of days' hunting and fishing. Then Champlain sailed on,
+his little two-masted boat outstripping the native canoes, till the
+unwelcome sound of rapids fell on the silent air, and through the dark
+foliage of the islet of St. John he could see "the gleam of snowy foam
+and the flash of hurrying waters." The Indians had assured him that
+his boat could pass unobstructed through the whole journey. "It
+afflicted me and troubled me exceedingly," he tells us, "to be obliged
+to return without having seen so great a lake, full of fair islands
+and bordered with the fine countries which they had described to me."
+He could not bear to give up the exploration into the heart of a land
+unvisited by white men. So, sending back his party, accompanied only
+by two Frenchmen as brave as himself, he stepped into an Indian canoe
+to be carried round the rapids and so continue his perilous
+journey&mdash;perilous, indeed, for bands of hostile natives lurked in the
+primeval forests that clothed the river-banks in dense masses.</p>
+
+<p>As they advanced the river widened out; the Indian canoes carried them
+safely over the broad stream <a name="page292"></a>shimmering in the summer sun till they
+came to a great silent lake over one hundred miles long, hitherto
+unexplored. The beauty of the new country is described with enthusiasm
+by the delighted explorer, but they were now in the Mohawk country
+and progress was fraught with danger. They travelled only by night
+and lay hidden by day in the depth of the forest, till they had reached
+the far end of the lake, named Lake Champlain after its discoverer.
+They were near the rocky promontory where Fort Ticonderoga was
+afterwards built, when they met a party of Iroquois; war-cries pealed
+across the waters of the lake, and by daybreak battle could no longer
+be averted. Champlain and his two companions, in doublet and hose,
+buckled on their breastplates, cuisses of steel and plumed helmets,
+and with sword and arquebus advanced. Their firearms won the day, but
+all hope of further advance was at an end, and Champlain returned to
+Quebec with his great story of new lands to the south. It was not till
+the spring of 1611 that he was again free to start on another exploring
+expedition into the heart of Canada.</p>
+
+<a name="ill114"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 114">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="623">
+			<img src="images/114.jpg" alt="THE DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS BY CHAMPLAIN AND HIS PARTY ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="623" align="center">
+			<small>THE DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS BY CHAMPLAIN AND HIS PARTY ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN.<br>
+			From a drawing in Champlain's <i>Voyages</i>, 1613.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>His journey to the rapids of the St. Louis has been well described:
+"Like specks on the broad bosom of the waters, two pigmy vessels held
+their course up the lonely St. Lawrence. They passed abandoned
+Tadoussac, the channel of Orleans, the tenantless rock of Quebec, the
+wide Lake of St. Peter with its crowded archipelago, and the forest
+plain of Montreal. All was solitude. Hochelaga had vanished, and of
+the savage population that Cartier had found sixty-eight years before,
+no trace remained."</p>
+
+<p>In a skiff with a few Indians, Champlain tried to pass the rapids of
+St. Louis; but oars, paddles, and poles alike proved vain against the
+foaming surges, and he was forced to return, but not till the Indians
+had drawn for him rude plans of the river above, with its chain of
+rapids and its lakes and its cataracts. They were quite impassable,
+<a name="page293"></a>said the natives, though, indeed, to these white strangers everything
+seemed possible.</p>
+
+<p>"These white men must have fallen from the clouds," they said. "How
+else could they have reached us through the woods and rapids which
+even we find it hard to pass?" Champlain wanted to get to the upper
+waters of the Ottawa River, to the land of the cannibal Nipissings,
+who dwelt on the lake that bears their name; but they were enemies,
+and the natives refused to advance into their country.</p>
+
+<p>Two years later he accomplished his desire, and found himself at last
+in the land of the Nipissings. He crossed their lake and steered his
+canoes down the French river. Days passed and no signs of human life
+appeared amid the rocky desolation, till suddenly three hundred
+savages, <a name="page294"></a>tattooed, painted, and armed, rushed out on them. Fortunately
+they were friendly, and it was from them that Champlain learned the
+good news that the great freshwater lake of the Hurons was close at
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>What if the Friar Le Caron, one of Champlain's party, had preceded
+him by a few days, Champlain was the first white man to give an account
+of it, if not the first to sail on its beautiful waters. For over one
+hundred miles he made his way along its eastern shores, until he reached
+a broad opening with fields of maize and bright patches of sunflower,
+from the seeds of which the Indians made their hair-oil. After staying
+a few days at a little Huron village where he was feasted by friendly
+natives, Champlain pushed on by Indian trails, passing village after
+village till he reached the narrow end of Lake Simcoe. A "shrill clamour
+of rejoicing and the screaming flight of terrified children" hailed
+his approach. The little fleet of canoes pursued their course along
+the lake and then down the chain of lakes leading to the river Trent.
+The inhabited country of the Hurons had now given place to a desolate
+region with no sign of human life, till from the mouth of the Trent,
+"like a flock of venturous wild fowl," they found themselves floating
+on the waters of Lake Ontario, across which they made their way safely.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great day in the life of Champlain when he found himself in
+the very heart of a hostile land, having discovered the chain of inland
+lakes of which he had heard so much. But they were now in the land
+of the Iroquois&mdash;deadly foes of the Hurons. There was nothing for it
+but to fight, and a great battle now took place between the rival tribes,
+every warrior yelling at the top of his voice. Champlain himself was
+wounded in the fray, and all further exploration had to be abandoned.
+He was packed up in a basket and carried away on the back of a Huron
+<a name="page295"></a>warrior. "Bundled in a heap," wrote the explorer, "doubled and
+strapped together after such a fashion that one could move no more
+than an infant in swaddling clothes, I never was in such torment in
+my life, for the pain of the wound was nothing to that of being bound
+and pinioned on the back of one of our savages. As soon as I could
+bear my weight, I got out of this prison." How Champlain wintered with
+the Hurons, who would not allow him to return to Quebec, how he got
+lost while hunting in one of the great forests in his eagerness to
+shoot a strange-looking bird, how the lakes and streams froze, and
+how his courage and endurance were sorely tried over the toilsome
+marches to Lake Simcoe, but how finally he reached Montreal by way
+of Nipissing and the Ottawa River, must be read elsewhere. Champlain's
+work as an explorer was done. Truly has he been called the Father of
+New France. He had founded Quebec and Montreal; he had explored Canada
+as no man has ever done before or since. Faithful to the passion of
+his life, he died in 1635 at Quebec&mdash;the city he had founded and loved.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap41"></a><a name="page296"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLI</h3>
+
+<h4>EARLY DISCOVERERS OF AUSTRALIA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>While the French and English were feverishly seeking a way to the East,
+either by the North Pole or by way of America, the Dutch were busy
+discovering a new land in the Southern Seas.</p>
+
+<p>And as we have seen America emerging from the mist of ages in the
+sixteenth century, so now in the seventeenth we have the great Island
+Continent of Australia mysteriously appearing bit by bit out of the
+yet little-known Sea of the South. There is little doubt that both
+Portuguese and Spanish had touched on the western coast early in the
+sixteenth century, but gave no information about it beyond sketching
+certain rough and undefined patches of land and calling it Terra
+Australis in their early maps; no one seems to have thought this
+mysterious land of much importance. The maritime nations of that
+period carefully concealed their knowledge from one another. The proud
+Spaniard hated his Portuguese neighbour as a formidable rival in the
+race for wealth and fame, and the Dutchman, who now comes on the scene,
+was regarded by both as a natural enemy by land or sea.</p>
+
+<p>Magellan in 1520 discovered that the Terra Australis was not joined
+to South America, as the old maps had laid down; and we find Frobisher
+remarking in 1578 that "Terra Australis seemeth to be a great, firm
+land, lying <a name="page297"></a>under and about the South Pole, not thoroughly discovered.
+It is known at the south side of the Strait of Magellan and is called
+Terra del Fuego. It is thought this south land about the pole Antarctic
+is far bigger than the north land about the pole Arctic; but whether
+it be so or not, we have no certain knowledge, for we have no particular
+description thereof, as we have of the land about the North Pole."</p>
+
+<a name="ill115"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 115">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="641">
+			<img src="images/115.jpg" alt="AN EARLY MAP OF TERRA AUSTRALIS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="641" align="center">
+			<small>AN EARLY MAP OF "TERRA AUSTRALIS," CALLED "JAVA LA
+			GRANDE" IN ITS SUPPOSED EASTERN PART.<br>
+			From the "Dauphin" map of 1546.
+			There was then supposed to be a great mainland of Java, separated from
+			the island of "Java Minor" by a narrow strait. See the copy of the
+			whole of <a href="#ill092">this map</a> in colour, where it will be seen that the "Terra
+			Australis" was supposed to stretch from east to west.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And even one hundred years later the mystery was not cleared up. "This
+land about the straits is not perfectly discovered whether it be
+continent or islands. <a name="page298"></a>Some take it for continent, esteeming that Terra
+Australis or the Southern Continent may for the largeness thereof take
+a first place in the division of the whole world."</p>
+
+<p>The Spaniards were still masters of the sea, when one Lieutenant Torres
+first sailed through the strait dividing Australia from New Guinea,
+already discovered in 1527. As second in command, he had sailed from
+America under a Spaniard, De Quiros, in 1605, and in the Pacific they
+had come across several island groups. Among others they sighted the
+island group now known as the New Hebrides. Quiros supposed that this
+was the continent for which he was searching, and gave it the name
+of "Terra Australis del Espirito Santo." And then a curious thing
+happened. "At one hour past midnight," relates Torres in his account
+of the voyage, "the <i>Capitana</i> (Quiros' ship) departed without any
+notice given us and without making any signal."</p>
+
+<p>After waiting for many days, Torres at last set sail, and, having
+discovered that the supposed land was only an island, he made his way
+along the dangerous coast of New Guinea to Manila, thus passing through
+the straits that were afterwards named after him, and unconsciously
+passing almost within sight of the very continent for which he was
+searching.</p>
+
+<p>This was the end of Spanish enterprise for the present. The rivals
+for sea-power in the seventeenth century were England and Holland.
+Both had recently started East India Companies, both were keen to take
+a large part in East Indian trade and to command the sea. For a time
+the Dutch had it all their own way; they devoted themselves to founding
+settlements in the East Indies, ever hoping to discover new islands
+in the South Seas as possible trade centres. Scientific discovery held
+little interest for them.</p>
+
+<p>As early as 1606 a Dutch ship&mdash;the little <i>Sun</i>&mdash;had <a name="page299"></a>been dispatched
+from the Moluccas to discover more about the land called by the
+Spaniards New Guinea, because of its resemblance to the West African
+coast of Guinea. But the crews were greeted with a shower of arrows
+as they attempted a landing, and with nine of their party killed, they
+returned disheartened.</p>
+
+<p>A more ambitious expedition was fitted out in 1617 by private
+adventurers, and two ships&mdash;the <i>Unity</i> and the <i>Horn</i>&mdash;sailed from
+the Texel under the command of a rich Amsterdam merchant named Isaac
+Le Maire and a clever navigator, Cornelius Schouten of Horn. Having
+been provided with an English gunner and carpenter, the ships were
+steered boldly across the Atlantic. Hitherto the object of the
+expedition had been kept a secret, but on crossing the line the crews
+were informed that they were bound for the Terra Australis del Espirito
+Santo of Quiros. The men had never heard of the country before, and
+we are told they wrote the name in their caps in order to remember
+it. By midwinter they had reached the eastern entrance of the Straits
+of Magellan, through which many a ship had passed since the days of
+Magellan, some hundred years before this. Unfortunately, while
+undergoing some necessary repairs here, the little <i>Horn</i> caught fire
+and was burnt out, the crews all having to crowd on to the <i>Unity</i>.
+Instead of going through the strait they sailed south and discovered
+Staaten Land, which they thought might be a part of the southern
+continent for which they were seeking. We now know it to be an island,
+whose heights are covered with perpetual snow. It was named by Schouten
+after the Staaten or States-General of Holland. Passing through the
+strait which divided the newly discovered land from the Terra del Fuego
+(called later the Straits of Le Maire after its discoverer), the
+Dutchmen found a great sea full of whales and monsters innumerable.
+Sea-mews <a name="page300"></a>larger than swans, with wings stretching six feet across,
+fled screaming round the ship. The wind was against them, but after
+endless tacking they reached the southern extremity of land, which
+Schouten named after his native town and the little burnt
+ship&mdash;<i>Horn</i>&mdash;and as Cape Horn it is known to-day.</p>
+
+<p>But the explorers never reached the Terra Australis. Their little ship
+could do no more, and they sailed to Java to repair.</p>
+
+<p>Many a name on the Australian map to-day testifies to Dutch enterprise
+about this time. In 1616, Captain Dirck Hartog of Amsterdam discovered
+the island that bears his name off the coast of Western Australia.
+A few years later the captain of a Dutch ship called the <i>Lewin</i> or
+<i>Lioness</i> touched the south-west extremity of the continent, calling
+that point Cape Lewin. Again a few years and we find Captain Nuyts
+giving his name to a part of the southern coast, though the discovery
+seems to have been accidental. In 1628, Carpentaria received its name
+from Carpenter, a governor of the East India Company. Now, one day
+a ship from Carpenter's Land returned laden with gold and spice;
+and though certain men had their suspicions that these riches had been
+fished out of some large ship wrecked upon the inhospitable coast,
+yet a little fleet of eleven ships was at once dispatched to reconnoitre
+further. Captain Pelsart commanded the <i>Batavia</i>, which in a great
+storm was separated from the other ships and driven alone on to the
+shoals marked as the Abrolhos (a Portuguese word meaning "Open your
+eyes," implying a sharp lookout for dangerous reefs) on the west coast
+of Australia. It was night when the ship struck, and Captain Pelsart
+was sick in bed. He ran hastily on to the deck. The moon shone bright.
+The sails were up. The sea appeared to be covered with white foam.
+Captain Pelsart <a name="page301"></a>charged the master with the loss of the ship, and asked
+him "in what part of the world he thought they were."</p>
+
+<p>"God only knows that," replied the master, adding that the ship was
+fast on a bank hitherto undiscovered. Suddenly a dreadful storm of
+wind and rain arose, and, being surrounded with rocks and shoals, the
+ship was constantly striking. "The women, children, and sick people
+were out of their wits with fear," so they decided to land these on
+an island for "their cries and noise served only to disturb them."
+The landing was extremely difficult owing to the rocky coast, where
+the waves were dashing high. When the weather had moderated a bit,
+Captain Pelsart took the ship and went in search of water, thereby
+exploring a good deal of coast, which, he remarked, "resembled the
+country near Dover." But his exploration amounted to little, and the
+account of his adventures is mostly taken up with an account of the
+disasters that befell the miserable party left on the rock-bound
+islands of Abrolhos&mdash;conspiracies, mutinies, and plots. His was only
+one of many adventures on this unknown and inhospitable coast, which
+about this time, 1644, began to take the name of New Holland.</p>
+
+<a name="ill116"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 116">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="643">
+			<img src="images/116.jpg" alt="THE WRECK OF CAPTAIN PELSART'S SHIP">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="643" align="center">
+			<small>THE WRECK OF CAPTAIN PELSART'S SHIP THE <i>BATAVIA</i> ON
+			THE COAST OF NEW HOLLAND, 1644.<br>
+			From the Dutch account of Pelsart's <i>Voyages</i>, 1647.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap42"></a><a name="page302"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLII</h3>
+
+<h4>TASMAN FINDS TASMANIA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>At this time Anthony Van Diemen was governor at Batavia, and one of
+his most trusted commanders was Abel Tasman. In 1642, Tasman was given
+command of two ships "for making discoveries of the Unknown South
+Land," and, hoisting his flag on board the <i>Sea-Hen</i>, he sailed south
+from Batavia without sighting the coast of Australia. Despite foggy
+weather, "hard gales, and a rolling sea," he made his way steadily
+south. It was three months before land was sighted, and high mountains
+were seen to the southeast. The ship stood in to shore. "As the land
+has not been known before to any European, we called it Anthony Van
+Diemen's Land in honour of our Governor-General, who sent us out to
+make discoveries. I anchored in a bay and heard the sound of people
+upon the shore, but I saw nobody. I perceived in the sand the marks
+of wild beasts' feet, resembling those of a tiger."</p>
+
+<p>Setting up a post with the Dutch East India Company's mark, and leaving
+the Dutch flag flying, Tasman left Van Diemen's Land, which was not
+to be visited again for over one hundred years, when it was called
+after its first discoverer. He had no idea that he was on an island.
+Tasman now sailed east, and after about a week at sea he discovered
+a high mountainous country, which he named "Staaten Land." "We found
+here abundance of inhabitants: they had very hoarse voices and were
+very large-made people; they were of colour <a name="page303"></a>between brown and yellow,
+their hair long and thick, combed up and fixed on the top of their
+heads with a quill in the very same manner that Japanese fastened their
+hair behind their heads."</p>
+
+<p>Tasman anchored on the north coast of the south island of New Zealand,
+but canoes of warlike Maoris surrounded the ships, a conflict took
+place in which several Dutch seamen were killed, the weather grew
+stormy, and Tasman sailed away from the bay he named Murderer's
+Bay&mdash;rediscovered by Captain Cook about a hundred years later.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the second country discovered by us," says 'Tasman. "We named
+it Staaten Land in honour of the States-General. It is possible that
+it may join the other Staaten Land (of Schouten and Le Maire to the
+south of Terra del Fuego), but it is uncertain; it is a very fine country,
+and we hope it is part of the unknown south continent." Is it necessary
+to add that this Staaten Land was really New Zealand, and the bay where
+the ships anchored is now known as Tasman Bay? When the news of Tasman's
+discoveries was noised abroad, all the geographers, explorers, and
+discoverers at once jumped to the conclusion that this was the same
+land on whose coast Pelsart had been wrecked. "It is most evident,"
+they said, "that New Guinea, Carpentaria, New Holland, Van Diemen's
+Land make all one continent, from which New Zealand seems to be
+separated by a strait, and perhaps is part of another continent
+answering to Africa as this plainly does to America, making indeed
+a very large country."</p>
+
+<p>After a ten months' cruise Tasman returned to Batavia. He had found
+Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, without sighting Australia.</p>
+
+<p>A second expedition was now fitted out. The instructions for the
+commodore, Captain Abel Jansen Tasman, make interesting reading. The
+orders are detailed and <a name="page304"></a>clear. He will start the end of January 1644,
+and "we shall expect you in July following attended with good success."</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the lands, countries, islands, capes, inlets, bays, rivers,
+shoals, reefs, sands, cliffs, and rocks which you pass in this
+discovery you are to make accurate maps&mdash;be particularly careful about
+longitude and latitude. But be circumspect and prudent in landing with
+small craft, because at several times New Guinea has been found to
+be inhabited by cruel, wild savages. When you converse with any of
+these savages behave well and friendly to them, and try by all means
+to engage their affection to you. You are to show the samples of the
+goods which you carry along with you, and inquire what materials and
+goods they possess. To prevent any other European nation from reaping
+the fruits of our labour in these discoveries, you are everywhere to
+take possession in the name of the Dutch East India Company, to put
+up some sign, erect a stone or post, and carve on them the arms of
+the Netherlands. The yachts are manned with one hundred and eleven
+persons, and for eight months plentifully victualled. Manage
+everything well and orderly, take notice you see the ordinary portion
+of two meat and two pork days, and a quarter of vinegar and a
+half-quarter of sweet oil per week."</p>
+
+<a name="ill117"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 117">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="457">
+			<img src="images/117.jpg" alt="VAN DIEMAN'S LAND AND TWO OF TASMAN'S SHIPS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="457" align="center">
+			<small>VAN DIEMAN'S LAND AND TWO OF TASMAN'S SHIPS.<br>
+			From the map drawn by Tasman in his "Journal."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="page305"></a>
+<p>He was to coast along New Guinea to the farthest-known spot, and to
+follow the coast <i>despite adverse winds</i>, in order that the Dutch might
+be sure "whether this land is not divided from the great known South
+Continent or not."</p>
+
+<p>What he accomplished on this voyage is best seen in "The complete map
+of the Southern Continent surveyed by Captain Abel Tasman," which was
+inlaid on the floor of the large hall in the Stadthouse at Amsterdam.
+The Great South Land was henceforth known as New Holland.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap43"></a><a name="page306"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLIII</h3>
+
+<h4>DAMPIER DISCOVERS HIS STRAIT</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>It was not long before the great stretch of coast-line carefully
+charted by Tasman became known to the English, and while the Dutch
+were yet busy exploring farther, Dampier&mdash;the first Englishman to
+visit the country&mdash;had already set foot on its shores.</p>
+
+<p>"We lie entirely at the mercy of the Dutch East India Company's
+geography for the outline of this part of the coast of New Holland:
+for it does not appear that the ships of any other nation have ever
+approached it," says an old history of the period.</p>
+
+<p>Some such information as this became known in South America, in which
+country the English had long been harassing the Spaniards. It reached
+the ears of one William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who had lived
+a life of romance and adventure with the buccaneers, pillaging and
+plundering foreign ships in these remote regions of the earth. He had
+run across the Southern Pacific carrying his life in his hand. He had
+marched across the isthmus of Panama&mdash;one hundred and ten miles in
+twenty-three days&mdash;through deep and swiftly flowing rivers, dense
+growths of tropical vegetation full of snakes, his only food being
+the flesh of monkeys. Such was the man who now took part in a
+privateering cruise under Captain Swan, bound for the East Indies.</p>
+
+<p>On 1st March 1686, Swan and Dampier sailed away from the coast of Mexico
+on the voyage that led to Dampier's <a name="page307"></a>circumnavigation of the globe.
+For fifty days they sailed without sighting land, and when at last
+they found themselves off the island of Guam, they had only three days'
+food left, and the crews were busy plotting to kill Captain Swan and
+eat him, the other commanders sharing the same fate in turn.</p>
+
+<a name="ill118"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 118">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="301">
+			<img src="images/118.jpg" alt="DAMPIER'S SHIP THE CYGNET">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="301" align="center">
+			<small>DAMPIER'S SHIP THE <i>CYGNET</i>.<br>
+			From a drawing in the Dutch edition of his <i>Voyage Round the World</i>, 1698.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Ah, Dampier," said Captain Swan, when he and all the men had refreshed
+themselves with food, "you would have made but a poor meal," for Dampier
+was as lean as the Captain was "fat and fleshy." Soon, however, fresh
+trouble arose among the men. Captain Swan lost his life, and Dampier
+on board the little <i>Cygnet</i> sailed hurriedly for the Spice Islands.</p>
+
+<p>He was now on the Australian parallels, "in the shadow of a world lying
+dark upon the face of the ocean." It was January 1688 when Dampier
+sighted the coast of New Holland and anchored in a bay, which they
+named Cygnet Bay after their ship, somewhere off the northern coast
+of eastern Australia. Here, while the ship was undergoing repairs,
+Dampier makes his observations.</p>
+
+<p>"New Holland," he tells us, "is a very large tract of land. It is not
+yet determined whether it is an island or a main continent, but I am
+certain that it joins neither to Africa, Asia, or America."</p>
+
+<p>"The inhabitants of this country," he tells us, "are the miserablest
+people in the world. They have no houses, but lie in the open air without
+any covering, the earth being their bed and the heaven their canopy.
+Their food is a small sort of fish, which they catch at low tide, while
+the old people that are not able to stir abroad by reason of their
+age and the tender infants wait their return, and what Providence has
+bestowed on them they presently broil on the coals and eat it in common.
+They are tall and thin, and of a very unpleasing aspect; their hair
+is black, short, and curled, like that of the negroes of Guinea."</p>
+<a name="page308"></a>
+<p>This Englishman's first description of the Australian natives cannot
+fail to be interesting. "After we had been here a little while, we
+clothed some of the men, designing to have some service from them for
+it; for we found some wells of water here, and intended to carry two
+or three barrels of it aboard. But it being somewhat troublesome to
+carry to the canoes, we thought to have made these men to have carry'd
+it for us, and therefore we gave them some clothes; to one an old pair
+of breeches, to another a ragged shirt, to a third a jacket that was
+scarce worth owning. We put them on, thinking that this finery would
+have brought them to work heartily for us; and our water being filled
+in small, long barrels, about six gallons in each, we brought these
+our new servants to the wells and put a barrel on each of their shoulders.
+But they stood like statues, without motion, but grinn'd like so many
+monkeys staring one upon another. So we were forced to carry the water
+ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>They had soon had enough of the new country, weighed anchor, and steered
+away to the north. Dampier returned to England even a poorer man than
+he had left it twelve years before. After countless adventures and
+hairbreadth escapes, after having sailed entirely round the world,
+he brought back with him nothing but one unhappy black man, "Prince
+Jeoly," whom he had bought for sixty dollars. He had hoped to recoup
+himself by showing the poor native with his rings and bracelets and
+painted skin, but he was in such need of money on landing that he gladly
+sold the poor black man on his arrival in the Thames.</p>
+
+<p>But Dampier had made himself a name as a successful traveller, and
+in 1699 he was appointed by the King, William <small>III</small>., to command the
+<i>Roebuck</i>, two hundred and ninety tons, with a crew of fifty men and
+provisions for twenty months. Leaving England in the middle of January
+<a name="page309"></a>1699, he sighted the west coast of New Holland toward the end of July,
+and anchored in a bay they called Sharks Bay, not far from the rocks
+where the <i>Batavia</i> was wrecked with Captain Pelsart in 1629. He gives
+us a graphic picture of this place, with its sweet-scented trees, its
+shrubs gay as the rainbow with blossoms and berries, its many-coloured
+vegetation, its fragrant air and delicious soil. The men caught sharks
+and devoured them with relish, which speaks of scarce provisions.
+Inside one of the sharks (eleven feet long) they found a hippopotamus.
+"The flesh of it was divided among my men," says the Captain, "and
+they took care that no waste should be made of it, but thought it,
+as things stood, good entertainment."</p>
+
+<p>As it had been with Pelsart, so now with Dampier, fresh water was the
+difficulty, and they sailed north-east in search of it. They fell in
+with a group of small rocky islands still known as Dampier's
+Archipelago, one island of which they named Rosemary Island, because
+"there grow here two or three sorts of shrubs, one just like rosemary."
+Once again he comes across natives&mdash;"very much the same blinking
+creatures, also abundance of the same kind of flesh-flies teasing them,
+with the same black skins and hair frizzled." Indeed, he writes as
+though the whole country of New Holland was a savage and worthless
+land inhabited by dreadful monsters.</p>
+<a name="page310"></a>
+<p>"If it were not," he writes, "for that sort of pleasure which results
+from the discovery even of the barrenest spot upon the globe, this
+coast of New Holland would not have charmed me much." His first sight
+of the kangaroo&mdash;now the emblem of Australia&mdash;is interesting. He
+describes it as "a sort of raccoon, different from that of the West
+Indies, chiefly as to the legs, for these have very short fore-legs,
+but go jumping upon them as the others do, and like them are very good
+meat." This must have been the small kangaroo, for the large kind was
+not found till later by Captain Cook in New South Wales.</p>
+
+<p>But Dampier and his mates could not find fresh water, and soon wearied
+of the coast of New Holland; an outbreak of scurvy, too, decided them
+to sail away in search of fresh foods. Dampier had spent five weeks
+cruising off the coast; he had sailed along some nine hundred miles
+of the Australian shore without making any startling discoveries. A
+few months later the <i>Roebuck</i> stood off the coast of New Guinea, "a
+high and mountainous country, green and beautiful with tropical
+vegetation, and dark with forests and groves of tall and stately
+trees." Innumerable dusky-faced natives peeped at the ship from behind
+the rocks, but they were not friendly, and this they showed by climbing
+the cocoanut trees and throwing down cocoanuts at the English, with
+passionate signs to them to depart. But with plenty of fresh water,
+this was unlikely, and the crews rowed ashore, killed and salted a
+good load of wild hogs, while the savages still peeped at them from
+afar.</p>
+
+<p>Thus then they sailed on, thinking they were still coasting New Guinea.
+So doing, they arrived at the straits which still bear the name of
+the explorer, and discovered a little island which he called New
+Britain. He had now been over fifteen months at sea and the <i>Roebuck</i>
+was only provisioned for twenty months, so <a name="page311"></a>Dampier, who never had the
+true spirit of the explorer in him, left his discoveries and turned
+homewards. The ship was rotten, and it took three months to repair
+her at Batavia before proceeding farther. With pumps going night and
+day, they made their way to the Cape of Good Hope; but off the island
+of Ascension the <i>Roebuck</i> went down, carrying with her many of
+Dampier's books and papers. But though many of the papers were lost,
+the "Learned and Faithful Dampier" as he is called, the "Prince of
+Voyagers," has left us accounts of his adventures unequalled in those
+strenuous ocean-going days for their picturesque and graphic details.</p>
+
+<a name="ill119"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 119">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="517">
+			<img src="images/119.jpg" alt="DAMPIER'S STRAITS AND THE ISLAND OF NEW BRITAIN">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="517" align="center">
+			<small>DAMPIER'S STRAITS AND THE ISLAND OF NEW BRITAIN.<br>
+			From a map in Dampier's <i>Voyages</i>, 1697.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap44"></a><a name="page312"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLIV</h3>
+
+<h4>BEHRING FINDS HIS STRAIT</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>In the great work of Arctic exploration during the eighteenth and
+nineteenth centuries, it is to England and Russia that we owe our
+knowledge at the present day. It is well known how Peter the Great
+of Russia journeyed to Amsterdam to learn shipbuilding under the Dutch,
+and to England to learn the same art under the English, and how the
+Russian fleet grew in his reign. Among the Danish shipbuilders at
+Petersburg was one Vitus Behring, already a bold and able commander
+on the high seas.</p>
+
+<p>The life of the great Russian Czar was drawing to its close&mdash;he was
+already within a few weeks of the end&mdash;when he planned an expedition
+under this same Vitus Behring, for which he wrote the instructions
+with his own hands.</p>
+
+<p>"(1) At Kamtchatka two decked boats are to be built. (2) With these
+you are to sail northward along the coast and, as the end of the coast
+is not known, this land is undoubtedly America. (3) For this reason
+you are to inquire where the American coast begins, and go to some
+European colony and, when European ships are seen, you are to ask what
+the coast is called, note it down, make a landing, and after having
+charted the coast return."</p>
+
+<p>Were Asia and America joined together, or was there a strait between
+the two? The question was yet undecided in 1725. Indeed, the east coast
+of Asia was only known as far as the island of Yezo, while the Pacific
+coast <a name="page313"></a>of America had been explored no farther than New Albion.</p>
+
+<p>Peter the Great died on 28th January 1725. A week later Behring started
+for Kamtchatka. Right across snow-covered Russia to the boundary of
+Siberia he led his expedition. March found him at Tobolsk. With rafts
+and boats they then made their way by the Siberian rivers till they
+reached Yakutsk, where they spent their first winter. Not till the
+middle Of June 1726 did Behring reach the capital of East Siberia.
+The rest of the journey was through utterly unknown land. It was some
+six hundred and eighty-five miles eastwards to Okhotsk through a rough
+and mountainous country, cut up by deep and bridgeless streams; the
+path lay over dangerous swamps and through dense forest.</p>
+
+<p>The party now divided. Behring, with two hundred horses, travelled
+triumphantly, if painfully, to Okhotsk in forty-five days. The town
+consisted of eleven huts containing Russian families who lived by
+fishing. Snow lay deep on the frozen ground, and the horses died one
+by one for lack of food, but the undaunted explorer had soon got huts
+ready for the winter, which was to be spent in felling trees and pushing
+forward the building of his ship, the <i>Fortuna</i>, for the coming voyage
+of discovery. Behring himself had made a successful journey to the
+coast, but some of the party encountered terrible hardships, and it
+was midsummer 1727 before they arrived, while others were overtaken
+by winter in the very heart of Siberia and had to make their way for
+the last three hundred miles on foot through snow in places six feet
+deep. Their food was finished, famine became a companion to cold, and
+they were obliged to gnaw their shoes and straps and leathern bags.
+Indeed, they must have perished had they not stumbled on Behring's
+route, where they found his dead horses. But <a name="page314"></a>at last all was ready
+and the little ship <i>Fortuna</i> was sailing bravely across the Sea of
+Okhotsk some six hundred and fifty miles to the coast of Kamtchatka.
+This she did in sixteen days. The country of Kamtchatka had now to
+be crossed, and with boats and sledges this took the whole winter.
+It was a laborious undertaking following the course of the Kamtchatka
+River; the expedition had to camp in the snow, and few natives were
+forthcoming for the transport of heavy goods.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till March 1728 that Behring reached his goal, Ostrog, a
+village near the sea, inhabited by a handful of Cossacks. From this
+point, on the bleak shores of the Arctic sea, the exploring party were
+ordered to start. It had taken over three years to reach this
+starting-point, and even now a seemingly hopeless task lay before
+them.</p>
+
+<p>After hard months of shipbuilding, the stout little <i>Gabriel</i> was
+launched, her timber had been hauled to Ostrog by dogs, while the
+rigging, cable, and anchors had been dragged nearly two thousand miles
+through one of the most desolate regions of the earth. As to the food
+on which the explorers lived: "Fish oil was their butter and dried
+fish their beef and pork. Salt they were obliged to get from the sea."
+Thus supplied with a year's provisions, Behring started on his voyage
+of discovery along an unknown coast and over an unknown sea. On 13th
+July 1728 the sails of the <i>Gabriel</i> were triumphantly hoisted, and
+Behring, with a crew of forty-four, started on the great voyage. His
+course lay close along the coast northwards. The sea was alive with
+whales, seals, sea-lions, and dolphins as the little party made their
+way north, past the mouth of the Anadir River. The little <i>Gabriel</i>
+was now in the strait between Asia and America, though Behring knew
+it not. They had been at sea some three weeks, when eight men came
+rowing towards them in a leathern boat. They were the <a name="page315"></a>Chukches&mdash;a
+warlike race living on the north-east coast of Siberia, unsubdued and
+fierce. They pointed out a small island in the north, which Behring
+named the Isle of St. Lawrence in honour of the day. Then he turned
+back. He felt he had accomplished his task and obeyed his orders.
+Moreover, with adverse winds they might never return to Kamtchatka,
+and to winter among the Chukches was to court disaster. After a cruise
+of three months they reached their starting-point again. Had he only
+known that the coast of America was but thirty-nine miles off, the
+results of his voyage would have been greater. As it was, he ascertained
+that "there really does exist a north-east passage, and that from the
+Lena River it is possible, provided one is not prevented by Polar ice,
+to sail to Kamtchatka and thence to Japan, China, and the East Indies."</p>
+
+<p>The final discovery was left for Captain Cook. As he approached the
+straits which he called after Behring, the sun broke suddenly through
+the clouds, and the continents of Asia and America were visible at
+a glance.</p>
+
+<p>There was dissatisfaction in Russia with the result of Behring's
+voyage, and though five years of untold hardship in the "extremest
+corner of the world" had told on the Russian explorer, he was willing
+and anxious to start off again. He proposed to make Kamtchatka again
+his headquarters, to explore the western coast of America, and to chart
+the long Arctic coast of Siberia&mdash;a colossal task indeed.</p>
+
+<p>So the Great Northern Expedition was formed, with Behring in command,
+accompanied by two well-known explorers to help, Spangberg and
+Chirikoff, and with five hundred and seventy men under him. It would
+take too long to follow the various expeditions that now left Russia
+in five different directions to explore the unknown coasts of the Old
+World. "The world has never <a name="page316"></a>witnessed a more heroic geographical
+enterprise than these Arctic expeditions." Amid obstacles
+indescribable the north line of Siberia, hitherto charted as a
+straight line, was explored and surveyed. Never was greater courage
+and endurance displayed. If the ships got frozen in, they were hauled
+on shore, the men spent the long winter in miserable huts and started
+off again with the spring, until the northern coast assumed shape and
+form.</p>
+
+<p>One branch of the Great Northern Expedition under Behring was composed
+of professors to make a scientific investigation of Kamtchatka! These
+thirty learned Russians were luxuriously equipped. They carried a
+library with several hundred books, including <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> and
+<i>Gulliver's Travels</i>, seventy reams of writing-paper, and artists'
+materials. They had nine wagonloads of instruments, carrying
+telescopes fifteen feet long. A surgeon, two landscape painters, one
+instrument maker, five surveyors accompanied them, and "the convoy
+grew like an avalanche as it worked its way into Siberia." Behring
+seems to have moved this "cumbersome machine" safely to Yakutsk,
+though it took the best part of two years. Having left Russia in 1733,
+it was 1741 when Behring himself was ready to start from the harbour
+of Okhotsk for the coast of America with two ships and provisions for
+some months. He was now nearly sixty, his health was undermined with
+vexation and worry, and the climate of Okhotsk had nearly killed him.</p>
+
+<p>On 18th July&mdash;just six weeks after the start&mdash;Behring discovered the
+continent of North America. The coast was jagged, the land covered
+with snow, mountains extended inland, and above all rose a peak
+towering into the clouds&mdash;a peak higher than anything they knew in
+Siberia or Kamtchatka, which Behring named Mount St. Elias, after the
+patron saint of the day. He made his way with difficulty through the
+string of islands that skirt <a name="page317"></a>the great peninsula of Alaska. Through
+the months of August and September they cruised about the coast in
+damp and foggy weather, which now gave way to violent storms, and
+Behring's ship was driven along at the mercy of the wind. He himself
+was ill, and the greater part of his crew were disabled by scurvy.
+At last one day, in a high-running sea, the ship struck upon a rock
+and they found themselves stranded on an unknown island off the coast
+of Kamtchatka. Only two men were fit to land; they found a dead whale
+on which they fed their sick. Later on sea-otters, blue and white foxes,
+and sea-cows provided food, but the island was desolate and
+solitary&mdash;not a human being was to be seen.</p>
+
+<a name="ill120"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 120">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="658">
+			<img src="images/120.jpg" alt="THE CHART OF BEHRING'S VOYAGE FROM KAMTCHATKA TO NORTH AMERICA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="658" align="center">
+			<small>THE CHART OF BEHRING'S VOYAGE FROM KAMTCHATKA TO NORTH AMERICA.<br>
+			From a chart drawn in 1741 by Lieut. Waxell, a member of
+			Behring's expedition. It is also interesting for the drawing of the
+			sea-cow, one of the very few authentic drawings of this curious animal,
+			which has long been extinct, and is only known by these drawings.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Here, however, the little party was forced to winter. With difficulty
+they built five underground huts on the <a name="page318"></a>sandy shore of the island now
+known as Behring Island. And each day amid the raging snowstorms and
+piercing winds one man went forth to hunt for animal food.</p>
+
+<p>Man after man died, and by December, Behring's own condition had become
+hopeless. Hunger and grief had added to his misery, and in his sand-hut
+he died. He was almost buried alive, for the sand rolled down from
+the pit in which he lay and covered his feet. He would not have it
+removed, for it kept him warm. Thirty more of the little expedition
+died during that bitter winter on the island; the survivors, some
+forty-five persons, built a ship from the timbers of the wreck, and
+in August 1742 they returned to Kamtchatka to tell the story of
+Behring's discoveries and of Behring's death.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap45"></a><a name="page319"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLV</h3>
+
+<h4>COOK DISCOVERS NEW ZEALAND</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>But while the names of Torres, Carpenter, Tasman, and Dampier are still
+to be found on our modern maps of Australia, it is the name of Captain
+Cook that we must always connect most closely with the discovery of
+the great island continent&mdash;the Great South Land which only became
+known to Europe one hundred and fifty years ago.</p>
+
+<p>Dampier had returned to England in 1701 from his voyage to New Holland,
+but nearly seventy years passed before the English were prepared to
+send another expedition to investigate further the mysterious land
+in the south.</p>
+
+<p>James Cook had shown himself worthy of the great command that was given
+to him in 1768, although exploration was not the main object of the
+expedition. Spending his boyhood in the neighbourhood of Whitby, he
+was familiar with the North Sea fishermen, with the colliers, even
+with the smugglers that frequented this eastern coast. In 1755 he
+entered the Royal Navy, volunteering for service and entering H.M.S.
+<i>Eagle</i> as master's mate. Four years later we find him taking his share
+on board H.M.S. <i>Pembroke</i> in the attack on Quebec by Wolfe, and later
+transferred to H.M.S. <i>Northumberland</i>, selected to survey the river
+and Gulf of St. Lawrence. So satisfactory was his work that a few years
+later he was instructed to survey and chart the coasts of <a name="page320"></a>Newfoundland
+and Labrador. While engaged on this work, he observed an eclipse of
+the sun, which led to the appointment that necessitated a voyage to
+the Pacific Ocean. It had been calculated that a Transit of Venus would
+occur in June 1769. A petition to the King set forth: "That, the British
+nation being justly celebrated in the learned world for their
+knowledge of astronomy, in which they are inferior to no nation upon
+earth, ancient or modern, it would cast dishonour upon them should
+they neglect to have correct observations made of this important
+phenomenon." The King agreed, and the Royal Society selected James
+Cook as a fit man for the appointment. A stout, strongly built collier
+of three hundred and seventy tons was chosen at Whitby, manned with
+seventy men, and victualled for twelve months. With instructions to
+observe the Transit of Venus at the island of Georgeland (Otaheite),
+to make further discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean and to explore
+New Zealand if possible, Cook hoisted his flag on H.M.S. <i>Endeavour</i>
+and started in May 1768.</p>
+
+<p>It was an interesting party on board, joined at the last moment by
+Mr. Joseph Banks, a very rich member of the Royal Society and a student
+of Natural History. He had requested leave to sail in "the ship that
+carries the English astronomers to the new-discovered country in the
+South Sea." "No people ever went to sea better fitted out for the
+purpose of Natural History, nor more elegantly," says a contemporary
+writer. "They have a fine library, they have all sorts of machines
+for catching and preserving insects, they have two painters and
+draughtsmen&mdash;in short, this expedition will cost Mr. Banks &pound;10,000."</p>
+
+<p>Their astronomical instruments were of the best, including a portable
+observatory constructed for sixteen guineas. But most important of
+all was the careful assortment of provisions, to allay, if possible,
+that scourge <a name="page321"></a>of all navigators, the scurvy. A quantity of malt was
+shipped to be made into wort, mustard, vinegar, wheat, orange and lemon
+juice and portable soup was put on board, and Cook received special
+orders to keep his men with plenty of fresh food whenever this was
+possible. He carried out these orders strenuously, and at Madeira we
+find him punishing one of his own seamen with twelve lashes for refusing
+to eat fresh beef. Hence they left Rio de Janeiro "in as good a condition
+for prosecuting the voyage as on the day they left England."</p>
+
+<a name="ill121"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 121">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="515">
+			<img src="images/121.jpg" alt="THE ISLAND OF OTAHEITE, OR ST. GEORGE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="515" align="center">
+			<small>THE ISLAND OF OTAHEITE, OR ST. GEORGE.<br>
+			From a painting by William Hodges, who accompanied Captain Cook.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Christmas Day was passed near the mouth of the river Plate, and, early
+in the New Year of 1769, the <i>Endeavour</i> sailed through the Strait
+of Le Maire. The wealthy Mr. Banks landed on Staaten Island and hastily
+added a hundred new plants to his collection. Then they sailed on to
+St. George's Island. It had been visited by Captain Wallis in the
+<i>Dolphin</i> the previous year; indeed, some of <a name="page322"></a>Cook's sailors had served
+on board the <i>Dolphin</i> and knew the native chiefs of the island. All
+was friendly, tents were soon pitched, a fort built with mounted guns
+at either side, the precious instruments landed, and on 3rd June, with
+a cloudless sky and in intolerable heat, they observed the whole
+passage of the planet Venus over the sun's disk.</p>
+
+<p>After a stay of three months they left the island, taking Tupia, a
+native, with them. Among other accomplishments this Tupia roasted dogs
+to perfection, and Cook declares that dogs' flesh is "next only to
+English lamb."</p>
+
+<p>They visited other islands in the group&mdash;now known as the Society
+Islands and belonging to France&mdash;and took possession of all in the
+name of His Britannic Majesty, George <small>III</small>.</p>
+
+<p>All through the month of September they sailed south, till on 7th
+October land was sighted. It proved to be the North Island of New
+Zealand, never before approached by Europeans from the east. It was
+one hundred and twenty-seven years since Tasman had discovered the
+west coast and called it Staaten Land, but no European had ever set
+foot on its soil. Indeed, it was still held to be part of the Terra
+Australis Incognita.</p>
+
+<p>The first to sight land was a boy named Nicholas Young, hence the point
+was called "Young Nick's Head," which may be seen on our maps to-day,
+covering Poverty Bay. The natives here were unfriendly, and Cook was
+obliged to use firearms to prevent an attack. The Maoris had never
+seen a great ship before, and at first thought it was a very large
+bird, being struck by the size and beauty of its wings (sails). When
+a small boat was let down from the ship's side they thought it must
+be a young unfledged bird, but when the white men in their
+bright-coloured clothes rowed off in the boat they concluded these
+were gods.</p>
+<a name="page323"></a>
+<p>Cook found the low sandy coast backed by well-wooded hills rising to
+mountains on which patches of snow were visible, while smoke could
+be seen through the trees, speaking of native dwellings. The natives
+were too treacherous to make it safe landing for the white men, so
+they sailed out of Poverty Bay and proceeded south. Angry Maoris shook
+their spears at the Englishmen as they coasted south along the east
+coast of the North Island. But the face of the country was unpromising,
+and Cook altered his course for the north at a point he named Cape
+Turnagain. Unfortunately he missed the only safe port on the east coast
+between Auckland and Wellington, but he found good anchorage in what
+is now known as Cook's Bay. Here they got plenty of good fish, wild
+fowl, and oysters, "as good as ever came out of <a name="page324"></a>Colchester." Taking
+possession of the land they passed in the name of King George, Cook
+continued his northerly course, passing many a river which seemed to
+resemble the Thames at home. A heavy December gale blew them off the
+northernmost point of land, which they named North Cape, and Christmas
+was celebrated off Tasman's islands, with goose-pie.</p>
+
+<a name="ill122"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 122">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="467">
+			<img src="images/122.jpg" alt="AN IPAH, OR MAORI FORT, ON THE COAST BETWEEN POVERTY BAY AND CAPE TURNAGAIN">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="467" align="center">
+			<small>AN IPAH, OR MAORI FORT, ON THE COAST BETWEEN POVERTY
+			BAY AND CAPE TURNAGAIN.<br>
+			From an engraving in the Atlas to Cook's first <i>Voyage</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The New Year of 1770 found Cook off Cape Maria van Diemen, sailing
+south along the western coast of the North Island, till the <i>Endeavour</i>
+was anchored in Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte's Sound, only about seventy
+miles from the spot where Tasman first sighted land.</p>
+
+<p>Here the English explorer landed. The country was thickly wooded, but
+he climbed a hill, and away to the eastward he saw that the seas washing
+both east and west coasts of the northern island were united. He had
+solved one problem. Tasman's Staaten Land was not part of a great
+southern continent. He now resolved to push through his newly
+discovered straits between the two islands, and, having done this,
+he sailed north till he reached Cape Turnagain. And so he proved beyond
+a doubt that this was an island. The men thought they had done enough.
+But Cook, with the true instinct of an explorer, turned a deaf ear
+to the murmurings of his crew for roast beef and Old England, and
+directed his course again south. From the natives he had learned of
+the existence of two islands, and he must needs sail round the southern
+as he had sailed round the northern isle. Storms and gales harassed
+the navigators through the month of February as they made their way
+slowly southwards. Indeed, they had a very narrow escape from death
+towards the end of the month, when in a two days' gale, with heavy
+squalls of rain, their foresail was split to pieces and they lost sight
+of land for seven days, nearly running on to submerged rocks which
+Cook named The Traps.</p>
+<a name="page325"></a>
+<p>It was nearly dark on 14th March when they entered a bay which they
+suitably christened Dusky Bay, from which they sailed to Cascade Point,
+named from the four streams that fell over its face.</p>
+
+<p>"No country upon earth," remarks Cook, "can appear with a more rugged
+and barren aspect than this does from the sea, for, as far inland as
+the eye can reach, nothing is to be seen but the summit of these rocky
+mountains." At last on 24th March they rounded the north point of the
+South Island. Before them lay the familiar waters of Massacre Bay,
+Tasman Bay, and Queen Charlotte Sound.</p>
+
+<p>"As we have now circumnavigated the whole of this country, it is time
+for me to think of quitting it," Cook remarks simply enough.</p>
+
+<p>Running into Admiralty Bay, the <i>Endeavour</i> was repaired for her
+coming voyage home. Her sails, "ill-provided from the first," says
+Banks, "were now worn and damaged by the rough work they had gone
+through, particularly on the coast of New Zealand, and they gave no
+little trouble to get into order again."</p>
+
+<p>While Banks searched for insects and plants, Cook sat writing up his
+<i>Journal</i> of the circumnavigation. He loyally gives Tasman the honour
+of the first discovery, but clearly shows his error in supposing it
+to be part of the great southern land.</p>
+
+<p>The natives he describes as "a strong, raw-boned, well-made, active
+people rather above the common size, of a dark brown colour, with black
+hair, thin black beards, and white teeth. Both men and women paint
+their faces and bodies with red ochre mixed with fish oil. They wear
+ornaments of stone, bone, and shells at their ears and about their
+necks, and the men generally wear long white feathers stuck upright
+in their hair. They came off in canoes which will carry a hundred
+people; when within <a name="page326"></a>a stone's throw of the ship, the chief of the party
+would brandish a battleaxe, calling out: 'Come ashore with us and we
+will kill you.' They would certainly have eaten them too, for they
+were cannibals."</p>
+
+<p>The ship was now ready and, naming the last point of land Cape Farewell,
+they sailed away to the west, "till we fall in with the east coast
+of New Holland." They had spent six and a half months sailing about
+in New Zealand waters, and had coasted some two thousand four hundred
+miles.</p>
+
+<p>Nineteen days' sail brought them to the eagerly sought coast, and on
+28th April, Cook anchored for the first time in the bay known afterwards
+to history as Botany Bay, so named from the quantity of plants found
+in the neighbourhood by Mr. Banks. Cutting an inscription on one of
+the trees, with the date and name of the ship, Cook sailed north early
+in May, surveying the coast as he passed and giving names to the various
+bays and capes. Thus Port Jackson, at the entrance of Sydney harbour,
+undiscovered by Cook, was so named after one of the Secretaries of
+the Admiralty&mdash;Smoky Cape from smoke arising from native
+dwellings&mdash;Point Danger by reason of a narrow escape on some
+shoals&mdash;while Moreton Bay, on which Brisbane, the capital of
+Queensland, now stands, was named after the President of the Royal
+Society. As they advanced, the coast became steep, rocky, and
+unpromising.</p>
+
+<p>"Hitherto," reports Cook, "we had safely navigated this dangerous
+coast, where the sea in all parts conceals shores that project suddenly
+from the shore and rocks that rise abruptly like a pyramid from the
+bottom more than one thousand three hundred miles. But here we became
+acquainted with misfortune, and we therefore called the point which
+we had just seen farthest to the northward, Cape Tribulation."</p>
+
+<p>It was the 10th of May. The gentlemen had left the <a name="page327"></a>deck "in great
+tranquillity" and gone to bed, when suddenly the ship struck and
+remained immovable except for the heaving of the surge that beat her
+against the crags of the rock upon which she lay. Every one rushed
+to the deck "with countenances which sufficiently expressed the
+horrors of our situation." Immediately they took in all sails, lowered
+the boats, and found they were on a reef of coral rocks. Two days of
+sickening anxiety followed, the ship sprang a leak, and they were
+threatened with total destruction. To their intense relief, however,
+the ship floated off into deep water with a high tide. Repairs were
+now more than ever necessary, and the poor battered collier was taken
+into the "Endeavour" river. Tupia and others were also showing signs
+of scurvy; so a hospital tent was erected on shore, and with a supply
+of fresh fish, pigeons, wild plantains, and turtles they began to
+improve. Here stands to-day <a name="page328"></a>the seaport of Cooktown, where a monument
+of Captain Cook looks out over the waters that he discovered.</p>
+
+<a name="ill123"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 123">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="632">
+			<img src="images/123.jpg" alt="CAPTAIN COOK'S VESSEL BEACHED AT THE ENTRANCE OF ENDEAVOUR RIVER">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="632" align="center">
+			<small>CAPTAIN COOK'S VESSEL BEACHED AT THE ENTRANCE OF
+			ENDEAVOUR RIVER, WHERE THE SEAPORT OF COOKTOWN NOW STANDS.<br>
+			From an engraving in the Atlas to Cook's first <i>Voyage</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The prospect of further exploration was not encouraging. "In whatever
+direction we looked, the sea was covered with shoals as far as the
+eye could see." As they sailed out of their little river, they could
+see the surf breaking on the "Great Barrier Reef." Navigation now
+became very difficult, and, more than once, even Cook himself almost
+gave up hope. Great, then, was their joy when they found themselves
+at the northern promontory of the land which "I have named York Cape
+in honour of His late Royal Highness the Duke of York. We were in great
+hopes that we had at last found out a passage into the Indian Seas."
+And he adds an important paragraph: "As I was now about to quit the
+eastern coast of New Holland, which I am confident no European had
+ever seen before, I once more hoisted the English colours, and I now
+took possession of the whole eastern coast in right of His Majesty
+King George <small>III</small>., by the name of New South Wales, with all the bays,
+harbours, rivers, and islands situated upon it."</p>
+
+<p>This part of the new land was called by the name of New South Wales.</p>
+
+<p>So the <i>Endeavour</i> sailed through the straits that Torres had
+accidentally passed one hundred and sixty-four years before, and, just
+sighting New Guinea, Cook made his way to Java, for his crew were sickly
+and "pretty far gone with longing for home." The ship, too, was in
+bad condition; she had to be pumped night and day to keep her free
+from water, and her sails would hardly stand the least puff of wind.
+They reached Batavia in safety and were kindly received by the Dutch
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Since leaving Plymouth two years before, Cook had only lost seven men
+altogether&mdash;three by drowning, two frozen, one from consumption, one
+from poisoning&mdash;none <a name="page329"></a>from scurvy&mdash;a record without equal in the
+history of Navigation. But the climate of Batavia now wrought havoc
+among the men. One after another died, Tupia among others, and so many
+were weakened with fever that only twenty officers and men were left
+on duty at one time.</p>
+
+<p>Glad, indeed, they were to leave at Christmas time, and gladder still
+to anchor in the Downs and to reach London after their three years'
+absence. The news of his arrival and great discoveries seems to have
+been taken very quietly by those at home. "Lieutenant Cook of the Navy,"
+says the <i>Annual Register</i> for 1771, "who sailed round the globe, was
+introduced to His Majesty at St. James's, and presented to His Majesty
+his <i>Journal</i> of his voyage, with some curious maps and charts of
+different places that he had drawn during the voyage; he was presented
+with a captain's commission."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap46"></a><a name="page330"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLVI</h3>
+
+<h4>COOK'S THIRD VOYAGE AND DEATH</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Although the importance of his discoveries was not realised at this
+time, Cook was given command of two new ships, the <i>Resolution</i> and
+<i>Adventure</i>, provisioned for a year for "a voyage to remote parts,"
+a few months later. And the old <i>Endeavour</i> went back to her collier
+work in the North Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps a letter written by Cook to a friend at Whitby on his return
+from the second voyage is sufficient to serve our purpose here; for,
+though the voyage was important enough, yet little new was discovered.
+And after spending many months in high latitudes, Cook decided that
+there was no great southern continent to the south of New Holland and
+New Zealand.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>"D<small>EAR</small> S<small>IR</small>,"&mdash;he writes from London in September 1775&mdash;"I now sit down
+to fulfil the promise I made you to give you some account of my last
+voyage. I left the Cape of Good Hope on 22nd November 1772 and proceeded
+to the south, till I met with a vast field of ice and much foggy weather
+and large islets or floating mountains of ice without number. After
+some trouble and not a little danger, I got to the south of the field
+of ice; and after beating about for some time for land, in a sea strewed
+with ice, I crossed the Antarctic circle and the same evening (17th
+January 1773) found it unsafe, or rather impossible, to stand farther
+to the south for ice.</p>
+<a name="page331"></a>
+<p>"Seeing no signs of meeting with land in these high latitudes, I stood
+away to the northward, and, without seeing any signs of land, I thought
+proper to steer for New Zealand, where I anchored in Dusky Bay on 26th
+March and then sailed for Queen Charlotte's Sound. Again I put to sea
+and stood to the south, where I met with nothing but ice and excessive
+cold, bad weather. Here I spent near four months beating about in high
+latitudes. Once I got as high as seventy-one degrees, and farther it
+was not possible to go for ice which lay as firm as land. Here we saw
+ice mountains, whose summits were lost in clouds. I was now fully
+satisfied that there was no Southern Continent. I nevertheless
+resolved to spend some time longer in these seas, and with this
+resolution I stood away to the north."</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>In this second voyage Cook proved that there was no great land to the
+south of Terra Australis or South America, except the land of ice lying
+about the South Pole.</p>
+
+<p>But he did a greater piece of work than this. He fought, and fought
+successfully, the great curse of scurvy, which had hitherto carried
+off scores of sailors and prevented ships on voyages of discovery,
+or indeed ships of war, from staying long on the high seas without
+constantly landing for supplies of fresh food. It was no uncommon
+occurrence for a sea captain to return after even a few months' cruise
+with half his men suffering from scurvy. Captain Palliser on H.M.S.
+<i>Eagle</i> in 1756 landed in Plymouth Sound with one hundred and thirty
+sick men out of four hundred, twenty-two having died in a month. Cook
+had resolved to fight this dreaded scourge, and we have already seen
+that during his three years' cruise of the <i>Endeavour</i> he had only
+to report five cases of scurvy, so close a watch did he keep on his
+crews. In his second voyage he was even more particular, with the result
+that <a name="page332"></a>in the course of three years he did not lose a single man from
+scurvy. He enforced cold bathing, and encouraged it by example. The
+allowance of salt beef and pork was cut down, and the habit of mixing
+salt beef fat with the flour was strictly forbidden. Salt butter and
+cheese were stopped, and raisins were substituted for salt suet; wild
+celery was collected in Terra del Fuego and breakfast made from this
+with ground wheat and portable soup. The cleanliness of the men was
+insisted on. Cook never allowed any one to appear dirty before him.
+He inspected the men once a week at least, and saw with his own eyes
+that they changed their clothing; equal care was taken to keep the
+ship clean and dry between decks, and she was constantly "cured with
+fires" or "smoked with gunpowder mixed with vinegar."</p>
+
+<p>For a paper on this subject read before the Royal Society in 1776,
+James Cook was awarded a gold medal (now in the British Museum).</p>
+
+<p>But although the explorer was now forty-eight, he was as eager for
+active adventure as a youth of twenty. He had settled the question
+of a southern continent. Now when the question of the North-West
+Passage came up again, he offered his services to Lord Sandwich, first
+Lord of the Admiralty, and was at once accepted. It was more than two
+hundred years since Frobisher had attempted to solve the mystery,
+which even Cook&mdash;the first navigator of his day&mdash;with improved ships
+and better-fed men, did not succeed in solving. He now received his
+secret instructions, and, choosing the old <i>Resolution</i> again, he set
+sail in company with Captain Clerke on board the <i>Discovery</i> in the
+year 1776 for that voyage from which there was to be no return. He
+was to touch at New Albion (discovered by Drake) and explore any rivers
+or inlets that might lead to Hudson's or Baffin's Bay.</p>
+
+<p>After once more visiting Tasmania and New Zealand, he <a name="page333"></a>made a prolonged
+stay among the Pacific Islands, turning north in December 1777. Soon
+after they had crossed the line, and a few days before Christmas, a
+low island was seen on which Cook at once landed, hoping to get a fresh
+supply of turtle. In this he was not disappointed. Some three hundred,
+"all of the green kind and perhaps as good as any in the world," were
+obtained; the island was named Christmas Island, and the <i>Resolution</i>
+and <i>Discovery</i> sailed upon their way. A few days later they came upon
+a group of islands hitherto unknown. These they named after the Earl
+of Sandwich, the group forming the kingdom of Hawaii&mdash;the chief island.
+Natives came off in canoes bringing pigs and potatoes, and ready to
+exchange fish for nails. Some were tempted on board, "the wildness
+of their looks expressing their astonishment." Anchorage being found,
+Cook landed, and as he set foot on shore a large crowd of natives pressed
+forward and, throwing themselves on their faces, remained thus till
+Cook signed to them to rise.</p>
+
+<a name="ill124"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 124">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="269">
+			<img src="images/124.jpg" alt="CAPIAIN JAMES COOK">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="269" align="center">
+			<small>CAPIAIN JAMES COOK.<br>
+			From the painting by Dance in the gallery of Greenwich Hospital.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>With a goodly supply of fresh provisions, Cook sailed away from the
+Sandwich Islands, and after some five weeks' sail to the north the
+"longed-for coast of New Albion was seen." The natives of the country
+were clad in fur, which they offered for sale. They exacted payment
+for everything, even for the wood and water that the strangers <a name="page334"></a>took
+from their shores. The weather was cold and stormy, and the progress
+of the little English ships was slow. By 22nd March they had passed
+Cape Flattery; a week later they named Hope Bay, "in which we hoped
+to find a good harbour, and the event proved we were not mistaken."
+All this part of the coast was called by Cook King George's Sound,
+but the native name of Nootka has since prevailed. We have an amusing
+account of these natives. At first they were supposed to be dark
+coloured, "till after much cleaning they were found to have skins like
+our people in England." Expert thieves they were. No piece of iron
+was safe from them. "Before we left the place," says Cook, "hardly
+a bit of brass was left in the ship. Whole suits of clothes were stripped
+of every button, copper kettles, tin canisters, candlesticks, all went
+to wreck, so that these people got a greater variety of things from
+us than any other people we had visited."</p>
+
+<p>It was not till 26th April that Cook at last managed to start forward
+again, but a two days' hard gale drove him from the coast and onwards
+to a wide inlet to which he gave the name of Prince William's Sound.
+Here the natives were just like the Eskimos in Hudson's Bay. The ships
+now sailed westward, doubling the promontory of Alaska, and on 9th
+August they reached the westernmost point of North America, which they
+named Cape Prince of Wales. They were now in the sea discovered by
+Behring, 1741, to which they gave his name. Hampered by fog and ice,
+the ships made their way slowly on to a point named Cape North. Cook
+decided that the eastern point of Asia was but thirteen leagues from
+the western point of America. They named the Sound on the American
+side Norton Sound after the Speaker of the House of Commons. Having
+passed the Arctic Circle and penetrated into the Northern Seas, which
+were never free from ice, they met Russian traders who professed to
+have known Behring. <a name="page335"></a>Then having discovered four thousand miles of new
+coast, and refreshed themselves with walrus or sea-horse, the
+expedition turned joyfully back to the Sandwich Islands.</p>
+
+<p>On the last day of November, Cook discovered the island of Owhyhee
+(Hawaii), which he carefully surveyed, till he came to anchor in
+Karakakooa Bay.</p>
+
+<p>The tragic death of Captain Cook at the hands of these natives is well
+known to every child. The reason for his murder is not entirely
+understood to-day, but the natives, who had hitherto proved friendly,
+suddenly attacked the English explorer and slew him, and "he fell into
+the water and spoke no more."</p>
+
+<a name="ill125"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 125">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="623">
+			<img src="images/125.jpg" alt="CAPTAIN COOK, THE DISCOVERER OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="623" align="center">
+			<small>CAPTAIN COOK, THE DISCOVERER OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS,
+			WITH HIS SHIPS IN KEALAKEKUA BAY, HAWAII, WHERE HE WAS MURDERED.<br>
+			From an engraving in the Atlas to <i>Cook's Voyages</i>, 1779.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Such was the melancholy end of England's first great navigator&mdash;James
+Cook&mdash;the foremost sailor of his time, the man who had circumnavigated
+New Zealand, who had explored the coast of New South Wales, named
+various unknown islands in the Pacific Ocean, and discovered the
+Sandwich Islands. He died on 14th February 1779. It was not till 11th
+January 1780 that the news of his death reached London, to be recorded
+in the quaint language of the day by the <i>London Gazette</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"It is with the utmost concern," runs the announcement, "that we inform
+the Public, that the celebrated Circumnavigator, Captain Cook, was
+killed by the inhabitants of a new-discover'd island in the South Seas.
+The Captain and crew were first treated as deities, but, upon their
+revisiting that Island, hostilities ensued and the above melancholy
+scene was the Consequence. This account is come from Kamtchatka by
+Letters from Captain Clerke and others. But the crews of the Ships
+were in a very good state of health, and all in the most desirable
+condition. His successful attempts to preserve the Healths of his
+Crews are well known, and his Discoveries will be an everlasting Honour
+to his Country."</p>
+<a name="page336"></a>
+<p><i>Cook's First Voyages</i> were published in 1773, and were widely read,
+but his account of the new country did not at once attract Europeans
+to its shores. We hear of "barren sandy shores and wild rocky coast
+inhabited by naked black people, malicious and cruel," on the one hand,
+"and low shores all white with sand fringed with foaming surf," with
+hostile natives on the other.</p>
+
+<a name="ill126"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 126">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448">
+			<img src="images/126.jpg" alt="The world as known after the voyages of Captain Cook (1768-1779)">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448" align="center">
+			<small>"THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"&mdash;VI.<br>
+			The world as known after the voyages of Captain Cook (1768-1779).</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was not till eighteen years after Cook's death that Banks&mdash;his old
+friend&mdash;appealed to the British Government of the day to make some
+use of these discoveries. At last the loss of the American colonies
+in 1776 induced men to turn their eyes toward the new land in the South
+Pacific. Banks remembered well his visit to Botany Bay with Captain
+Cook in 1770, and he now urged the dispatch of convicts, hitherto
+transported to America, to this newly found bay in New South Wales.</p>
+
+<p>So in 1787 a fleet of eleven ships with one thousand people on board
+left the shores of England under the command of Captain Phillip. After
+a tedious voyage of thirty-six weeks, they reached Botany Bay in
+January 1788.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Phillip had been appointed Governor of all New South Wales,
+that is from Cape York to Van Diemen's Land, still supposed to be part
+of the mainland. But Phillip at once recognised that Botany Bay was
+not a suitable place for a settlement. No white man had described these
+shores since the days of Captain Cook. The green meadows of which Banks
+spoke were barren swamps and bleak sands, while the bay itself was
+exposed to the full sweep of violent winds, with a heavy sea breaking
+with tremendous surf against the shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Warra, warra!" (begone, begone), shouted the natives, brandishing
+spears at the water's edge as they had done eighteen years before.
+In an open boat&mdash;for it was midsummer in these parts&mdash;Phillip surveyed
+the coast; an <a name="page337"></a>opening marked Port Jackson on Cook's chart attracted
+his notice and, sailing between two rocky headlands, the explorer
+found himself crossing smooth, clear water with a beautiful harbour
+in front and soft green foliage reaching down to the water's edge.
+Struck with the loveliness of the scene, and finding both wood and
+water here, he chose the spot for his new colony, giving it the name
+of Sydney, alter Lord Sydney, who as Home Secretary had appointed him
+to his command.</p>
+
+<a name="ill127"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 127">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="622">
+			<img src="images/127.jpg" alt="PORT JACKSON AND SYDNEY COVE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="622" align="center">
+			<small>PORT JACKSON AND SYDNEY COVE A FEW YEARS AFTER COOK AND PHILLIP.<br>
+			From the Atlas to the <i>Voyage de l'Astrolabe</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"We got into Port Jackson," he wrote to Lord Sydney, "early in the
+afternoon, and had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in
+the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in perfect
+security."</p>
+
+<p>"To us," wrote one of his captains, "it was a great and important day,
+and I hope will mark the foundation of an empire."</p>
+
+<p>But, interesting as it is, we cannot follow the fortunes of this first
+little English colony in the South Pacific Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>The English had not arrived a day too soon. A few <a name="page338"></a>days later the French
+explorer, La Perouse, guided hither by Cook's chart, suddenly made
+his appearance on the shores of Botany Bay. The arrival of two French
+men-of-war caused the greatest excitement among the white strangers
+and the black natives.</p>
+
+<p>La Perouse had left France in 1785 in command of two ships with orders
+to search for the North-West Passage from the Pacific side&mdash;a feat
+attempted by Captain Cook only nine years before&mdash;to explore the China
+seas, the Solomon Islands, and the Terra Australis. He had reached
+the coast of Alaska in June 1786, but after six weeks of bad weather
+he had crossed to Asia in the early part of the following year.</p>
+
+<p>Thence he had made his way by the Philippine Islands to the coasts
+of Japan, Korea, and "Chinese Tartary." Touching at Quelpart, he
+reached a bay near our modern Vladivostock, and on 2nd August 1787
+he discovered the strait that bears his name to-day, between Saghalien
+and the North Island of Japan. Fortunately, from Kamtchatka, where
+he had landed, he had sent home his journals, notes, plans, and maps
+by Lesseps&mdash;uncle of the famous Ferdinand de Lesseps of Suez Canal
+fame.</p>
+
+<p>On 26th January 1788 he landed at Botany Bay. From here he wrote his
+last letter to the French Government. After leaving this port he was
+never seen again. Many years later, in 1826, the wreck of his two ships
+was found on the reefs of an island near the New Hebrides.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap47"></a><a name="page339"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLVII</h3>
+
+<h4>BRUCE'S TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Perhaps one of the strangest facts in the whole history of exploration
+is that Africa was almost an unknown land a hundred years ago, and
+stranger still, that there remains to-day nearly one-eleventh of the
+whole area still unexplored. And yet it is one of the three old
+continents that appear on every old chart of the world in ancient days,
+with its many-mouthed Nile rising in weird spots and flowing in sundry
+impossible directions. Sometimes it joins the mysterious Niger, and
+together they flow through country labelled "Unknown" or "Desert" or
+"Negroland," or an enterprising cartographer fills up vacant spaces
+with wild animals stalking through the land.</p>
+
+<p>The coast tells a different tale. The west shores are studded with
+trading forts belonging to English, Danes, Dutch, and Portuguese,
+where slaves from the interior awaited shipment to the various
+countries that required negro labour. The slave trade was the great,
+in fact the only, attraction to Africa at the beginning of the
+eighteenth century. In pursuit of this, men would penetrate quite a
+long way into the interior, but through the long centuries few
+explorers had travelled to the Dark Continent.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the century we suddenly get one man&mdash;a young Scottish
+giant, named James Bruce, thirsting for exploration for its own sake.
+He cared not for slaves or gold or ivory. He just wanted to discover
+<a name="page340"></a>the source of the Nile, over which a great mystery had hung since the
+days of Herodotus. The Mountains of the Moon figure largely on the
+Old World maps, but Bruce decided to rediscover these for himself.
+Herodotus had said the Nile turned west and became the Niger, others
+said it turned east and somehow joined the Tigris and Euphrates. Indeed,
+such was the uncertainty regarding its source that to discover the
+source of the Nile seemed equivalent to performing the impossible.</p>
+
+<p>James Bruce, athletic, daring, standing six feet four, seemed at the
+age of twenty-four made for a life of travel and adventure. His business
+took him to Spain and Portugal. He studied Arabic and the ancient
+language of Abyssinia. He came under the notice of Pitt, and was made
+consul of Algiers. The idea of the undiscovered sources of the Nile
+took strong hold of Bruce's imagination.</p>
+
+<p>"It was at this moment," he says, "that I resolved that this great
+discovery should either be achieved by me or remain&mdash;as it has done
+for three thousand years&mdash;a defiance to all travellers."</p>
+
+<p>A violent dispute with the old bey of Algiers ended Bruce's consulate,
+and in 1765, the spirit of adventure strong upon him, he sailed along
+the North African coast, landed at Tunis, and made his way to Tripoli.
+On the frontier he found a tribe of Arabs set apart to destroy the
+lions which beset the neighbourhood. These people not only killed but
+ate the lions, and they prevailed on Bruce to share their repast. But
+one meal was enough for the young explorer.</p>
+
+<p>In burning heat across the desert sands he passed on. Once a great
+caravan arrived, journeying from Fez to Mecca, consisting of three
+thousand men with camels laden with merchandise. But this religious
+pilgrimage was plundered in the desert soon after. Arrived at Bengazi,
+Bruce found a terrible famine raging, so he <a name="page341"></a>embarked on a little Greek
+ship bound for Crete. It was crowded with Arabs; the captain was
+ignorant; a violent storm arose and, close to Bengazi, the ship struck
+upon a rock. Lowering a boat, Bruce and a number of Arabs sprang in
+and tried to row ashore. But wave after wave broke over them, and at
+last they had to swim for their lives. The surf was breaking on the
+shore, and Bruce was washed up breathless and exhausted. Arabs
+flocking down to plunder the wreck, found Bruce, and with blows and
+kicks stripped him of all his clothes and left him naked on the barren
+shore. At last an old Arab came along, threw a dirty rag over him,
+and led him to a tent, whence he reached Bengazi once more, and soon
+after crossed to Crete.</p>
+
+<a name="ill128"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 128">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="344">
+			<img src="images/128.jpg" alt="A NILE BOAT, OR CANJA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="344" align="center">
+			<small>A NILE BOAT, OR CANJA.<br>
+			From Bruce's <i>Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was not till July 1768 that the explorer at last reached Cairo <i>en
+route</i> for Abyssinia, and five months later embarked on board a Nile
+boat, or canja. His cabin had close latticed windows made not only
+to admit fresh air, but to be a defence against a set of robbers on
+the Nile, who were wont to swim under water in the dark or on goatskins
+to pilfer any passing boats. Then, unfurling her vast sails, the canja
+bore Bruce on the first stage of his great journey. The explorer spent
+some time in trying to find the lost site of old Memphis, but this
+was difficult. "A man's heart fails him in looking to the south," he
+says; <a name="page342"></a>"he is lost in the immense expanse of desert, which he sees full
+of pyramids before him. Struck with terror from the unusual scene of
+vastness opened all at once upon leaving the palm trees, he becomes
+dispirited from the effect of the sultry climate."</p>
+
+<p>For some days the canja, with a fair wind, stemmed the strong current
+of the Nile. "With great velocity" she raced past various villages
+through the narrow green valley of cultivation, till the scene changed
+and large plantations of sugar-canes and dates began. "The wind had
+now become so strong that the canja could scarcely carry her sails;
+the current was rapid and the velocity with which she dashed against
+the water was terrible." Still she flew on day after day, till early
+in January they reached the spot "where spreading Nile parts
+hundred-gated Thebes." Solitude and silence reigned over the
+magnificent old sepulchres; the hundred gates were gone, robbers
+swarmed, and the traveller hastened away. So on to Luxor and Karnac
+to a great encampment of Arabs, who held sway over the desert which
+Bruce had now to cross. The old sheikh, whose protection was necessary,
+known as the Tiger from his ferocious disposition, was very ill in
+his tent. Bruce gave him some lime water, which eased his pain, and,
+rising from the ground, the old Arab stood upright and cried: "Cursed
+be those of my people that ever shall lift up their hand against you
+in the desert."</p>
+
+<p>He strongly advised Bruce to return to Kenne and cross the desert from
+there instead of going on by the Nile. Reluctantly Bruce turned back,
+and on 16th February 1769 he joined a caravan setting out to cross
+the desert to the shores of the Red Sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Our road," he says, "was all the way in an open plain bounded by
+hillocks of sand and fine gravel&mdash;perfectly hard, but without trees,
+shrubs, or herbs. There <a name="page343"></a>are not even the traces of any living creature,
+neither serpent, lizard, antelope, nor ostrich&mdash;the usual inhabitants
+of the most dreary deserts. There is no sort of water&mdash;even the birds
+seem to avoid the place as pestilential&mdash;the sun was burning hot."
+In a few days the scene changed, and Bruce is noting that in four days
+he passes more granite, porphyry, marble, and jasper than would build
+Rome, Athens, Corinth, Memphis, Alexandria, and half a dozen more.
+At last after a week's travel they reached Cossier, the little
+mud-walled village on the shores of the Red Sea. Here Bruce embarked
+in a small boat, the planks of which were sewn together instead of
+nailed, with a "sort of straw mattress as a sail," for the emerald
+mines described by Pliny, but he was driven back by a tremendous storm.
+Determined to survey the Red Sea, he sailed to the north, and after
+landing at Tor at the foot of Mount Sinai, he sailed down the bleak
+coast of Arabia to Jidda, the port of Mecca.</p>
+
+<a name="ill129"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 129">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="350">
+			<img src="images/129.jpg" alt="AN ARAB SHEIKH">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="350" align="center">
+			<small>AN ARAB SHEIKH.<br>
+			From Bruce's <i>Travels</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>By this time he was shaking with ague and fever, scorched by the burning
+sun, and weather-beaten by wind and storm&mdash;moreover, he was still
+dressed as a Turkish soldier. He was glad enough to find kindly English
+at Jidda, and after two months' rest he sailed on to the Straits of
+Babelmandeb. Being now on English ground, he drank the King's health
+and sailed across to Masuah, <a name="page344"></a>the main port of Abyssinia. Although he
+had letters of introduction from Jidda he had some difficulty with
+the chief of Masuah, but at last, dressed in long white Moorish robes,
+he broke away, and in November 1769 started forth for Gondar, the
+capital of Abyssinia.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly one hundred and fifty years since any European of note
+had visited the country, and it was hard to get any information.</p>
+
+<p>His way led across mountainous country&mdash;rugged and steep. "Far above
+the top of all towers that stupendous mass, the mountain of Taranta,
+probably one of the highest in the world, the point of which is buried
+in the clouds and very rarely seen but in the clearest weather; at
+other times abandoned to perpetual mist and darkness, the seat of
+lightning, thunder, and of storm." Violent storms added to the terrors
+of the way, trees were torn up by the roots, and swollen streams rushed
+along in torrents.</p>
+
+<p>Bruce had started with his quadrant carried by four men, but the task
+of getting his cumbersome instruments up the steep sides of Taranta
+was intense. However, they reached the top at last to find a huge plain,
+"perhaps one of the highest in the world," and herds of beautiful cattle
+feeding. "The cows were completely white, with large dewlaps hanging
+down to their knees, white horns, and long silky hair." After
+ninety-five days' journey, on 14th February Bruce reached Gondar, the
+capital, on the flat summit of a high hill.</p>
+
+<p>Here lived the King of Abyssinia, a supposed descendant of King
+Solomon; but at the present time the country was in a lawless and
+unsettled condition. Moreover, smallpox was raging at the palace, and
+the royal children were smitten with it. Bruce's knowledge of medicine
+now stood him again in good stead. He opened all the doors and windows
+of the palace, washed his little patients with vinegar and warm water,
+sent away those not already <a name="page345"></a>infected, and all recovered. Bruce had
+sprung into court favour. The ferocious chieftain, Ras Michael, who
+had killed one king, poisoned another, and was now ruling in the name
+of a third, sent for him. The old chief was dressed in a coarse, dirty
+garment wrapped round him like a blanket, his long white hair hung
+down over his shoulders, while behind him stood soldiers, their lances
+ornamented with shreds of scarlet cloth, one for every man slain in
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>Bruce was appointed "Master of the King's horse," a high office and
+richly paid.</p>
+
+<p>But "I told him this was no kindness," said the explorer. "My only
+wish was to see the country and find the sources of the Nile."</p>
+
+<p>But time passed on and they would not let him go, until, at last, he
+persuaded the authorities to make him ruler over the province where
+the Blue Nile was supposed to rise. Amid great opposition he at last
+left the palace of Gondar on 28th October 1770, and was soon on his
+way to the south "to see a river and a bog, no part of which he could
+take away"&mdash;an expedition wholly incomprehensible to the royal folk
+at Gondar. Two days' march brought him to the shores of the great Lake
+Tsana, into which, despite the fact that he was tremendously hot and
+that crocodiles abounded there, the hardy young explorer plunged for
+a swim. And thus refreshed he proceeded on his way. He had now to
+encounter a new chieftain named Fasil, who at first refused to give
+him leave to pass on his way. It was not until Bruce had shown himself
+an able horseman and exhibited feats of strength and prowess that leave
+was at last granted. Fasil tested him in this wise. Twelve horses were
+brought to Bruce, saddled and bridled, to know which he would like
+to ride. Selecting an apparently quiet beast, the young traveller
+mounted.</p>
+<a name="page346"></a>
+<p>"For the first two minutes," he says, "I do not know whether I was
+most in the earth or in the air; he kicked behind, reared before, leaped
+like a deer all four legs off the ground&mdash;he then attempted to gallop,
+taking the bridle in his teeth; he continued to gallop and ran away
+as hard as he could, flinging out behind every ten yards, till he had
+no longer breath or strength and I began to think he would scarce carry
+me to the camp."</p>
+
+<p>On his return Bruce mounted his own horse, and, taking his
+double-barrelled gun, he rode about, twisting and turning his horse
+in every direction, to the admiration of these wild Abyssinian folk.
+Not only did Fasil now let him go, but he dressed him in a fine, loose
+muslin garment which reached to his feet, gave him guides and a handsome
+grey horse.</p>
+
+<p>"Take this horse," he said, "as a present from me. Do not mount it
+yourself; drive it before you, saddled and bridled as it is; no man
+will touch you when he sees that horse." Bruce obeyed his orders, and
+the horse was driven in front of him. The horse was magic; the people
+gave it handfuls of barley and paid more respect to it than to Bruce
+himself, though in many cases the people seemed scared by the
+appearance of the horse and fled away.</p>
+
+<p>On 2nd November the Nile came into sight. It was only two hundred and
+sixty feet broad; but it was deeply revered by the people who lived
+on its banks. They refused to allow Bruce to ride across, but insisted
+on his taking off his shoes and walking through the shallow stream.
+It now became difficult to get food as they crossed the scorching hot
+plains. But Bruce was nearing his goal, and at last he stood at the
+top of the great Abyssinian tableland. "Immediately below us appeared
+the Nile itself, strangely diminished in size, now only a brook that
+had scarcely water to turn a mill." <a name="page347"></a>Throwing off his shoes, trampling
+down the flowers that grew on the mountain-side, falling twice in his
+excitement, Bruce ran down in breathless haste till he reached the
+"hillock of green sod" which has made his name so famous.</p>
+
+<p>"It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at
+that moment, standing in that spot which had baffled the genius,
+industry, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns for the course of
+near three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the
+heads of their armies&mdash;fame, riches, and honour had been held out for
+a series of ages without having produced one man capable of wiping
+off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind or adding
+this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere
+private Briton, I triumphed here over kings and their armies. I was
+but a few minutes arrived at the source of the Nile, through numberless
+dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me
+but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence. I was,
+however, but then half through my journey, and all those dangers which
+I had already passed awaited me again on my return. I found a
+despondency gaining ground fast upon me and blasting the crown of
+laurels I had too rashly woven for myself."</p>
+
+<p>Bruce then filled a large cocoa-nut shell, which he had brought from
+Arabia, full of the Nile water, and drank to the health of His Majesty
+King George <small>III</small>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap48"></a><a name="page348"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLVIII</h3>
+
+<h4>MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Bruce died in the spring of 1794. Just a year later another Scotsman,
+Mungo Park, from Selkirk, started off to explore the great river
+Niger&mdash;whose course was as mysterious as that of the Nile. Most of
+the early geographers knew something of a great river running through
+Negroland. Indeed, Herodotus tells of five young men, the Nasamones,
+who set out to explore the very heart of Africa. Arrived at the edge
+of the great sandy desert, they collected provisions and supplied
+themselves with water and plunged courageously into the unknown. For
+weary days they made their way across to the south, till they were
+rewarded by finding themselves in a fertile land well watered by lakes
+and marshes, with fruit trees and a little race of men and women whom
+they called pigmies.</p>
+
+<p>And a large river was flowing from west to east&mdash;probably the Niger.
+But the days of Herodotus are long since past. It was centuries later
+when the Arabs, fiery with the faith of Mohammed, swept over the
+unexplored lands. "With a fiery enthusiasm that nothing could
+withstand, and inspired by a hope of heaven which nothing could shake,
+they swept from district to district, from tribe to tribe," everywhere
+proclaiming to roving multitudes the faith of their master. In this
+spirit they had faced the terrors of the Sahara Desert, and in the
+tenth century reached the land of the negroes, found the <a name="page349"></a>Niger, and
+established schools and mosques westward of Timbuktu.</p>
+
+<p>Portugal had then begun to play her part, and the fifteenth century
+is full of the wonderful voyages inspired by Prince Henry of Portugal,
+which culminated in the triumph of Vasco da Gama's great voyage to
+India by the Cape of Good Hope.</p>
+
+<p>Then the slave trade drew the Elizabethan Englishmen to the shores
+of West Africa, and the coast was studded with forts and stations in
+connection with it. Yet in the eighteenth century the Niger and
+Timbuktu were still a mystery.</p>
+
+<p>In 1778 the African Association was founded, with our old friend Sir
+Joseph Banks as an active member inquiring for a suitable man to follow
+up the work of the explorer Houghton, who had just perished in the
+desert on his way to Timbuktu.</p>
+
+<p>The opportunity produced the man. Mungo Park, a young Scotsman, bitten
+with the fever of unrest, had just returned from a voyage to the East
+on board an East India Company's ship. He heard of this new venture,
+and applied for it. The African Association instantly accepted his
+services, and on 22nd May 1795, Mungo Park left England on board the
+<i>Endeavour</i>, and after a pleasant voyage of thirty days landed at the
+mouth of the river Gambia. The river is navigable for four hundred
+miles from its mouth, and Park sailed up to a native town, where the
+<i>Endeavour</i> was anchored, while he set out on horseback for a little
+village, Pisania, where a few British subjects traded in slaves, ivory,
+and gold. Here he stayed a while, to learn the language of the country.
+Fever delayed him till the end of November, when the rains were over,
+the native crops had been reaped, and food was cheap and plentiful.
+On 3rd December he made a start, his sole attendants being a negro
+servant, Johnson, <a name="page350"></a>and a slave boy. Mungo Park was mounted on a strong,
+spirited little horse, his attendants on donkeys. He had provisions
+for two days, beads, amber, and tobacco for buying fresh food, an
+umbrella, a compass, a thermometer and pocket sextant, some pistols
+and firearms, and "thus attended, thus provided, thus armed, Mungo
+Park started for the heart of Africa."</p>
+
+<p>Three days' travelling brought him to Medina, where he found the old
+king sitting on a bullock's hide, warming himself before a large fire.
+He begged the English explorer to turn back and not to travel into
+the interior, for the people there had never seen a white man and would
+most certainly destroy him. Mungo Park was not so easily deterred,
+and taking farewell of the good old king, he took a guide and proceeded
+on his way.</p>
+
+<p>A day's journey brought him to a village where a curious custom
+prevailed. Hanging on a tree, he found a sort of masquerading dress
+made out of bark. He discovered that it belonged to a strange bugbear
+known to all the natives of the neighbourhood as Mumbo Jumbo. The
+natives or Kafirs of this part had many wives, with the result that
+family quarrels often took place. If a husband was offended by his
+wife he disappeared into the woods, disguised himself in the dress
+of Mumbo Jumbo, and, armed with the rod of authority, announced his
+advent by loud and dismal screams near the town. All hurried to the
+accepted meeting-place, for none dare disobey. The meeting opened with
+song and dance till midnight, when Mumbo Jumbo announced the offending
+wife. The unlucky victim was then seized, stripped, tied to a post,
+and beaten with Mumbo's rod amid the shouts of the assembled company.</p>
+
+<p>A few days before Christmas, Park entered Fatticonda&mdash;the place where
+Major Houghton had been robbed and badly used. He therefore took some
+amber, tobacco, and an <a name="page351"></a>umbrella as gifts to the king, taking care to
+put on his best blue coat, lest it should be stolen. The king was
+delighted with his gifts; he furled and unfurled his umbrella to the
+great admiration of his attendants. "The king then praised my blue
+coat," says Park, "of which the yellow buttons seemed particularly
+to catch his fancy, and entreated me to give it to him, assuring me
+that he would wear it on all public occasions. As it was against my
+interests to offend him by a refusal, I very quietly took off my
+coat&mdash;the only good one in my possession&mdash;and laid it at his feet."
+Then without his coat and umbrella, but in peace, Park travelled onward
+to the dangerous district which was so invested with robbers that the
+little party had to travel by night. The howling of wild beasts alone
+broke the awful silence as they crept forth by moonlight on their way.
+But the news that a white man was travelling through their land spread,
+and he was surrounded by a party of horsemen, who robbed him of nearly
+all his possessions. His attendant Johnson urged him to return, for
+certain death awaited him. But Park was not the man to turn back, and
+he was soon rewarded by finding the king's nephew, who conducted him
+in safety to the banks of the Senegal River.</p>
+
+<p>Then he travelled on to the next king, who rejoiced in the name of
+Daisy Korrabarri. Here Mungo learnt to his dismay that war was going
+on in the province that lay between him and the Niger, and the king
+could offer no protection. Still nothing deterred the resolute
+explorer, who took another route and continued his journey. Again he
+had to travel by night, for robbers haunted his path, which now lay
+among Mohammedans. He passed the very spot where Houghton had been
+left to die of starvation in the desert. As he advanced through these
+inhospitable regions, new difficulties met him. His attendants firmly
+refused to move farther. Mungo Park was now alone <a name="page352"></a>in the great desert
+Negroland, between the Senegal and the Niger, as with magnificent
+resolution he continued his way. Suddenly a clear halloo rang out on
+the night air. It was his black boy, who had followed him to share
+his fate. Onward they went together, hoping to get safely through the
+land where Mohammedans ruled over low-caste negroes. Suddenly a party
+of Moors surrounded him, bidding him come to Ali, the chief, who wished
+to see a white man and a Christian. Park now found himself the centre
+of an admiring crowd. Men, women, and children crowded round him,
+pulling at his clothes and examining his waistcoat buttons till he
+could hardly move. Arrived at Ali's tent, Mungo found an old man with
+a long white beard. "The surrounding attendants, and especially the
+ladies, were most inquisitive; they asked a thousand questions,
+inspected every part of my clothes, searched my pockets, and obliged
+me to unbutton my waistcoat and display the whiteness of my skin&mdash;they
+even counted my toes and fingers, as if they doubted whether I was
+in truth a human being." He was lodged in a hut made of corn stalks,
+and a wild hog was tied to a stake as a suitable companion for the
+hated Christian. He was brutally ill-treated, closely watched, and
+insulted by "the rudest savages on earth." The desert winds scorched
+him, the sand choked him, the heavens above were like brass, the earth
+beneath as the floor of an oven. Fear came on him, and he dreaded death
+with his work yet unfinished. At last he escaped from this awful
+captivity amid the wilds of Africa. Early one morning at sunrise, he
+stepped over the sleeping negroes, seized his bundle, jumped on to
+his horse, and rode away as hard as he could. Looking back, he saw
+three Moors in hot pursuit, whooping and brandishing their
+double-barrelled guns. But he was beyond reach, and he breathed again.
+Now starvation stared him in the face. To the pangs of hunger were
+added the agony of <a name="page353"></a>thirst. The sun beat down pitilessly, and at last Mungo
+fell on the sand. "Here," he thought&mdash;"here after a short but
+ineffectual struggle I must end all my hopes of being useful in my
+day and generation; here must the short span of my life come to an
+end."</p>
+
+<a name="ill130"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 130">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="623">
+			<img src="images/130.jpg" alt="THE CAMP OF ALI, THE MOHAMMEDAN CHIEF, AT BENOWN">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="623" align="center">
+			<small>THE CAMP OF ALI, THE MOHAMMEDAN CHIEF, AT BENOWN.<br>
+			From a sketch by Mungo Park.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But happily a great storm came and Mungo spread out his clothes to
+collect the drops of rain, and quenched his thirst by wringing them
+out and sucking them. After this refreshment he led his tired horse,
+directing his way by the compass, lit up at intervals by vivid flashes
+of lightning. It was not till the third week of his flight that his
+reward came. "I was told I should see the Niger early next day," he
+wrote on 20th July 1796. "We were riding through some marshy ground,
+when some one called out 'See the water!' and, looking forwards, I
+saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission&mdash;the
+long-sought-for majestic Niger glittering to the morning sun, as broad
+as the Thames at Westminster, <a name="page354"></a>and flowing slowly <i>to the eastward</i>.
+I hastened to the brink and, having drunk of the water, lifted up my
+fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things, for having
+thus far crowned my endeavours with success. The circumstance of the
+Niger's flowing towards the east did not excite my surprise, for
+although I had left Europe in great hesitation on this subject, I had
+received from the negroes clear assurances that its general course
+was <i>towards the rising sun</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He was now near Sego&mdash;the capital of Bambarra&mdash;on the Niger, a city
+of some thirty thousand inhabitants. "The view of this extensive city,
+the numerous canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the
+cultivated state of the surrounding country, formed altogether a
+prospect of civilisation and magnificence which I little expected to
+find in the bosom of Africa." The natives looked at the poor, thin,
+white stranger with astonishment and fear, and refused to allow him
+to cross the river. All day he sat without food under the shade of
+a tree, and was proposing to climb the tree and rest among its branches
+to find shelter from a coming storm, when a poor negro woman took pity
+on his deplorable condition. She took him to her hut, lit a lamp, spread
+a mat upon the floor, broiled him a fish, and allowed him to sleep.
+While he rested she spun cotton with other women and sang: "The winds
+roared and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came
+and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk, no wife
+to grind his corn"; and all joined in the chorus: "Let us pity the
+white man, no mother has he."</p>
+
+<a name="ill131"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 131">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="610">
+			<img src="images/131.jpg" alt="KAMALIA, A NATIVE VILLAGE NEAR THE SOUTHERN COURSE OF THE NIGER">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="610" align="center">
+			<small>KAMALIA, A NATIVE VILLAGE NEAR THE SOUTHERN COURSE OF THE NIGER.<br>
+			From a sketch by Mungo Park.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Mungo Park left in the morning after presenting his landlady with two
+of his last four brass buttons. But though he made another gallant
+effort to reach Timbuktu and the Niger, which, he was told, "ran to
+the world's end," lions and mosquitoes made life impossible. His <a name="page355"></a>horse
+was too weak to carry him any farther, and on 29th July 1796 he sadly
+turned back. "Worn down by sickness, exhausted by hunger and fatigue,
+half-naked, and without any article of value by which I might get
+provisions, clothes, or lodging, I felt I should sacrifice my life
+to no purpose, for my discoveries would perish with me." Joining a
+caravan of slaves, he reached the coast after some nineteen hundred
+miles, and after an absence of two years and nine months he found a
+suit of English clothes, "disrobed his chin of venerable encumbrance,"
+and sailed for home. He published an account of the journey in 1799,
+after which he married and settled in Scotland as a doctor. But his
+heart was in Africa, and a few years later he started off again to
+reach Timbuktu. He arrived at the Gambia early in April 1805. "If <a name="page356"></a>all
+goes well," he wrote gaily, "this day six weeks I expect to drink all
+your healths in the water of the Niger." He started this time with
+forty-four Europeans, each with donkeys to carry baggage and food,
+but it was a deplorable little party that reached the great river on
+19th August. Thirty men had died on the march, the donkeys had been
+stolen, the baggage lost. And the joy experienced by the explorer in
+reaching the waters of the Niger, "rolling its immense stream along
+the plain," was marred by the reduction of his little party to seven.
+Leave to pass down the river to Timbuktu was obtained by the gift of
+two double-barrelled guns to the King, and in their old canoes patched
+together under the magnificent name of "His Majesty's schooner the
+<i>Joliba</i>" (great water), Mungo Park wrote his last letter home.</p>
+
+<a name="ill132"></a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 132">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="326">
+			<img src="images/132.jpg" alt="A NATIVE WOMAN WASHING GOLD IN SENEGAL">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="326" align="center">
+			<small>A NATIVE WOMAN WASHING GOLD IN SENEGAL.<br>
+			From a sketch by Mungo Park made on his last expedition.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"I am far from desponding. I have changed a large canoe into a tolerably
+good schooner, on board of which I shall set sail to the east with
+a fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger or perish
+in the attempt; and though all the Europeans who are with me should
+die, and though I myself were half-dead, I would still persevere; and
+if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at least
+die on the Niger."</p>
+
+<p>It was in this spirit that the commander of the <i>Joliba</i> and a crew
+of nine set forth to glide down a great river toward the heart of savage
+Africa, into the darkness of the unexplored.</p>
+
+<p>The rest is silence.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap49"></a><a name="page357"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLIX</h3>
+
+<h4>VANCOUVER DISCOVERS HIS ISLAND</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>While Mungo Park was attempting to find the course of the Niger, the
+English were busy opening up the great fur-trading country in North
+America. Although Captain Cook had taken possession of Nootka Sound,
+thinking it was part of the coast of New Albion, men from other nations
+had been there to establish with the natives a trade in furs. The
+Spaniards were specially vigorous in opening up communications on this
+bleak bit of western coast. Great Britain became alarmed, and decided
+to send Captain Vancouver with an English ship to enforce her rights
+to this valuable port.</p>
+
+<p>Vancouver had already sailed with Cook on his second southern voyage;
+he had accompanied him on the <i>Discovery</i> during his last voyage. He
+therefore knew something of the coast of North-West America. "On the
+15th of December 1790, I had the honour of receiving my commission
+as commander of His Majesty's sloop the <i>Discovery</i>, then lying at
+Deptford, where I joined her," says Vancouver. "Lieutenant Broughton
+having been selected as a proper officer to command the <i>Chatham</i>,
+he was accordingly appointed. At day dawn on Friday the 1st of April
+we took a long farewell of our native shores. Having no particular
+route to the Pacific Ocean pointed out in my instructions, I did not
+hesitate to prefer the passage by way of the Cape of Good Hope."</p>
+
+<p>In boisterous weather Vancouver rounded the Cape, <a name="page358"></a>made some
+discoveries on the southern coast of New Holland, surveyed part of
+the New Zealand coast, discovered Chatham Island, and on 17th April
+1792 he fell in with the coast of New Albion. It was blowing and raining
+hard when the coast, soon after to be part of the United States of
+America, was sighted by the captains and crews of the <i>Discovery</i> and
+<i>Chatham</i>. Amid gales of wind and torrents of rain they coasted along
+the rocky and precipitous shores on which the surf broke with a dull
+roar. It was dangerous enough work coasting along this unsurveyed
+coast, full of sunken rocks on which the sea broke with great violence.
+Soon they were at Cape Blanco (discovered by Martin D'Aguilar), and
+a few days later at Cape Foulweather of Cook fame, close to the
+so-called straits discovered by the Greek pilot John da Fuca in 1592.
+Suddenly, relates Vancouver, "a sail was discovered to the westward.
+This was a very great novelty, not having seen any vessel during the
+last eight months. She soon hoisted American colours, and proved to
+be the ship <i>Columbia</i>, commanded by Captain Grey, belonging to Boston.
+He had penetrated about fifty miles into the disputed strait. He spoke
+of the mouth of a river that was inaccessible owing to breakers." (This
+was afterwards explored by Vancouver and named the Columbia River on
+which Washington now stands.)</p>
+
+<p>Having examined two hundred and fifteen miles of coast, Vancouver and
+his two ships now entered the inlet&mdash;Da Fuca Straits&mdash;now the boundary
+between the United States and British Columbia. All day they made their
+way up the strait, till night came, and Vancouver relates with pride
+that "we had now advanced farther up this inlet than Mr. Grey or any
+other person from the civilised world."</p>
+
+<p>"We are on the point of examining an entirely new region," he adds,
+"and in the most delightfully pleasant weather." Snowy ranges of hills,
+stately forest trees, <a name="page359"></a>vast spaces, and the tracks of deer reminded
+the explorers of "Old England." The crews were given holiday, and great
+joy prevailed. Natives soon brought them fish and venison for sale,
+and were keen to sell their children in exchange for knives, trinkets,
+and copper. As they advanced through the inlet, the fresh beauty of
+the country appealed to the English captain: "To describe the beauties
+of this region will be a very grateful task to the pen of a skilful
+panegyrist&mdash;the serenity of the climate, the pleasing landscapes, and
+the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, require only
+to be enriched by the industry of man with villages, mansions, and
+cottages to render it the most lovely country that can be imagined."</p>
+
+<p>A fortnight was spent among the islands of this inlet, which "I have
+distinguished by the name of Admiralty Inlet," and on 4th June 1792
+they drank the health of the King, George <small>III</small>., in a double allowance
+of grog, and on his fifty-fourth birthday took formal possession of
+the country, naming the wider part of the strait the Gulf of Georgia
+and the mainland New Georgia. The two ships then made their way through
+the narrow and intricate channels separating the island of Vancouver
+from the mainland of British Columbia, till at last, early in August,
+they emerged into an open channel discovered by an Englishman four
+years before and named Queen Charlotte's Sound. Numerous rocky islets
+made navigation very difficult, and one day in foggy weather the
+<i>Discovery</i> suddenly grounded on a bed of sunken rocks. The <i>Chatham</i>
+was near at hand, and at the signal of distress lowered her boats for
+assistance. For some hours, says Vancouver, "immediate and inevitable
+destruction presented itself." She grounded at four in the p.m. Till
+two next morning all hands were working at throwing ballast overboard
+to lighten her, till, "to our inexpressible joy," the return of the
+tide floated her once more. Having <a name="page360"></a>now satisfied himself that this
+was an island lying close to the mainland, Vancouver made for Nootka
+Sound, where he arrived at the end of August.</p>
+
+<a name="ill133"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 133">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="589">
+			<img src="images/133.jpg" alt="VANCOUVER'S SHIP ON THE ROCKS IN QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S SOUND">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="589" align="center">
+			<small>VANCOUVER'S SHIP, THE <i>DISCOVERY</i>, ON THE ROCKS IN
+			QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S SOUND.<br>
+			From a drawing in Vancouver's <i>Voyage</i>, 1798.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At the entrance of the Sound he was visited by a Spanish officer with
+a pilot to lead them to a safe anchorage in Friendly Cove, where the
+Spanish ship, under one Quadra, was riding at anchor. Civilities were
+interchanged "with much harmony and festivity. As many officers as
+could be spared from the vessel, and myself dined with Se&ntilde;or Quadra,
+and were gratified with a repast we had lately been little accustomed
+to. A dinner of five courses, consisting of a superfluity of the best
+provisions, was served with great elegance; a royal salute was fired
+on drinking health to the sovereigns of England and Spain, and a salute
+of seventeen guns to the success of the service in which the <i>Discovery</i>
+and <i>Chatham</i> were engaged." But when the true nature of Vancouver's
+mission was disclosed, there <a name="page361"></a>was some little difficulty, for the
+Spaniards had fortified Nootka, built houses, laid out gardens, and
+evidently intended to stay. Vancouver sent Captain Broughton home to
+report the conduct of the Spaniards, and spent his time surveying the
+coast to the south. Finally all was arranged satisfactorily, and
+Vancouver sailed off to the Sandwich Islands. When he returned home
+in the autumn of 1794 he had completed the gigantic task of surveying
+nine thousand miles of unknown coast chiefly in open boats, with only
+the loss of two men in both crews&mdash;a feat that almost rivalled that
+of Captain Cook.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that Vancouver "may proudly take his place with Drake,
+Cook, Baffin, Parry, and other British navigators to whom England
+looks with pride and geographers with gratitude."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap50"></a><a name="page362"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER L</h3>
+
+<h4>MACKENZIE AND HIS RIVER</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Even while Vancouver was making discoveries on the western coast of
+North America, Alexander Mackenzie, an enthusiastic young Scotsman,
+was making discoveries on behalf of the North-Western Company, which
+was rivalling the old Hudson Bay Company in its work of expansion.
+His journey right across America from sea to sea is worthy of note,
+and it has well been said that "by opening intercourse between Atlantic
+and Pacific Oceans and forming regular establishments through the
+interior and at both extremes, as well as along the coasts and islands,
+the entire command of the fur trade of North America might be obtained.
+To this may be added the fishing in both seas and the markets of the
+four quarters of the globe."</p>
+
+<p>Mackenzie had already explored the great river flowing through North
+America to the Arctic seas in 1789. He had brought back news of its
+great size, its width, its volume of water, only to be mistrusted,
+till many years later it was found that every word was true, and
+tributes were paid not only to his general accuracy, but to his general
+intelligence as an explorer.</p>
+
+<p>In 1792 he started off again, and this time he discovered the immense
+country that lay hidden behind the Rocky Mountains, known to-day as
+British Columbia. He ascended the Peace River, which flows from the
+Rocky Mountains, and in the spring of 1793, having made his way <a name="page363"></a>with
+much difficulty across this rugged chain, he embarked on a river
+running to the south-west. Through wild mountainous country on either
+side he paddled on; the cold was still intense and the strong mountain
+currents nearly dashed the canoes to pieces. His Indian guides were
+obstinate, ignorant, and timid. Mackenzie relates some of his
+difficulties in graphic language: "Throughout the whole of this day
+the men had been in a state of extreme ill-humour, and as they did
+not choose to vent it openly upon me, they disputed and quarrelled
+among themselves. About sunset the canoe struck upon the stump of a
+tree, which broke a large hole in her bottom, a circumstance that gave
+them an opportunity to let loose their discontents without reserve.
+I left them as soon as we had landed and ascended an elevated bank.
+It now remained for us to fix on a proper place for building another
+canoe, as the old one was become a complete wreck. At a very early
+hour of the morning every man was employed in making preparations for
+building another canoe, and different parties went in search of wood
+and gum." While the boat was building, Mackenzie gave his crew a good
+lecture on their conduct. "I assured them it was my fixed unalterable
+determination to proceed in spite of every difficulty and danger."</p>
+
+<p>The result was highly satisfactory. "The conversation dropped and the
+work went on."</p>
+
+<p>In five days the canoe was ready and they were soon paddling happily
+onwards towards the sea, where the Indians told him he would find white
+men building houses. They reached the coast some three weeks later.
+The Salmon River, as it is called, flows through British Columbia and
+reaches the sea just north of Vancouver Island, which had been
+discovered by Vancouver the year before.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander Mackenzie had been successful. Let us hear the end of his
+tale: "I now mixed up some vermilion <a name="page364"></a>in melted grease, and inscribed
+in large characters, on the south-east face of the rock on which we
+had slept last night, this brief memorial&mdash;'Alexander Mackenzie, from
+Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred
+and ninety three.'"</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap51"></a><a name="page365"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LI</h3>
+
+<h4>PARRY DISCOVERS LANCASTER SOUND</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The efforts of Arctic explorers of past years, Frobisher, Davis,
+Baffin, Behring, and Cook, had all been more or less frustrated by
+the impenetrable barrier of ice, which seemed to stretch across the
+Polar regions like a wall, putting an end to all further advance.</p>
+
+<p>Now, early in the nineteenth century, this impenetrable bar of ice
+had apparently moved and broken up into detached masses and icebergs.
+The news of a distinct change in the Polar ice was brought home by
+various traders in the Greenland waters, and soon gave rise to a revival
+of these voyages for the discovery of the North Pole and a passage
+round the northern coast of America to the Pacific Ocean. For this
+coast was totally unknown at this time. Information was collected from
+casual travellers, whale-fishers, and others, with the result that
+England equipped two ships for a voyage of discovery to the disputed
+regions. These were the <i>Isabella</i> (385 tons) and the <i>Alexander</i> (252
+tons), Commander Ross being appointed to one and Lieutenant Parry to
+the other.</p>
+
+<p>Parry had served on the coast of North America, and had written a little
+treatise on the stars in the Northern Hemisphere. He was thinking of
+offering his services for African discovery when he caught sight of
+a paragraph in a paper about an expedition for the discovery of the
+North-West Passage. He wrote at once that "he was ready for hot or
+for cold&mdash;Africa or the Polar regions." <a name="page366"></a>And he was at once appointed
+to the latter. The object of the voyage was clearly set forth. The
+young explorers were to discover a passage from Davis Strait along
+the northern coast of America and through the Behring Strait into the
+Pacific Ocean. Besides this, charts and pictures were to be brought
+back, and a special artist was to accompany the expedition. Ross
+himself was an artist, and he has delightfully illustrated his own
+journals of the expedition. The ships were well supplied with books,
+and we find the journals of Mackenzie, Hearne, Vancouver, Cook, and
+other old travelling friends taken for reference&mdash;thirty Bibles and
+sixty Testaments were distributed among the crews. For making friends
+with the natives, we find a supply of twenty-four brass kettles, one
+hundred and fifty butchers' knives, three hundred and fifty yards of
+coloured flannel, one hundred pounds of snuff, one hundred and fifty
+pounds of soap, forty umbrellas, and much gin and brandy. The
+expedition left on 18th April 1818, and "I believe," says Ross, "there
+was not a man who did not indulge after the fashion of a sailor in
+feeling that its issue was placed in His hands whose power is most
+visible in the Great Deep."</p>
+
+<p>Before June had set in, the two ships were ploughing their way up the
+west coast of Greenland in heavy snowstorms. They sailed through Davis
+Strait, past the island of Disco into Baffin's undefined bay. Icebergs
+stood high out of the water on all sides, and navigation was very
+dangerous. Towards the end of July a bay to which Ross gave the name
+of Melville Bay, after the first Lord of the Admiralty, was passed.
+"Very high mountains of land and ice were seen to the north side of
+Melville's Bay, forming an impassable barrier, the precipices next
+the sea being from one thousand to two thousand feet high."</p>
+
+<p>The ships were sailing slowly past the desolate shores <a name="page367"></a>amid these high
+icebergs when suddenly several natives appeared on the ice. Now Ross
+had brought an Eskimo with him named Sacheuse.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" cried Sacheuse to the astonished natives.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no&mdash;go away!" they cried. "Go away; we can kill you!"</p>
+
+<p>"What great creatures are these?" they asked, pointing to the ships.
+"Do they come from the sun or the moon? Do they give us light by night
+or by day?"</p>
+
+<p>Pointing southwards, Sacheuse told them that the strangers had come
+from a distant country.</p>
+
+<p>"That cannot be; there is nothing but ice there," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the Englishmen made friends with these people, whom they called
+Arctic Highlanders, giving the name of the Arctic Highlands to all
+the land in the north-east corner of Baffin's Bay. Passing Cape York,
+they followed the almost perpendicular coast, even as Baffin had done.
+They passed Wolstenholme Sound and Whale Sound; they saw Smith's Sound,
+and named the capes on either side Isabella and Alexander after their
+two ships. And then Ross gave up all further discovery for the time
+being in this direction. "Even if it be imagined that some narrow strait
+may exist through these mountains, it is evident that it must for ever
+be unnavigable," he says decidedly. "Being thus satisfied that there
+could be no further inducement to continue longer in this place, I
+shaped my course for the next opening which appeared in view to the
+westward." This was the Sound which was afterwards called "Jones
+Sound."</p>
+
+<p>"We ran nine miles among very heavy ice, until noon, when, a very thick
+fog coming on, we were obliged to take shelter under a large iceberg."
+Sailing south, but some way from land, a wide opening appeared which
+answered exactly to the Lancaster Sound of Baffin. Lieutenant <a name="page368"></a>Parry
+and many of his officers felt sure that this was a strait communicating
+with the open sea to westward, and were both astonished and dismayed
+when Ross, declaring that he was "perfectly satisfied that there was
+no passage in this direction," turned back. He brought his expedition
+back to England after a seven months' trip. But, though he was certain
+enough on the subject, his officers did not agree with him entirely,
+and the subject of the North-West Passage was still discussed in
+geographical circles.</p>
+
+<p>When young Lieutenant Parry, who had commanded the <i>Alexander</i> in
+Ross' expedition, was consulted, he pressed for further exploration
+of the far north. And two expeditions were soon fitted out, one under
+Parry and one under Franklin, who had already served with Flinders
+in Australian exploration. Parry started off first with instructions
+to explore Lancaster's Sound; failing to find a passage, to explore
+Alderman Jones Sound, failing this again, Sir Thomas Smith's Sound.
+If he succeeded in getting through to the Behring Strait, he was to
+go to Kamtchatka and on to the Sandwich Islands. "You are to
+understand," ran the instructions, "that the finding of a passage from
+the Atlantic to the Pacific is the main object of this expedition."</p>
+
+<p>On board the <i>Hecla</i>, a ship of three hundred and seventy-five tons,
+with a hundred-and-eighty-ton brig, the <i>Griper</i>, accompanying, Parry
+sailed away early in May 1819. The first week in July found him crossing
+the Arctic Circle amid immense icebergs against which a heavy
+southerly swell was violently agitated, "dashing the loose ice with
+tremendous force, sometimes raising a white spray over them to the
+height of more than a hundred feet, accompanied with a loud noise
+exactly resembling the roar of distant thunder."</p>
+
+<p>The entrance to Lancaster Sound was reached on 31st <a name="page369"></a>July, and, says
+Parry: "It is more easy to imagine than to describe the almost
+breathless anxiety which was now visible in every countenance, while,
+as the breeze increased to a fresh gale, we ran quickly up the Sound."
+Officers and men crowded to the masthead as the ships ran on and on
+till they reached Barrow's Strait, so named by them after the Secretary
+of the Admiralty.</p>
+
+<p>"We now began to flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar
+Sea, and some of the most sanguine among us had even calculated the
+bearing and distance of Icy Cape as a matter of no very difficult
+accomplishment."</p>
+
+<p>Sailing westward, they found a large island, which they named Melville
+Island after the first Lord of the Admiralty, and a bay which still
+bears the name of Hecla and Griper Bay. "Here," says Parry, "the ensigns
+and pendants were hoisted, and it created in us no ordinary feelings
+of pleasure to see the British flag waving, for the first time, in
+those <a name="page370"></a>regions which had hitherto been considered beyond the limits
+of the habitable world."</p>
+
+<a name="ill134"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 134">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="600">
+			<img src="images/134.jpg" alt="PARRY'S SHIPS, THE HECLA AND GRIPER">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="600" align="center">
+			<small>PARRY'S SHIPS, THE <i>HECLA</i> AND <i>GRIPER</i>, IN WINTER
+			HARBOUR, DECEMBER 1819.<br>
+			From a drawing in Parry's <i>Voyage for the North-West Passage</i>, 1821.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Winter was now quickly advancing, and it was with some difficulty that
+the ships were forced through the newly formed ice at the head of the
+Bay of the Hecla and Griper. Over two miles of ice, seven inches thick,
+had to be sawn through to make a canal for the ships. As soon as they
+were moored in "Winter Harbour" the men gave three loud and hearty
+cheers as a preparation for eight or nine months of long and dreary
+winter. By the end of September all was ready; plenty of grouse and
+deer remained as food through October, after which there were foxes
+and wolves. To amuse his men, Parry and his officers got up a play;
+<i>Miss in her Teens</i> was performed on 5th November, the last day of
+sun for ninety-six days to come. He also started a paper, <i>The North
+Georgian Gazette and Winter Chronicle</i>, which was printed in England
+on their return. The New Year, 1819, found the winter growing gloomier.
+Scurvy had made its appearance, and Parry was using every device in
+his power to arrest it. Amongst other things he grew mustard and cress
+in boxes of earth near the stove pipe of his cabin to make fresh
+vegetable food for the afflicted men. Though the sun was beginning
+to appear again, February was the coldest part of the year, and no
+one could be long out in the open without being frostbitten. It was
+not till the middle of April that a slight thaw began, and the
+thermometer rose to freezing point. On 1st August the ships were able
+to sail out of Winter Harbour and to struggle westward again. But they
+could not get beyond Melville Island for the ice, and after the ships
+had been knocked about by it, Parry decided to return to Lancaster
+Sound once more. Hugging the western shores of Baffin's Bay, the two
+ships were turned homewards, arriving in the Thames early in November
+1820. <a name="page371"></a>"And," says Parry, "I had the happiness of seeing every officer
+and man on board both ships&mdash;ninety-three persons&mdash;return to their
+native country in as robust health as when they left it, after an
+absence of nearly eighteen months."</p>
+
+<a name="ill135"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 135">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="626">
+			<img src="images/135.jpg" alt="CUTTING THROUGH THE ICE FOR A WINTER HARBOUR">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="626" align="center">
+			<small>THE SEARCH FOR A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE: THE CREWS OF
+			PARRY'S SHIPS, THE <i>HECLA</i> AND <i>GRIPER</i>, CUTTING THROUGH THE ICE FOR
+			A WINTER HARBOUR, 1819.<br>
+			Drawn by William Westall, A.R.A., after a
+			sketch by Lieut. Beechey, a member of the expedition.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Parry had done more than this. He not only showed the possibility of
+wintering in these icy regions in good health and good spirits, but
+he had certainly discovered straits communicating with the Polar sea.</p>
+
+<a name="ill136"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 136">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="631">
+			<img src="images/136.jpg" alt="THE NORTH SHORE OF LANCASTER SOUND">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="631" align="center">
+			<small>THE NORTH SHORE OF LANCASTER SOUND.<br>
+			From a drawing in Parry's <i>Voyage for the North-West Passage</i>, 1821.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap52"></a><a name="page372"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE FROZEN NORTH</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Franklin and Parry started on another expedition in the same
+month and year. While Parry's orders were to proceed from east to west,
+Franklin was to go from west to east, with a chance&mdash;if remote&mdash;that
+they might meet. He was to go by Hudson's Bay to the mouth of the Copper
+Mine River and then make his way by sea eastward along the coast.
+Franklin had made himself a name by work done in the Spitzbergen waters;
+he was to succeed in the end where others had failed in finding the
+North-West Passage. The party selected for this work consisted of
+Captain Franklin, Dr. Richardson, a naval surgeon, two midshipmen,
+Back and Hood, one of whom was afterwards knighted, and an English
+sailor named John Hepburn.</p>
+
+<p>Just a fortnight after Parry's start these five English explorers
+sailed on board a ship belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, but it
+was the end of August before they arrived at the headquarters of the
+Company. They were cordially received by the Governor, and provided
+with a large boat well stored with food and arms. Amid a salute of
+many guns and much cheering the little party, with some Canadian rowers,
+started off for Cumberland House, one of the forts belonging to the
+Hudson Bay Company. Six weeks' hard travelling by rivers and lakes,
+now dragging the boats round rapids, now sleeping in "buffalo-robes"
+on the hard ground, brought the party to the <a name="page373"></a>first stage of their
+journey. Snow was now beginning to fall, and ice was thick on the rivers,
+when Franklin resolved to push on to Lake Athabasca that he might have
+more time to prepare for the coming voyage in the summer. Leaving
+Richardson and Hood at the fort, he started off with Back and the
+faithful Hepburn on 18th January 1820, in the very heart of the Arctic
+winter. Friends at the fort had provided him with Indian snowshoes
+turned up at the toes like the prow of a boat&mdash;with dog sledges, furs,
+leather trousers, drivers, and food for a fortnight. The snow was very
+deep, and the dogs found great difficulty in dragging their heavy
+burdens through the snow. But the record was good. A distance of eight
+hundred and fifty-seven miles was accomplished in sixty-eight days,
+with the thermometer at fifty degrees below zero. The hardships
+endured are very briefly recorded: "Provisions becoming scarce; dogs
+without food, except a little burnt leather; night miserably cold;
+tea froze in the tin pots before we could drink it."</p>
+
+<p>Lake Athabasca was reached on the 26th of March and preparations for
+the voyage were pushed forward. Four months later they were joined
+by Richardson and Hood. "This morning Mr. Back and I had the sincere
+gratification of welcoming our long-separated friends, Dr. Richardson
+and Mr. Hood, who arrived in perfect health with two canoes." This
+is the simple entry in Franklin's journal.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was now ready. Spring in these northern climates was
+enchanting. "The trees quickly put on their leaves after the long,
+hard winter months, and the whole vegetable world comes forth with
+a luxuriance no less astonishing than agreeable." At the same time
+clouds of mosquitoes and stinging sand-flies made the nights horrible.
+On 18th July the little party in high glee set forward in canoes rowed
+by Canadian boatmen, hoping to reach <a name="page374"></a>the Copper Mine River before
+winter set in. But the difficulties of the way were great, provisions
+were scarce, the boatmen grew discontented, ice appeared early, and
+Franklin had to satisfy himself with wintering at a point five hundred
+and fifty miles from Lake Athabasca, which he called Fort Enterprise.
+Here there was prospect of plenty, for large herds of reindeer were
+grazing along the shores of the lake, and from their flesh "pemmican"
+was made; but the winter was long and cheerless, and Franklin soon
+realised that there was not enough food to last through it. So he
+dispatched the midshipman Back to Lake Athabasca for help. Back's
+journey was truly splendid, and we cannot omit his simple summary:
+"On the 17th of March," he says, "at an early hour we arrived at Fort
+Enterprise, having travelled about eighteen miles a day. I had the
+pleasure of meeting my friends all in good health, after an absence
+of nearly five months, during which time I had travelled one thousand
+one hundred and four miles on snow-shoes and had no other covering
+at night than a blanket and deer skin, with the thermometer frequently
+at forty degrees below zero, and sometimes two or three days without
+tasting food." By his courage and endurance he saved the whole party
+at Fort Enterprise. By June the spring was sufficiently advanced to
+set out for the Copper Mine River, and on July they reached the mouth
+after a tedious journey of three hundred and thirty-four miles.</p>
+
+<a name="ill137"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 137">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="617">
+			<img src="images/137.jpg" alt="A WINTER VIEW OF FORT ENTERPRISE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="617" align="center">
+			<small>A WINTER VIEW OF FORT ENTERPRISE.<br>
+			From a drawing, by Wm. Back, in Franklin's <i>Journey to the Polar Sea</i>, 1823.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The real work of exploration was now to begin, and the party embarked
+in two canoes to sail along the southern coast of the Polar sea, with
+the possibility always of meeting the Parry expedition. But the poor
+Canadian boatmen were terrified at the sight of the sea on which they
+had never yet sailed, and they were with difficulty persuaded to embark.
+Indeed, of the two crews, only the five Englishmen had ever been on
+the sea, and it has been well <a name="page375"></a>said that this voyage along the shores
+of the rock-bound coast of the Arctic sea must always take rank as
+one of the most daring and hazardous exploits that have ever been
+accomplished in the interest of geographical research. The two canoes
+hugged the icy coast as they made their way eastward, and Franklin
+named the bays, headlands, and islands for a distance of five hundred
+and fifty-five miles, where a point he called Cape Turnagain marks
+his farthest limit east. Here is George <small>IV</small>. Coronation Gulf studded
+with islands, Hood's River, Back's River, Bathurst's Inlet, named
+after the Secretary of State, and Parry Bay after "my friend, Captain
+Parry, now employed in the interesting research for a North-West
+Passage."</p>
+
+<a name="ill138"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 138">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="625">
+			<img src="images/138.jpg" alt="FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION TO THE POLAR SEA ON THE ICE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="625" align="center">
+			<small>FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION TO THE POLAR SEA ON THE ICE.<br>
+			From a drawing, by Wm. Back, in Franklin's <i>Journey to the Polar Sea</i>, 1823.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The short season for exploration was now over; rough weather and want
+of food turned them home, only half satisfied with their work. The
+worst part of their journey was yet to come. Perhaps never, even in
+the tragic history of Arctic exploration, had greater hardships been
+endured <a name="page376"></a>than Franklin and his handful of men were to endure on their
+homeward way. On 22nd August the party left Point Turnagain, hoping
+by means of their newly discovered Hood River to reach Fort Enterprise.
+The ground was already covered with snow, and their food was reduced
+to one meal a day when they left the shores of the Arctic sea for their
+long inland tramp. Needless to say, the journey had to be performed
+on foot, and the way was stony and barren. For the first few days nothing
+was to be found save lichen to eat, and the temperature was far below
+freezing-point. An uncooked cow after six days of lichen "infused
+spirit into our starving party," relates Franklin. But things grew
+no better, and as they proceeded sadly on their way, starvation stared
+them in the face. One day we hear of the pangs of hunger being stilled
+by "pieces of singed hide mixed with lichen"; another time the horns
+and bones of a dead deer were fried with some old shoes and the "putrid
+carcase of a deer that had died the previous spring was demolished
+by the starving men."</p>
+
+<p>At last things grew so bad that Franklin and the most vigorous of his
+party pushed on to Fort Enterprise to get and send back food if possible
+to Richardson and Hood, who were now almost too weak and ill to get
+along at all. Bitter disappointment awaited them.</p>
+
+<p>"At length," says Franklin, "we reached Fort Enterprise, and to our
+infinite disappointment and grief found it a perfectly desolate
+habitation. There were no provisions&mdash;no Indians. It would be
+impossible for me to describe our sensations after entering this
+miserable abode and discovering how we had been neglected; the whole
+party shed tears, not so much for our own fate as for that of our friends
+in the rear, whose lives depended entirely on our sending immediate
+relief from this place." A few old bones and skins of reindeer were
+collected for supper <a name="page377"></a>and the worn-out explorers sat round a fire made
+by pulling up the flooring of the rooms. It is hardly a matter of
+surprise to find the following entry in Franklin's journal: "When I
+arose the following morning my body and limbs were so swollen that
+I was unable to walk more than a few yards."</p>
+
+<p>Before November arrived another tragedy happened. Hood was murdered
+by one of the party almost mad with hunger and misery. One after another
+now dropped down and died, and death seemed to be claiming Franklin,
+Richardson, Back, and Hepburn when three Indians made their appearance
+with some dried deer and a few tongues. It was not a moment too soon.
+The Indians soon got game and fish for the starving men, until they
+were sufficiently restored to leave Fort Enterprise and make their
+way to Moose Deer Island, where, with the Hudson Bay officers, they
+spent the winter recovering their health and strength and spirits.</p>
+<a name="page378"></a>
+<p>When they returned to England in the summer of 1822 they had
+accomplished five thousand five hundred and fifty miles. They had also
+endured hardships unsurpassed in the history of exploration. When
+Parry returned to England the following summer and heard of Franklin's
+sufferings he cried like a child. He must have realised better than
+any one else what those sufferings really were, though he himself had
+fared better.</p>
+
+<p>While Franklin had been making his way to the Copper Mine River, Parry
+on board the <i>Fury</i>, accompanied by the <i>Hecla</i>, started for Hudson's
+Strait, by which he was to penetrate to the Pacific, if possible. Owing
+to bad weather, the expedition did not arrive amid the icebergs till
+the middle of June. Towering two hundred feet high, the explorers
+counted fifty-four at one time before they arrived at Resolution
+Island at the mouth of Hudson Strait. There were already plenty of
+well-known landmarks in the region of Hudson's Bay, and Parry soon
+made his way to Southampton Island and Frozen Strait (over which an
+angry discussion had taken place some hundred years before). He was
+rewarded by discovering "a magnificent bay," to which he gave the name
+of the "Duke of York's Bay." The discovery, however, was one of little
+importance as there was no passage. The winter was fast advancing,
+the navigable season was nearly over, and the explorers seemed to be
+only at the beginning of their work. The voyage had been dangerous,
+harassing, unproductive.</p>
+
+<p>They had advanced towards the Behring Strait; they had discovered two
+hundred leagues of North American coast, and they now prepared to spend
+the winter in these icebound regions. As usual Parry arranged both
+for the health and amusement of his men during the long Arctic
+months&mdash;even producing a "joint of English roast beef" for Christmas
+dinner, preserved "by rubbing the <a name="page379"></a>outside with salt and hanging it
+on deck covered with canvas." There were also Eskimos in the
+neighbourhood, who proved a never-ceasing source of interest.</p>
+
+<a name="ill139"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 139">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="602">
+			<img src="images/139.jpg" alt="AN ESKIMO WATCHING A SEAL HOLE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="602" align="center">
+			<small>AN ESKIMO WATCHING A SEAL HOLE.<br>
+			From a drawing in Parry's <i>Second Voyage for a North-West Passage</i>, 1824.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>One day in April&mdash;snow had been falling all night, news spread that
+the Eskimos "had killed something on the ice." "If the women," says
+Parry, "were cheerful before, they were now absolutely frantic. A
+general shout of joy re-echoed through the village; they ran into each
+others' huts to communicate the welcome intelligence, and actually
+hugged one another in an ecstasy of delight. When the first burst of
+joy had at last subsided the women crept one by one into the apartment
+where the sea-horses had been conveyed. Here they obtained blubber
+enough to set all their lamps alight, besides a few scraps of meat
+for their children and themselves. Fresh cargoes were continually
+arriving, the principal part being brought in by the dogs and the rest
+by the men, who tied a thong round their waist and dragged in a portion.
+Every lamp was now swimming with oil, the huts exhibited a blaze <a name="page380"></a>of
+light, and never was there a scene of more joyous festivity than while
+the cutting up of the walruses continued." For three solid hours the
+Eskimos appeared to be eating walrus flesh. "Indeed, the quantity they
+continued to get rid of is almost beyond belief."</p>
+
+<p>It was not till early in July that the ship could be moved out of their
+winter's dock to renew their efforts towards a passage. They were not
+a little helped by Eskimo charts, but old ice blocked the way, and
+it was the middle of August before Parry discovered the Strait he called
+after his two ships, "the Strait of the Fury and Hecla," between
+Melville Peninsula and Cockburn Island. Confident that the narrow
+channel led to the Polar seas, Parry pushed on till "our progress was
+once more opposed by a barrier of the same impenetrable and hopeless
+ice as before." He organised land expeditions, and reports, "The
+opening of the Strait into the Polar sea was now so decided that I
+considered the principal object of my journey accomplished."</p>
+
+<p>September had come, and once more the ships were established in their
+winter quarters. A second month in among the ice must have been a severe
+trial to this little band of English explorers, but cheerfully enough
+they built a wall of snow twelve feet high round the <i>Fury</i> to keep
+out snowdrifts. The season was long and severe, and it was August before
+they could get free of ice. The prospect of a third winter in the ice
+could not be safely faced, and Parry resolved to get home. October
+found them at the Shetlands, all the bells of Lerwick being set ringing
+and the town illuminated with joy at the arrival of men who had been
+away from all civilisation for twenty-seven months. On 14th November
+1823 the expedition arrived home in England.</p>
+
+<p>Still the restless explorer was longing to be off again; he was still
+fascinated by the mysteries of the Arctic <a name="page381"></a>regions, but on his third
+voyage we need not follow him, for the results were of no great
+importance. The <i>Fury</i> was wrecked amid the ice in Prince Regent's
+Inlet, and the whole party had to return on board the <i>Hecla</i> in 1825.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap53"></a><a name="page382"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LIII</h3>
+
+<h4>FRANKLIN'S LAND JOURNEY TO THE NORTH</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The northern shores of North America were not yet explored, and
+Franklin proposed another expedition to the mouth of the Mackenzie
+River, where the party was to divide, half of them going to the east
+and half to the west. Nothing daunted by his recent sufferings,
+Franklin accepted the supreme command, and amid the foremost
+volunteers for service were his old friends, Back and Richardson. The
+officers of the expedition left England in February 1825, and,
+travelling by way of New York and Canada, they reached Fort Cumberland
+the following June; a month later they were at Fort Chipewyan on the
+shores of Lake Athabasca, and soon they had made their way to the banks
+of the Great Bear Lake River, which flows out of that lake into the
+Mackenzie River, down which they were to descend to the sea. They
+decided to winter on the shores of the Bear Lake; but Franklin could
+never bear inaction, so he resolved to push on to the mouth of the
+Great River with a small party in order to prospect for the coming
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p>So correct had been Mackenzie's survey of this Great River, as it was
+called, that Franklin, "in justice to his memory," named it the
+Mackenzie River after its "eminent discoverer," which name it has
+borne ever since. In a little English boat, with a fair wind and a
+swift current, Franklin accomplished three hundred and twelve miles
+in about sixty hours. The saltness of the water, the <a name="page383"></a>sight of a
+boundless horizon, and the appearance of porpoises and whales were
+encouraging signs. They had reached the Polar sea at last&mdash;the "sea
+in all its majesty, entirely free from ice and without any visible
+obstruction to its navigation."</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the coast a silken Union Jack worked by Franklin's dying
+wife was unfurled. She had died a few days after he left England, but
+she had insisted on her husband's departure in the service of his
+country, only begging him not to unfurl her flag till he arrived at
+the Polar shores. As it fluttered in the breeze of these desolate shores,
+the little band of Englishmen cheered and drank to the health of the
+King.</p>
+
+<p>"You can imagine," says Franklin, "with what heartfelt emotion I first
+saw it unfurled; but in a short time I derived great pleasure in looking
+at it."</p>
+
+<p>It was too late to attempt navigation for this year, although the
+weather in August was "inconveniently warm," so on 5th September,
+Franklin returned to winter <a name="page384"></a>quarters on the Great Bear Lake. During
+his absence a comfortable little settlement had grown up to
+accommodate some fifty persons, including Canadian and Indian hunters
+with their wives and children. In honour of the commander it had been
+called Fort Franklin, and here the party of explorers settled down
+for the long months of winter.</p>
+
+<a name="ill140"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 140">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="593">
+			<img src="images/140.jpg" alt="FORT FRANKLIN, ON THE GREAT BEAR LAKE, IN THE WINTER">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="593" align="center">
+			<small>FORT FRANKLIN, ON THE GREAT BEAR LAKE, IN THE WINTER.<br>
+			From a drawing in Franklin's <i>Second Expedition to the Polar Sea</i>,
+			1828.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"As the days shortened," says Franklin, "it was necessary to find
+employment during the long evenings for those resident at the house,
+and a school was established from seven to nine for their instruction
+in reading, writing, and arithmetic, attended by most of the British
+party. Sunday was a day of rest, and the whole party attended Divine
+Service morning and evening. If on other evenings the men felt the
+time tedious, the hall was at their service to play any game they might
+choose, at which they were joined by the officers. Thus the men became
+more attached to us, and the hearts and feelings of the whole party
+were united in one common desire to make the time pass as agreeably
+as possible to each other, until the return of spring should enable
+us to resume the great object of the expedition."</p>
+
+<p>April brought warmer weather, though the ground was still covered with
+snow, and much boat-building went on. In May swans had appeared on
+the lake, then came geese, then ducks, then gulls and singing birds.
+By June the boats were afloat, and on the 24th the whole party embarked
+for the Mackenzie River and were soon making their way to the mouth.
+Here the party divided. Franklin on board the <i>Lion</i>, with a crew of
+six, accompanied by Back on board the <i>Reliance</i>, started westwards,
+while Richardson's party was to go eastwards and survey the coast
+between the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the Copper Mine. On 7th
+July, Franklin reached the sea, and, with flags flying, the <i>Lion</i>
+and the <i>Reliance</i> sailed forth <a name="page385"></a>on the unknown seas, only to ground
+a mile from shore. Suddenly some three hundred canoes full of Eskimos
+crowded towards them. These people had never seen a white man before,
+but when it was explained to them that the English had come to find
+a channel for large ships to come and trade with them, they "raised
+the most deafening shout of applause." They still crowded round the
+little English boats, till at last, like others of their race, they
+began to steal things from the boats. When detected they grew furious
+and brandished knives, they tore the buttons off the men's coats, and
+for a time matters looked serious till the English showed their
+firearms, when the canoes paddled away and the Eskimos hid themselves.</p>
+
+<p>With a fair wind the boats now sailed along the coast westward, till
+stopped by ice, which drove them from the shore. Dense fogs, stormy
+winds, and heavy rain made this Polar navigation very dangerous; but
+the explorers pushed on till, on 27th July, they reached the mouth
+of a broad river which, "being the most westerly river in the British
+dominions on this coast and near the line of demarcation between Great
+Britain and Russia, I named it <a name="page386"></a>the Clarence," says Franklin, "in honour
+of His Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral." A box containing a royal
+medal was deposited here, and the Union Jack was hoisted amid hearty
+cheers.</p>
+
+<a name="ill141"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 141">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="614">
+			<img src="images/141.jpg" alt="FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION CROSSING BACK'S INLET">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="614" align="center">
+			<small>FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION CROSSING BACK'S INLET.<br>
+			From a drawing, by Lieut. Back, in Franklin's <i>Second
+			Expedition to the Polar Sea</i>, 1828.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Still fogs and storms continued; the farther west they advanced, the
+denser grew the fog, till by the middle of August, winter seemed to
+have set in. The men had suffered much from the hard work of pulling
+and dragging the heavy boats; they also endured torments from
+countless swarms of mosquitoes. They were now some three hundred and
+seventy-four miles from the mouth of the Mackenzie River and only
+half-way to Icy Cape; but Franklin, with all his courage and with all
+his enthusiasm, dared not risk the lives of his men farther. "Return
+Reef" marks his farthest point west, and it was not till long after
+that he learnt that Captain Beechey, who had been sent in the <i>Blossom</i>
+by way of Behring Strait, had doubled Icy Cape and was waiting for
+Franklin one hundred and sixty miles away.</p>
+
+<p>On 21st September, Fort Franklin was reached after three months'
+absence. Dr. Richardson had already returned after a successful coast
+voyage of some eight hundred miles.</p>
+
+<p>When he had left Franklin he had, on board the <i>Dolphin</i>, accompanied
+by the <i>Union</i>, sailed along the unknown coast eastward. Like
+Franklin's party, his expedition had also suffered from fogs, gales,
+and mosquitoes, but they had made their way on, naming inlets, capes,
+and islands as they passed. Thus we find Russell Inlet, Point Bathurst,
+Franklin's Bay, Cape Parry, the Union and Dolphin Straits, named after
+the two little ships, where the <i>Dolphin</i> was nearly wrecked between
+two masses of ice. They had reached Fort Franklin in safety just before
+Franklin's party, and, being too late to think of getting home this
+year, they were all doomed to another <a name="page387"></a>winter at the Fort. They reached
+England on 26th September 1827, after an absence of two years and a
+half.</p>
+
+<p>Franklin had failed to find the North-West Passage, but he and
+Richardson had discovered a thousand miles of North American coast,
+for which he was knighted and received the Paris Geographical
+Society's medal for "the most important acquisition to geographical
+knowledge" made during the year. It was a curious coincidence that
+the two Arctic explorers, Franklin and Parry, both arrived in England
+the same month from their various expeditions, and appeared at the
+Admiralty within ten minutes of one another.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap54"></a><a name="page388"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LIV</h3>
+
+<h4>PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Parry had left England the preceding April in an attempt to reach the
+North Pole by means of sledges over the ice. To this end he had sailed
+to Spitzbergen in his old ship the <i>Hecla</i>, many of his old shipmates
+sailing with him. They arrived off the coast of Spitzbergen about the
+middle of May 1827. Two boats had been specially built in England,
+covered with waterproof canvas and lined with felt. The <i>Enterprise</i>
+and <i>Endeavour</i> had bamboo masts and paddles, and were constructed
+to go on sledges, drawn by reindeer, over the ice.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," says Parry, "can be more beautiful than the training of
+the Lapland reindeer. With a simple collar of skin round his neck,
+a single trace of the same material attached to the sledge and passing
+between his legs, and one rein fastened like a halter round his neck,
+this intelligent and docile animal is perfectly under the command of
+an experienced driver, and performs astonishing journeys over the
+softest snow. Shaking the rein over his back is the only whip that
+is required."</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the <i>Hecla</i> in safe harbour on the Spitzbergen coast, Parry
+and James Ross, a nephew of John Ross, the explorer, with food for
+two months, started off in their two boat-sledges for the north. They
+made a good start; the weather was calm and clear, the sea smooth as
+a mirror&mdash;walruses lay in herds on the ice, and, steering due north,
+they made good progress.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, however, they were stopped by ice. Instead <a name="page389"></a>of finding a smooth,
+level plain over which the reindeer could draw their sledges with ease,
+they found broken, rugged, uneven ice, which nothing but the keen
+enthusiasm of the explorer could have faced. The reindeer were useless,
+and they had to be relinquished; it is always supposed that they were
+eaten, but history is silent on this point. The little party had to
+drag their own boats over the rough ice. They travelled by night to
+save snow-blindness, also that they could enjoy greater warmth during
+the hours of sleep by day.</p>
+
+<a name="ill142"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 142">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="586">
+			<img src="images/142.jpg" alt="THE BOATS OF PARRY'S EXPEDITION HAULED UP ON THE ICE FOR THE NIGHT">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="586" align="center">
+			<small>THE BOATS OF PARRY'S EXPEDITION HAULED UP ON THE ICE
+			FOR THE NIGHT.<br>
+			From a drawing in Parry's <i>Attempt to Reach the North
+			Pole</i>, 1828.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Parry describes the laborious journey: "Being 'rigged' for
+travelling," he says, "we breakfasted upon warm cocoa and biscuit,
+and after stowing the things in the boats we set off on our day's journey,
+and usually travelled about five and a half hours, then stopped an
+hour to dine, and again travelled five or six hours. After this we
+halted for the night as we called it, though it was usually early in
+the morning, selecting the largest surface of ice we happened to be
+near for hauling the boats on. The boats were placed close alongside
+each other, and the sails supported by bamboo masts placed over them
+as <a name="page390"></a>awnings. Every man then put on dry socks and fur boots and went
+to supper. Most of the officers and men then smoked their pipes, which
+served to dry the awnings. We then concluded our day with prayers and,
+having put on our fur dresses, lay down to sleep," alone in the great
+ice desert. Progress was slow and very tedious. One day it took them
+four hours to cover half a mile. On 1st July they were still labouring
+forward; a foot of soft snow on the ground made travelling very
+exhausting. Some of the hummocks of ice were as much as twenty-five
+feet above sea-level; nothing was to be seen but ice and sky, both
+often hidden by dense fog. Still the explorers pushed on, Parry and
+Ross leading the way and the men dragging the boat-sledges after. July
+12th was a brilliant day, with clear sky overhead&mdash;"an absolute
+luxury." For another fortnight they persevered, and on 23rd July they
+reached their farthest point north. It was a warm, pleasant day, with
+the thermometer at thirty-six in the shade; they were a hundred and
+seventy-two miles from Spitzbergen, where the <i>Hecla</i> lay at anchor.</p>
+
+<p>"Our ensigns and pendants were displayed during the day, and severely
+as we regretted not having been able to hoist the British flag in the
+highest latitude to which we had aspired, we shall perhaps be excused
+in having felt some little pride in being the bearers of it to a parallel
+considerably beyond that mentioned in any other well-authenticated
+record." On 27th July they reluctantly turned to the south, and on
+21st August they arrived on board the <i>Hecla</i> after an absence of
+sixty-one days, every one of the party being in good health. Soon after
+they sailed for England, and by a strange coincidence arrived in London
+at the same time as Franklin.</p>
+
+<p>Many an attempt was yet to be made to reach the North Pole, till at
+last it was discovered by Peary, an American, in 1909.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap55"></a><a name="page391"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LV</h3>
+
+<h4>THE SEARCH FOR TIMBUKTU</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>It is a relief to turn from the icy north to the tropical climate of
+Central Africa, where Mungo Park had disappeared in 1805. The mystery
+of Timbuktu and the Niger remained unsolved, though more than one
+expedition had left the coast of Africa for the "mystic city" lying
+"deep in that lion-haunted inland." Notwithstanding disaster, death,
+and defeat, a new expedition set forth from Tripoli to cross the great
+Sahara Desert. It was under Major Denham, Lieutenant Clapperton, and
+Dr. Oudney. They left Tripoli in March 1822. "We were the first English
+travellers," says Denham, "who had determined to travel in our real
+character as Britons and Christians, and to wear our English dress:
+the buttons on our waistcoats and our watches caused the greatest
+astonishment." It was the end of November before they were ready to
+leave the frontier on their great desert journey. The long enforced
+stay in this unhealthy border town had undermined their health; fever
+had reduced Denham, Dr. Oudney was suffering from cough and pains in
+his chest, Clapperton was shivering with ague&mdash;a state of health
+"ill-calculated for undertaking a long and tedious journey." A long
+escort of men and camels accompanied them into the merciless desert,
+with its burning heat and drifting sands&mdash;"the Sea of Sahara" as the
+old cartographer calls it. December found them still slowly advancing
+over the billowy sand, deeply impressed and <a name="page392"></a>horrified at the number
+of slave skeletons that lay about the wind-swept desert. The new year
+brought little relief. "No wood, no water," occurs constantly in
+Denham's journal. "Desert as yesterday; high sandhills." Still they
+persevered, until, on 4th February 1823, they were rewarded by seeing
+a sheet of water, "the great Lake Tchad, glowing with the golden rays
+of the sun in its strength." Was this, after all, the source of the
+Niger? Its low shores were surrounded with reedy marshes and clumps
+of white water-lilies, there were flocks of wild ducks and geese, birds
+with beautiful plumage were feeding on the margin of the lake, pelicans,
+cranes, immense white spoonbills, yellow-legged plover&mdash;all were
+dwelling undisturbed in this peaceful spot. And this most remarkable
+lake lay eight hundred feet above the Atlantic, between the watersheds
+of Nile, Niger, and Congo.</p>
+
+<p>But Lake Tchad was not their goal; they must push on over new country
+where no European had been before. A fortnight later they reached
+Kukawa, the capital of Bornu, once a great Mohammedan empire. "We were
+about to become acquainted with a people who had never seen or scarcely
+heard of a European," says Denham, "and to tread on ground, the
+knowledge and true situation of which had hitherto been wholly unknown.
+We advanced towards the town of Kuka in a most interesting state of
+uncertainty, whether we should find its chief at the head of thousands,
+or be received by him under a tree, surrounded by a few naked slaves."</p>
+
+<p>Their doubts were soon set at rest by the sight of several thousand
+cavalry, drawn up in line. They were received by an Arab general, "a
+negro of noble aspect, dressed in a figured silk robe and mounted on
+a beautiful horse." They had passed from the region of hidden huts
+to one of great walled cities, from the naked pagan to the cultivated
+follower of Mohammed, from superstition <a name="page393"></a>to mosques and schools, from
+ignorance to knowledge. The Sheikh, who received the travellers in
+a small room with armed negroes on either side, asked the reason of
+<a name="page394"></a>their long and painful journey across the desert. "To see the country,"
+answered the Englishmen, "and to give an account of its inhabitants,
+produce, and appearance, as our sultan was desirous of knowing every
+part of the globe."</p>
+
+<a name="ill143"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 143">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="508">
+			<img src="images/143.jpg" alt="MAJOR DENHAM AND HIS PARTY RECEIVED BY THE SHEIKH OF BORNU">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="508" align="center">
+			<small>MAJOR DENHAM AND HIS PARTY RECEIVED BY THE SHEIKH OF BORNU.<br>
+			From a drawing by Major Denham.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The Sheikh's hospitality was overwhelming; he had huts built for them,
+"which," says Denham, "were so crowded with visitors that we had not
+a moment's peace, and the heat was insufferable." He sent presents
+of bullocks, camel-loads of wheat and rice, leather skins of butter,
+jars, and honey. The market of Kuka was famous. It was attended by
+some fifteen thousand persons from all parts, and the produce sold
+there was astonishing. Here Clapperton and Dr. Oudney stayed all
+through the summer months, for both were ill, and Oudney was growing
+rapidly worse. Denham meanwhile went off on exploring expeditions in
+the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>On 14th December, Clapperton and Oudney left the friendly Sheikh and
+made their way to Kano. But the rough travelling proved too much for
+Oudney; each day found him weaker, but he valiantly journeyed on. On
+12th January he ordered the camels to be loaded as usual, and he was
+dressed by Clapperton, but he was too ill to be lifted on to his camel,
+and a few hours later he died.</p>
+
+<p>Clapperton was now alone "amid a strange people" in a land "hitherto
+never trodden by European foot," and very ill himself. But he reached
+Kano, the famous trading centre of the Haussas, containing some forty
+thousand inhabitants. Here again the market impressed him deeply, so
+full was it of cosmopolitan articles from far-distant lands. After
+a month's stay at Kano, now the capital of the northern province of
+Nigeria of that name, he set out for Sokoto, though very ill and weak
+at the time. He was assured of kind treatment by the Sultan. He arrived
+on 16th March, and "to impress them with my <a name="page395"></a>official importance I
+arrayed myself in my lieutenant's coat trimmed with gold lace, white
+trousers, and silk stockings, and, to complete my finery, I wore
+Turkish slippers and a turban." Crowds collected on his arrival, and
+he was conducted to the Sultan, who questioned him closely about Europe.
+"I laid before him a present in the name of His Majesty the King of
+England, consisting of two new blunderbusses, an embroidered jacket,
+some scarlet breeches, cloves and cinnamon, gunpowder, razors,
+looking-glasses, snuff-boxes, and compasses."</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is wonderful!" exclaimed the Sultan; "but you are the
+greatest curiosity of all! What can I give that is acceptable to the
+King of England?"</p>
+
+<p>"Co-operate with His Majesty in putting a stop to the slave trade,"
+was Clapperton's answer.</p>
+
+<p>"What, have you no slaves in England?" The Englishman replied, "No!"
+to which the Sultan answered: "God is great; you are a beautiful
+people." But when Clapperton asked for leave in order to solve the
+mystery of the Niger, the Sultan refused, and he was obliged to return
+to Kuka, where he arrived on 8th July. A week later he was joined by
+Denham. "It was nearly eight months since we had separated," says
+Denham, "and I went immediately to the hut where he was lodged; but
+so satisfied was I that the sunburnt, sickly person that lay extended
+on the floor, rolled in a dark-blue shirt, was not my companion, that
+I was about to leave the place, when he convinced me of my error by
+calling me by my name. Our meeting was a melancholy one, for he had
+buried his companion. Notwithstanding the state of weakness in which
+I found Captain Clapperton, he yet spoke of returning to Sudan after
+the rains." But this was not to be, and a month later we find the two
+explorers turning homewards to Tripoli, where they arrived at the end
+of January.</p>
+
+<p>But, with all his long travelling in Africa, Clapperton <a name="page396"></a>had not seen
+the Niger, and, although the effects of his fever had not worn away,
+he spent but two months in England before he was off again. This time
+he sailed to the Gulf of Guinea, and from a place on the coast near
+the modern Lagos he started by a new and untried route to reach the
+interior of the great Dark Continent. It was September 1825 when he
+left the coast with his companions. Before the month was over, the
+other Europeans had died from the pestilential climate of Nigeria,
+and Clapperton, alone with his faithful servant, Richard Lander,
+pushed on. At last he saw the great Niger near the spot where Mungo
+Park and his companions had perished. At Bussa they made out the tragic
+story of his end. They had descended the river from Timbuktu to Bussa,
+when the boat struck upon some rocks. Natives from the banks shot at
+them with arrows; the white men then, seeing all was lost, jumped into
+the river and were drowned. The Niger claimed its explorer in the end,
+and the words of Mungo Park must have occurred to Clapperton as he
+stood and watched: "Though I myself were half-dead, I would still
+persevere; and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey,
+I would at least die on the Niger."</p>
+
+<p>From Bussa, Clapperton made his way to Kano and Sokoto; but on 13th
+April 1827, broken down by fever, he died in the arms of his faithful
+servant. With his master's papers and journal, Lander made his way
+home, thus establishing for the first time a direct connection between
+Benin and Tripoli, the west coast and the north.</p>
+
+<p>Still the mouth of the Niger had not been found. This discovery was
+reserved for this very Richard Lander and his brother John.</p>
+
+<p>Just a year after the death of Clapperton a young Frenchman, R&eacute;n&eacute; Caill&eacute;,
+tempted by the offer of ten thousand francs offered by the French
+Geographical <a name="page397"></a>Society for the first traveller who should reach that
+mysterious city, entered Timbuktu 20th April 1829, after a year's
+journey from Sierra Leone. And from his pen we get the first direct
+account of the once important city. "At length," he says, "we arrived
+safely at Timbuktu, just as the sun was touching the horizon. I now
+saw this capital of the Sudan, to reach which had so long been the
+object of my wishes. To God alone did I confide my joy. I looked around
+and found that the sight before me did not answer my expectations.
+I had formed a totally different idea of the grandeur and wealth of
+it. The city presented nothing but a mass of ill-looking houses, built
+of earth. Nothing was to be seen in all directions but immense plains
+of quicksand of a yellowish white colour. The sky was a pale red as
+far as the horizon, all nature wore a dreary aspect, and the most
+profound silence prevailed: not even the warbling of a bird was to
+be heard. The heat was oppressive; not a breath of air freshened the
+atmosphere. This mysterious city, which has been the object of
+curiosity for many ages, and of whose civilisation, population, and
+trade with the Sudan such <a name="page398"></a>exaggerated notions have prevailed, is
+situated in an immense plain of white sand, having no vegetation but
+stunted trees and shrubs, and has no other resources save its trade
+in salt."</p>
+
+<a name="ill144"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 144">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="597">
+			<img src="images/144.jpg" alt="THE FIRST EUROPEAN PICTURE OF TIMBUKTU">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="597" align="center">
+			<small>THE FIRST EUROPEAN PICTURE OF TIMBUKTU.<br>
+			From a drawing in Caill&eacute;'s <i>Tomboctou</i>, 1829.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It is curious to note what a burst of interest was aroused in England
+at this time with regard to Timbuktu. Thackeray wrote in 1829&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem34">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"In Africa (a quarter of the world)<br>
+			&nbsp;Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curl'd;<br>
+			&nbsp;And somewhere there, unknown to public view,<br>
+			&nbsp;A mighty city lies, called Timbuktu."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>while the same year Tennyson's poem on Timbuktu won for him the prize
+at Cambridge University for the best poem of the year.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap56"></a><a name="page399"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LVI</h3>
+
+<h4>RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER DISCOVER THE MOUTH OF THE NIGER</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Lander, the "faithful attendant of the late Captain Clapperton," as
+he is called in his instructions, was burning to be off again to explore
+further the mysterious Niger. No pecuniary reward was to be his; he
+was a poor man, and just for the love of exploring the unknown he started
+off. He had inspired his brother with a desire to solve the great
+mystery; so on 22nd February 1830 the two brothers arrived at Cape
+Coast Castle and made their way to Bussa, which place they entered
+on 18th June. Sitting on a rock overlooking the spot where Mungo Park
+had perished, the brothers resolved to "set at rest for ever the great
+question of the course and termination of the great Niger."</p>
+
+<p>It was 20th September before preparations were completed for the
+eventful voyage from Bussa to the mouth of the Niger. For provisions
+they took three large bags of corn and one of beans, a couple of fowls,
+and two sheep to last a month, while the king added rice, honey, onions,
+and one hundred pounds of vegetable butter. Then in two native canoes
+the Landers embarked on the great river, the "Dark Water" as it was
+more often called, while the crowds who came down to the riverside
+to bid them farewell knelt with uplifted hands, imploring for the
+explorers the protection of Allah and their prophet. It was indeed
+a perilous undertaking; sunken reefs were an ever-present danger,
+while the swift current ran them <a name="page400"></a>dangerously near many jagged rocks.
+For nearly a month they paddled onward with their native guides in
+anxiety and suspense, never knowing what an hour might bring forth.
+On 7th October a curious scene took place when the King of the Dark
+Water came forth in all his pomp and glory to see the white strangers
+who were paddling down the great river. Waiting under the shade of
+a tree, for the morning was very hot, the Landers observed a large
+canoe paddled by twenty young black men singing as they rowed. In the
+centre of the boat a mat awning was erected: in the bows sat four little
+boys "clad with neatness and propriety," while in the stern sat
+musicians with drums and trumpets. Presently the king stepped forth.
+He was coal black, dressed in an Arab cloak, Haussa trousers, and a
+cap of red cloth, while two pretty little boys about ten years of age,
+acting as pages, followed him, each bearing a cow's tail in his hand
+to brush away flies and other insects. Six wives, jet black girls in
+neat country caps edged with red silk, accompanied him. To make some
+impression on this pompous king, Lander hoisted the "Union flag."
+"When unfurled and waving in the wind, it looked extremely pretty,
+and it made our hearts glow with pride and enthusiasm as we looked
+at the solitary little banner. I put on an old naval uniform coat,
+and my brother dressed himself in as grotesque and gaudy a manner as
+our resources would afford; our eight attendants also put on new white
+Mohammedan robes." Other canoes joined the royal procession and the
+little flotilla moved down the river. "Never did the British flag lead
+so extraordinary a squadron," remarks Lander. As the King of the Dark
+Water stepped on shore the Englishmen fired a salute, which frightened
+him not a little till the honour was explained. Having now exchanged
+their two canoes for one of a larger size, they continued their journey
+down the river.</p>
+<a name="page401"></a>
+<a name="ill145"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 145">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="612">
+			<img src="images/145.jpg" alt="RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER PADDLING DOWN THE NIGER">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="612" align="center">
+			<small>RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER PADDLING DOWN THE NIGER.<br>
+			From a drawing in the account of Lander's <i>Travels</i>, 1835.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On 25th October they found the waters of the Niger were joined by
+another large river known to-day as the Benue, the Mother of Waters,
+flowing in from the east. After this the banks of the river seemed
+to grow hilly, and villages were few and far between. "Our canoe passed
+smoothly along the Niger, and everything was silent and solitary; no
+sound could be distinguished save our own voices and the plashing of
+the paddles with their echoes; the song of birds was not heard, nor
+could any animal whatever be seen; the banks seemed to be entirely
+deserted, and the magnificent Niger to be slumbering in its own
+grandeur."</p>
+
+<p>"One can imagine the feelings," says a modern writer, "in such
+circumstances of the brothers, drifting they knew <a name="page402"></a>not whither, in
+intolerable silence and loneliness on the bosom of a river which had
+caused the death of so many men who had endeavoured to wrest from it
+its secret." Two days later a large village appeared, and suddenly
+a cry rang through the air: "Holloa, you Englishmen! You come here!"
+It came from a "little squinting fellow" dressed in an English
+soldier's jacket, a messenger from the Chief of Bonney on the coast,
+buying slaves for his master. He had picked up a smattering of English
+from the Liverpool trading ships which came to Bonney for palm-oil
+from the river. There was no longer any doubt that the mouth of the
+Niger was not far off, and that the many-mouthed delta was well known
+to Europeans under the name of the "Oil Rivers" flowing into the Bight
+of Benin.</p>
+
+<p>Lander pushed on till he had paddled down the Brass River, as one of
+the many branches was called, when he heard "the welcome sound of the
+surf on the beach."</p>
+
+<p>The mystery of the Niger, after a lapse of two thousand five hundred
+years since its existence had been recorded by Herodotus, was solved
+at last.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap57"></a><a name="page403"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LVII</h3>
+
+<h4>ROSS DISCOVERS THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The first attempt to discover the North-West Passage by means of steam
+instead of sail was made by Captain Ross, who, since his expedition
+in 1819, had been burning to set off again for the Arctic regions.
+The reward of &pound;20,000 held out to the discoverer of a north-west
+passage had been repealed, but an old friend, Felix Booth, decided
+to finance Ross, the Government having refused. "After examining
+various steamships advertised for sale," says Ross, "I purchased the
+<i>Victory</i>, which had been once employed as a packet." With food and
+fuel for one thousand days, and accompanied by his nephew, James Ross,
+who had been with Parry on his recent Polar voyage, he left England
+the end of May 1829, not to return for many a long year. Disasters
+soon began. The <i>Victory</i> began to leak, her engines were defective,
+and there was nothing for it but to heave up her paddles and trust
+to sail. Sailing to the northward, they found the sea smooth and the
+weather so warm that they could dine without a fire and with the
+skylights off. Entering Lancaster Sound, they sailed up Prince
+Regent's Inlet. They soon discovered the spot where the <i>Fury</i> had
+been wrecked four years before and abandoned by Captain Parry with
+whom was James Ross, who now found the stores which had been safely
+hidden on that occasion. As they made their way up the inlet, strong
+currents and vast masses of ice hard <a name="page404"></a>and solid as granite more than
+once threatened them with destruction.</p>
+
+<p>"Imagine," says Captain Ross, "these mountains hurled through a narrow
+strait by a rapid tide, meeting with the noise of thunder, breaking
+from each other's precipices huge fragments, till, losing their former
+equilibrium, they fall over headlong, lifting the sea around in
+breakers and whirling it in eddies."</p>
+
+<p>Escaping these perils, Ross entered a fine harbour. Here he landed,
+hoisted the colours, and took possession of the new land he had found,
+and, drinking the King's health, called the land Boothia, after his
+patron. For the next two months, August and September, he carefully
+explored the coast of this newly discovered Boothia for some three
+hundred miles, naming points and capes and islands after friends at
+home and on board. Heavy squalls of snow and ever-thickening ice
+pointed out the necessity of winter quarters, and 1st October found
+the <i>Victory</i> imprisoned by thick immovable ice. "The prison door was
+shut upon us for the first time," says Ross sadly. "Nothing was to
+be seen but one dazzling, monotonous extent of snow. It was indeed
+a dull prospect. Amid all its brilliancy, this land of ice and snow
+has ever been, and ever will be, a dull, dreary, heart-sinking,
+monotonous waste, under the influence of which the very mind is
+paralysed. Nothing moves and nothing changes, but all is for ever the
+same&mdash;cheerless, cold, and still."</p>
+
+<p>The explorers little thought that this was to be their home for the
+next three years. They spent a fairly cheerful Christmas with mince
+pies and "iced cherry brandy" taken from the stores of the <i>Fury</i>,
+and early in 1830 the monotony was broken by the appearance of Eskimos.
+These were tremendously dressed up in furs, a shapeless mass, and Ross
+describes one as resembling "the figure of a globe standing on two
+pins." They soon <a name="page405"></a>became friendly, taking the Englishmen to see their
+snow huts, drawing them charts of Boothia Gulf beyond Felix Harbour,
+while in exchange the explorers taught English to the little Eskimo
+children and ministered to their ailments, the ship's carpenter even
+making a wooden leg for one of the natives.</p>
+<a name="ill146"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 146">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448">
+			<img src="images/146.jpg" alt="ROSS'S WINTER QUARTERS IN FELIX HARBOUR">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448" align="center">
+			<small>ROSS'S WINTER QUARTERS IN FELIX HARBOUR.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<a name="ill147"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 147">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448">
+			<img src="images/147.jpg" alt="THE FIRST COMMUNICATION WITH ESKIMOS AT BOOTHIA FELIX">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="448" align="center">
+			<small>THE FIRST COMMUNICATION WITH ESKIMOS AT BOOTHIA FELIX,
+			JANUARY 1830. SIR JOHN ROSS'S EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE,
+			1829-1833.<br>
+			From drawings by Ross in his <i>Narrative of a Second Voyage
+			in Search of a North-West Passage</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So the long winter passed away. A few land journeys with sledges only
+ended in disappointment, but at last the vessel was free of ice and
+joyfully they hoisted her sails. But worse disappointment was in store.
+She had sailed for three miles when they met a ridge of ice, and a
+solid sea forbade any further advance. In vain did they try to saw
+through the ice. November found the poor <i>Victory</i> hopelessly icebound
+and her crew doomed to another winter in the same region.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till May that a journey across the land of Boothia to the
+west coast was possible. Ross and his nephew had been calculating the
+position of the North Magnetic Pole all the long winter, and with signs
+of spring they set forth.</p>
+
+<p>"Our journey had a very new appearance. The mother of two Eskimos led
+the way with a staff in her hand, my sledge following with the dogs
+and one of the children, guided by one of the wives with a child on
+her back. After a native sledge came that of Commander Ross, followed
+by more Eskimos. Many halts were made, as our burdens were heavy, the
+snow deep, and the ice rough."</p>
+
+<p>After a fortnight's travelling past the chain of great lakes&mdash;the
+woman still guiding them&mdash;the Rosses, uncle and nephew, separated.
+James Ross now made for the spot where the Magnetic Pole was supposed
+to be. His own account shows with what enthusiasm he found it. "We
+were now within fourteen miles of the calculated position of the
+Magnetic Pole and now commenced a rapid march, and, persevering with
+all our might, we reached the <a name="page406"></a>calculated place at eight in the morning
+of the 1st of June. I must leave it to others to imagine the elation
+of mind with which we found ourselves now at length arrived at this
+great object of our ambition. It almost seemed as if we had accomplished
+everything that we had come so far to see and to do; as if our voyage
+and all its labours were at an end, and that nothing remained for us
+but to return home and be happy for the rest of our days. Amid mutual
+congratulation we fixed the British flag on the spot and took
+possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in
+the name of Great Britain and King William <small>IV</small>. We had plenty of
+materials for building, and we therefore erected a cairn of some
+magnitude under which we buried a canister containing a record of the
+interesting fact." Another fortnight found the successful explorers
+staggering back to the <i>Victory</i> with their great news, after an
+absence of twenty-eight days.</p>
+
+<p>Science has shown that the Magnetic Pole revolves, and that Ross's
+cairn will not again mark its exact position for many a long year to
+come.</p>
+
+<a name="ill148"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 148">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="602">
+			<img src="images/148.jpg" alt="THE ROSSES ON THEIR JOURNEY TO THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="602" align="center">
+			<small>THE ROSSES ON THEIR JOURNEY TO THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE.<br>
+			From a drawing in Ross's <i>Second Voyage for a North-West Passage</i>,
+			1835.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>By the end of August the ice had broken and the <i>Victory</i> was once
+more in full sail, but gales of wind drove her into harbour, which
+she never left again. Despite their colossal efforts, it soon became
+apparent that yet another winter would have to be passed in the frozen
+seas. The entries in Ross's journal become shorter and more despondent
+day by day. "The sight of ice to us is a plague, a vexation, a torment,
+an evil, a matter of despair. Could we have skated, it would not have
+been an amusement; we had exercise enough and, worst of all, the ice
+which surrounds us obstructed us, imprisoned us, annoyed us in every
+possible manner, had become odious to our sight." By October there
+was no open water to be seen; "the hopeful did not hope more, and the
+despondent continued to despair."</p>
+<a name="page407"></a>
+<p>This was their third winter in the ice&mdash;food was growing scarce, the
+meat was so hard frozen that it had to be cut with a saw or thawed
+in warm cocoa. Snow-blindness afflicted many of the men badly. At last
+came the summer of 1833, but the <i>Victory</i> was still fast in her winter
+quarters, and all attempts to release her had failed. They now decided
+to abandon her and to drag their boats over the ice to the wreck of
+the <i>Fury</i>, replenishing their stores and trusting to some whaler to
+take them home. We get a pathetic picture. "The colours were hoisted,"
+says Ross, "and nailed to the mast, we drank a parting glass to our
+poor old ship, and, having seen every man out, I took my own adieu
+of the <i>Victory</i> in the evening. She had deserved a better fate. It
+was like parting with an old friend."</p>
+<a name="page408"></a>
+<p>On 23rd April the weary explorers began dragging their boats and the
+last month's provisions over the ice in the face of wind and snow.
+The journey was painful and distressing. They found Barrow's Strait
+full of impenetrable ice, and resolved to pass the winter on Fury beach,
+which seemed almost like home to the half-starved men. Erecting a house
+which they called "Somerset House," they prepared for a fourth winter.
+For severity it was unequalled, the crew developed scurvy, and all
+were suffering sorely when, in the following August, the unfortunate
+party was rescued by the whaler, "<i>Isabella</i> of Hull, once commanded
+by Captain Ross." It was the ship in which Ross had made his first
+Arctic exploration. At first the mate refused to believe the story
+of these "bear-like" men. The explorers and Ross had been lost these
+two years. But, almost frantic with delight, the explorers climbed
+on board the <i>Isabella</i> to be received with the heartiest of cheers
+when their identity was disclosed. "That we were a repulsive-looking
+people, none could doubt," says poor Ross, "unshaven since I know not
+when, dirty, dressed in rags of wild beasts, and starved to the very
+bones, our gaunt and grim looks, when contrasted with those of the
+well-dressed and well-fed men around us, made us all feel what we really
+were, as well as what we seemed to others." Then followed a wild scene
+of "washing, dressing, shaving, eating, all intermingled," while in
+the midst of all there were questions to be asked and the news from
+England to be heard. Long accustomed to a cold bed on the hard snow
+or the bare rock, few of them could sleep that night in the comfort
+of the new accommodation.</p>
+
+<p>They were soon safely back in England, large crowds collecting to get
+a glimpse of Captain Ross. His own words best end the account of his
+travels. "On my arrival in London," he says, "on the 20th of October
+1883, it became <a name="page409"></a>my first duty to repair to the royal palace at Windsor,
+with an account of my voyage, and to lay at the feet of His Majesty
+the British flag which had been hoisted on the Magnetic Pole."</p>
+
+<a name="ill149"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 149">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="602">
+			<img src="images/149.jpg" alt="SOMERSET HOUSE, ROSS'S WINTER QUARTERS ON FURY BEACH">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="602" align="center">
+			<small>"SOMERSET HOUSE," ROSS'S WINTER QUARTERS ON FURY BEACH.<br>
+			From a drawing in Ross's <i>Second Voyage for a North-West Passage</i>,
+			1835.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap58"></a><a name="page410"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LVIII</h3>
+
+<h4>FLINDERS NAMES AUSTRALIA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>We must now return to Australia, as yet so imperfectly explored, and
+take up the story of the young colony at Sydney.</p>
+
+<p>For seven years it thrived under the careful management of Governor
+Phillips, who was then replaced by one Hunter. With the new governor
+from England arrived two young men destined to distinguish themselves
+in the exploration of New South Wales. They were midshipman Matthew
+Flinders and surgeon George Bass. The reading of <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>
+had created in young Flinders a passion for sea-adventure, and no
+sooner had the <i>Reliance</i> anchored in Sydney harbour than the two young
+friends resolved on an exploring expedition to the south. For there
+were rumours afloat that Van Diemen's Land did not join the main
+continent of New South Wales. Little enough help was forthcoming for
+the expedition, and the friends had to content themselves with a little
+boat eight feet long&mdash;the <i>Tom Thumb</i>&mdash;and only a boy to help them. But
+with all the eager enthusiasm of youth they sailed from Port Jackson
+on 25th March 1796. It is impossible to follow all their adventures
+as they attempted the survey of the coast. A storm on the 29th nearly
+swallowed up the little <i>Tom Thumb</i> and her plucky sailors.</p>
+
+<a name="ill150"> </a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 150">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="272">
+			<img src="images/150.jpg" alt="MATTHEW FLINDERS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="272" align="center">
+			<small>MATTHEW FLINDERS</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"At ten o'clock," says Flinders, "the wind, which had been unsettled
+and driving electric clouds in all directions, burst out in a gale.
+In a few minutes the waves began to <a name="page411"></a>break, and the extreme danger to
+which this exposed our little bark was increased by the darkness of
+the night and the uncertainty of finding any place of shelter. Mr.
+Bass kept the sheet of the sail in his hand, drawing in a few inches
+occasionally, when he saw a particularly heavy sea following. I was
+steering with an oar. A single wrong movement or a moment's inattention
+would have sent us to the bottom. After running near an hour in this
+critical manner, some huge breakers were distinguished ahead; it was
+necessary to determine what was to be done at once, for our bark could
+not live ten minutes longer. On coming to what appeared to be the
+extremity of the breakers, the boat's head was brought to the wind,
+the mast and sail taken down, and the oars taken out. Pulling then
+towards the reef during the intervals of the heaviest seas, in three
+minutes we were in smooth water&mdash;a nearer approach showed us the beach
+of a well-sheltered cove in which we anchored for the rest of the night.
+We thought Providential Cove a well-adapted name for the place."</p>
+
+<p>Important local discoveries were made by the young explorers, and
+their skill and courage earned for them a better equipment for further
+exploration. A whale-boat provisioned for six weeks, and a crew of
+six, were placed at the disposal of Bass in order that he might discover
+whether Van Diemen's Land was joined to the mainland or whether there
+was a strait between. Cook had declared <a name="page412"></a>that there was no strait.
+Flinders now tells the story of his friend's triumphant success in
+finding the straits that now bear his name. He tells how Bass found
+the coast turning westward exposed to the billows of a great ocean,
+of the low sandy shore, of the spacious harbour which "from its relative
+position to the hitherto known parts of the coasts was called Port
+Western." His provisions were now at an end and, though he was keen
+to make a survey of his new discovery, he was obliged to return. This
+voyage of six hundred miles in an open boat on dangerous and unknown
+shores is one of the most remarkable on record. It added another three
+hundred miles of known coast-line, and showed that the shores of New
+Holland were divided from Van Diemen's Land. So highly did the
+colonists appreciate this voyage of discovery that the whale-boat in
+which Bass sailed was long preserved as a curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>A small boat of twenty-five tons, provisioned for twelve weeks, was
+now put at the disposal of the two friends, Flinders and Bass, to
+complete the survey of Van Diemen's Land, and in October 1798 they
+sailed for the south. With gales and strong winds blowing across the
+channel now known as Bass Strait, they made their way along the
+coast&mdash;the northern shores of Van Diemen's Land&mdash;till they found a
+wide inlet. Here they found a quantity of black swans, which they ate
+with joy, and also kangaroos, mussels, and oysters. This inlet they
+called Port Dalrymple, after the late hydrographer to the Admiralty
+in England. On 9th December, still coasting onward, they passed
+Three-Hummock Island and then a whole cluster of islands, to which,
+"in honour of His Excellency the Governor of New South Wales, I gave
+the title of Hunter's Isles." And now a long swell was noticed from
+the south-west. "It broke heavily upon a small reef and upon all the
+western shores, but, although it was likely <a name="page413"></a>to prove troublesome and
+perhaps dangerous, Mr. Bass and myself hailed it with joy and mutual
+congratulation, as announcing the completion of our long-wished-for
+discovery of a passage into the southern Indian Ocean."</p>
+
+<p>Calling the point where the island coast turned Cape Grime, they sailed
+along the western shores, their little boat exposed to the swell of
+the southern ocean. Sailing joyfully from point to point and naming
+them at will, the two explorers reached the extreme west, which they
+called South-West Cape. This had been already sighted by one of Cook's
+party in 1773. South Cape and Tasman's Head had been likewise charted
+as points at the extreme south of New South Wales. So the explorers
+sailed right round the island on which Tasman had landed one hundred
+and fifty-six years before, and after an absence of five months they
+reached Sydney with their important news. Bass now disappears from
+the annals of exploration, but his friend Flinders went off to England
+and found in our old friend Banks a powerful friend. He was given a
+stout north-country ship, H.M.S. <i>Investigator</i> of three hundred and
+thirty-four tons, with orders to return to New Holland and make a
+complete survey of the coast, and was off again in July 1801 with young
+John Franklin, his nephew, aboard.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Investigator</i> arrived at Cape Leuwin in December and anchored
+in King George's Sound, discovered by Vancouver some ten years before.
+By the New Year he was ready to begin his great voyage round the Terra
+Australis, as the new country was still called. Indeed, it was Flinders
+who suggested the name of Australia for the tract of land hitherto
+called New Holland. His voyage can easily be traced on our maps to-day.
+Voyaging westward through the Recherches group of islands, Flinders
+passed the low, sandy shore to a cape he named Cape Pasley, after his
+late Admiral; high, bleak cliffs <a name="page414"></a>now rose to the height or some five
+hundred feet for a distance of four hundred and fifty miles&mdash;the great
+Australian Bight. Young Franklin's name was given to one island,
+Investigator to another, Cape Catastrophe commemorated a melancholy
+accident and the drowning of several of the crew. Kangaroo Island
+speaks for itself. Here they killed thirty-one dark-brown kangaroos.
+"The whole ship's company was employed this afternoon skinning and
+cleaning the kangaroos, and a delightful regale they afforded after
+four months' privation from almost any fresh provisions. Half a
+hundredweight of heads, forequarters, and tails were stewed down into
+soup for dinner, and as much steaks given to both officers and men
+as they could consume by day and night."</p>
+
+<a name="ill151"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 151">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="638">
+			<img src="images/151.jpg" alt="CAPE CATASTROPHE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="638" align="center">
+			<small>CAPE CATASTROPHE.<br>
+			From Flinders' <i>Voyages</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In April 1802 a strange encounter took place, when suddenly there
+appeared a "heavy-looking ship without any top-gallant masts up,"
+showing a French ensign. Flinders cleared his decks for action in case
+of attack, but the strangers turned out to be the French ship <i>Le
+G&eacute;ographe</i>, which, in company with <i>Le Naturaliste</i>, had left France,
+1800, for exploration of the Australian coasts.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was well known that Napoleon had cast longing eyes upon the
+Terra Australis&mdash;indeed, it is said that he took with him to Egypt
+a copy of <i>Cook's Voyages</i>. Flinders, too, knew of this French
+expedition, but he was not specially pleased to find French explorers
+engaged on the same work as himself. The commanders met as friends,
+and Baudin, the French explorer, told how he had landed also near Cape
+Leuwin in May 1801, how he had given the names of his two ships to
+Cape Naturaliste and G&eacute;ographe Bay, and was now making his way round
+the coast. Flinders little guessed at this time that the French were
+going to claim the south of New South Wales as French territory under
+the name of Terra Napoleon, <a name="page415"></a>though it was common knowledge that this
+discovery was made by Englishmen.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, captain," said one of the French crew to Flinders, "if we had
+not been kept so long picking up shells and catching butterflies at
+Van Diemen's Land you would not have discovered this coast before us."</p>
+
+<p>When Baudin put in at Port Jackson a couple of months later, he inquired
+of the Governor the extent of British claims in the Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole of Tasmania and Australia are British territory," was the
+firm answer.</p>
+
+<p>After this encounter Flinders discovered and named Port Phillip, at
+the head of which stands the famous city of Melbourne to-day, and then
+made his way on to Port Jackson. He had managed his crews so well that
+the inhabitants of Port Jackson declared they were reminded of England
+by the fresh colour of the men amongst the <i>Investigator</i> ship's
+company. The Frenchmen had not fared so well. One hundred and fifty
+out of one hundred and seventy were down with scurvy and had to be
+taken to the hospital at Sydney.</p>
+
+<p>Before the end of July, Flinders was off again, sailing northwards
+along the eastern coast of New South Wales. <a name="page416"></a>October found him passing
+the Great Barrier reefs, and on the 21st he had reached the northernmost
+point, Cape York. Three days of anxious steering took the
+<i>Investigator</i> through Torres Strait, and Flinders was soon sailing
+into the great Gulf of Carpentaria. Still hugging the coast, he
+discovered a group of islands to the south of the gulf, which he named
+the Wellesley Islands, after General Wellesley, afterwards Duke of
+Wellington. Here he found a wealth of vegetation; cabbage palm was
+abundant, nutmegs plentiful, and a sort of sandal-wood was growing
+freely. He spent one hundred and five days exploring the gulf; then
+he continued his voyage round the west coast and back to Port Jackson
+by the south. He returned after a year's absence with a sickly crew
+and a rotten ship. Indeed, the <i>Investigator</i> was incapable of further
+service, and Flinders decided to go back to England for another ship.
+As passenger on board the <i>Porpoise</i>, early in August 1802, he sailed
+from Sydney for the Torres Strait accompanied by two returning
+transports. All went well for the first four days, and they had reached
+a spot on the coast of Queensland, when a cry of "Breakers ahead!"
+fell on the evening air. In another moment the ship was carried amongst
+the breakers and struck upon a coral reef. So sudden was the disaster
+that there was no time to warn the other ships closely following. As
+the <i>Porpoise</i> rolled over on her beam ends, huge seas swept over her
+and the white foam leapt high. Then the mast snapped, water rushed
+in, and soon the <i>Porpoise</i> was a hopeless wreck. A few minutes later,
+one of the transports struck the coral reef: she fell on her side,
+her deck facing the sweeping rollers, and was completely wrecked. The
+other transport escaped, sailed right away from the scene of disaster,
+and was never seen again by the crew of the <i>Porpoise</i>. The dawn of
+day showed the shipwrecked crew a sandbank, to which some ninety-four
+men <a name="page417"></a>made their way and soon set sailcloth tents on the barren shore.
+They had saved enough food for three months. Flinders as usual was
+the moving spirit. A fortnight later in one of the ship's boats, with
+twelve rowers and food for three weeks, he left Wreck Reef amid ringing
+cheers to get help from Sydney for the eighty men left on the sandbank.</p>
+
+<p>"The reader," says the hero of this adventure, "has perhaps never gone
+two hundred and fifty leagues at sea in an open boat or along a strange
+coast inhabited by savages; but, if he recollect the eighty officers
+and men upon Wreck Reef, and how important was our arrival to their
+safety and to the saving of the charts, journals, and papers of the
+<i>Investigator's</i> voyage, he may have some idea of the pleasure we felt,
+particularly myself, at entering our destined port."</p>
+
+<p>Half-starved, unshaven, deplorable indeed were the men when they
+staggered into Sydney, and "an involuntary tear started from the eye
+of friendship and compassion" when the Governor learnt how nearly
+Flinders and his friends had lost their lives.</p>
+
+<a name="ill152"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 152">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="659">
+			<img src="images/152.jpg" alt="THE HUTS OF THE CREW OF THE PORPOISE ON THE SANDBANK, WRECK REEF">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="659" align="center">
+			<small>THE HUTS OF THE CREW OF THE <i>PORPOISE</i> ON THE SANDBANK,
+			WRECK REEF.<br>
+			From Flinders' <i>Voyages</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>A few days later Flinders left Sydney for the last time, in a little
+home-built ship of twenty-nine tons, the <i>Cumberland</i>. It was the
+first ship ever built in the colony, and the colonists were glad it
+should be of use to the man who had done so much for their country.
+With all his papers and his beloved journals, Flinders put to sea
+accompanied by a ship to rescue the men left on Wreck Reef. Three months
+later, owing to the leaky condition of the ship, he landed at Mauritius.
+Here he was taken prisoner and all his papers and journals were seized
+by the French. During his imprisonment a French<i> Voyage of Discovery</i>
+was issued, Napoleon himself paying a sum of money to hasten
+publication. All the places discovered by Flinders, or "Monsieur
+Flinedore" as the French called him, were <a name="page418"></a>called by French names.
+Fortunately before reaching Mauritius, Flinders had sent duplicate
+copies of his charts home, and the whole fraud was exposed. Flinders
+did not reach home till 1810. A last tragedy awaited him. For he died
+in 1814, on the very day that his great book, <i>The Voyage to Terra
+Australis</i>, was published. Flinders was a true explorer, and as he
+lay dying he cried, "I know that in future days of exploration my spirit
+will rise from the dead and follow the exploring ship!"</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap59"></a><a name="page419"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LIX</h3>
+
+<h4>STURT'S DISCOVERIES IN AUSTRALIA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Since the days of Flinders, much discovery had been done in the great
+new island-continent of Australia. The Blue Mountains had been crossed,
+and the river Macquarie discovered and named after the governor of
+that name. But Sturt's famous discovery of the river Darling and his
+descent of the Murray River rank among the most noteworthy of a
+bewildering number of lesser expeditions.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Sturt landed with his regiment, the 39th, at Sydney in the
+year 1827, "to guard the convicts." His first impressions of Sydney
+are interesting. "Cornfield and orchard," he says, "have supplanted
+wild grass and brush; on the ruins of the forest stands a flourishing
+town; and the stillness of that once desert shore is now broken by
+the bugle and by the busy hum of commerce. It is not unusual to see
+from thirty to forty vessels from every quarter of the globe riding
+at anchor at one time."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Ralph Darling, Governor of New South Wales, soon formed a high
+opinion of Sturt's ability, and when an expedition was proposed into
+the interior for further exploration, he appointed him leader.</p>
+
+<p>There was a universal opinion in the colony that in the middle of the
+unknown continent lay a large inland sea. Oxley had made his way to
+a shallow ocean of reeds where the river Macquarie disappeared;
+natives spoke of "large waters" containing "great fish." To open up
+the <a name="page420"></a>country and to ascertain the truth of these rumours were the objects
+of this new expedition which left Sydney in November 1828. It consisted
+of Hamilton Hume, the first Australian-born explorer, two soldiers,
+eight convicts, fifteen horses, ten bullocks, and a small boat on a
+wheeled carriage. Across the roadless Blue Mountains they started,
+followed the traces of Oxley, who had died just a week before they
+started, and about Christmas time they passed his last camp and began
+to break new ground. Through thickets of reeds and marshy swamps they
+pushed on; the river Macquarie had entirely disappeared, but on 2nd
+February they suddenly found a large river some eighty yards broad
+enclosing an unbroken sheet of deep water. "Our surprise and delight,"
+says Sturt, "are better imagined than described. Our difficulties
+seemed at an end. The banks were too steep to allow of watering the
+cattle, but the men eagerly descended to quench a thirst increased
+by the powerful sun. Never shall I forget their cry of amazement, nor
+the terror and disappointment with which they called out that the water
+was too salt to drink!" Leaving his party, Sturt pushed on, but no
+fresh water was to be found, so he named the river the Darling, after
+the Governor, and returned, but not till he had discovered brine
+springs in the bed of the river, which accounted for its saltness.
+Sturt had found no inland sea, but in the Darling he had discovered
+a main channel of the western watershed.</p>
+
+<p>He now proposed to follow the line of the Murrumbidgee, "a river of
+considerable size and impetuous current," and to trace it if possible
+into the interior. Several of his old party again joined him, and once
+more he rode out of Sydney on this new quest.</p>
+
+<p>The journey to the banks of the Murrumbidgee lay through wild and
+romantic country, but as they journeyed farther, broad reed belts
+appeared by the river, which was <a name="page421"></a>soon lost in a vast expanse of reeds.
+For a moment or two Sturt was as one stunned; he could neither sleep
+nor rest till he had regained the river again. When at last he did
+so he found the water was deep, the current rapid, and the banks high.
+But he turned on all hands to build the whale-boat which he had designed
+at Sydney for the purpose. Early in January he writes home: "I was
+checked in my advance by high reeds spreading as far as the eye can
+reach. The Murrumbidgee is a magnificent stream. I do not yet know
+its fate, but I have taken to the boats. Where I shall wander to God
+only knows. I have little doubt, however, that I shall ultimately make
+the coast."</p>
+
+<p>By 6th January the boat was ready and Sturt started on his memorable
+voyage. After passing the junction of the Lachlan, the channel
+gradually narrowed; great trees had been swept down by the floods and
+navigation rendered very dangerous. Still narrower grew the stream,
+stronger the current. "On a sudden, the river took a general southern
+direction. We were carried at a fearful rate down its gloomy banks,
+and at such a moment of excitement had little time to pay attention
+to the country through which we were passing. At last we found we were
+approaching a junction, and within less than a minute we were hurried
+into a broad and noble river. It is impossible to describe the effect
+upon us of so instantaneous a change. We gazed in silent wonder on
+the large channel we had entered."</p>
+
+<p>The Murrumbidgee had joined the great Murray River as Sturt now called
+it, after Sir George Murray of the Colonial Department.</p>
+
+<p>To add to the unknown dangers of the way, numbers of natives now
+appeared in force on the banks of the river, threatening the white
+men with "dreadful yells and with the beating of spears and shields."</p>
+<a name="page422"></a>
+<p>Firearms alone saved the little crew, and the rage of the natives was
+turned to admiration as they watched the white men paddling on their
+great river while some seventy black men swam off to the boat like
+"a parcel of seals."</p>
+
+<p>The explorers now found a new and beautiful stream flowing into the
+Murray from the north, up which the boat was now turned, natives
+anxiously following along the grassy banks, till suddenly a net
+stretched across the stream checked their course. Sturt instinctively
+felt he was on the river Darling again. "I directed that the Union
+Jack should be hoisted, and we all stood up in the boat and gave three
+distinct cheers. The eye of every native was fixed upon that beautiful
+flag as it waved over us in the heart of a desert."</p>
+
+<p>While they were still watching, Sturt turned the head of the boat and
+pursued his way down the great Murray River. Stormy weather at the
+end of January set in; though they were yet one hundred and fifteen
+miles from the coast, the river increased in breadth, cliffs towered
+above them, and the water dashed like sea-waves at their base.</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th of February they were cheered by the appearance of sea-gulls
+and a heavy swell up the river, which they knew must be nearing the
+sea. On the twenty-third day of their voyage they entered a great lake.
+Crossing to the southern shore, they found to their bitter grief that
+shoals and sandbanks made it impossible for them to reach the sea.
+They found that the Murray flowed into Encounter Bay, but thither they
+could not pass. The thunder of the surf upon the shore brought no hope
+to the tired explorers. They had no alternative but to turn back and
+retrace their way. Terrible was the task that lay before them. On
+half-rations and with hostile natives to encounter they must fight
+their way against wind and <a name="page423"></a>stream. And they did it. They reached the
+camp on the Murrumbidgee just seventy-seven days after leaving it;
+but to their dismay it was deserted. The river, too, had risen in flood
+and "poured its turbid waters with great violence."</p>
+
+<a name="ill153"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 153">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="652">
+			<img src="images/153.jpg" alt="CAPTAIN STURT AT THE JUNCTION OF THE RIVERS DARLING AND MURRAY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="652" align="center">
+			<small>CAPTAIN STURT AT THE JUNCTION OF THE RIVERS DARLING
+			AND MURRAY.<br>
+			From the <i>Narrative of Sturt's Expedition</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"For seventeen days," says Sturt, "we pulled against stream with
+determined perseverance, but in our short daily journeys we made but
+trifling way against it." The effects of severe toil were painfully
+evident. The men lost the muscular jerk with the oars. Their arms were
+nerveless, their faces haggard, their persons emaciated, their
+spirits wholly spent. From sheer weariness they fell asleep at the
+oar. No murmur, however, escaped them.</p>
+
+<p>"I must tell the captain to-morrow," said one, thinking that Sturt
+was asleep, "that I can pull no more." But <a name="page424"></a>when the morrow came he
+said no word, but pulled on with his remaining strength. One man went
+mad. The last ounce of flour was consumed when relief arrived, and
+the weary explorers at last reached Sydney with their great news.</p>
+
+<p>The result of this discovery was soon seen. In 1836 a shipload of
+English emigrants arrived off Kangaroo Island, and soon a flourishing
+colony was established at the mouth of the Murray River, the site of
+the new capital being called Adelaide, after the wife of William <small>IV</small>.</p>
+
+<p>After this Sturt tried to cross Australia from south to north; but
+though he opened up a good deal of new country, he failed to reach
+the coast. He was rewarded by the President of the Royal Geographical
+Society, who described him as "one of the most distinguished explorers
+and geographers of our age."</p>
+
+<p>The feat of crossing Australia from south to north, from shore to shore,
+was reserved for an Irishman called Burke in the year 1861. The story
+of his expedition, though it was successful, is one of the saddest
+in the history of discovery. The party left Melbourne in the highest
+spirits. No expense had been spared to give them a good outfit; camels
+had been imported from India, with native drivers, and food was
+provided for a year. The men of Melbourne turned out in their hundreds
+to see the start of Burke with his four companions, his camels, and
+his horses. Starting in August 1860, the expedition arrived at
+Cooper's Creek in November with half their journey done. But it was
+not till December that the party divided, and Burke with his companions,
+Wills, King, and Gray, six camels, and two horses, with food for three
+months, started off for the coast, leaving the rest at Cooper's Creek
+to await their return in about three months. After hard going they
+reached a channel with tidal waters flowing into the Gulf of
+Carpentaria on <a name="page425"></a>28th March, but they could not get a view of the open
+ocean because of boggy ground.</p>
+
+<a name="ill154"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 154">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="628">
+			<img src="images/154.jpg" alt="THE BURKE AND WILLS EXPEDITION LEAVING MELBOURNE, 1860">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="628" align="center">
+			<small>THE BURKE AND WILLS EXPEDITION LEAVING MELBOURNE, 1860.<br>
+			From a drawing by Wm. Strutt, an acquaintance of Burke.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They accomplished their task, but the return journey was disastrous.
+Short rations soon began to tell, for they had taken longer than they
+had calculated, and no food was to be found by the way. Gray was the
+first to fail and to die. Heavy rains made the ground impossibly heavy,
+and the camels sank to the ground exhausted. Finally they had to be
+killed and eaten. Then the horses went. At long last the three weary
+men and two utterly worn-out camels dragged themselves to Cooper's
+Creek, hoping to find their companions and the food they had left there
+four months ago. It was 21st April. Not a soul was to be seen!</p>
+
+<p>"King," cried Wills, in utter despair, "they are <i>gone</i>!"</p>
+<a name="page426"></a>
+<p>As the awful truth flashed on them Burke&mdash;their leader&mdash;threw himself
+on to the ground, realising their terrible situation. They looked
+round. On a tree they saw the word "Dig." In a bottle they found a
+letter: "We leave the camp to-day, 21st April 1861. We have left you
+some food. We take camels and horses."</p>
+
+<a name="ill155"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 155">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="617">
+			<img src="images/155.jpg" alt="BURKE AND WILLS AT COOPER'S CREEK">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="617" align="center">
+			<small>BURKE AND WILLS AT COOPER'S CREEK.<br>
+			From a woodcut in a contemporary Australian account of the expedition.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Only a few hours ago the party had left Cooper's Creek! And the
+explorers were too weak and tired to follow! They ate a welcome supper
+of oatmeal porridge and then, after resting a couple of days; they
+struggled on their way, three exhausted men and two tired camels. Their
+food was soon finished, and they had to subsist on a black seed like
+the natives called "nardoo." But they grew weaker and weaker, and the
+way was long. The camels died first. Then Wills grew too ill to walk,
+and there was nothing for it but to leave him and push on for help.
+The natives were kind to him, but he was too far gone, and he died
+before help could arrive. Burke and King sadly pushed on without him,
+but a few days later Burke died, and in the heart of Australia the
+one white man, King, <a name="page427"></a>was left alone. It was not till the following
+September that he was found "sitting in a hut that the blacks had made
+for him. He presented a melancholy appearance, wasted to a shadow and
+hardly to be distinguished as a civilised being except by the remnants
+of clothes on him."</p>
+
+<p>So out of that gay party of explorers who left Melbourne in the summer
+of 1860 only one man returned to tell the story of success and the
+sadder story of suffering and disaster.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap60"></a><a name="page428"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LX</h3>
+
+<h4>ROSS MAKES DISCOVERIES IN THE ANTARCTIC SEAS</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Now, while explorers were busy opening up Australian inland, Ross was
+leaving the Australian waters for his voyage to the south. Four years
+after the return of the Ross polar expedition, Sir John Franklin had
+been made Governor of Van Diemen's Land, where he was visited by the
+ships sent out from England on the first Antarctic expedition under
+the command of Sir James Ross, who had returned to find himself famous
+for his discovery of the North Magnetic Pole.</p>
+
+<p>An expedition had been fitted out, consisting of the <i>Erebus</i> and the
+<i>Terror</i>&mdash;ships which later on made history, for did they not carry
+Sir John Franklin to his doom in the Arctic regions some years later?
+The ships sailed in the autumn of 1839 by way of the Cape of Good Hope,
+and excited great interest at Hobart Town, where the commanders, Ross
+and Crozier, were warmly received by the Governor. In a bay, afterwards
+called Ross Cove, the ships were repaired after the long voyage, while
+an observatory was built by the convicts under the personal
+supervision of Sir John Franklin. Interesting news awaited the
+explorers, too, at Hobart Town. Exploration had taken place in the
+southern regions by a French expedition under D'Urville and an
+American, Lieutenant Wilkes&mdash;both of which had made considerable
+discoveries. Ross was somewhat surprised at this, for, as he said,
+"England had ever <i>led</i> the way of discovery in the <a name="page429"></a>southern as well
+as in the northern regions," but he decided to take a more easterly
+course, and, if possible, to reach the South Magnetic Pole.</p>
+
+<p>On 5th November 1840 the ships were off again, shaping their course
+for Auckland Island, nine hundred miles from Hobart Town. The island
+had been discovered in 1806 by Captain Bristow. He had left some pigs,
+whose rapid increase filled the explorers with surprise. Christmas
+Day found them still sailing south, with strong gales, snow, and rain.
+The first iceberg was seen a few days later, and land on 11th January.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a beautifully clear evening," says Ross, "and we had a most
+enchanting view of the two magnificent ranges of mountains whose lofty
+peaks, perfectly covered with eternal snow, rose to elevations of ten
+thousand feet above the level of the ocean." These icy shores were
+inhospitable enough, and the heavy surf breaking along its edge
+forbade any landing. Indeed, a strong tide carried the ships rapidly
+and dangerously along the coast among huge masses of ice. "The ceremony
+of taking possession of these newly discovered lands in the name of
+our Most Gracious Sovereign Queen Victoria was proceeded with, and
+on planting the flag of our country amid the hearty cheers of our party,
+we drank to the health, long life, and happiness of Her Majesty and
+His Royal Highness Prince Albert."</p>
+
+<p>The end of the month found them farther south than any explorer had
+sailed before. Everything was new, and they were suddenly startled
+to find two volcanoes, one of which was active; steam and smoke rising
+to a height of two thousand feet above the crater and descending as
+mist and snow. Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, Ross called them, in
+memory of his two ships. They sailed on, but soon were stopped by a
+huge barrier of solid ice like a great white wall, one thousand feet
+thick <a name="page430"></a>and one hundred and eighty feet above sea-level. They knew now
+they could get no farther this season&mdash;they had reached a point one
+hundred and sixty miles from the Pole. Could they but have wintered
+here "in sight of the brilliant burning mountain and at so short a
+distance from the Magnetic Pole," they might easily have reached it
+the following spring,&mdash;so they thought,&mdash;but reluctantly Ross had to
+turn. "Few can understand the deep feelings of regret with which I
+felt myself compelled to abandon the perhaps too ambitious hope I had
+so long cherished of being permitted to plant the flag of my country
+on both Magnetic Poles of our globe."</p>
+
+<p>The whole of the great southern land they had discovered received the
+name of Queen Victoria, which name it keeps to-day. They had been south
+of the Antarctic Circle for sixty-three days, when they recrossed it
+on 4th March. A few days later they narrowly escaped shipwreck. An
+easterly wind drove them among some hundreds of icebergs. "For eight
+hours," says Ross, "we had been gradually drifting towards what to
+human eyes appeared inevitable destruction; the high waves and deep
+rolling of our ships rendered towing with boats impossible, and our
+situation was the more painful from our inability to make any effort
+to avoid the dreadful calamity that seemed to await us. The roar of
+the surf, which extended each way as far as we could see, and the dashing
+of the ice fell upon the ear with painful distinctness as we
+contemplated the awful destruction that threatened in one short hour
+to close the world and all its hopes and joys and sorrows upon us for
+ever. In this deep distress we called upon the Lord ... and our cry
+came before Him. A gentler air of wind filled our sails; hope again
+revived, and before dark we found ourselves far removed from every
+danger."</p>
+
+<a name="ill156"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 156">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="649">
+			<img src="images/156.jpg" alt="PART OF THE GREAT SOUTHERN ICE BARRIER, 450 MILES LONG, 180 FEET ABOVE SEA-LEVEL, AND 1000 FEET THICK">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="649" align="center">
+			<small>PART OF THE GREAT SOUTHERN ICE BARRIER, 450 MILES LONG,
+			180 FEET ABOVE SEA-LEVEL, AND 1000 FEET THICK.<br>
+			From Ross's <i>Voyage in Antarctic Regions</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>April found them back again in Van Diemen's land, and though Ross sailed
+again the following autumn into <a name="page431"></a>southern latitudes, he only reached
+a point some few miles farther than before&mdash;being again stopped by
+a great wall barrier of thick ice. After this he took his ship home
+by way of Cape Horn, and "the shores of Old England came into view
+on the 2nd of September 1843." After an absence of four years Ross
+was welcomed home, and honours were showered on him, including the
+award of the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Paris.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem35">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Till then they had deemed that the Austral earth,<br>
+			&nbsp;With a long, unbroken shore,<br>
+			&nbsp;Ran on to the Pole Antarctic,<br>
+			&nbsp;For such was the old sea lore."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap61"></a><a name="page432"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXI</h3>
+
+<h4>FRANKLIN DISCOVERS THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The whole coast-line of North America had now been charted, but the
+famous North-West Passage, for which so many lives had been laid down,
+had yet to be found. Sir John Barrow, "the father of modern Arctic
+discovery," Secretary to the Admiralty, now decided to dispatch
+another expedition to forge this last link and to connect, if possible,
+the chain of all former discoveries.</p>
+
+<p>Many were the volunteers who came forward to serve in the new Arctic
+expedition. But Sir John Franklin claimed the command as his special
+right.</p>
+
+<p>"No service," he declared, "is nearer to my heart."</p>
+
+<p>He was reminded that rumour put his age at sixty, and that after a
+long life of hard work he had earned some rest.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" cried the explorer; "I am only fifty-nine!"</p>
+
+<p>This decided the point, and Franklin was appointed to the <i>Erebus</i>
+and <i>Terror</i>, recently returned from the Antarctic expedition of Sir
+James Ross. The ships were provisioned for three years, and with a
+crew of one hundred and twenty-nine men and several officers, Sir John
+Franklin left England for the last time on 19th May 1845. He was never
+seen again!</p>
+
+<p>All were in the highest spirits, determined to solve the mystery of
+the North-West Passage once and for all! So certain were they of success
+that one of the officers wrote to a friend: "Write to Panama and the
+Sandwich Islands every six months."</p>
+<a name="page433"></a>
+<p>On 4th July the ships anchored near the island of Disco on the west
+coast of Greenland. After which all is silence. The rest of the story,
+"one of the saddest ever told in connection with Arctic exploration,"
+is dovetailed together from the various scraps of information that
+have been collected by those who sailed in search of the lost expedition
+year by year.</p>
+
+<p>In 1848, Sir James Ross had sailed off in search of his missing friend,
+and had reached a spot within three hundred miles of the <i>Erebus</i> and
+<i>Terror</i> four months after they had been abandoned, but he returned
+with no news of Franklin.</p>
+
+<p>Then Sir John Richardson started off, but found no trace! Others
+followed. The Government offered &pound;20,000, to which Lady Franklin
+added &pound;3000, to any one who should bring news of Franklin. By
+the autumn of 1850 there were fifteen ships engaged in the search.
+A few traces were found. It was discovered that Sir John Franklin had
+spent his first winter (1845-46) at Beechey Island. Captain M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clure
+sailed along the north coast of America and made his way from the
+Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean&mdash;thus showing the existence of a
+north-west passage, for which he and his men were highly rewarded,
+for at this time no one knew that Franklin had already found a passage
+though he had not lived to tell the story of triumph and success. But
+it was not till after years of silence that the story of the missing
+expedition was cleared up. Lady Franklin purchased and fitted out a
+little steam yacht, the <i>Fox</i>, of one hundred and seventy-seven tons.
+The command was given to Captain M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock, known to be an able and
+enthusiastic Arctic navigator. He was to rescue any "possible survivor
+of the <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i>, and to try and recover any records of
+the lost expedition."</p>
+
+<a name="ill157"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 157">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="611">
+			<img src="images/157.jpg" alt="ESKIMOS AT CAPE YORK WATCHING THE APPROACH OF THE FOX">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="611" align="center">
+			<small>ESKIMOS AT CAPE YORK WATCHING THE APPROACH OF THE <i>FOX</i>.<br>
+			From M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock's <i>Voyage in Search of Franklin</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The 12th August found the little <i>Fox</i> in Melville Bay made fast to
+an iceberg, and a few days later she was frozen <a name="page434"></a>firmly into an ice-pack.
+For two hundred and forty-two days she was beset, drifting all through
+the long, bitter winter with the ice, till on 25th April 1858, after
+having been carried over a thousand miles, she was released.
+M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock, undaunted by danger, turned northwards, and by May he had
+reached Melville Bay. Thence up Lancaster Sound, he reached Beechey
+Island in August and found there three lonely graves of three sailors
+from the <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i>. Here the English commander erected
+a tablet sent out by Lady Franklin.</p>
+
+<a name="ill158"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 158">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="486">
+			<img src="images/158.jpg" alt="THE THREE GRAVES ON BEECHEY ISLAND">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="486" align="center">
+			<small>THE THREE GRAVES ON BEECHEY ISLAND.<br>
+			From M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock's <i>Voyage in Search of Franklin</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On the morning of 16th August, M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock sailed from Beechey Island,
+but the short summer was passing quickly and they had no fresh news
+of the Franklin expedition. Half-way through Bellot Strait the <i>Fox</i>
+was again icebound, and another long winter had to be faced. By the
+<a name="page435"></a>middle of February 1859 there was light enough to start some sledging
+along the west coast of Boothia Felix. Days passed and M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock
+struggled on to the south, but no Eskimos appeared and no traces of
+the lost explorers were to be found. Suddenly they discovered four
+men walking after them.</p>
+
+<p>A naval button on one of the Eskimos attracted their attention.</p>
+
+<p>"It came," said the Eskimo, "from some white people who were starved
+upon an island where there are salmon, but none of them had seen the
+white men."</p>
+
+<p>Here was news at last&mdash;M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock travelled on some ten miles to Cape
+Victoria, where the Eskimos built him a "commodious snow-hut in half
+an hour." Next morning the entire village of Eskimos arrived&mdash;some
+forty-five people&mdash;bringing relics of the white men. There were silver
+spoons, part of a gold chain, buttons, knives made of <a name="page436"></a>the iron and
+wood of the wrecked ships. But none of these people had seen the white
+men&mdash;one man said he had seen their bones upon the island where they
+died, but some were buried. They said a ship "having three masts had
+been crushed by the ice out in the sea to the west of King William's
+Island." One old man made a rough sketch of the coast-line with his
+spear upon the snow; he said it was eight journeys to where the ship
+sank.</p>
+
+<p>M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock hastened back to the ship with his news&mdash;he had by his
+sleigh-journey added one hundred and twenty miles to the old charts
+and "completed the discovery of the coast-line of Continental
+America."</p>
+<a name="page437"></a>
+<a name="ill159"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 159">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717">
+			<img src="images/159.jpg" alt="EXPLORING PARTIES STARTING FROM THE FOX">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717" align="center">
+			<small>EXPLORING PARTIES STARTING FROM THE <i>FOX</i>.<br>
+			From M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock's <i>Voyage of the</i> "Fox" <i>in Search of Franklin</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On 2nd April more sledge-parties started out to reach King William's
+Island&mdash;the cold was still intense, the glare of the sun painful to
+their eyes. The faces and lips of the men were blistered and cracked;
+their fingers were constantly frostbitten. After nearly three weeks'
+travelling they found snow-huts and Eskimos at Cape Victoria. Here
+they found more traces of Franklin's party&mdash;preserved meat tins, brass
+knives, a mahogany board. In answer to their inquiries, they heard
+that two ships had been seen by the natives of King William's Island;
+one had been seen to sink in deep water, the other was forced on shore
+and broken up. "It was in the fall of the year (August or September),"
+they said, when the ships were destroyed, that all the white people
+went away to the large river, taking a boat with them, and that in
+the following winter their bones were found there.</p>
+
+<p>M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock now made his way to the opposite coast of King William's
+Island. Here he found Eskimos with pieces of silver-plate bearing the
+crest and initials of Sir John Franklin and some of his officers. They
+said it was five days' journey to the wreck, of which little now
+remained. There had been many books, said the Eskimos, but they had
+been destroyed by the weather. One woman volunteered <a name="page438"></a>a statement.
+"Many of the white men," she said, "dropped by the way as they went
+to the Great River. Some were buried and some were not. Their bodies
+were discovered during the winter following." Moving onwards,
+M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock reached the Great Fish River on the morning of 12th May.
+A furious gale was raging and the air was heavy with snow, but they
+encamped there to search for relics. With pickaxes and shovels they
+searched in vain. No Eskimos were to be found, and at last in despair
+the little party of explorers faced homewards. M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock was slowly
+walking near the beach, when he suddenly came upon a human skeleton,
+lying face downwards, half buried in the snow. It wore a blue jacket
+with slashed sleeves and braided edging and a greatcoat of
+pilot-cloth.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman was right. "They fell down and died as they walked along."
+And now the reward of the explorers was at hand. On the north-west
+coast of King William's Island was found a cairn and a blue ship's
+paper, weatherworn and ragged, relating in simple language, written
+by one of the ship's officers, the fate of the Franklin expedition.
+The first entry was cheerful enough. In 1846 all was well. His Majesty's
+ships, <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i>, wintered in the ice&mdash;at Beechey Island,
+after having ascended Wellington Channel and returned to the west side
+of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin was commanding the expedition.
+The results of their first year's labour was encouraging. In 1846 they
+had been within twelve miles of King William's Island, when winter
+stopped them. But a later entry, written in April 1848, states that
+the ships were deserted on 22nd April, having been beset in ice since
+September 1846&mdash;that Sir John Franklin had died on 11th June 1847,
+and that Captain Crozier was in command.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the last words, "And start to-morrow twenty-sixth for Back's
+Fish River." That was all.</p>
+<a name="page439"></a>
+<p>After a diligent search in the neighbourhood for journals or relics,
+M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock led his party along the coast, till on 30th May they found
+another relic in the shape of a large boat, with a quantity of tattered
+clothing lying in her. She had been evidently equipped for the ascent
+of the Great Fish River. She had been built at Woolwich Dockyard; near
+her lay two human skeletons, a pair of worker slippers, some watches,
+guns, a <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>, a small Bible, New Testament, and Prayer
+Book, seven or eight pairs of boots, some silk handkerchiefs, towels,
+soap, sponge, combs, twine, nails, shot, and cartridges, needle and
+thread cases, some tea and chocolate, and a little tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was carefully collected and brought back to the ship, which
+was reached on 19th June. Two months later the little <i>Fox</i> was free
+from ice and M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock reached London towards the end of September,
+to make known his great discovery.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the story is well known. Most of us know the interesting
+collection of Franklin relics in the United Service Institution in
+London, and the monument in Waterloo Place to "the great navigator
+and his brave companions who sacrificed their lives in completing the
+discovery of the North-West Passage."</p>
+
+<p>It was acknowledged "that to Sir John Franklin is due the priority
+of discovery of the North-West Passage&mdash;that last link to forge which
+he sacrificed his life."</p>
+
+<p>And on the marble monument in Westminster Abbey, Tennyson, a nephew
+of Sir John Franklin, wrote his well-known lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem36">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Not here, the white north hath thy bones, and thou,<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;Heroic Sailor Soul,<br>
+			&nbsp;Art passing on thy happier voyage now<br>
+			&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+			&nbsp;Towards no earthly pole."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap62"></a><a name="page440"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXII</h3>
+
+<h4>DAVID LIVINGSTONE</h4>
+<br>
+<p>"I shall open up a path to the interior or perish."</p>
+
+<p>Such were the words of one of the greatest explorers of Africa in the
+nineteenth century. Determination was the keynote of his character
+even as a young boy. At the age of ten he was at work in a cotton factory
+in Scotland: with his first week's wages he bought a Latin grammar.
+Fourteen hours of daily work left little time for reading, but he
+educated himself, till at nineteen he was resolved to be a medical
+missionary.</p>
+
+<p>"In the glow of love which Christianity inspires, I resolved to devote
+my life to the alleviation of human misery." He was accepted for service
+by the London Missionary Society, and in the year 1840 he sailed for
+South Africa. After a voyage of three months he arrived at Cape Town
+and made his way in a slow ox-waggon seven hundred miles to Kuruman,
+a small mission station in the heart of Bechuanaland where Dr. Moffat
+had laboured for twenty years. He did well, and two years later he
+was sent north to form another mission station at Mabotsa (Transvaal).
+Having married Moffat's daughter Mary, he worked in these parts till
+June 1849, when, with his wife and three children, he started with
+oxen and waggon for a journey northwards. Across the great Kalahari
+Desert moved the exploring family, till they came <a name="page442"></a>to the river called
+Zouga, which, said the natives, led to a large lake named Lake Ngami.
+In native canoes, Livingstone and his little family ascended this
+beautifully wooded river, "resembling the river Clyde above Glasgow,"
+till on 1st August 1849, Lake Ngami appeared, "and for the first time,"
+says Livingstone, "this fine sheet of water was beheld by Europeans."
+The lake was two thousand eight hundred feet above the sea, but the
+climate was terribly unhealthy. The children grew feverish, and
+mosquitoes made life a misery to them, while the tsetse fly made further
+exploration for the moment impossible. So the family journeyed back
+to headquarters for a time. But Livingstone was unsatisfied, and once
+more in 1851 we find him starting again with wife and children to seek
+the great river Zambesi, known to exist in central Africa, though the
+Portuguese maps represented it as rising far to the east of
+Livingstone's discovery.</p>
+<a name="page441"></a>
+<a name="ill160"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 160">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717">
+			<img src="images/160.jpg" alt="LIVINGSTONE, WITH HIS WIFE AND FAMILY, AT THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE NGAMI">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717" align="center">
+			<small>LIVINGSTONE, WITH HIS WIFE AND FAMILY, AT THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE NGAMI.<br>
+			From Livingstone's <i>Missionary Travels</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"It was the end of June 1851," he tells us, "that we were rewarded
+by the discovery of the Zambesi in the centre of the continent. This
+was an important point, for that river was not previously known to
+exist there at all. As we were the very first white men the inhabitants
+had ever seen, we were visited by prodigious numbers of Makololo in
+garments of blue, green, and red baize." Livingstone wanted to know
+more of this unknown river, but he now decided that exploring with
+a wife and family was not only perilous, but difficult, so he returned
+to the coast, put them on a homeward-bound ship for England, and
+returned to central Africa to continue his work of exploration alone.</p>
+
+<p>It was 11th November 1853 when Livingstone left the town of Linyanti
+in the very heart of central Africa for his great journey to the west
+coast to trace the course of the Zambesi.</p>
+<a name="page443"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem37">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"The Zambesi. Nobody knows<br>
+			&nbsp;Whence it comes and whither it goes."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So ran an old canoe-song of the natives.</p>
+
+<p>With twenty-seven faithful black Makololos, with "only a few biscuits,
+a little tea and sugar, twenty pounds of coffee and three books," with
+a horse rug and sheepskin for bedding and a small gipsy tent and a
+tin canister, fifteen inches square, filled with a spare shirt,
+trousers, and shoes for civilised life, and a few scientific
+instruments, the English explorer started for a six months' journey.
+Soon his black guides had embarked in their canoes and were making
+their way up the Zambesi. "No rain has fallen here," he writes on 30th
+November, "so it is excessively hot. The atmosphere is oppressive both
+in cloud and sunshine." Livingstone suffered badly from fever during
+the entire journey. But the blacks took fatherly care of him. "As soon
+as we land," he says, "the men cut a little grass for my bed, while
+the poles of my little tent are planted. The bed is made and boxes
+ranged on each side of it, and then the tent pitched over all. Two
+Makololos occupy my right and left both in eating and sleeping as long
+as the journey lasts, but my head boatman makes his bed at the door
+of the tent as soon as I retire."</p>
+
+<p>As they advanced up the Barotse valley, rains had fallen and the woods
+had put on their gayest hue. Flowers of great beauty grew everywhere.
+"The ground begins to swarm with insect life, and in the cool, pleasant
+mornings the place rings with the singing of birds."</p>
+
+<p>On 6th January 1854 they left the river and rode oxen through the dense
+parts of the country through which they had now to pass. Through heavy
+rains and with very little food, they toiled on westward through miles
+and miles of swamp intersected by streams flowing southward to the
+Zambesi basin. One day Livingstone's ox, Sindbad, threw him, and he
+had to struggle wearily <a name="page444"></a>forward on foot. His strength was failing.
+His meagre fare varied by boiled zebra and dried elephant, frequent
+wettings and constant fever, were reducing him to a mere skeleton.
+At last on 26th March he arrived at the edge of the high land over
+which he had so long been travelling. "It is so steep," he tells us,
+"that I was obliged to dismount, and I was so weak that I had to be
+led by my companions to prevent my toppling over in walking down. Below
+us lay the valley of the Kwango in glorious sunlight." Another
+fortnight and they were in Portuguese territory. The sight of white
+men once more and a collection of traders' huts was a welcome sight
+to the weary traveller. The commandant at once took pity on Livingstone,
+but after a refreshing stay of ten days the English explorer started
+off westward to the coast. For another month he pursued his way. It
+was 31st May 1854. As the party neared the town of Loanda, the black
+Makololos began to grow nervous. "We have stood by each other hitherto
+and will do so to the last," Livingstone assured them, as they all
+staggered into the city by the seashore. Here they found one Englishman
+sent out for the suppression of the slave trade, who at once gave up
+his bed to the stricken and emaciated explorer. "Never shall I forget,"
+he says, "the luxury I enjoyed in feeling myself again on a good English
+bed after six months' sleeping on the ground."</p>
+
+<p>Nor were the Makololos forgotten. They were entertained on board an
+English man-of-war lying off the coast. Livingstone was offered a
+passage home, but he tells us: "I declined the tempting offers of my
+friends, and resolved to take back my Makololo companions to their
+Chief, with a view of making a path from here to the east coast by
+means of the great river Zambesi."</p>
+
+<p>With this object in view, he turned his back on home and comfort, and
+on 20th September 1854 he left Loanda <a name="page445"></a>and "the white man's sea," as
+the black guides called the Atlantic Ocean that washes the shores of
+West Africa. Their way lay through the Angola country, rich in wild
+coffee and cotton plantations. The weather was as usual still and
+oppressive, but slowly Livingstone made his way eastward. He suffered
+badly from fever as he had done on the outward journey. It had taken
+him six months to reach Loanda from central Africa; it took a year
+to complete the return journey, and it was September 1855 before
+Linyanti was again reached. Waggons and goods left there eighteen
+months before were safe, together with many welcome letters from home.
+The return of the travellers after so long an absence was a cause of
+great rejoicing. All the wonderful things the Makololos had seen and
+heard were rehearsed many times before appreciative audiences.
+Livingstone was more than ever a hero in their eyes, and his kindness
+to his men was not forgotten. He had no difficulty in getting recruits
+for the journey down the Zambesi to the sea, for which he was now making
+preparations.</p>
+
+<p>On 3rd November he was ready to resume his long march across Africa.
+He was much better equipped on this occasion; he rode a horse instead
+of an ox, and his guide, Sekwebu, knew the river well. The first night
+out they were unfortunately caught in a terrific thunderstorm
+accompanied by sheet-lightning, which lit up the whole country and
+flooded it with torrents of tropical rain.</p>
+
+<p>A few days' travelling brought the party to the famous Zambesi Falls,
+called by the natives "where smoke sounds," but renamed by Livingstone
+after the Queen of England, Victoria. The first account of these now
+famous Falls is very vivid. "Five columns of vapour, appropriately
+named smoke, bending in the direction of the wind, appeared to mingle
+with the clouds. The whole scene was extremely beautiful. It had never
+been seen before <a name="page446"></a>by European eyes. When about half a mile from the
+Falls, I left the canoe and embarked in a lighter one with men well
+acquainted with the rapids, who brought me to an island in the middle
+of the river and on the edge of the lip over which the water rolls.
+Creeping with care to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which
+had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambesi. In looking down
+into the fissure one sees nothing but a dense white cloud; from this
+cloud rushed up a great jet of vapour exactly like steam, and it mounted
+two or three hundred feet high."</p>
+<a name="page447"></a>
+<a name="ill161"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 161">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="538">
+			<img src="images/161.jpg" alt="THE SMOKE OF THE ZAMBESI (VICTORIA) FALLS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="538" align="center">
+			<small>THE "SMOKE" OF THE ZAMBESI (VICTORIA) FALLS.<br>
+			After a drawing in Livingstone's <i>Missionary Travels</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Livingstone now continued his perilous journey with his hundred men
+along the Zambesi, the country once densely populated, now desolate
+and still. The Bakota tribes, "the colour of coffee and milk," were
+friendly, and "great numbers came from all the surrounding villages
+and expressed great joy at the appearance of a white man and harbinger
+of peace." They brought in large supplies of food, and expressed great
+delight when Livingstone doctored their children, who were suffering
+from whooping-cough. As they neared the coast, they became aware of
+hostile forces. This was explained when they were met by a Portuguese
+half-caste "with jacket and hat on," who informed them that for the
+last two years they had been fighting the natives. Plunging thus
+unconsciously into the midst of a Kafir war rendered travelling
+unpleasant and dangerous. In addition, the party of explorers found
+their animals woefully bitten by the tsetse fly, rhinoceroses and
+elephants were too plentiful to be interesting, and the great white
+ant made itself tiresome.</p>
+
+<p>It was 3rd March before Livingstone reached Tete, two hundred and sixty
+miles from the coast. The last stages of the journey had been very
+beautiful. Many of the hills were of pure white marble, and pink marble
+formed the <a name="page448"></a>bed of more than one of the streams. Through this country
+the Zambesi rolled down toward the coast at the rate of four miles
+an hour, while flocks of water-fowl swarmed upon its banks or flew
+over its waters. Tete was the farthest outpost of the Portuguese.
+Livingstone was most kindly received by the governor, but fever again
+laid him low, and he had to remain here for three weeks before he was
+strong enough to start for the last stage of his journey to the coast.
+He left his Makololos here, promising to return some day to take them
+home again. They believed in him implicitly, and remained there three
+years, when he returned according to his word. Leaving Tete, he now
+embarked on the waters of the Zambesi, high with a fourth annual rise,
+which bore him to Sena in five days. So swift is the current at times
+that twenty-four hours is enough to take a boat from Tete to Sena,
+whereas the return journey may take twenty days.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought the state of Tete quite lamentable," says Livingstone, but
+that of Sena was ten times worse. "It is impossible to describe the
+miserable state of decay into which the Portuguese possessions here
+have sunk."</p>
+
+<p>Though suffering badly from fever, Livingstone pushed on; he passed
+the important tributary of the Zambesi, the Shire, which he afterwards
+explored, and finally reached Quilimane on the shores of the Indian
+Ocean. It was now 20th May 1856, just four years after he had left
+Cape Town on his great journey from west to east, since when he had
+travelled eleven thousand miles. After waiting six weeks on the "great
+mud bank, surrounded by extensive swamps and rice grounds," which form
+the site of Quilimane, Livingstone embarked on board a gunboat, the
+<i>Frolic</i>, for England. He had one Makololo with him&mdash;the faithful
+Sekwebu. The poor black man begged to be allowed to follow his master
+on the seas.</p>
+<a name="page449"></a>
+<p>"But," said Livingstone, "you will die if you go to such a cold country
+as mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me die at your feet," pleaded the black man.</p>
+
+<p>He had not been to Loanda, so he had never seen the sea before. Waves
+were breaking over the bar at Quilimane and dashing over the boat that
+carried Sekwebu out to the brig. He was terribly alarmed, but he lived
+to reach Mauritius, where he became insane, hurled himself into the
+sea, and was drowned!</p>
+
+<p>On 12th December 1856, Livingstone landed in England after an absence
+of sixteen years. He had left home as an obscure missionary; he returned
+to find himself famous. The Royal Geographical Society awarded him
+its gold medal; France and Scotland hastened to do him honour. Banquets
+and receptions were given for him, and finally this "plain,
+single-minded man, somewhat attenuated by years of toil, and with his
+face tinged by the sun of Africa," was received by the Queen at Windsor.
+The enthusiasm aroused by this longest expedition in the history of
+African travel was unrivalled, and the name of Livingstone was on every
+lip. But meanwhile others were at work in central Africa, and we must
+turn from the discoveries of Livingstone for the moment.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap63"></a><a name="page450"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXIII</h3>
+
+<h4>BURTON AND SPEKE IN CENTRAL AFRICA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Livingstone had just left Loanda and was making his way across Africa
+from west to east, when an English expedition set forth to find the
+Great Lakes still lying solitary and undiscovered, although they were
+known to exist. If we turn to the oldest maps of Africa, we find, rudely
+drawn and incorrectly placed, large inland waters, that may
+nevertheless be recognised as these lakes just about to be revealed
+to a wondering world. Ptolemy knew of them, the Arabs spoke of them,
+Portuguese traders had passed them, and a German missionary had caught
+sight of the Mountains of the Moon and brought back strange stories
+of a great inland lake.</p>
+
+<p>The work of rediscovering the lakes was entrusted to a remarkable man
+named Richard Burton, a man whose love of adventure was well known.
+He had already shown his metal by entering Mecca disguised as a Persian,
+and disguised as an Arab he had entered Harar, a den of slave traders,
+the "Timbuktu of Eastern Africa." On his return he was attacked by
+the Somalis; one of his companions was killed, another, Speke, escaped
+with terrible spear-wounds, and he himself was badly wounded.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the men who in 1856 were dispatched by the Royal Geographical
+Society for the exploration of the mysterious lakes in the heart of
+central Africa. Speke gives us an idea of the ignorance prevailing
+on this subject only fifty-six years ago: "On the walls of the Society's
+<a name="page451"></a>rooms there hung a large diagram constructed by two missionaries
+carrying on their duties at Zanzibar. In this section map, swallowing
+up about half of the whole area of the ground included in it, there
+figured a lake of such portentous size and such unseemly shape,
+representing a gigantic slug, that everybody who looked at it
+incredulously laughed and shook his head&mdash;a single sheet of sweet
+water, upwards of eight hundred miles long by three hundred broad,
+equal in size to the great salt Caspian."</p>
+
+<p>It was April 1857 before Burton and Speke had collected an escort and
+guides at Zanzibar, the great slave market of East Africa, and were
+ready to start for the interior. "We could obtain no useful information
+from the European merchants of Zanzibar, who are mostly ignorant of
+everything beyond the island," Burke wrote home on 22nd April.</p>
+
+<p>At last on 27th June, with thirty-six men and thirty donkeys, the party
+set out for the great malarious coast-belt which had to be crossed
+before Kaze, some five hundred miles distant, could be reached. After
+three <a name="page452"></a>months' arduous travelling&mdash;both Burton and Speke were badly
+stricken with fever&mdash;they reached Kaze. Speke now spread open the map
+of the missionaries and inquired of the natives where the enormous
+lake was to be found. To their intense surprise they found the
+missionaries had run three lakes into one, and the three lakes were
+Lake Nyassa, Tanganyika, and Victoria Nyanza. They stayed over a month
+at Kaze, till Burton seemed at the point of death, and Speke had him
+carried out of the unhealthy town. It was January before they made
+a start and continued their journey westward to Ugyi.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a wonderful thing," says Drummond, "to start from the
+civilisation of Europe, pass up these mighty rivers, and work your
+way alone and on foot, mile after mile, month after month, among strange
+birds and beasts and plants and insects, meeting tribes which have
+no name, speaking tongues which no man can interpret, till you have
+reached its sacred heart and stood where white man has never trod
+before."</p>
+
+<a name="ill162"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 162">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="638">
+			<img src="images/162.jpg" alt="BURTON IN A DUG-OUT ON LAKE TANGANYIKA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="638" align="center">
+			<small>BURTON IN A DUG-OUT ON LAKE TANGANYIKA.<br>
+			After a drawing by Burton.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>As the two men tramped on, the streams began to drain to the west and
+the land grew more fertile, till one hundred and fifty miles from Kaze
+they began to ascend the slope of mountains overhanging the northern
+half of Lake Tanganyika. "This mountain mass," says Speke, "I consider
+to be the True Mountains of the Moon." From the top of the mountains
+the lovely Tanganyika Lake could be seen in all its glory by Burton.
+But to Speke it was a mere mist. The glare of the sun and oft-repeated
+fever had begun to tell on him, and a kind of inflammation had produced
+almost total blindness. But they had reached the lake and they felt
+sure they had found the source of the Nile. It was a great day when
+Speke crossed the lake in a long canoe hollowed out of the trunk of
+a tree and manned by twenty native savages under the command of a
+captain in a "goatskin uniform." On the <a name="page453"></a>far side they encamped on the
+opposite shore, Speke being the first white man to cross the lake.</p>
+
+<p>Having retired to his hut for the night, Speke proceeded to light a
+candle and arrange his baggage, when to his horror he found the whole
+interior swarming with black beetles. Tired of trying to brush them
+away, he put out his light and, though they crawled up his sleeves
+and down his back, he fell asleep. Suddenly he woke to find one crawling
+into his ear, and in spite of his frantic efforts it crept in farther
+and farther till it reached the drum, which caused the tired explorer
+intense agony. Inflammation ensued, his face became drawn, he could
+with difficulty swallow a little broth, and he was quite deaf. He
+returned across the lake to find his companion, Burton, still very
+ill and unfit for further exploration.</p>
+
+<p>So Speke, although still suffering from his ear, started off again,
+leaving Burton behind, to find the great northern lake spoken of as
+the sea of Ukerewe, where the Arabs traded largely in ivory. There
+was a great empire beyond the lake, they told him, called Uganda.</p>
+<a name="page454"></a>
+<p>But it was July 1858 when the caravan was ready to start from Kaze.
+Speke himself carried Burton's large elephant gun. "I commenced the
+journey," he says, "at 6 p.m., as soon as the two donkeys I took with
+me to ride were caught and saddled. It was a dreary beginning. The
+escort who accompanied me were sullen in their manner and walked with
+heavy gait and downcast countenance. The nature of the track increased
+the general gloom.</p>
+
+<p>"For several weeks the caravan moved forward, till on 3rd August it
+began to wind up a long but gradually inclined hill, until it reached
+its summit, when the vast expanse of the pale blue waters of the Nyanza
+burst suddenly upon my eyes! It was early morning. The distant sea-line
+of the north horizon was defined in the calm atmosphere, but I could
+get no idea of the breadth of the lake, as an archipelago of islands,
+each consisting of a single hill rising to a height of two or three
+hundred feet above the water, intersected the line of vision to the
+left. A sheet of water extended far away to the eastward. The view
+was one which even in a well-known country would have arrested the
+traveller by its peaceful beauty. But the pleasure of the mere view
+vanished in the presence of those more intense emotions called up by
+the geographical importance of the scene before me. I no longer felt
+any doubt that the lake at my feet gave birth to that interesting river
+(Nile), the source of which has been the subject of so much speculation
+and the object of so many explorers. This is a far more extensive lake
+than Tanganyika; it is so broad that you could not see across it, and
+so long that nobody knew its length. This magnificent sheet of water
+I have ventured to name Victoria after our gracious sovereign."</p>
+
+<a name="ill163"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 163">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="619">
+			<img src="images/163.jpg" alt="BURTON AND HIS COMPANIONS ON THE MARCH TO THE VICTORIA NYANZA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="619" align="center">
+			<small>BURTON AND HIS COMPANIONS ON THE MARCH TO THE VICTORIA NYANZA.<br>
+			From a humorous sketch by Burton.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Speke returned to Kaze after his six weeks' eventful journey, having
+tramped no less than four hundred and <a name="page455"></a>fifty-two miles. He received
+a warm welcome from Burton, who had been very uneasy about his safety,
+for rumours of civil war had reached him. "I laughed over the matter,"
+says Speke, "but expressed my regret that he did not accompany me,
+as I felt quite certain in my mind I had discovered the source of the
+Nile."</p>
+
+<p>Together the two explorers now made their way to the coast and crossed
+to Aden, where Burton, still weak and ill, decided to remain for a
+little, while Speke took passage in a passing ship for home.</p>
+
+<p>When he showed his map of Tanganyika and Victoria Nyanza to the
+President of the Royal Geographical Society in London, Sir Roderick
+Murchison was delighted.</p>
+
+<p>"Speke, we must send you there again," he said enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>And the expedition was regarded as "one of the most notable discoveries
+in the annals of African discovery."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap64"></a><a name="page456"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXIV</h3>
+
+<h4>LIVINGSTONE TRACES LAKE SHIRWA AND NYASSA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Burton and Speke had not yet returned from central Africa, when
+Livingstone left England on another expedition into the interior, with
+orders "to extend the knowledge already attained of the geography of
+eastern and central Africa and to encourage trade." Leaving England
+on 10th March 1858, he reached the east coast the following May as
+British Consul of Quilimane, the region which lies about the mouth
+of the Zambesi. Livingstone had brought out with him a small
+steam-launch called by the natives the <i>Ma-Robert</i> after Mrs.
+Livingstone, the mother of Robert, their eldest child. In this little
+steam-launch he made his way up the Shire River, which flows into the
+Zambesi quite near its mouth. "The delight of threading out the
+meanderings of upwards of two hundred miles of a hitherto unexplored
+river must be felt to be appreciated," says Livingstone in his diary.
+At the end of this two hundred miles further progress became impossible
+because of rapids which no boat could pass. "These magnificent
+cataracts we called the Murchison Cataracts, after one whose name has
+already a world-wide fame," says Livingstone. Leaving their boat here,
+they started on foot for the Great Lake described by the natives. It
+took them a month of hard travelling to reach their goal. Their way
+lay over the native tracks which run as a network over this part of
+the world. "They are veritable footpaths, never over a foot in breadth,
+<a name="page457"></a>beaten as hard as adamant by centuries of native traffic. Like the
+roads of the old Romans, they run straight on over everything, ridge
+and mountain and valley."</p>
+
+<a name="ill164"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 164">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="656">
+			<img src="images/164.jpg" alt="THE MA-ROBERT ON THE ZAMBESI">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="656" align="center">
+			<small>THE <i>MA-ROBERT</i> ON THE ZAMBESI.<br>
+			After a drawing in Livingstone's <i>Expedition to the Zambesi</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On 18th April, Lake Shirwa came into sight, "a considerable body of
+bitter water, containing leeches, fish, crocodiles, and hippopotami.
+The country around is very beautiful," adds Livingstone, "and clothed
+with rich vegetation, and the waves breaking and foaming over a rock,
+added to the beauty of the picture. Exceedingly lofty mountains stand
+near the eastern shore."</p>
+
+<p>No white man had gazed at the lake before. Though one of the smaller
+African lakes, Shirwa is probably larger than all the lakes of Great
+Britain put together. Returning to Tete, the explorer now prepared
+for his journey to the farther Lake Nyassa. This was to be no new
+discovery. The Portuguese knew the locality of Lake Shirwa, and at
+the beginning of the seventeenth century Nyassa was familiar to them
+under another name. Landing at the same spot on the Shire banks as
+before, <a name="page458"></a>Livingstone, with thirty-six Makololo porters and two native
+guides, ascended the beautiful Shire Highlands, some twelve hundred
+feet above sea-level, and crossed the range on which Zomba, the
+residence of the British Commissioner for Nyassaland, now stands. When
+within a day's march of their goal they were told that no lake had
+ever been heard of in the neighbourhood, but, said the natives, the
+river Shire stretched on, and it would take two months to reach the
+end, which came out of perpendicular rocks which towered almost to
+the skies.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go back to the ship," said the followers; "it is no use trying
+to find the lake."</p>
+
+<p>But Livingstone persevered, and he was soon rewarded by finding a sheet
+of water, which was indeed the beginning of Lake Nyassa. It was 16th
+September 1859.</p>
+
+<p>"How far is it to the end of the lake?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The other end of the lake? Who ever heard of such a thing? Why, if
+one started when a mere boy to walk to the other end of the lake, he
+would be an old grey-headed man before he got there," declared one
+of the natives. Livingstone knew that he had opened up a great waterway
+to the interior of Africa, but the slave trade in these parts was
+terrible, gangs being employed in carrying the ivory from countries
+to the north down to the east coast. The English explorer saw that
+if he could establish a steamer upon this Lake Nyassa and buy ivory
+from the natives with European goods he would at once strike a deadly
+blow at the slave trade. His letters home stirred several missionaries
+to come out and establish a settlement on the banks of the Shire River.
+Bishop Mackenzie and a little band of helpers arrived on the river
+Shire two years later, and in 1862 Mrs. Livingstone joined them,
+bringing out with her a little new steamer to launch on the Lake Nyassa.
+But the unhealthy season was at its height, and "the surrounding low
+land, rank with <a name="page459"></a>vegetation and reeking from the late rainy season,
+exhaled the malarious poison in enormous quantities." Mrs.
+Livingstone fell ill, and in a week she was dead. She was buried under
+a large baobab tree at Shapunga, where her grave is visited by many
+a traveller passing through this once solitary region first penetrated
+by her husband.</p>
+
+<p>The blow was a crushing one for Livingstone, and for a time he was
+quite bewildered. But when his old energy returned he superintended
+the launching of the little steamer, the <i>Lady Nyassa</i>. But
+disappointment and failure awaited him, and at last, just two years
+after the death of his wife, he took the <i>Lady Nyassa</i> to Zanzibar
+by the Rovuma River and set forth to reach Bombay, where he hoped to
+sell her, for his funds were low.</p>
+
+<p>On the last day of April 1864 he started on his perilous journey. Though
+warned that the monsoon would shortly break, he would not be deterred.
+And after sailing two thousand five hundred miles in the little boat
+built only for river and lake, "a forest of masts one day loomed through
+the haze in Bombay harbour," and he was safe. After a brief stay here,
+Livingstone left his little launch and made his way to England on a
+mail-packet.</p>
+
+<p>But no one realised at this time the importance of his new discoveries.
+No one foresaw the value of "Nyassaland" now under British
+protectorate. Livingstone had brought to light a lake fifteen hundred
+and seventy feet above the sea, three hundred and fifty miles long
+and forty broad, up and down which British steamers make their way
+to-day, while the long range of mountains lining the eastern bank,
+known as the Livingstone range, testify to the fact that he had done
+much, even if he might have done more.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap65"></a><a name="page460"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXV</h3>
+
+<h4>EXPEDITION TO VICTORIA NYANZA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>While Livingstone was discovering Lake Nyassa, Speke was busy
+preparing for a new expedition to find out more about the great sheet
+of water he had named Victoria Nyanza and to solve the vexed question:
+Was this the source of the Nile?</p>
+
+<p>In April 1860, accompanied by Captain Grant, an old friend and brother
+sportsman, he left England, and by way of the Cape reached Zanzibar
+some five months later. The two explorers started for their great
+inland journey early in October, with some hundred followers, bound
+for the great lake. But it was January 1861 before they had covered
+the five hundred miles between the coast and Kaze, the old
+halting-station of Burton and Speke. Through the agricultural plains
+known as Uzarana, the country of Rana, where many negro porters
+deserted, because they believed the white men were cannibals and
+intended to eat them when safe away from the haunts of men; through
+Usagara, the country of Gara, where Captain Grant was seized with
+fever; through Ugogo's great wilderness, where buffalo and rhinoceros
+abounded, where the country was flooded with tropical rains, on to
+the land of the Moon, three thousand feet above sea-level, till the
+slowly moving caravan reached Kaze. Here terrible accounts of famine
+and war reached them, and, instead of following Speke's route of 1858,
+they turned north-west and entered the <a name="page461"></a>Uzinza country, governed by
+two chieftains of Abyssinian descent. Here Speke was taken desperately
+ill. His cough gave him no rest day or night; his legs were "reduced
+to the appearance of pipe-sticks." But, emaciated as he was, he made
+his way onwards, till the explorers were rewarded by finding a
+"beautiful sheet of water lying snugly within the folds of the hills,"
+which they named the Little Windermere, because they thought it was
+so like "our own English lake of that name. To do royal honours to
+the king of this charming land, I ordered my men," says Speke, "to
+put down their loads and fire a volley."</p>
+
+<a name="ill165"> </a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 165">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="414">
+			<img src="images/165.jpg" alt="M'TESA, KING OF UGANDA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="414" align="center">
+			<small>M'TESA, KING OF UGANDA.<br>
+			From Speke's <i>Journey to Discover the Source of the Nile</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The king, whom they next visited, was a fine-looking man, who, with
+his brother, sat cross-legged on the ground, with huge pipes of black
+clay by their sides, while behind them, "squatting quiet as mice,"
+were the king's sons, six or seven lads, with little dream-charms under
+their chins! The king shook hands in true English fashion and was full
+of inquiries. Speke described the world, the proportions of land and
+water, and the large ships on the sea, and begged to be allowed to
+pass through his kingdom to Uganda. The explorers learnt much about
+the surrounding country, and spent Christmas Day with a good feast
+of roast beef. The start for Uganda was delayed by the serious illness
+of Grant, until at last Speke reluctantly decided to leave him with
+the friendly king, while he made his way alone to Uganda and the Lake
+Victoria Nyanza. It was the end of January 1861 when the English
+explorer entered the unknown kingdom of Uganda. Messengers from the
+king, M'tesa, came to him. "Now," they said, "you have really entered
+the kingdom of Uganda, for the future you must buy no more food. At
+every place that you stop for the day, the officer in charge will bring
+you plantains."</p>
+<a name="page462"></a>
+<p>The king's palace was ten days' march; the way lay along the western
+coast of the Lake Victoria Nyanza, the roads were "as broad as our
+coach roads cut through the long grass straight over the hills and
+down through the woods. The temperature was perfect. The whole land
+was a picture of quiescent beauty, with a boundless sea in the
+background."</p>
+
+<p>On 13th February, Speke found a large volume of water going to the
+north. "I took off my clothes," he says, "and jumped into the stream,
+which I found was twelve yards broad and deeper than my height. I was
+delighted beyond measure, for I had, to all appearance, found one of
+the branches of the Nile's exit from the Nyanza."</p>
+
+<p>But he had not reached the Nile yet. It was not till the end of July
+that he reached his goal.</p>
+
+<p>"Here at last," he says, "I stood on the brink of the Nile, most
+beautiful was the scene, nothing could surpass it&mdash;a magnificent
+stream from six hundred to seven hundred yards wide, dotted with islets
+and rocks, the former occupied by fishermen's huts, the latter by
+crocodiles basking in the sun. I told my men they ought to bathe in
+the holy river, the cradle of Moses."</p>
+
+<p>Marching onwards, they found the waterfall, which <a name="page463"></a>Speke named the
+Ripon Falls, "by far the most interesting sight I had seen in Africa."
+The arm of the water from which the Nile issued he named "Napoleon
+Channel," out of respect to the French Geographical Society for the
+honour they had done him just before leaving England in presenting
+their gold medal for the discovery of Victoria Nyanza.</p>
+
+<a name="ill166"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 166">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="636">
+			<img src="images/166.jpg" alt="THE RIPON FALLS ON THE VICTORIA NYANZA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="636" align="center">
+			<small>THE RIPON FALLS ON THE VICTORIA NYANZA.<br>
+			From Speke's <i>Journey to Discover the Source of the Nile</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The English explorers had now spent six months in Uganda. The
+civilisation in this country of M'tesa's has passed into history.
+Every one was clothed, and even little boys held their skin-cloaks
+tightly round them lest their bare legs might by accident be seen!
+Everything was clean and orderly under the all-powerful ruler M'tesa.
+Grant, who arrived in the end of May, carried in a litter, found Speke
+had not yet obtained leave from the king to "open the country to the
+north, that an uninterrupted line of commerce might exist between
+England and Uganda by means of the Nile." But at last on 3rd July he
+writes with joy: "The <a name="page464"></a>moment of triumph has come at last and suddenly
+the road is granted."</p>
+
+<p>The explorers bid farewell to M'tesa. "We rose with an English bow,
+placing the hand on the heart, whilst saying adieu; and whatever we
+did M'tesa in an instant mimicked with the instinct of a monkey."</p>
+
+<p>In five boats of five planks each tied together and caulked with rags,
+Speke started with a small escort and crew to reach the palace of the
+neighbouring king, Kamrasi, "father of all the kings," in the province
+of Unyoro. After some fierce opposition they entered the palace of
+the king, a poor creature. Rumours had reached him that these two white
+men were cannibals and sorcerers. His palace was indeed a contrast
+to that of M'tesa. It was merely a dirty hut approached by a lane
+ankle-deep in mud and cow-manure. The king's sisters were not allowed
+to marry; their only occupation was to drink milk from morning to night,
+with the result that they grew so fat it took eight men to lift one
+of them, when walking became impossible. Superstition was rife, and
+the explorers were not sorry to leave Unyoro <i>en route</i> for Cairo.
+Speke and Grant now believed that, except for a few cataracts, the
+waterway to England was unbroken. The Karuma Falls broke the monotony
+of the way, and here the party halted a while before plunging into
+the Kidi wilderness across which they intended to march to save a great
+bend of the river. Their path lay through swampy jungles and high grass,
+while great grassy plains, where buffaloes were seen and the roar of
+lions was heard, stretched away on every side.</p>
+
+<a name="ill167"> </a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 167">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="387">
+			<img src="images/167.jpg" alt="CAPTAINS SPEKE AND GRANT">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="387" align="center">
+			<small>CAPTAINS SPEKE AND GRANT.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Suddenly they reached a huge rock covered with huts, in front of which
+groups of black men were perched like monkeys, evidently awaiting the
+arrival of the white men. They were painted in the most brilliant
+colours, <a name="page465"></a>though without clothes, for the civilisation of Uganda had
+been left far behind. Pushing on, they reached the Madi country, where
+again civilisation awaited them in the shape of Turks. It was on 3rd
+December that they saw to their great surprise three large red flags
+carried in front of a military procession which marched out of camp
+with drums and fifes playing.</p>
+
+<p>"A very black man named Mohammed, in full Egyptian regimentals, with
+a curved sword, ordered his regiment to halt, and threw himself into
+my arms endeavouring to kiss me," says Speke. "Having reached his huts,
+he gave us two beds to sit upon, and ordered his wives to advance on
+their knees and give us coffee."</p>
+
+<p>"I have directions to take you to Gondokoro as soon as you come," said
+Mohammed.</p>
+
+<p>Yet they were detained till 11th January, when in sheer desperation
+they started off, and in two days reached the Nile. Having no boats,
+they continued their march overland till 15th February, when the masts
+of Nile boats came in sight, and soon after the two explorers walked
+into Gondokoro. Then a strange thing happened. "We saw hurrying on
+towards us the form of an Englishman, and the next moment my old friend
+Baker, famed for his sports in Ceylon, seized me by the <a name="page466"></a>hand. What
+joy this was I can hardly tell. We could not talk fast enough, so
+overwhelmed were we both to meet again. Of course we were his guests,
+and soon learned everything that could be told. I now first heard of
+the death of H.R.H. the Prince Consort. Baker said he had come up with
+three vessels fully equipped with armed men, camels, horses, donkeys,
+and everything necessary for a long journey, expressly to look after
+us. Three Dutch ladies also, with a view to assist us (God bless them!),
+had come here in a steamer, but were driven back to Khartum by sickness.
+Nobody had dreamt for a moment it was possible we could come through."</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Baker to continue his way to central Africa, Speke and Grant
+made their way home to England, where they arrived in safety after
+an absence of three years and fifty-one days, with their great news
+of the discovery of Uganda and their further exploration of Victoria
+Nyanza. When Speke reached Alexandria he had telegraphed home: "The
+Nile is settled." But he was wrong. The Nile was not settled, and many
+an expedition was yet to make its way to the great lakes before the
+problem was to be solved.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap66"></a><a name="page467"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXVI</h3>
+
+<h4>BAKER FINDS ALBERT NYANZA</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Baker had not been long at Gondokoro when the two English explorers
+arrived from the south.</p>
+
+<p>"In March 1861," he tells us, "I commenced an expedition to discover
+the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African
+expedition of Captains Speke and Grant that had been sent by the English
+Government from the south <i>via</i> Zanzibar for that object. From my youth
+I had been innured to hardship and endurance in tropical climates,
+and when I gazed upon the map of Africa I had a wild hope that I might
+by perseverance reach the heart of Africa."</p>
+
+<p>These are the opening lines of the published travels of Samuel Baker,
+famous as an elephant-hunter in Ceylon and engineer of the first
+railway laid down in Turkey. Like Livingstone, in his early
+explorations, Baker took his wife with him. "It was in vain that I
+implored her to remain, and that I painted the difficulties and perils
+still blacker than I supposed they really would be; she was resolved
+to share all dangers and to follow me through each rough footstep of
+the wild life before me."</p>
+
+<p>On 15th April 1861, Baker and his wife left Cairo to make their way
+southward to join the quest for the source of the Nile. They reached
+Korosko in twenty-six days, and crossed the Nubian desert on camels,
+a "very wilderness of scorching sand, the simoon in full force and
+the thermometer in the shade standing at 114&deg; Fahr." By <a name="page468"></a>Abu
+Hamed and Berber they reached Atbara. It now occurred to Baker that
+without some knowledge of Arabic he could do little in the way of
+exploration, so for a whole year he stayed in northern Abyssinia, the
+country explored by Bruce nearly ninety years before.</p>
+
+<a name="ill168"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 168">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="649">
+			<img src="images/168.jpg" alt="BAKER AND HIS WIFE CROSSING THE NUBIAN DESERT">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="649" align="center">
+			<small>BAKER AND HIS WIFE CROSSING THE NUBIAN DESERT.<br>
+			From Baker's <i>Travels</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was therefore 18th December 1862 before he and Mrs. Baker left
+Khartum for their journey up the Nile through the slave-driven Sudan.
+It was a fifty days' voyage to Gondokoro. In the hope of finding Speke
+and Grant, he took an extra load of corn as well as twenty-two donkeys,
+four camels, and four horses. Gondokoro was reached just a fortnight
+before the two explorers returned from the south.</p>
+
+<p>Baker's account of the historical meeting between the white men in
+the heart of Africa is very interesting: "Heard guns firing in the
+distance&mdash;report that two white men had come from the sea. Could they
+be Speke and Grant? Off I ran and soon met them; hurrah for Old England.
+They had come from the Victoria Nyanza from which the Nile springs.
+The mystery of ages solved! With a heart beating with joy I took off
+my cap and gave a welcome hurrah as I ran towards them! For the moment
+they did not recognise me; ten years' growth of beard and moustache
+had worked a change, and my sudden appearance in the centre of Africa
+appeared to them incredible. As a good ship arrives in harbour battered
+and torn by a long and stormy voyage, so both these gallant travellers
+arrived in Gondokoro. Speke appeared to me the more worn of the two.
+He was excessively lean; he had walked the whole way from Zanzibar,
+never having ridden once during that wearying march. Grant was in rags,
+his bare knees projecting through the remnants of trousers."</p>
+
+<p>Baker was now inclined to think that his work was done, the source
+of the Nile discovered, but after looking at the map of their route,
+he saw that an important part <a name="page469"></a>of the Nile still remained undiscovered,
+and though there were dangers ahead he determined to go on his way
+into central Africa.</p>
+
+<p>"We took neither guide nor interpreter," he continues. "We commenced
+our desperate journey in darkness about an hour after sunset. I led
+the way, Mrs. Baker riding by my side and the British flag following
+close behind us as a guide for the caravan of heavily laden camels
+and donkeys. And thus we started on our march in central Africa on
+the 26th of March 1863."</p>
+
+<p>It would take too long to tell of their manifold misfortunes and
+difficulties before they reached the lake they were in search of on
+16th March 1864. How they passed through the uncivilised country so
+lately traversed by Speke and Grant, how in the Obbo country all their
+porters deserted just a few days before they reached the Karuma Falls,
+how Baker from this point tried to follow the Nile to the yet unknown
+lake, how fever seized both the explorer and his wife and they had
+to <a name="page470"></a>live on the common food of the natives and a little water, how
+suddenly Mrs. Baker fell down with a sunstroke and was carried for
+seven days quite unconscious through swamp and jungle, the rain
+descending in torrents all the time, till Baker, "weak as a reed,"
+worn out with anxiety, lay on the ground as one dead.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if both must die, when better times dawned and they
+recovered to find that they were close to the lake.</p>
+
+<p>Baker's diary is eloquent: "The day broke beautifully clear, and,
+having crossed a deep valley between the hills, we toiled up the
+opposite slope. I hurried to the summit. The glory of our prize burst
+suddenly upon me! There, like a sea of quicksilver, lay far beneath
+us the grand expanse of water, a boundless sea-horizon on the south
+and south-west, glittering in the noonday sun, while at sixty miles'
+distance, blue mountains rose from the lake to a height of about seven
+thousand feet above its level. It is impossible to describe the triumph
+of that moment; here was the reward for all our labour! England had
+won the sources of the Nile! I looked from the steep granite cliff
+upon those welcome waters, upon that vast reservoir which nourished
+Egypt, upon that great source so long hidden from mankind, and I
+determined to honour it with a great name. As an imperishable memorial
+of one loved and mourned by our gracious Queen, I called this great
+lake 'the Albert Nyanza.' The Victoria and the Albert Lakes are the
+two sources of the Nile."</p>
+
+<p>Weak and spent with fever, the Bakers descended tottering to the
+water's edge. "The waves were rolling upon a white pebbly beach. I
+rushed into the lake and, thirsty with heat and fatigue, I drank deeply
+from the sources of the Nile. My wife, who had followed me so devotedly,
+stood by my side pale and exhausted&mdash;a wreck <a name="page471"></a>upon the shores of the
+great Albert Lake that we had long striven to reach. No European foot
+had ever trod upon its sand, nor had the eyes of a white man ever scanned
+its vast expanse of water."</p>
+
+<a name="ill169"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 169">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="620">
+			<img src="images/169.jpg" alt="BAKER'S BOAT IN A STORM ON LAKE ALBERT NYANZA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="620" align="center">
+			<small>BAKER'S BOAT IN A STORM ON LAKE ALBERT NYANZA.<br>
+			From Baker's <i>Albert Nyanza</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>After some long delay, the Bakers procured canoes, "merely single
+trees neatly hollowed out," and paddled along the shores of the newly
+found lake. The water was calm, the views most lovely. Hippopotami
+sported in the water; crocodiles were numerous. Day after day they
+paddled north, sometimes using a large Scotch plaid as sail. It was
+dangerous work. Once a great storm nearly swamped them. The little
+canoe shipped heavy seas; terrific bursts of thunder and vivid
+lightning broke over the lake, hiding everything from view. Then down
+came the rain in torrents, swept along by a terrific wind. They reached
+the shore in safety, but the discomforts of the <a name="page472"></a>voyage were great,
+and poor Mrs. Baker suffered severely. On the thirteenth day they found
+themselves at the end of the lake voyage, and carefully examined the
+exit of the Nile from the lake. They now followed the river in their
+canoe for some eighteen miles, when they suddenly heard a roar of water,
+and, rounding a corner, "a magnificent sight suddenly burst upon us.
+On either side of the river were beautifully wooded cliffs rising
+abruptly to a height of three hundred feet and rushing through a gap
+that cleft the rock. The river pent up in a narrow gorge roared
+furiously through the rock-bound pass, till it plunged in one leap
+of about one hundred and twenty feet into a dark abyss below. This
+was the greatest waterfall of the Nile, and in honour of the
+distinguished President of the Royal Geographical Society I named it
+the Murchison Falls." Further navigation was impossible, and with oxen
+and porters they proceeded by land. Mrs. Baker was still carried in
+a litter, while Baker walked by her side. Both were soon attacked again
+with fever, and when night came they threw themselves down in a wretched
+hut. A violent thunderstorm broke over them, and they lay there utterly
+helpless, and worn out till sunrise. Worse was to come. The natives
+now deserted them, and they were alone and helpless, with a wilderness
+of rank grass hemming them in on every side. Their meals consisted
+of a mess of black porridge of bitter mouldy flour "that no English
+pig would notice" and a dish of spinach. For nearly two months they
+existed here, until they became perfect skeletons.</p>
+
+<p>"We had given up all hope of Gondokoro," says Baker, "and I had told
+my headman to deliver my map and papers to the English Consul at
+Khartum."</p>
+
+<p>But they were not to die here. The king, Kamrasi, having heard of their
+wretched condition, sent for them, treated them kindly, and enabled
+them to reach Gondokoro, <a name="page473"></a>which they did on 23rd March 1865, after an
+absence of two years. They had long since been given up as lost, and
+it was an immense joy to reach Cairo at last and to find that, in the
+words of Baker, "the Royal Geographical Society had awarded me the
+Victoria Gold Medal at a time when they were unaware whether I was
+alive or dead and when the success of my expedition was unknown."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap67"></a><a name="page474"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXVII</h3>
+
+<h4>LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNEY</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>In the year 1865 "the greatest of all African travellers" started on
+his last journey to central Africa.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," he said, "to ascend the Rovuma, and shall strive, by passing
+along the northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the southern end of
+Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa."</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Zanzibar in January 1866, he reached the mouth of the Rovuma
+River some two months later, and, passing through dense thickets of
+trees, he started on his march along the northern bank. The expedition
+consisted of thirteen sepoys from Bombay, nine negroes from one of
+the missions, two men from the Zambesi, Susi, Amoda, and others
+originally slaves freed by Livingstone. As beasts of burden, they had
+six camels, three Indian buffaloes, two mules, four donkeys, while
+a poodle took charge of the whole line of march, running to see the
+first man in the line and then back to the last, and barking to hasten
+him up.</p>
+
+<p>"Now that I am on the point of starting on another trip into Africa,"
+wrote Livingstone from Rovuma Bay, "I feel quite exhilarated. The mere
+animal pleasure of travelling in a wild, unexplored country is very
+great. Brisk exercise imparts elasticity to the muscles, fresh and
+healthy blood circulates through the brain, the mind works well, the
+eye is clear, the step firm, and a day's <a name="page475"></a>exertion makes the evening's
+repose thoroughly enjoyable."</p>
+
+<p>But misfortunes soon began. As they marched along the banks of the
+Rovuma the buffaloes and camels were badly bitten by the tsetse fly,
+and one after another died. The cruelty of the followers to the animals
+was terrible. Indeed, they were thoroughly unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>One day a party of them lagged behind, killed the last young buffalo,
+and ate it. They told Livingstone that it had died and tigers had come
+and devoured it.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see the stripes of the tiger?" asked Livingstone.</p>
+
+<p>Yes; all declared that they had seen them distinctly&mdash;an obvious lie,
+as there are no striped tigers in Africa.</p>
+
+<p>On 11th August, Livingstone once more reached Lake Nyassa. "It was
+as if I had come back to an old home I never expected again to see,
+and pleasant it was to bathe in the delicious waters again. I feel
+quite exhilarated."</p>
+
+<p>Having sent word to the Arab chief of Kota-Kota on the opposite coast,
+and having received no reply to his request to be ferried across the
+lake, he started off and marched by land round the southern end,
+crossing the Shire River at its entrance. He continued his journey
+round the south-western gulf of Lake Nyassa, till rumours of Zulu raids
+frightened his men. They refused to go any farther, but just threw
+down their loads and walked away. He was now left with Susi and Chuma
+and a few boys with whom he crossed the end of a long range of mountains
+over four thousand feet in height, and, pursuing a zigzag track,
+reached the Loangwa River on 16th December 1866, while his unfaithful
+followers returned to the coast to spread the story that Livingstone
+had been killed by the Zulus!</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the explorer was plodding on towards Lake Tanganyika. The
+beauty of the way strikes the lonely explorer. The rainy season had
+come on in all its force, <a name="page476"></a>and the land was wonderful in its early green.
+"Many gay flowers peep out. Here and there the scarlet lily, red, yellow,
+and pure white orchids, and pale lobelias. As we ascended higher on
+the plateau, grasses which have pink and reddish brown seed-vessels
+were grateful to the eye."</p>
+
+<p>Two disasters clouded this month of travel. His poor poodle was drowned
+in a marsh and his medicine-chest was stolen. The land was famine-bound
+too; the people were living on mushrooms and leaves. "We get some
+elephants' meat, but it is very bitter, and the appetite in this country
+is always very keen and makes hunger worse to bear, the want of salt
+probably making the gnawing sensation worse."</p>
+
+<p>On 28th January, Livingstone crossed the Tshambezi, "which may almost
+be regarded as the upper waters of the Congo," says Johnstone, though
+the explorer of 1867 knew it not.</p>
+
+<p>"Northwards," says Livingstone, "through almost trackless forest and
+across oozing bogs"; and then he adds the significant words, "I am
+frightened at my own emaciation." March finds him worse. "I have been
+ill of fever; every step I take jars in my chest, and I am very weak;
+I can scarcely keep up the march." At last, on 1st April, "blue water
+loomed through the trees." It was Lake Tanganyika lying some two
+thousand feet below them. Its "surpassing loveliness" struck
+Livingstone. "It lies in a deep basin," he says, "whose sides are nearly
+perpendicular, but covered well with trees, at present all green; down
+some of these rocks come beautiful cascades, while buffaloes,
+elephants, and antelopes wander and graze on the more level spots,
+and lions roar by night. In the morning and evening huge crocodiles
+may be observed quietly making their way to their feeding-grounds,
+and hippopotami snort by night."</p>
+
+<p>Going westwards, Livingstone met a party of Arabs <a name="page477"></a>amongst whom he
+remained for over three months, till he could make his way on to Lake
+Meoro, reported to be only three days' journey. It took him sixteen
+days to reach it. "Lake Meoro seems of goodly size," he says, "and
+is flanked by ranges of mountains on the east and west. Its banks are
+of coarse sand and slope gradually down to the water. We slept in a
+fisherman's cottage on the north shore."</p>
+
+<p>After a stay of six weeks in the neighbourhood, Livingstone returned
+to the Arabs, until the spring of 1868, when he decided to explore
+the Lake Bangweolo. In spite of opposition and the desertion of more
+men, he started with five attendants and reached this&mdash;one of the
+largest of the central African lakes&mdash;in July. Modestly enough he
+asserts the fact. "On the 18th I saw the shores of the lake for the
+first time. The name Bangweolo is applied to the great mass of water,
+though I fear that our English folks will bogle at it or call it
+Bungyhollow. The water is of a deep sea-green colour. It was bitterly
+cold from the amount of moisture in the air."</p>
+
+<p>This moisture converted the surrounding country into one huge bog or
+sponge, twenty-nine of which Livingstone had to cross in thirty miles,
+each taking about half an hour to cross.</p>
+<a name="page479"></a>
+<a name="ill170"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 170">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717">
+			<img src="images/170.jpg" alt="THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE BANGWEOLO, 1868">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717" align="center">
+			<small>THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE BANGWEOLO, 1868: LIVINGSTONE ON
+			THE LAKE WITH HIS MEN.<br>
+			From Livingstone's <i>Last Journals</i>, by
+			permission of Mr. John Murray.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The explorer was still greatly occupied on the problem of the Nile.
+"The discovery of the sources of the Nile," he says, "is somewhat akin
+in importance to the discovery of the North-West Passage." It seemed
+to him not impossible that the great river he found flowing through
+these two great lakes to the west of Tanganyika might prove to be the
+Upper Nile.</p>
+
+<p>It was December before he started for Tanganyika. The new year of 1868
+opened badly. Half-way, he became very ill. He was constantly wet
+through; he persistently crossed brooks and rivers, wading through
+cold water up <a name="page478"></a>to his waist. "Very ill all over," he enters in his diary;
+"cannot walk. Pneumonia of right lung, and I cough all day and all
+night. I am carried several hours a day on a frame. The sun is vertical,
+blistering any part of the skin exposed, and I try to shelter my face
+and head as well as I can with a bunch of leaves."</p>
+
+<p>On 14th February 1869 he arrived on the western shores of the lake,
+and after the usual delay he was put into it canoe for Ujiji. Though
+better, he was still very ill, and we get the pathetic entry, "Hope
+to hold out to Ujiji."</p>
+
+<p>At last he reached the Arab settlement on the eastern shores, where
+he found the goods sent to him overland from Zanzibar, and though much
+had been stolen, yet warm clothes, tea, and coffee soon revived him.
+After a stay of three months he grew better, and turned westwards for
+the land of the Manyuema and the great rivers reported to be flowing
+there.</p>
+
+<p>He was guided by Arabs whose trade-route extended to the great Lualaba
+River in the very heart of Africa some thousand miles west of Zanzibar.
+It was an unknown land, unvisited by Europeans when Livingstone
+arrived with his Arab escort at Bambarra in September 1869.</p>
+
+<p>"Being now well rested," he enters in his diary, "I resolved to go
+west to Lualaba and buy a canoe for its exploration. The Manyuema
+country is all surpassingly beautiful. Palms crown the highest heights
+of the mountains, and the forests about five miles broad are
+indescribable. Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among
+the gigantic trees, many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size
+of a child's head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere."</p>
+
+<p>With the Arab caravan he travelled almost incessantly zigzagging
+through the wonderful Manyuema country until, after a year's wandering,
+he finally reached the banks of the Lualaba (Congo) on 31st March 1871.</p>
+<a name="page480"></a>
+<p>It was a red-letter day in his life. "I went down," he says, "to take
+a good look at the Lualaba here. It is a mighty river at least three
+thousand yards broad and always deep. The banks are steep; the current
+is about two miles an hour away to the north." Livingstone was gazing
+at the second-largest river in the world&mdash;the Congo. But he thought
+it was the Nile, and confidently relates how it overflows all its banks
+annually as the Nile does.</p>
+
+<p>At Nyangwe, a Manyuema village, Livingstone stayed for four months.
+The natives were dreadful cannibals. He saw one day a man with ten
+human jaw-bones hung by a string over his shoulder, the owners of which
+he had killed and eaten. Another day a terrible massacre took place,
+arising from a squabble over a fowl, in which some four hundred perished.
+The Arabs too disgusted him with their slave-raiding, and he decided
+that he could no longer travel under their protection. So on 20th July
+1871 he started back for Ujiji, and after a journey of seven hundred
+miles, accomplished in three months, he arrived, reduced to a skeleton,
+only to find that the rascal who had charge of his stores had stolen
+the whole and made away.</p>
+
+<p>But when health and spirit were failing, help was at hand. The meeting
+of Stanley and Livingstone on the shores of the Lake Tanganyika is
+one of the most thrilling episodes in the annals of discovery. Let
+them tell their own story: "When my spirits were at their lowest ebb,"
+says Livingstone, "one morning Susi came running at the top of his
+speed and gasped out, 'An Englishman! I see him!' and off he darted
+to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan told of the
+nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, baths of tin, huge kettles,
+and cooking-pots made me think, 'This must be a luxurious traveller
+and not one at his wits' end, like me.'"</p>
+
+<p>It was Henry Morton Stanley, the travelling <a name="page481"></a>correspondent of the <i>New
+York Herald</i>, sent at an expense of more than &pound;4000 to obtain
+accurate information about Dr. Livingstone if living, and if dead to
+bring home his bones.</p>
+
+<a name="ill171"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 171">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="650">
+			<img src="images/171.jpg" alt="LIVINGSTONE AT WORK ON HIS JOURNAL">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="650" align="center">
+			<small>LIVINGSTONE AT WORK ON HIS JOURNAL.<br>
+			From a sketch by H. M. Stanley.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And now Stanley takes up the story. He has entered Ujiji and heard
+from the faithful Susi that the explorer yet lives. Pushing back the
+crowds of natives, Stanley advanced down "a living avenue of people"
+till he came to where "the white man with the long grey beard was
+standing."</p>
+
+<p>"As I advanced slowly towards him," says Stanley, "I noticed he was
+pale, looked worried, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold band round
+it, had on a red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of grey tweed trousers.
+I walked <a name="page482"></a>deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said, 'Dr.
+Livingstone, I presume?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we both grasp hands and I say aloud, 'I thank God, Doctor, I
+have been permitted to see you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You have brought me new life&mdash;new life,' murmured the tired
+explorer," and for the next few days it was enough for the two
+Englishmen to sit on the mud verandah of Livingstone's house, talking.
+Livingstone soon grew better, and November found the two explorers
+surveying the river flowing from the north of Tanganyika and deciding
+that it was not the Nile.</p>
+
+<p>Stanley now did his best to persuade Livingstone to return home with
+him to recruit his shattered health before finishing his work of
+exploration. But the explorer, tired and out of health though he was,
+utterly refused. He must complete the exploration of the sources of
+the Nile before he sought that peace and comfort at home for which
+he must have yearned.</p>
+
+<p>So the two men parted&mdash;Stanley to carry Livingstone's news of the
+discovery of the Congo back to Europe, Livingstone to end his days
+on the lonely shores of Lake Bangweolo, leaving the long-sought
+mystery of the Nile sources yet unsolved.</p>
+
+<p>On 25th August 1872 he started on his last journey. He had a
+well-equipped expedition sent up by Stanley from the coast, including
+sixty men, donkeys, and cows. He embarked on his fresh journey with
+all his old eagerness and enthusiasm, but a few days' travel showed
+him how utterly unfit he was for any more hardships. He suffered from
+intense and growing weakness, which increased day by day. He managed
+somehow to ride his donkey, but in November his donkey died and he
+struggled along on foot. Descending into marshy regions north of Lake
+<a name="page484"></a>Bangweolo, the journey became really terrible. The rainy season was
+at its height, the land was an endless swamp, and starvation threatened
+the expedition. To add to the misery of the party, there were swarms
+of mosquitoes, poisonous spiders, and stinging ants by the way. Still,
+amid all the misery and suffering, the explorer made his way on through
+the dreary autumn months. Christmas came and went; the new year of
+1873 dawned. He could not stop. April found him only just alive, carried
+by his faithful servants. Then comes the last entry in his diary, 27th
+April: "Knocked up quite. We are on the banks of R. Molilamo."</p>
+<a name="page483"></a>
+<a name="ill172"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 172">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717">
+			<img src="images/172.jpg" alt="LIVINGSTONE ENTERING THE HUT AT ILALA ON THE NIGHT THAT HE DIED">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717" align="center">
+			<small>LIVINGSTONE ENTERING THE HUT AT ILALA ON THE NIGHT THAT HE DIED.<br>
+			From Livingstone's <i>Last Journals</i>, by permission of Mr. John Murray.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<a name="ill173"> </a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 173">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="310">
+			<img src="images/173.jpg" alt="THE LAST ENTRIES IN LIVINGSTONE'S DIARY">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="310" align="center">
+			<small>THE LAST ENTRIES IN LIVINGSTONE'S DIARY.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They laid him at last in a native hut, and here one night he died alone.
+They found him in the early morning, just kneeling by the side of the
+rough bed, his body stretched forward, his head buried in his hands
+upon the pillow. The negroes buried his heart on the spot where he
+died in the village of Ilala on the shores of Lake Bangweolo under
+the shadow of a great tree in the still forest. Then they wrapped his
+body in a cylinder of bark wound round in a piece of old sailcloth,
+lashed it to a pole, and a little band of negroes, including Susi and
+Chuma, set out to carry their dead master to the coast. For hundreds
+<a name="page485"></a>of miles they tramped with their precious burden, till they reached
+the sea and could give it safely to his fellow-countrymen, who conveyed
+it to England to be laid with other great men in Westminster Abbey.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem38">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"He needs no epitaph to guard a name<br>
+			&nbsp;Which men shall praise while worthy work is done.<br>
+			&nbsp;He lived and died for good, be that his fame.<br>
+			&nbsp;Let marble crumble: this is living-stone."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+
+<a name="ill174"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 174">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="331">
+			<img src="images/174.jpg" alt="SUSI, LIVINGSTONE'S SERVANT">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="331" align="center">
+			<small>SUSI, LIVINGSTONE'S SERVANT.<br>
+			From a sketch by H. M. Stanley.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap68"></a><a name="page486"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXVIII</h3>
+
+<h4>THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The death of Livingstone, the faithfulness of his native servants in
+carrying his body and journals across hundreds of miles of wild country
+to the coast, his discovery of the great river in the heart of Africa,
+and the great service in Westminster Abbey roused public interest in
+the Dark Continent and the unfinished work of the great explorer.
+"Never had such an outburst of missionary zeal been known, never did
+the cause of geographical exploration receive such an impetus."</p>
+
+<p>The dramatic meeting between Livingstone and Stanley on the shores
+of Lake Tanganyika in 1871 had impressed the public in England and
+America, and an expedition was now planned by the proprietors of two
+great newspapers, the <i>London Daily Telegraph</i> and the <i>New York
+Herald</i>. Stanley was chosen to command it. And perhaps there is hardly
+a better-known book of modern travels than <i>Through the Dark
+Continent</i>, in which he has related all his adventures and discoveries
+with regard to the Congo. Leaving England in August 1874 with three
+Englishmen and a large boat in eight sections, the <i>Lady Alice</i>, for
+the navigation of lake and river, the little exploring party reached
+Zanzibar a few weeks later and started on their great inland journey.
+The way to Victoria Nyanza lay through what is now known as German
+East Africa. They reached Ugogo safely and turned to the north-west,
+entering an immense and silent <a name="page487"></a>bush-field, where no food was
+obtainable. On the eighth day five people died of starvation and the
+rest of the expedition was only saved by the purchase of some grain
+from a distant village. But four more died and twenty-eight miles under
+a hot sun prostrated one of the white men, who died a few days later.
+Thus they entered Ituru, "a land of naked people, whose hills drained
+into a marsh, whence issue the southernmost waters of the Nile."</p>
+
+<p>Here they were surrounded by angry savages on whom they had to fire,
+and from whose country they were glad to escape.</p>
+
+<p>On 27th February 1875, after tramping for one hundred and three days,
+they arrived at their destination. One of the white men who was striding
+forward suddenly waved his hat, and with a beaming face shouted out,
+"I have seen the lake, sir; it is grand."</p>
+
+<p>Here, indeed, was the Victoria Nyanza, "which a dazzling sun
+transformed into silver," discovered by Speke sixteen years before,
+and supposed to be the source of the Nile. The men struck up a song
+of triumph&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem39">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Sing, O friends, sing; the journey is ended.<br>
+			&nbsp;Sing aloud, O friends; sing to the great Nyanza.<br>
+			&nbsp;Sing all, sing loud, O friends, sing to the great sea;<br>
+			&nbsp;Give your last look to the lands behind, and then turn to the sea.<br>
+			&nbsp;Lift up your heads, O men, and gaze around.<br>
+			&nbsp;Try if you can to see its end.<br>
+			&nbsp;See, it stretches moons away,<br>
+			&nbsp;This great, sweet, fresh-water sea."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"I thought," says Stanley, "there could be no better way of settling,
+once and for ever, the vexed question, than by circumnavigating the
+lake."</p>
+
+<p>So the <i>Lady Alice</i> was launched, and from the shores of Speke Gulf,
+as he named the southern end, the explorer set forth, leaving the two
+remaining Englishmen in charge of the camp.</p>
+<a name="page488"></a>
+<p>"The sky is gloomy," writes Stanley, "the rocks are bare and rugged,
+the land silent and lonely. The rowing of the people is that of men
+who think they are bound to certain death; their hearts are full of
+misgivings as slowly we move through the dull dead waters." The waters
+were not dead for long. A gale rose up and the lake became wild beyond
+description. "The waves hissed as we tore along, the crew collapsed
+and crouched into the bottom of the boat, expecting the end of the
+wild venture, but the <i>Lady Alice</i> bounded forward like a wild courser
+and we floated into a bay, still as a pond."</p>
+
+<p>So they coasted along the shores of the lake. Their guide told them
+it would take years to sail round their sea, that on the shores dwelt
+people with long tails, who preferred to feed on human beings rather
+than cattle or goats. But, undaunted, the explorer sailed on, across
+the Napoleon Channel, through which flowed the superfluous waters of
+the lake rushing northward as the Victoria Nile. "On the western side
+of the Channel is Uganda, dominated by an Emperor who is supreme over
+about three millions of people. He soon heard of my presence on the
+lake and dispatched a flotilla to meet me. His mother had dreamed the
+night before that she had seen a boat sailing, sailing like a fish-eagle
+over the Nyanza. In the stern of the boat was a white man gazing
+wistfully towards Uganda."</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the port a crowd of soldiers, "arrayed in crimson and black
+and snowy white," were drawn up to receive him. "As we neared the beach,
+volleys of musketry burst out from the long lines. Numerous kettles
+and brass drums sounded a noisy welcome, flags and banners waved, and
+the people gave a great shout."</p>
+<a name="page489"></a>
+<a name="ill175"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 175">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717">
+			<img src="images/175.jpg" alt="STANLEY AND HIS MEN MARCHING THROUGH UNYORO">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717" align="center">
+			<small>STANLEY AND HIS MEN MARCHING THROUGH UNYORO.<br>
+			From a sketch, by Stanley, in <i>Through the Dark Continent</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Such was Stanley's welcome to M'tesa's wonderful kingdom of Uganda,
+described by Speke sixteen years before. The twelve days spent at the
+court of this <a name="page490"></a>monarch impressed Stanley deeply. Specially was the king
+interested in Christianity, and the English explorer told the story
+of the Creation and the birth of the Messiah to this intelligent pagan
+and his courtiers. "Ten days after we left the genial court, I came
+upon the scene of a tragedy. We were coasting the eastern side of a
+large island, having been thirty-six hours without food, looking for
+a port where we could put in and purchase provisions. Natives followed
+our movements, poising their spears, stringing their bows, picking
+out the best rocks for their slings. We were thirteen souls, they
+between three and four hundred. Seeing the boat advance, they smiled,
+entered the water, and held out inviting hands. The crew shot the boat
+towards the natives; their hands closed on her firmly, they ran with
+her to the shore and dragged her high and dry about twenty yards from
+the lake. Then ensued a scene of rampant wildness and hideous ferocity
+of action beyond description. The boat was surrounded by a forest of
+spears and two hundred demons contended for the first blow. I sprang
+up to kill and be killed, a revolver in each hand, but as I rose to
+my feet the utter hopelessness of our situation was revealed to me."</p>
+
+<p>To make a long story short, the natives seized the oars, and, thinking
+the boat was now in their power, they retired to make their plans.
+Meanwhile Stanley commanded his crew to tear the bottom boards up for
+paddles, and, pushing the boat hastily into the water, they paddled
+away, their commander firing the while with his elephant rifle and
+explosive bullets. They were saved.</p>
+
+<p>On 6th May the circumnavigation was finished and the <i>Lady Alice</i> was
+being dragged ashore in Speke Gulf with shouts of welcome and the waving
+of many flags. But sad news awaited him. He could see but one of his
+white companions.</p>
+<a name="page491"></a>
+<p>"Where is Barker?" he asked Frank Pocock.</p>
+
+<p>"He died twelve days ago," was the melancholy answer.</p>
+
+<p>Stanley now took his whole expedition to Uganda, and after spending
+some months with the King he passed on to Lake Tanganyika, crossing
+to Ujiji, where he arrived in May 1876. Here five years before he had
+found Livingstone.</p>
+
+<p>"We launched our boat on the lake and, circumnavigating it, discovered
+that there was only a periodical outlet to it. Thus, by the
+circumnavigation of the two lakes, two of the geographical problems
+I had undertaken to solve were settled. The Victoria Nyanza had no
+connection with the Tanganyika. There now remained the grandest task
+of all. Is the Lualaba, which Livingstone had traced along a course
+of nearly thirteen hundred miles, the Nile, the Niger, or the Congo?
+I crossed Lake Tanganyika with my expedition, lifted once more my
+gallant boat on our shoulders, and after a march of nearly two hundred
+and twenty miles arrived at the superb river. Where I first sighted
+it, the Lualaba was fourteen hundred yards wide, pale grey in colour,
+winding slowly from south and by east. We hailed its appearance with
+shouts of joy, and rested on the spot to enjoy the view. I likened
+it to the Mississippi as it appears before the impetuous, full-volumed
+Missouri pours its rusty brown water into it. A secret rapture filled
+my soul as I gazed upon the majestic stream. The great mystery that
+for all these centuries Nature had kept hidden away from the world
+of science was waiting to be solved. For two hundred and twenty miles
+I had followed the sources of the Livingstone River to the confluence,
+and now before me lay the superb river itself. My task was to follow
+it to the ocean."</p>
+
+<p>Pressing on along the river, they reached the Arab <a name="page492"></a>city of Nyangwe,
+having accomplished three hundred and thirty-eight miles in
+forty-three days. And now the famous Arab Tippu-Tib comes on the scene,
+a chief with whom Stanley was to be closely connected hereafter. He
+was a tall, black-bearded man with an intelligent face and gleaming
+white teeth. He wore clothes of spotless white, his fez was smart and
+new, his dagger resplendent with silver filigree. He had escorted
+Cameron across the river to the south, and he now confirmed Stanley
+in his idea that the greatest problem of African geography, "the
+discovery of the course of the Congo," was still untouched.</p>
+
+<p>"This was momentous and all-important news to the expedition. We had
+arrived at the critical point in our travels," remarks Stanley. "What
+kind of a country is it to the north along the river?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Monstrous bad," was the reply. "There are large boa-constrictors in
+the forest suspended by their tails, waiting to gobble up travellers.
+You cannot travel without being covered by ants, and they sting like
+wasps. There are leopards in countless numbers. Gorillas haunt the
+woods. The people are man-eaters. A party of three hundred guns started
+for the forest and only sixty returned."</p>
+
+<p>Stanley and his last remaining white companion, Frank Pocock,
+discussed the somewhat alarming situation together. Should they go
+on and face the dwarfs who shot with poisoned arrows, the cannibals
+who regarded the stranger as so much meat, the cataracts and
+rocks&mdash;should they follow the "great river which flowed northward for
+ever and knew no end"?</p>
+
+<p>"This great river which Livingstone first saw, and which broke his
+heart to turn away from, is a noble field," argued Stanley. "After
+buying or building canoes and floating down the river day by day, either
+to the Nile or <a name="page493"></a>to some vast lake in the far north or to the Congo and
+the Atlantic Ocean."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us follow the river," replied the white man.</p>
+
+<p>So, accompanied by Tippu-Tib, with a hundred and forty guns and seventy
+spearmen, they started along the banks of the river which Stanley now
+named the Livingstone River.</p>
+
+<p>"On the 5th of November 1876," says Stanley, "a force of about seven
+hundred people, consisting of Tippu-Tib's slaves and my expedition
+departed from the town of Nyangwe and entered the dismal forest-land
+north. A straight line from this point to the Atlantic Ocean would
+measure one thousand and seventy miles; another to the Indian Ocean
+would measure only nine hundred and twenty miles; we had not reached
+the centre of the continent by seventy-five miles.</p>
+
+<p>"Outside the woods blazed a blinding sunshine; underneath that immense
+roof-foliage was a solemn twilight. The trees shed continual showers
+of tropic dew. As we struggled on through the mud, the perspiration
+exuded from every pore; our clothes were soon wet and heavy. Every
+man had to crawl and scramble as he best could. Sometimes prostrate
+forest-giants barred the road with a mountain of twigs and branches.
+For ten days we endured it; then the Arabs declared they could go no
+farther. I promised them five hundred pounds if they would escort us
+twenty marches only. On our way to the river we came to a village whose
+sole street was adorned with one hundred and eighty-six human skulls.
+Seventeen days from Nyangwe we saw again the great river and, viewing
+the stately breadth of the mighty stream, I resolved to launch my boat
+for the last time. Placing thirty-six of the people in the boat, we
+floated down the river close to the bank along which the land-party
+marched. Day after day passed on and we found <a name="page494"></a>the natives increasing
+in wild rancour and unreasoning hate of strangers. At every curve and
+bend they 'telephoned' along the river warning signals; their huge
+wooden drums sounded the muster for fierce resistance; reed arrows
+tipped with poison were shot at us from the jungle as we glided by.
+On the 18th of December our miseries culminated in a grand effort of
+the savages to annihilate us. The cannibals had manned the topmost
+branches of the trees above the village of Vinya Njara to shoot at
+us."</p>
+
+<p>A camp was hastily constructed by Stanley in defence, and for several
+days there was desperate fighting, at the end of which peace was made.
+But Tippu-Tib and his escort refused to go a step farther to what they
+felt was certain destruction. Stanley alone was determined to proceed.
+He bought thirty-three native canoes and, leading with the <i>Lady
+Alice</i>, he set his face towards the unknown country. His men were all
+sobbing. They leant forward, bowed with grief and heavy hearts at the
+prospect before them. Dense woods covered both banks and islands.
+Savages with gaily feathered heads and painted faces dashed out of
+the woods armed with shields and spears, shouting, "Meat! meat! Ha!
+ha! We shall have plenty of meat!"</p>
+
+<p>"Armies of parrots screamed overhead as they flew across the river;
+legions of monkeys and howling baboons alarmed the solitudes;
+crocodiles haunted the sandy points; hippopotami grunted at our
+approach; elephants stood by the margin of the river; there was
+unceasing vibration from millions of insects throughout the livelong
+day. The sun shone large and warm; the river was calm and broad and
+brown."</p>
+
+<a name="ill176"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 176">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="622">
+			<img src="images/176.jpg" alt="TOWARDS THE UNKNOWN">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="622" align="center">
+			<small>"TOWARDS THE UNKNOWN": STANLEY'S CANOES STARTING FROM VINYA NJARA.<br>
+			From <i>Through the Dark Continent</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>By January 1877 the expedition reached the first cataract of what is
+now known as the Stanley Falls. From this point for some sixty miles
+the great volume of <a name="page495"></a>the Livingstone River rushed through narrow and
+lofty banks in a series of rapids. For twenty-two days he toiled along
+the banks, through jungle and forest, over cliffs and rocks exposed
+all the while to murderous attacks by cannibal savages, till the
+seventh cataract was passed and the boats were safely below the falls.
+"We hastened away down river in a hurry, to escape the noise of the
+cataracts which for many days and nights had almost stunned us with
+their deafening sound. We were once more afloat on a magnificent stream,
+nearly a mile wide, curving north-west. 'Ha! Is it the Niger or Congo?'
+I said."</p>
+
+<a name="ill177"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 177">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="606">
+			<img src="images/177.jpg" alt="THE SEVENTH CATARACT, STANLEY FALLS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="606" align="center">
+			<small>THE SEVENTH CATARACT, STANLEY FALLS.<br>
+			From <i>Through the Dark Continent</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But day after day as they dropped down stream new enemies appeared,
+until at last, at the junction of the Aruwimi, a tributary as large
+as the main stream, a determined attack was made on them by some two
+thousand warriors in large canoes. A monster canoe led <a name="page496"></a>the way, with
+two rows of forty paddlers each, their bodies swaying to a barbarous
+chorus. In the bow were ten prime young warriors, their heads gay with
+the feathers of the parrot, crimson and grey: at the stern eight men
+with long paddles decorated with ivory balls guided the boat, while
+ten chiefs danced up and down from stem to stern. The crashing of large
+drums, a hundred blasts from ivory horns, and a song from two thousand
+voices did not tend to assure the little fleet under Stanley. The
+Englishman coolly anchored his boats in mid-stream and received the
+enemy with such well-directed volleys that the savages were utterly
+paralysed, and with great energy they retreated, pursued hotly by
+Stanley's party.</p>
+
+<a name="ill178"></a><a name="page497"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 178">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717">
+			<img src="images/178.jpg" alt="THE FIGHT BELOW THE CONFLUENCE OF THE ARUWIMI AND THE LIVINGSTONE RIVERS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717" align="center">
+			<small>THE FIGHT BELOW THE CONFLUENCE OF THE ARUWIMI AND THE LIVINGSTONE RIVERS.<br>
+			From a sketch, by Stanley, in <i>Through the Dark Continent</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Leaving them wondering and lamenting, I sought the mid-channel again
+and wandered on with the current. In the voiceless depths of the watery
+wilderness we encountered neither treachery nor guile, and we floated
+down, down, hundreds of miles. The river curved <a name="page498"></a>westward, then
+south-westward. Ah, straight for the mouth of the Congo. It widened
+daily. The channels became numerous."</p>
+
+<p>Through the country of the Bangala they now fought their way. These
+people were armed with guns brought up from the coast by native traders.
+It was indeed an anxious moment when, with war-drums beating,
+sixty-three "beautiful but cruel canoes" came skimming towards
+Stanley with some three hundred guns to his forty-four. For nearly
+five hours the two fleets fought until the victory rested with the
+American. "This," remarks Stanley, "was our thirty-first fight on the
+terrible river, and certainly the most determined conflict we had
+endured."</p>
+
+<p>They rowed on till the 11th of March; the river had grown narrower
+and steep, wooded hills rose on either side above them. Suddenly the
+river expanded, and the voyagers entered a wide basin or pool over
+thirty square yards. "Sandy islands rose in front of us like a seabeach,
+and on the right towered a long row of cliffs white and glistening,
+like the cliffs of Dover."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not call it Stanley Pool and those cliffs Dover Cliffs?" suggested
+Frank Pocock. And these names may be seen on our maps to-day. Passing
+out of the Pool, the roar of a great cataract burst upon their ears.
+It was the first of a long series of falls and rapids which continued
+for a distance of one hundred and fifty-five miles. To this great
+stretch of cataracts and rapids Stanley gave the name of the
+"Livingstone Falls." At the fifth cataract Stanley lost his favourite
+little native page-boy, Kalulu. The canoe in which he was rowing shot
+suddenly over the rapids, and in the furious whirl of rushing waters
+poor little Kalulu was drowned. He had been born a prince and given
+to Stanley on his first expedition into Africa. Stanley had taken him
+to <a name="page499"></a>Europe and America, and the boy had repaid his kindness by faithful
+and tender devotion till that fatal day, when he went to his death
+over the wild Livingstone Falls. Stanley named the rapid after him,
+Kalulu Falls.</p>
+
+<p>But a yet more heart-rending loss was in store for him. Progress was
+now very slow, for none of the cataracts or rapids could be navigated;
+canoes as well as stores had to be dragged over land from point to
+point. Frank Pocock had fallen lame and could not walk with the rest.
+Although accidents with the canoes were of daily occurrence, although
+he might have taken warning by the death of Kalulu, he insisted that
+his crew should try to shoot the great Massassa Falls instead of going
+round by land. Too late he realised his danger. The canoe was caught
+by the rushing tide, flung over the Falls, tossed from wave to wave,
+and finally dragged into the swirling whirlpool below. The "little
+master" as he was called was never seen again! Stanley's last white
+companion was gone! Gloom settled down on the now painfully reduced
+party.</p>
+
+<p>"We are all unnerved with the terrible accident of yesterday," says
+Stanley. "As I looked at the dejected woe-stricken servants, a choking
+sensation of unutterable grief filled me. This four months had we lived
+together, and true had been his service. The servant had long ago merged
+into the companion; the companion had become the friend."</p>
+
+<p>Still Stanley persevered in his desperate task, and in spite of danger
+from cataracts and danger from famine, on 31st July he reached the
+Isangila cataract. Thus far in 1816 two explorers had made their way
+from the ocean, and Stanley knew now for certain that he was on the
+mighty Congo. He saw no reason to follow it farther, or to toil through
+the last four cataracts. "I therefore announced to the gallant but
+wearied followers <a name="page500"></a>that we should abandon the river and strike overland
+for Boma, the nearest European settlement, some sixty miles across
+country."</p>
+
+<p>At sunset on 31st July they carried the <i>Lady Alice</i> to the summit
+of some rocks above the Isangila Falls and abandoned her to her fate.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, brave boat!" cried Stanley; "seven thousand miles up and
+down broad Africa thou hast accompanied me. For over five thousand
+miles thou hast been my home. Lift her up tenderly, boys&mdash;so
+tenderly&mdash;and let her rest."</p>
+
+<p>Then, wayworn and feeble, half starved, diseased, and suffering, the
+little caravan of one hundred and fifteen men, women, and children
+started on their overland march to the coast.</p>
+
+<p>"Staggering, we arrived at Boma on 9th August 1877; a gathering of
+European merchants met me and, smiling a warm welcome, told me kindly
+that I had done right well. Three days later I gazed upon the Atlantic
+Ocean and saw the powerful river flowing into the bosom of that
+boundless, endless sea. But grateful as I felt to Him who had enabled
+me to pierce the Dark Continent from east to west, my heart was charged
+with grief and my eyes with tears at the thought of the many comrades
+and friends I had lost."</p>
+
+<p>The price paid had indeed been great; he had lost his three English
+companions and one hundred and seventy natives besides. But for years
+and years to come, in many a home at Zanzibar, whither Stanley now
+took his party by sea, the story of this great journey was told, and
+all the men were heroes and the refrain of the natives was chanted
+again and again&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" summary="Poem40">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			<small>"Then sing, O friends, sing: the journey is ended;<br>
+			&nbsp;Sing aloud, O friends, sing to this great sea.."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Stanley had solved the problem of the Congo River at last.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap69"></a><a name="page501"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXIX</h3>
+
+<h4>NORDENSKI&Ouml;LD ACCOMPLISHES THE NORTH-EAST PASSAGE</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The North-West Passage, for the accomplishment of which so many brave
+lives had been laid down, had been discovered. It now remained for
+some explorer to sail round the North-East Passage, which was known
+to exist, but which, up to this time, no man had done.</p>
+
+<p>Nordenski&ouml;ld the Swede was to have this honour. Born in 1832 in Finland,
+he had taken part in an Arctic expedition in 1861, which attempted
+to reach the North Pole by means of dog-sledges from the north coast
+of Spitzbergen. Three years later he was appointed to lead an
+expedition to Spitzbergen, which succeeded in reaching the highest
+northern latitude which any ship had yet attained. In 1870 his famous
+journey to Greenland took place, and two years later he left Sweden
+on another Polar expedition; but misfortunes beset the expedition,
+and finally the ships were wrecked. The following year he commanded
+a reconnoitring expedition. He passed Nova Zembla and reached the
+mouth of the Yenisei. This was the first time that a ship had
+accomplished the voyage from the Atlantic Ocean. Thus Nordenski&ouml;ld
+had gained considerable knowledge of the Northern Seas, and he was
+now in a position to lay a plan of his schemes before King Oscar, who
+had always interested himself in Arctic discovery. His suggestions
+to the King are of singular interest.</p>
+<a name="page502"></a>
+<p>"It is my intention," he says, "to leave Sweden in July 1878 in a steamer
+specially built for navigation among ice, which will be provisioned
+for two years at most. The course will be shaped for Nova Zembla, where
+a favourable opportunity will be awaited for the passage of the Kara
+Sea. The voyage will be continued to the mouth of the Yenisei, which
+I hope to reach in the first half of August. As soon as circumstances
+permit, the expedition will continue its voyage along the coast to
+Cape Chelyuskin, where the expedition will reach the only part of the
+proposed route which has not been traversed by some small vessel, and
+is rightly considered as that which it will be most difficult for a
+vessel to double during the whole North-East Passage; but our vessel,
+equipped with all modern appliances, ought not to find insuperable
+difficulties in doubling this point, and if that can be accomplished,
+we will probably have pretty open water towards Behring's Straits,
+which ought to be reached before the end of September. From Behring
+Strait the course will be shaped for some Asiatic port and then onwards
+round Asia to Suez."</p>
+
+<p>King Oscar and others offered to pay the expenses of the expedition,
+and preparations were urged forward. The <i>Vega</i> of 300 tons, formerly
+used in walrus-hunting in northern waters, was purchased, and further
+strengthened to withstand ice. On 22nd June all was ready, and with
+the Swedish flag with a crowned O in the middle, the little <i>Vega</i>,
+which was to accomplish such great things, was "peacefully rocking
+on the swell of the Baltic as if impatient to begin her struggle against
+waves and ice." She carried food for thirty people for two years, which
+included over three thousand pounds of bacon, nine thousand pounds
+of coffee, nine thousand pounds of biscuits. There were pemmican from
+England, potatoes <a name="page503"></a>from the Mediterranean, cranberry juice from
+Finland. Fresh bread was made during the whole expedition. A few days
+later the <i>Vega</i> reached Copenhagen and steamed north in the finest
+weather.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you bound for?" signalled a passing ship.</p>
+
+<p>"To Behring Sea," was the return signal, and the Swedish crew waved
+their caps, shouting their joyful news.</p>
+
+<p>At Gothenburg they took on eight sledges, tents, and cooking utensils,
+also two Scotch sheep dogs and a little coal-black kitten, which lived
+in the captain's berth till it grew accustomed to the sea, when it
+slept in the forecastle by day and ran about stealing the food of the
+sleeping sailors by night.</p>
+
+<p>On 16th July they crossed the Polar Circle. "All on board feel they
+are entering upon a momentous period of their life," says the explorer.
+"Were we to be the fortunate ones to reach this goal, which navigators
+for centuries had striven to reach?"</p>
+
+<p>The south-west coast of Nova Zembla was reached on 28th July, but the
+weather being calm and the sea completely free of ice, Nordenski&ouml;ld
+sailed onwards through the Kara Strait or Iron Gates, which during
+the winter was usually one sheet of ice, until they anchored outside
+the village of Khabarova. The "village" consisted of a few huts and
+tents of Russian and Samoyedes pasturing their reindeer on the Vaygets
+Island. On the bleak northern shores stood a little wooden church,
+which the explorers visited with much interest. It seemed strange to
+find here brass bas-reliefs representing the Christ, St. Nicholas,
+Elijah, St. George and the Dragon, and the Resurrection; in front of
+each hung a little oil lamp. The people were dressed entirely in
+reindeer skin from head to foot, and they had a great collection of
+walrus tusks and skins such as Othere had brought centuries before
+to King Alfred.</p>
+<a name="page504"></a>
+<p>Nordenski&ouml;ld's account of a short drive in a reindeer sledge is amusing.
+"Four reindeer were put side by side to each sledge," he says. "Ivan,
+my driver, requested me to hold tight; he held the reins of all four
+reindeer in one hand, and away we went over the plain! His request
+to keep myself tight to the sledge was not unnecessary; at one moment
+the sledge jumped over a big tussock, the next it went down into a
+pit. It was anything but a comfortable drive, for the pace at which
+we went was very great."</p>
+
+<p>On 1st August the <i>Vega</i> was off again, and soon she had entered the
+Kara Sea, known in the days of the Dutch explorers as the "ice-cellar."
+Then past White Island and the estuary of the great Obi River, past
+the mouth of the Yenisei to Dickson Island, lately discovered, she
+sailed. Here in this "best-known haven on the whole north coast of
+Asia they anchored and spent time in bear and reindeer hunting." "In
+consequence of the successful sport we lived very extravagantly during
+these days; our table groaned with joints of venison and bear-hams."</p>
+
+<p>They now sailed north close bound in fog, till on 20th August "we
+reached the great goal, which for centuries had been the object of
+unsuccessful struggles. For the first time a vessel lay at anchor off
+the northernmost cape of the Old World. With colours flying on every
+mast and saluting the venerable north point of the Old World with the
+Swedish salute of five guns, we came to an anchor!"</p>
+
+<a name="ill179"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 179">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="677">
+			<img src="images/179.jpg" alt="NORDENSKI&Ouml;LD'S SHIP, THE VEGA">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="677" align="center">
+			<small>NORDENSKI&Ouml;LD'S SHIP, THE <i>VEGA</i>, SALUTING CAPE
+			CHELYUSKIN, THE MOST NORTHERLY POINT OF THE OLD WORLD.<br>
+			From a drawing in Hovgaard's <i>Nordenski&ouml;ld's Voyage</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The fog lifting for a moment, they saw a white Polar bear standing
+"regarding the unexpected guests with surprise."</p>
+
+<p>When afterwards a member of the expedition was asked which moment was
+the proudest of the whole voyage, he answered, without hesitation:
+"Undoubtedly the moment when we anchored off Cape Chelyuskin."</p>
+<a name="page505"></a>
+<p>It had been named thus by the "Great Northern Expedition" in 1742 after
+Lieutenant Chelyuskin, one of the Russian explorers under Laptieff,
+who had reached this northern point by a land journey which had entailed
+terrible hardships and suffering.</p>
+
+<p>"Next morning," relates Nordenski&ouml;ld, "we erected a cairn on the shore,
+and in the middle of it laid a tin box with the following document
+written in Swedish: 'The Swedish Arctic Expedition arrived here
+yesterday, the 19th of August, and proceeds in a few hours eastward.
+The sea has been tolerably free from ice. Sufficient supply of coals.
+All well on board.</p>
+<div align="right">"'A. E. NORDENSKI&Ouml;LD.'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
+<br><br>
+<p>And below in English and Russian were the words, 'Please forward this
+document as soon as possible to His Majesty the King of Sweden.'"</p>
+<a name="page506"></a>
+<p>Nordenski&ouml;ld now attempted to steam eastwards towards the New Siberian
+Islands, but the fog was thick, and they fell in with large ice-floes
+which soon gave place to ice-fields. Violent snowstorms soon set in
+and "aloft everything was covered with a crust of ice, and the position
+in the crow's nest was anything but pleasant." They reached Khatanga
+Bay, however, and on 27th August the <i>Vega</i> was at the mouth of the
+Lena.</p>
+
+<p>"We were now in hopes that we should be in Japan in a couple of months;
+we had accomplished two-thirds of our way through the Polar sea, and
+the remaining third had been often navigated at different distances."</p>
+
+<p>So the <i>Vega</i> sailed on eastwards with an ice-free sea to the New
+Siberian Islands, where lie embedded "enormous masses of the bones
+and tusks of the mammoth mixed with the horns and skulls of some kind
+of ox and with the horns of rhinoceros."</p>
+
+<p>All was still clear of snow, and the New Siberian Islands lying long
+and low in the Polar seas were safely passed. It was not till 1st
+September that the first snows fell; the decks of the <i>Vega</i> were white
+with snow when the Bear Islands were reached. Fog now hindered the
+expedition once more, and ice was sighted.</p>
+
+<a name="ill180"> </a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 180">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="392">
+			<img src="images/180.jpg" alt="MENKA, CHIEF OF THE CHUKCHES">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="392" align="center">
+			<small>MENKA, CHIEF OF THE CHUKCHES.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Ice right ahead!" suddenly shouted the watch on the forecastle, and
+only by a hair's-breadth was the <i>Vega</i> saved. On 3rd September a thick
+snowstorm came on, the Bear Islands were covered with newly fallen
+snow, and though the ice was growing more closely packed than any yet
+encountered they could still make their way along a narrow ice-free
+channel near the coast. Snowstorms, fog, and drifting ice compelled
+careful navigation, but a pleasant change occurred early in September
+by a visit from the natives. We have already heard of the Chukches
+from Behring&mdash;the Chukches whom no man had yet vanquished, for when
+Siberia was conquered by a Kossack <a name="page507"></a>chief in 1579, the Chukches in this
+outlying north-eastern corner of the Old World, savage, courageous,
+resolute, kept the conquerors at bay. For the last six weeks the
+explorers had not seen a human being on that wild and desolate stretch
+of coast, so they were glad enough to see the little Chukches with
+their coal-black hair and eyes, their large mouths and flat noses.
+"Although it was only five o'clock in the morning, we all jumped out
+of our berths and hurried on deck to see these people of whom so little
+was known. The boats were of skin, fully laden with laughing and
+chattering natives, men, women, and children, who indicated by cries
+and gesticulations that they wished to come on board. The engine was
+stopped, the boats lay to, and a large number of skin-clad, bare-headed
+beings climbed up over the gunwale and a lively talk began. Great
+gladness prevailed when tobacco and Dutch clay pipes were distributed
+among them. None of them could speak a word of Russian; they had come
+in closer contact with American whalers than with Russian traders."
+The Chukches were all very short and dressed in reindeer skins with
+tight-fitting trousers of seal-skin, shoes of reindeer-skin with
+seal-skin boots and walrus-skin soles. In very cold weather they wore
+hoods of wolf fur with the head of the wolf at the back.</p>
+
+<p>But Nordenski&ouml;ld could not wait long. Amid snow and ice and fog he
+pushed on, hoping against hope to get through to the Pacific before
+the sea was completely frozen over. But the ice was beginning to close.
+Large <a name="page508"></a>blocks were constantly hurled against the ship with great
+violence, and she had many a narrow escape of destruction.</p>
+
+<p>At last, it was 28th September, the little <i>Vega</i> was finally and
+hopelessly frozen into the ice, and they made her fast to a large
+ice-block. Sadly we find the entry: "Only one hundred and twenty miles
+distant from our goal, which we had been approaching during the last
+two months, and after having accomplished two thousand four hundred
+miles. It took some time before we could accustom ourselves to the
+thought that we were so near and yet so far from our destination."</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately they were near the shore and the little settlement of
+Pitlekai, where in eight tents dwelt a party of Chukches. These little
+people helped them to pass the long monotonous winter, and many an
+expedition inland was made in Chukche sledges drawn by eight or ten
+wolf-like dogs. Snowstorms soon burst upon the little party of Swedish
+explorers who had made the <i>Vega</i> their winter home. "During November
+we have scarcely had any daylight," writes Nordenski&ouml;ld; "the storm
+was generally howling in our rigging, which was now enshrouded in a
+thick coat of snow, the deck was full of large snowdrifts, and snow
+penetrated into every corner of the ship where it was possible for
+the wind to find an opening. If we put our heads outside the door we
+were blinded by the drifting snow."</p>
+
+<p>Christmas came and was celebrated by a Christmas tree made of willows
+tied to a flagstaff, and the traditional rice porridge.</p>
+
+<p>By April large flocks of geese, eider-ducks, gulls, and little
+song-birds began to arrive, the latter perching on the rigging of the
+<i>Vega</i>, but May and June found her still icebound in her winter
+quarters.</p>
+
+<a name="ill181"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 181">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="645">
+			<img src="images/181.jpg" alt="THE VEGA FROZEN IN FOR THE WINTER">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="645" align="center">
+			<small>THE <i>VEGA</i> FROZEN IN FOR THE WINTER.<br>
+			From a drawing in Hovgaard's <i>Nordenski&ouml;ld's Voyage</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was not till 18th July 1879 that "the hour of deliverance came at
+last, and we cast loose from our faithful <a name="page509"></a>ice-block, which for two
+hundred and ninety-four days had protected us so well against the
+pressure of the ice and stood westwards in the open channel, now about
+a mile wide. On the shore stood our old friends, probably on the point
+of crying, which they had often told us they would do when the ship
+left them."</p>
+
+<p>For long the Chukches stood on the shore&mdash;men, women, and
+children&mdash;watching till the "fire-dog," as they called the <i>Vega</i>,
+was out of sight, carrying their white friends for ever away from their
+bleak, inhospitable shores.</p>
+
+<p>"Passing through closely packed ice, the <i>Vega</i> now rounded the East
+Cape, of which we now and then caught a glimpse through the fog. As
+soon as we came out of the <a name="page510"></a>ice south of the East Cape, we noticed the
+heavy swell of the Pacific Ocean. The completion of the North-East
+Passage was celebrated the same day with a grand dinner, and the <i>Vega</i>
+greeted the Old and New Worlds by a display of flags and the firing
+of a Swedish salute. Now for the first time after the lapse of three
+hundred and thirty-six years was the North-East Passage at last
+achieved."</p>
+
+<p>Sailing through the Behring Strait, they anchored near Behring Island
+on 14th August. As they came to anchor, a boat shot alongside and a
+voice cried out in Swedish, "Is it Nordenski&ouml;ld?" A Finland carpenter
+soon stood in their midst, and they eagerly questioned him about the
+news from the civilised world!</p>
+
+<p>There is no time to tell how the <i>Vega</i> sailed on to Japan, where
+Nordenski&ouml;ld was presented to the Mikado, and an Imperial medal was
+struck commemorating the voyage of the <i>Vega</i>, how she sailed right
+round Asia, through the Suez Canal, and reached Sweden in safety. It
+was on 24th April 1880 that the little weather-beaten <i>Vega</i>,
+accompanied by flag-decked steamers literally laden with friends,
+sailed into the Stockholm harbour while the hiss of fireworks and the
+roar of cannon mingled with the shouts of thousands. The Royal Palace
+was ablaze with light when King Oscar received and honoured the
+successful explorer Nordenski&ouml;ld.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap70"></a><a name="page511"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXX</h3>
+
+<h4>THE EXPLORATION OF TIBET</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Perhaps no land in the world has in modern times exercised a greater
+influence over the imagination of men than the mysterious country of
+Tibet. From the days of Herodotus to those of Younghusband, travellers
+of all times and nations have tried to explore this unknown country,
+so jealously guarded from Europeans. Surrounded by a "great wilderness
+of stony and inhospitable altitudes" lay the capital, Lhasa, the seat
+of the gods, the home of the Grand Lama, founded in 639 <small>A.D.</small>, mysterious,
+secluded, sacred. Kublai Khan, of Marco Polo fame, had annexed Tibet
+to his vast Empire, and in 1720 the mysterious land was finally
+conquered by the Chinese. The history of the exploration of Tibet and
+the adjoining country, and of the various attempts to penetrate to
+Lhasa, is one of the most thrilling in the annals of discovery.</p>
+
+<p>We remember that Benjamin of Tudela in the twelfth century, Carpini
+and William de Rubruquis in the thirteenth, all assert that they passed
+through Tibet, but we have no certain records till several Italian
+Capuchin friars succeeded in reaching Lhasa. There they lived and
+taught for some thirty-eight years, when they were withdrawn. And the
+little "Tibetan Mission," as it was called, came to an end.</p>
+
+<p>It was yet early in the eighteenth century. England was taking up her
+great position in India, and Warren <a name="page512"></a>Hastings was anxious to open up
+friendly relations with Tibet beyond the great Himalaya ranges. To
+this end he sent an Englishman, George Bogle, with these instructions:
+"I desire you will proceed to Lhasa. The design of your mission is
+to open a mutual and equal communication of trade between the
+inhabitants of Tibet and Bengal. You will take with you samples, for
+a trial of such articles of commerce as may be sent from this country.
+And you will diligently inform yourself of the manufactures,
+productions, and goods which are to be procured in Tibet. The following
+will also be proper subjects for your inquiry, the nature of the roads
+between the borders of Bengal and Lhasa and the neighbouring countries.
+I wish you to remain a sufficient time to obtain a complete knowledge
+of the country. The period of your stay must be left to your
+discretion."</p>
+
+<p>Bogle was young; he knew nothing of the country, but in May 1774 his
+little expedition set off from Calcutta to do the bidding of Warren
+Hastings. By way of Bhutan, planting potatoes at intervals according
+to his orders, Bogle proceeded across the eastern Himalayas toward
+the Tibetan frontier, reaching Phari, the first town in Tibet, at the
+end of October. Thence they reached Gyangtse, a great trade centre
+now open to foreigners, crossed the Brahmaputra, which they found was
+"about the size of the Thames at Putney," and reached the residence
+of the Tashi Lama, the second great potentate of Tibet. This great
+dignitary and the young Englishman made great friends.</p>
+
+<p>"On a carved and gilt throne amid cushions sat the Lama, cross-legged.
+He was dressed in a mitre-shaped cap of yellow broadcloth with long
+bars lined with red satin, a yellow cloth jacket without sleeves, and
+a satin mantle of the same colour thrown over his shoulders. On one
+side of him stood his physician with a bundle of perfumed <a name="page513"></a>sandal-wood
+rods burning in his hand; on the other stood his cup-bearer."</p>
+
+<p>Such was this remarkable man as first seen by the English, "venerated
+as God's vice-regent through all the eastern countries of Asia." He
+had heard much of the power of the "Firinghis," as he called the English.
+"As my business is to pray to God," he said to Bogle, "I was afraid
+to admit any Firinghis into the country. But I have since learned that
+they are a fair and just people."</p>
+
+<a name="ill182"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 182">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="634">
+			<img src="images/182.jpg" alt="THE POTALA AT LHASA: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY VIEW">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="634" align="center">
+			<small>THE POTALA AT LHASA: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY VIEW.<br>
+			From Kircher's <i>China Illustrata</i>. The only good representation of the
+			Potala until photographs were obtainable in the twentieth century.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Bogle would have proceeded to Lhasa, the home of the Grand Lama, but
+this permission was refused, and he had to return to India with the
+information he had collected.</p>
+
+<p>The next Englishman to enter Tibet was Thomas Manning, the first to
+reach the sacred city of Lhasa. He was a private adventurer, who had
+lived in China and learnt the language. Attended by a Chinese servant,
+and wearing a flowing beard of singular length, he left Calcutta,
+crossed into Bhutan, and arrived at the Tibetan <a name="page514"></a>border in October 1811.
+Then he crossed the Brahmaputra in a large ferry-boat, and arrived
+within seven miles of Lhasa. On 9th December the first European entered
+the sacred city since the expulsion of the Capuchin friars. The view
+of the famous Potala, the lofty towering palace, filled him with
+admiration, but the city of which Europe, knowing nothing, had exalted
+into a magnificent place, was very disappointing.</p>
+
+<p>"We passed under a large gateway," says Manning, "whose gilded
+ornaments were so ill-fixed that some leaned one way and some another.
+The road as it winds round the palace is royally broad; it swarmed
+with monks, and beggars were basking in the sun. There is nothing
+striking in its appearance; the habitations are begrimed with smut
+and dirt. The avenues are full of dogs&mdash;in short, everything seems
+mean and gloomy. Having provided himself with a proper hat, Manning
+went to the Potala to salute the Grand Lama, taking with him a pair
+of brass candlesticks with two wax candles, some 'genuine Smith's
+lavender water, and a good store of Nankin tea, which is a rare delicacy
+at Lhasa. Ushered into the presence of the Grand Lama, a child of seven,
+he touched his head three times on the floor, after the custom of the
+country, and, taking off his hat, knelt to be blessed by the little
+monarch.' He had the simple and unaffected manners of a well-educated
+princely child. His face was affectingly beautiful&mdash;his beautiful
+mouth was perpetually unbending into a graceful smile, which
+illuminated his whole countenance."</p>
+
+<p>Here Manning spent four months, at the end of which time he was recalled
+from Pekin, and reluctantly he was obliged to return the way he came.</p>
+
+<p>The next man to reach the forbidden city was a Jesuit missionary, the
+Abb&eacute; Huc, who reached Lhasa in 1846 from China. He had adopted the
+dress of the Tibetan <a name="page515"></a>Lama&mdash;the yellow cap and gown&mdash;and he piloted
+his little caravan across the wide steppes on horseback, while his
+fellow-missionary, Gabet, rode a camel and their one Tartar retainer
+rode a black mule. It took them a year and a half to reach the sacred
+city of Lhasa, for many and great were the difficulties of the way.
+Their first difficulty lay in crossing the Yellow River, which was
+in flood.</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite impossible to cross the Yellow River," they were told.
+"Eight days ago the river overflowed its banks and the plains are
+completely flooded."</p>
+
+<p>"The Tartars only told us the truth," remarked Huc sadly. "The Yellow
+River had become a vast sea, the limits of which were scarcely visible:
+houses and villages looked as though they were floating upon the waves.
+What were we to do? To turn back was out of the question. We had vowed
+that, God willing, we would go to Lhasa whatever obstacles impeded."</p>
+
+<p>And so they did. The camels were soon up to their knees in a thick
+slimy compost of mud and water, over which the poor animals slid on
+their painful way. Their courage was rewarded, native ferry-boats came
+to their rescue, and they reached the other side in safety. They were
+now on the main caravan route to the Tibetan frontier and the Koko-Nor.
+Immense caravans were met, with strings of camels extending for miles
+in length. Three times between the Yellow River and the Koko-Nor Lake
+did they pass the Great Wall built in 214 <small>A.D.</small> After over four months
+of travel Huc arrived at the monastery of Kunkum on the borderland
+of Tibet. This was the home of four thousand Lamas all clothed in red
+dresses and yellow mitres, and thither resorted the worshippers of
+Buddha from all parts of Tartary and Tibet.</p>
+
+<p>"The site is one of enchanting beauty," says Huc. "Imagine in a
+mountain-side a deep, broad ravine adorned <a name="page516"></a>with fine trees and alive
+with the cawing of rooks and yellow-beaked crows and the amusing
+chatter of magpies. On the two sides of the ravine and on the slopes
+of the mountain rise the white dwellings of the Lamas. Amid the dazzling
+whiteness of these modest habitations rise numerous Buddhist temples
+with gilt roofs, sparkling with a thousand brilliant colours. Here
+the travellers stayed for three months, after which they made their
+way on to the Koko-Nor Lake.</p>
+
+<p>"As we advanced," says Huc, "the country became more fertile, until
+we reached the vast and magnificent pasturage of Koko-Nor. Here
+vegetation is so vigorous that the grass rose up to the stomachs of
+our camels. Soon we discovered far before us what seemed a broad silver
+riband. Our leader informed us that this was the Blue Sea. We urged
+on our animals, and the sun had not set when we planted our tent within
+a hundred paces of the waters of the great Blue Lake. This immense
+reservoir of water seems to merit the title of sea rather than merely
+that of lake. To say nothing of its vast extent, its waters are bitter
+and salt, like those of the ocean."</p>
+
+<p>After a month spent on the shores of the Blue Lake, an opportunity
+offered for the advance. Towards the end of October they found that
+an embassy from Lhasa to Pekin was returning in great force. This would
+afford Huc and his companion safe travelling from the hordes of
+brigands that infested the route through Tibet. The caravan was
+immense. There were fifteen hundred oxen, twelve hundred horses, and
+as many camels, and about two thousand men. The ambassador was carried
+in a litter. Such was the multitude which now started for the thousand
+miles across Tibet to Lhasa.</p>
+
+<p>After crossing the great Burkhan Buddha range, the caravan came to
+the Shuga Pass, about seventeen thousand feet high, and here their
+troubles began.</p>
+<a name="page517"></a>
+<p>"When the huge caravan first set itself in motion," says Huc, "the
+sky was clear, and a brilliant moon lit up the great carpet of snow
+with which the whole country was covered. We were able to attain the
+summit by sunrise. Then the sky became thickly overcast with clouds
+and the wind began to blow with a violence which became more and more
+intense."</p>
+
+<p>Snow fell heavily and several animals perished. They marched in the
+teeth of an icy wind which almost choked them, whirlwinds of snow
+blinded them, and when they reached the foot of the mountain at last,
+M. Gabet found that his nose and ears were frostbitten. As they
+proceeded, the cold became more intense. "The demons of snow, wind,
+and cold were set loose on the caravan with a fury which seemed to
+increase from day to day."</p>
+
+<p>"One cannot imagine a more terrible country," says poor Huc.</p>
+
+<p>Not only were the animals dying from cold and exposure, but men were
+beginning to drop out and die. Forty of the party died before the
+plateau of Tangla had been crossed, a proceeding which lasted twelve
+days. The track, some sixteen thousand feet above the sea, was bordered
+by the skeletons of mules and camels, and monstrous eagles followed
+the caravan. The scenery was magnificent, line upon line of snow-white
+pinnacles stretched southward and westward under a bright sun. The
+descent was "long, brusque, and rapid, like the descent of a gigantic
+ladder." At the lower altitude snow and ice disappeared. It was the
+end of January 1846, when at last our two travellers found themselves
+approaching the longed-for city of Lhasa.</p>
+
+<p>"The sun was nearly setting," says Huc, "when we found ourselves in
+a vast plain and saw on our right Lhasa, the famous metropolis of the
+Buddhist world. After eighteen months' struggle with sufferings and
+<a name="page518"></a>obstacles of infinite number and variety, we were at length arrived
+at the termination of our journey, though not at the close of our
+miseries."</p>
+
+<p>Huc's account of the city agrees well with that of Manning: "The palace
+of the Dalai Lama," he says, "merits the celebrity which it enjoys
+throughout the world. Upon a rugged mountain, the mountain of Buddha,
+the adorers of the Lama have raised the magnificent palace wherein
+their Living Divinity resides in the flesh. This place is made up of
+various temples; that which occupies the centre is four storeys high;
+it terminates in a dome entirely covered with plates of gold. It is
+here the Dalai Lama has set up his abode. From the summit of his lofty
+sanctuary he can contemplate his innumerable adorers prostrate at the
+foot of the divine mountain. But in the town all was different&mdash;all
+are engaged in the grand business of buying and selling, all is noise,
+pushing, excitement, confusion."</p>
+
+<p>Here Huc and his companion resided for two and a half months, opening
+an oratory in their house and even making a few Christian converts.
+But soon they were ordered to leave, and reluctantly they travelled
+back to China, though by a somewhat different route.</p>
+
+<p>After this the Tibetans guarded their capital more zealously than
+before. Przhevalsky, "that grand explorer of Russian nationality,"
+spent years in exploring Tibet, but when within a hundred and sixty
+miles of Lhasa he was stopped, and never reached the forbidden city.</p>
+
+<p>Others followed. Prince Henri of Orleans got to within one hundred
+miles of Lhasa, Littledale and his wife to within fifty miles. Sven
+Hedin, the "Prince of Swedish explorers," who had made so many famous
+journeys around and about Tibet, was making a dash for the capital
+disguised as a Mongolian pilgrim when he, too, was stopped.</p>
+<a name="page519"></a>
+<p>"A long black line of Tibetan horsemen rode towards us at full gallop,"
+he relates. "It was not raining just at that moment, so there was
+nothing to prevent us from witnessing what was in truth a very
+magnificent spectacle. It was as though a living avalanche were
+sweeping down upon us. A moment more and we should be annihilated!
+We held our weapons ready. On came the Tibetans in one long line
+stretching across the plain. We counted close upon seventy in all.
+In the middle rode the chief on a big handsome mule, his staff of
+officers all dressed in their finest holiday attire. The wings
+consisted of soldiers armed to the teeth with gun, sword, and lance.
+The great man, Kamba Bombo, pulled up in front of our tent." After
+removing a red Spanish cloak and hood he "stood forth arrayed in a
+suit of yellow silk with wide arms and a little blue Chinese skull-cap.
+His feet were encased in Mongolian boots of green velvet. He was
+magnificent."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not go another step towards Lhasa," he said. "If you do you
+will lose your heads. It doesn't the least matter who you are or where
+you come from. You must go back to your headquarters."</p>
+
+<p>So an escort was provided and sorrowfully Sven Hedin turned his back
+on the jealously guarded town he had striven so hard to reach.</p>
+
+<p>The expedition, or rather mission, under Colonel Younghusband in 1904
+brings to an end our history of the exploration of Tibet. He made his
+way to Lhasa from India; he stood in the sacred city, and "except for
+the Potala" he found it a "sorry affair." He succeeded in getting a
+trade Treaty signed, and he rode hastily back to India and travelled
+thence to England. The importance of the mission was accentuated by
+the fact that the flag, a Union Jack bearing the motto, "Heaven's Light
+our Guide," carried by the expedition and placed on the <a name="page520"></a>table when
+the Treaty was signed in Lhasa, hangs to-day in the Central Hall at
+Windsor over the statue of Queen Victoria.</p>
+
+<p>The veil so long drawn over the capital of Tibet had been at last torn
+aside, and the naked city had been revealed in all its "weird
+barbarity." Plans of the "scattered and ill-regulated" city are now
+familiar, the Potala has been photographed, the Grand Lama has been
+drawn, and if, with the departure of Younghusband, the gates of Lhasa
+were once more closed, voices from beyond the snowy Himalayas must
+be heard again ere long.</p>
+
+<a name="ill183"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 183">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="699">
+			<img src="images/183.jpg" alt="THE WORLD'S MOST MYSTERIOUS CITY UNVEILED">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="699" align="center">
+			<small>THE WORLD'S MOST MYSTERIOUS CITY UNVEILED: LHASA AND THE POTALA.<br>
+			From a photograph by a member of Younghusband's expedition
+			to Tibet and Lhasa, 1909(?).</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap71"></a><a name="page521"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXI</h3>
+
+<h4>NANSEN REACHES FARTHEST NORTH</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>No names are better known in the history of Arctic exploration than
+those of Nansen and the <i>Fram</i>, and although others have done work
+just as fine, the name of Nansen cannot be omitted from our <i>Book of
+Discovery</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Sven Hedin had not long returned from his great travels through eastern
+Turkestan and Tibet when Nansen was preparing for his great journey
+northwards.</p>
+
+<p>He had already crossed Greenland from east to west, a brilliant
+achievement only excelled by Peary, who a few years later, crossed
+it at a higher latitude and proved it to be an island.</p>
+
+<p>Now the movement of ice drift in the Arctic seas was occupying the
+attention of explorers at this time. A ship, the <i>Jeannette</i>, had been
+wrecked in 1881 off the coast of Siberia, and three years later the
+d&eacute;bris from the wreck had been washed up on the south-west coast of
+Greenland. So it occurred to Nansen that a current must flow across
+the North Pole from Behring Sea on one side to the Atlantic Ocean on
+the other. His idea was therefore to build a ship as strong as possible
+to enable it to withstand the pressure of the ice, to allow it to become
+frozen in, and then to drift as the articles from the <i>Jeannette</i> had
+drifted. He reckoned that it would take three years for the drift of
+ice to carry him to the North Pole.</p>
+
+<p>Foolhardy and impossible as the scheme seemed to some, King Oscar came
+forward with &pound;1000 toward <a name="page522"></a>expenses. The <i>Fram</i> was then designed.
+The whole success of the expedition lay in her strength to withstand
+the pressure of the ice. At last she was ready, even fitted with
+electric light. A library, scientifically prepared food, and
+instruments of the most modern type were on board. The members of the
+expedition numbered thirteen, and on Midsummer Day, 1893, "in calm
+summer weather, while the setting sun shed his beams over the land,
+the <i>Fram</i> stood out towards the blue sea to get its first roll in
+the long, heaving swell." Along the coast of Norway, past Bergen, past
+Trondhjem, past Troms&ouml;, they steamed, until in a north-westerly gale
+and driving snow they lost sight of land. It was 25th July when they
+sighted Nova Zembla plunged in a world of fog. They landed at Khabarova
+and visited the little old church seen fifteen years before by
+Nordenski&ouml;ld, anxiously inquiring about the state of the ice in the
+Kara Sea. Here, amid the greatest noise and confusion, some
+thirty-four dogs were brought on board for the sledges. On 5th August
+the explorer successfully passed through the Yugor Strait into the
+Kara Sea, which was fairly free from ice, and five weeks later sailed
+past Cape Chelyuskin, the northernmost point of the Old World.</p>
+
+<p>"The land was low and desolate," says Nansen. "The sun had long since
+gone down behind the sea; only one star was to be seen. It stood straight
+above Cape Chelyuskin, shining clearly and sadly in the pale sky.
+Exactly at four o'clock our flags were hoisted and our last three
+cartridges sent out a thundering salute over the sea."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Fram</i> was then turned north to the west of the New Siberian Islands.
+"It was a strange thing to be sailing away north," says Nansen, "to
+unknown lands, over an open rolling sea where no ship had been before.
+On to the north, steadily north with a good wind, as <a name="page523"></a>fast as steam
+and sail can take us through unknown regions."</p>
+
+<p>They had almost reached 78 degrees north when they saw ice shining
+through the fog, and a few days later the <i>Fram</i> was frozen in. "Autumn
+was well advanced, the long night of winter was approaching, there
+was nothing to be done except prepare ourselves for it, and we converted
+our ship as well as we could into comfortable winter quarters."</p>
+
+<p>By October the ice was pressing round the <i>Fram</i> with a noise like thunder.
+"It is piling itself up into long walls and heaps high enough to reach
+a good way up the <i>Fram's</i> rigging: in fact, it is trying its very
+utmost to grind the <i>Fram</i> into powder."</p>
+
+<p>Christmas came and went. The New Year of 1894 dawned with the
+thermometer 36 degrees below zero. By February the <i>Fram</i> had drifted
+to the 80th degree of latitude. "High festival in honour of the 80th
+degree," writes Nansen. "Hurrah! Well sailed! The wind is whistling
+among the hummocks, the snow flies rustling through the air, ice and
+sky are melted into one, but we are going north at full speed, and
+are in the wildest of gay spirits. If we go on at this rate we shall
+be at the Pole in fifty months."</p>
+
+<p>On 17th May the 81st degree of latitude was reached. Five months passed
+away. By 31st October they had drifted to the 82nd. "A grand banquet
+to-day," says Nansen, "to celebrate the 82nd degree of latitude. We
+are progressing merrily towards our goal; we are already half-way
+between the New Siberian Islands and Franz Josef Land, and there is
+not a soul on board who doubts that we shall accomplish what we came
+out to do; so long live merriment."</p>
+
+<p>Now Nansen planned the great sledge journey, which has been called
+"the most daring ever undertaken." <a name="page524"></a>The winter was passed in peaceful
+preparation for a start in the spring. When the New Year of 1895 dawned
+the <i>Fram</i> had been firmly frozen in for fifteen months. A few days
+later, the ship was nearly crushed by a fresh ice pressure and all
+prepared to abandon her if necessary, but after an anxious day of ice
+roaring and crackling&mdash;"an ice pressure with a vengeance, as if
+Doomsday had come," remarked Nansen&mdash;it quieted down. They had now
+beaten all records, for they had reached 83 degrees latitude.</p>
+
+<p>And now preparations for the great sledge journey were complete. They
+had built kayaks or light boats to sail in open water, and these were
+placed on the sledges and drawn by dogs. Nansen decided only to take
+one companion, Johansen, and to leave the others with the <i>Fram</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"At last the great day has arrived. The chief aim of the expedition
+is to push through the unknown Polar sea from the region around the
+New Siberian Islands, north of Franz Josef Land and onward to the
+Atlantic Ocean near Spitzbergen or Greenland." Farewells were said,
+and then the two men bravely started off over the unknown desert sea
+with their sledges and twenty-eight dogs. For the first week they
+travelled well and soon reached 85 degrees latitude. "The only
+disagreeable thing to face now is the cold," says Nansen. "Our clothes
+are transformed more and more into complete suits of ice armour. The
+sleeve of my coat actually rubbed deep sores in my wrists, one of which
+got frostbitten; the wound grew deeper and deeper and nearly reached
+the bone. At night we packed ourselves into our sleeping-bags and lay
+with our teeth chattering for an hour before we became aware of a little
+warmth in our bodies."</p>
+
+<a name="ill184"> </a>
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 184">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="324">
+			<img src="images/184.jpg" alt="DR. NANSEN">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="324" align="center">
+			<small>DR. NANSEN.<br>
+			After a photograph.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Steadily, with faces to the north, they pressed on <a name="page525"></a>over the blocks
+of rough ice, stretching as far as the horizon, till on 8th April
+further progress became impossible. Nansen strode on ahead and mounted
+one of the highest hummocks to look around. He saw "a veritable chaos
+of ice-blocks, ridge after ridge, and nothing but rubble to travel
+over." He therefore determined to turn and make for Franz Josef Land
+some four hundred and fifty miles distant. They had already reached
+86 degrees of latitude, farther north than any expedition had reached
+before.</p>
+
+<p>As they travelled south, they rejoiced in the warmth of the sun, but
+their food was growing scarce, and they had to kill a dog every other
+day to feed the others, till by May they had only thirteen dogs left.
+June found them having experienced tremendous snowstorms with only
+seven dogs left. Although they were in the latitude of Franz Josef
+Land, no welcome shores appeared. It was now three months since they
+had left the <i>Fram</i>; the food for the dogs was quite finished and the
+poor creatures were beginning to eat their harness of sailcloth.
+Mercifully before the month ended they managed to shoot a seal which
+provided them with food for a month. "It is a pleasing change," says
+Nansen, "to be able to eat as much and as often as we like. Blubber
+is excellent, both raw and fried. For dinner I fried a highly successful
+<a name="page526"></a>steak, for supper I made blood-pancakes fried in blubber with sugar,
+unsurpassed in flavour. And here we lie up in the far north, two grim,
+black, soot-stained barbarians, stirring a mess of soup in a kettle,
+surrounded on all sides by ice&mdash;ice covered with impassable snow."</p>
+
+<p>A bear and two cubs were shot and the explorers stayed on at "Longing
+Camp" as they named this dreary spot, unable to go on, but amply fed.</p>
+
+<p>On 24th July we get the first cheerful entry for many a long day: "Land!
+land! after nearly two years we again see something rising above that
+never-ending white line on the horizon yonder&mdash;a new life is beginning
+for us!"</p>
+
+<p>Only two dogs were now left to drag the sledges, so the two explorers
+were obliged to help with the dragging. For thirteen days they
+proceeded in the direction of land, dragging and pushing their burdens
+over the ridges of ice with thawing snow. At last on 7th August they
+stood at the edge of the ice. Behind lay their troubles; before was
+the waterway home. Then they launched their little kayaks, which
+danced over the open waters, the little waves splashing against their
+sides. When the mist cleared they found themselves on the west coast
+of Franz Josef Land, discovered by an Austro-Hungarian expedition in
+1874.</p>
+
+<p>They were full of hope, when a cruel disappointment damped their joy.
+They had landed and were camping on the shore, when a great storm arose
+and the wind blew the drift ice down till it lay packed along the coast.
+The little ships were frozen in, and there was no hope of reaching
+home that winter. Here they were doomed to stay. Fortunately there
+were bears and walrus, so they could not starve, and with magnificent
+pluck they set to work to prepare for the winter. For many a long day
+they toiled at the necessary task of skinning and cutting up walrus
+till they were saturated with blubber, oil, and <a name="page527"></a>blood, but soon they
+had two great heaps of blubber and meat on shore well covered over
+with walrus hides.</p>
+
+<a name="ill185"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 185">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="587">
+			<img src="images/185.jpg" alt="THE SHIP THAT WENT FARTHEST NORTH: THE FRAM">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="587" align="center">
+			<small>THE SHIP THAT WENT FARTHEST NORTH: THE <i>FRAM</i>.<br>
+			From a photograph.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>September was occupied in building a hut amid the frost and snow with
+walrus hides and tusks, warmed inside with train-oil lamps. Here under
+bear skins they slept and passed the long months of winter. In October
+the sun disappeared, the days grew darker. Life grew very monotonous,
+for it was the third Polar winter the explorers had been called on
+to spend. They celebrated Christmas Day, Nansen by washing himself
+in a "quarter of a cup of warm water," Johansen by turning his shirt.
+The weather outside was stormy and almost took their breath <a name="page528"></a>away with
+its icy coldness. They longed for a book, but they wiled away the hours
+by trying to calculate how far the <i>Fram</i> could have drifted and when
+she was likely to reach home. They were distressed at the dirt of their
+clothes, and longed to be able to throw away the heavy oily rags that
+seemed glued to their bodies. They had no soap, and water had no effect
+on the horrible grease. It was May before the weather allowed them
+to leave the hut at last. Hopefully they dragged their kayaks over
+the snow, the sledge runners fastened on to their feet, and so made
+their way southwards down Franz Josef Land.</p>
+
+<p>Once Nansen was very nearly drowned. The explorers had reached the
+south of the Islands, and, having moored their little boats together,
+they ascended a hummock close by, when to their horror they saw the
+kayaks were adrift. Nansen rushed down, threw off some clothes, and
+sprang into the water after them. He was none too soon, for already
+the boats were drifting rapidly away. The water was icy cold, but it
+was a case of life or death. Without the boats they were lost men.
+"All we possessed was on board," says Nansen, "so I exerted myself
+to the utmost. I redoubled my exertions though I felt my limbs gradually
+stiffening; at last I was able to stretch out my hand to the edge of
+the kayak. I tried to pull myself up, but the whole of my body was
+stiff with cold. After a time I managed to swing one leg up on to the
+edge and to tumble up. Nor was it easy to paddle in the double vessel;
+the gusts of wind seemed to go right through me as I stood there in
+my wet woollen shirt. I shivered, my teeth chattered, and I was numb
+all over. At last I managed to reach the edge of the ice. I shook and
+trembled all over, while Johansen pulled off the wet things and packed
+me into the sleeping-bag. The critical situation was saved."</p>
+<a name="page529"></a>
+<p>And now came one of those rare historic days in the history of
+exploration. It was 17th June 1896. Nansen was surveying the lonely
+line of coast, when suddenly the barking of a dog fell on his ear,
+and soon in front he saw the fresh tracks of some animal. "It was with
+a strange mixture of feelings," he says, "that I made my way among
+the numerous hummocks towards land. Suddenly I thought I heard a human
+voice&mdash;the first for three years. How my heart beat and the blood rushed
+to my brain as I halloed with all the strength of my lungs. Soon I
+heard another shout and saw a dark form moving among the hummocks.
+It was a man. We approached one another quickly. I waved my hat; he
+did the same. As I drew nearer I thought I recognised Mr. Jackson,
+whom I remembered once to have seen. I raised my hat; we extended a
+hand to one another with a hearty 'How do you do?' Above us a roof
+of mist, beneath our feet the rugged packed drift ice."</p>
+
+<p>"Ar'n't you Nansen?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>And, seizing the grimy hand of the Arctic explorer, he shook it warmly,
+congratulating him on his successful trip. Jackson and his companions
+had wintered at Cape Flora, the southern point of Franz Josef Land,
+and they were expecting a ship, the <i>Windward</i>, to take them home.
+On 26th July the <i>Windward</i> steamed slowly in, and by 13th August she
+reached Norway, and the news of Nansen's safe arrival was made known
+to the whole world. A week later the little <i>Fram</i>, "strong and broad
+and weather-beaten," also returned in safety. And on 9th September
+1896, Nansen and his brave companions on board the <i>Fram</i> sailed up
+Christiania Fjiord in triumph.</p>
+
+<p>He had reached a point farthest North, and been nearer to the North
+Pole than had any explorer before.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap72"></a><a name="page530"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXII</h3>
+
+<h4>PEARY REACHES THE NORTH POLE</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The 6th April 1909 is a marked day in the annals of exploration, for
+on that day Peary succeeded in reaching the North Pole, which for
+centuries had defied the efforts of man; on that day he attained the
+goal for which the greatest nations of the world had struggled for
+over four hundred years. Indeed, he had spent twenty-three years of
+his own life labouring toward this end.</p>
+
+<p>He was mainly inspired by reading Nordenski&ouml;ld's <i>Exploration of
+Greenland</i>, when a lieutenant in the United States Navy. In 1886 he
+got leave to join an expedition to Greenland, and returned with the
+Arctic fever in his veins and a scheme for crossing that continent
+as far north as possible. This after many hardships he accomplished,
+being the first explorer to discover that Greenland was an island.
+Peary was now stamped as a successful Arctic explorer. The idea of
+reaching the North Pole began to take shape, and in order to raise
+funds the enthusiastic explorer delivered no less than one hundred
+and sixty-eight lectures in ninety-six days. With the proceeds he
+chartered the <i>Falcon</i> and left the shores of Philadelphia in June
+1893 for Greenland. His wife, who accompanied him before, accompanied
+him again, and with sledges and dogs on board they made their way up
+the western coast of Greenland. Arrived at Melville Bay, Peary built
+a little hut; here a little daughter was born who was soon "bundled
+in soft warm <a name="page531"></a>Arctic furs and wrapped in the Stars and Stripes." No
+European child had ever been born so far north as this; the Eskimos
+travelled from long distances to satisfy themselves she was not made
+of snow, and for the first six months of her life the baby lived in
+continuous lamplight.</p>
+
+<p>But we cannot follow Peary through his many Polar expeditions; his
+toes had been frozen off in one, his leg broken in another, but he
+was enthusiastic enough when all preparations were complete for the
+last and greatest expedition of all.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Roosevelt</i>, named after the President of the United States, had
+carried him safely to the north of Greenland in his last expedition,
+so she was again chosen, and in July 1908, Peary hoisted the Stars
+and Stripes and steamed from New York.</p>
+
+<p>"As the ship backed out into the river, a cheer went up from the
+thousands who had gathered on the piers to see us off. It was an
+interesting coincidence that the day on which we started for the
+coldest spot on earth was about the hottest which New York had known
+for years. As we steamed up the river, the din grew louder and louder;
+we passed President Roosevelt's naval yacht, the <i>Mayflower</i>, and her
+small gun roared out a parting salute&mdash;surely no ship ever started
+for the ends of the earth with more heart-stirring farewells."</p>
+
+<p>President Roosevelt had himself inspected the ship and shaken hands
+with each member of the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe in you, Peary," he had said, "and I believe in your success,
+if it is within the possibility of man." So the little <i>Roosevelt</i>
+steamed away; on 26th July the Arctic Circle was crossed by Peary for
+the twentieth time, and on 1st August, Cape York, the most northerly
+home of human beings in the world, was reached. This was the dividing
+line between the civilised world on <a name="page532"></a>one hand and the Arctic world on
+the other. Picking up several Eskimo families and about two hundred
+and fifty dogs, they steamed on northwards.</p>
+
+<p>"Imagine," says Peary&mdash;"imagine about three hundred and fifty miles
+of almost solid ice, ice of all shapes and sizes, mountainous ice,
+flat ice, ragged and tortured ice; then imagine a little black ship,
+solid, sturdy, compact, strong, and resistant, and on this little ship
+are sixty-nine human beings, who have gone out into the crazy,
+ice-tortured channel between Baffin Bay and the Polar sea&mdash;gone out
+to prove the reality of a dream in the pursuit of which men have frozen
+and starved and died."</p>
+
+<p>The usual course was taken, across Smith's Sound and past the desolate
+wind-swept rocks of Cape Sabine, where, in 1884, Greely's ill-fated
+party slowly starved to death, only seven surviving out of
+twenty-four.</p>
+
+<p>Fog and ice now beset the ship, and on 5th September they were compelled
+to seek winter quarters, for which they chose Cape Sheridan, where
+Peary had wintered before in 1905. Here they unloaded the <i>Roosevelt</i>,
+and two hundred and forty-six Eskimo dogs were at once let loose to
+run about in the snow. A little village soon grew up, and the Eskimos,
+both men and women, went hunting as of yore. Peary had decided to start
+as before from Cape Columbia, some ninety miles away, the most
+northerly point of Grant Land, for his dash to the Pole.</p>
+
+<p>On 12th October the sun disappeared and they entered cheerfully into
+the "Great Dark."</p>
+
+<p>"Imagine us in our winter home," says Peary, "four hundred and fifty
+miles from the North Pole, the ship held tight in her icy berth one
+hundred and fifty yards from the shore, ship and the surrounding world
+covered with snow, the wind creaking in the rigging, whistling and
+shrieking around the corners of the deck houses, the temperature
+ranging from zero to sixty below, the <a name="page533"></a>icepack in the channel outside
+us groaning and complaining with the movement of the tides."</p>
+
+<p>Christmas passed with its usual festivities. There were races for the
+Eskimos, one for the children, one for the men, and one for the Eskimo
+mothers, who carried babies in their fur hoods. These last, looking
+like "animated walruses," took their race at a walking pace.</p>
+
+<p>At last, on 15th February 1909, the first sledge-party left the ship
+for Cape Columbia, and a week later Peary himself left the <i>Roosevelt</i>
+with the last loads. The party assembled at Cape Columbia for the great
+journey north, which consisted of seven men of Peary's party,
+fifty-nine Eskimos, one hundred and forty dogs, and twenty-eight
+sledges. Each sledge was complete in itself; each had its cooking
+utensils, its four men, its dogs and provisions for fifty or sixty
+days. The weather was "clear, calm, and cold."</p>
+
+<p>On 1st March the cavalcade started off from Cape Columbia in a freezing
+east wind, and soon men and dogs became invisible amid drifting snow.
+Day by day they went forward, undaunted by the difficulties and
+hardships of the way, now sending back small parties to the d&eacute;p&ocirc;t at
+Cape Columbia, now dispatching to the home camp some reluctant
+explorer with a frostbitten heel or foot, now delayed by open water,
+but on, on, till they had broken all records, passed all tracks even
+of the Polar bear, passed the 87th parallel into the region of perpetual
+daylight for half the year. It was here, apparently within reach of
+his goal, that Peary had to turn back three years before for want of
+food.</p>
+
+<p>Thus they marched for a month; party after party had been sent back,
+till the last supporting party had gone and Peary was left with his
+black servant, Henson, and four Eskimos. He had five sledges, forty
+picked dogs, and supplies for forty days when he started off alone
+to <a name="page534"></a>dash the last hundred and thirty-three miles to the Pole itself.
+Every event in the next week is of thrilling interest. After a few
+hours of sleep the little party started off shortly after midnight
+on 2nd April 1909. Peary was leading.</p>
+
+<p>"I felt the keenest exhilaration as I climbed over the ridge and
+breasted the keen air sweeping over the mighty ice, pure and straight
+from the Pole itself."</p>
+
+<p>They might yet be stopped by open water from reaching the goal. On
+they went, twenty-five miles in ten hours, then a little sleep, and
+so on again, then a few hours' rest and another twenty miles till they
+had reached latitude 89 degrees.</p>
+
+<p>Still breathlessly they hurried forward, till on the 5th they were
+but thirty-five miles from the Pole.</p>
+
+<p>"The sky overhead was a colourless pall, gradually deepening to almost
+black at the horizon, and the ice was a ghastly and chalky white."</p>
+
+<p>On 6th April the Pole was reached.</p>
+
+<p>"The Pole at last!" writes Peary in his diary. "The prize of three
+centuries! My dream and goal for twenty years. Mine at last! I cannot
+bring myself to realise it. It all seems so simple and commonplace."</p>
+
+<p>Flags were at once hoisted on ice lances, and the successful explorer
+watched them proudly waving in the bright Arctic sunlight at the Pole.
+Through all his perilous expeditions to the Arctic regions, Peary had
+worn a silken flag, worked by his wife, wrapped round his body. He
+now flew it on this historic spot, "which knows no North, nor West,
+nor East."</p>
+
+<a name="ill186"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 186">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717">
+			<img src="images/186.jpg" alt="PEARY'S FLAG FLYING AT THE NORTH POLE, APRIL 1909">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717" align="center">
+			<small>PEARY'S FLAG FLYING AT THE NORTH POLE, APRIL 1909.<br>
+			By the courteous permission of Admiral Peary, from his book <i>The North
+			Pole</i>, published by Messrs. Hodder &amp; Stoughton.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Not a vestige of land was to be seen; nothing but ice lay all around.
+They could not stay long, for provisions would run short, and the ice
+might melt before their return journey was accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>So after a brief rest they started off for Cape Columbia, <a name="page535"></a>which they
+reached after a wild rush of sixteen days. It had taken them
+thirty-seven days to cover the four hundred and seventy-five miles
+from Cape Columbia to the Pole, from which they had returned at the
+rate of thirty miles a day.</p>
+
+<p>The whole party then started for the <i>Roosevelt</i>, and on 18th July
+she was taken from her winter quarters and turned towards home. Then
+came the day when wireless telegraphy flashed the news through the
+whole of the civilised world: "Stars and Stripes nailed to the North
+Pole."</p>
+
+<p>The record of four hundred years of splendid self-sacrifice and
+heroism unrivalled in the history of exploration had been crowned at
+last.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="chap73"></a><a name="page536"></a>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXIII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE QUEST FOR THE SOUTH POLE</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>An American had placed the Stars and Stripes on the North Pole in 1909.
+It was a Norwegian who succeeded in reaching the South Pole in 1911.
+But the spade-work which contributed so largely to the final success
+had been done so enthusiastically by two Englishmen that the
+expeditions of Scott and Shackleton must find a place here before we
+conclude this <i>Book of Discovery</i> with Amundsen's final and brilliant
+dash.</p>
+
+<p>The crossing of the Antarctic Circle by the famous <i>Challenger</i>
+expedition in 1874 revived interest in the far South. The practical
+outcome of much discussion was the design of the <i>Discovery</i>, a ship
+built expressly for scientific exploration, and the appointment of
+Captain Scott to command an Antarctic expedition.</p>
+
+<p>In August 1901, Scott left the shores of England, and by way of New
+Zealand crossed the Antarctic Circle on 3rd January 1902. Three weeks
+later he reached the Great Ice Barrier which had stopped Ross in 1840.
+For a week Scott steamed along the Barrier. Mounts Erebus and Terror
+were plainly visible, and though he could nowhere discover Parry
+Mountains, yet he found distant land rising high above the sea, which
+he named King Edward <small>VII.</small>'s Land. Scott had brought with him a captive
+balloon in which he now rose to a height of eight hundred feet, from
+which he saw an unbroken glacier stream of vast extent stretching to
+the south. It <a name="page537"></a>was now time to seek for winter quarters, and Scott,
+returning to M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Murdo Bay named by Ross, found that it was not a bay
+at all, but a strait leading southward. Here they landed their stores,
+set up their hut, and spent the winter, till on 2nd November 1902 all
+was ready for a sledge-journey to the south. For fifty-nine days Scott
+led his little land-party of three, with four sledges and nineteen
+dogs, south. But the heavy snow was too much for the dogs, and one
+by one died, until not one was left and the men had to drag and push
+the sledges themselves. Failing provisions at last compelled them to
+stop. Great mountain summits were seen beyond the farthest point
+reached.</p>
+
+<p>"We have decided at last we have found something which is fitting to
+bear the name of him whom we most delight to honour," says Scott, "and
+Mount Markham it shall be called in memory of the father of the
+expedition."</p>
+
+<p>It was 30th December when a tremendous blizzard stayed their last
+advance. "Chill and hungry," they lay all day in their sleeping-bags,
+miserable at the thought of turning back, too weak and ill to go on.
+With only provisions for a fortnight, they at last reluctantly turned
+home, staggering as far as their d&eacute;p&ocirc;t in thirteen days. Shackleton
+was smitten with scurvy; he was growing worse every day, and it was
+a relief when on 2nd February they all reached the ship alive, "as
+near spent as three persons can well be." But they had done well: they
+had made the first long land journey ever made in the Antarctic; they
+had reached a point which was farthest south; they had tested new
+methods of travel; they had covered nine hundred and sixty miles in
+ninety-three days. Shackleton was now invalided home, but it was not
+till 1904 that the <i>Discovery</i> escaped from the frozen harbour to make
+her way home.</p>
+
+<p>Shackleton had returned to England in 1903, but the <a name="page538"></a>mysterious South
+Pole amid its wastes of ice and snow still called him back, and in
+command of the <i>Nimrod</i> he started forth in August 1907 on the next
+British Antarctic expedition, carrying a Union Jack, presented by the
+Queen, to plant on the spot farthest south. He actually placed it within
+ninety-seven miles of the Pole itself!</p>
+
+<p>With a petrol motor-car on board, Eskimo dogs, and Manchurian ponies,
+he left New Zealand on 1st January 1908, watched and cheered by some
+thirty thousand of his fellow-countrymen. Three weeks later they were
+in sight of the Great Ice Barrier, and a few days later the huge
+mountains of Erebus and Terror came into sight. Shackleton had hoped
+to reach King Edward <small>VII.</small>'s Land for winter quarters, but a formidable
+ice-pack prevented this, and they selected a place some twenty miles
+north of the <i>Discovery's</i> old winter quarters. Getting the wild
+little Manchurian ponies ashore was no light job; the poor little
+creatures were stiff after a month's constant buffeting, for the
+<i>Nimrod's</i> passage had been stormy. One after another they were now
+led out of their stalls into a horse-box and slung over the ice. Once
+on <i>terra firma</i> they seemed more at home, for they immediately began
+pawing the snow as they were wont to do in their far-away Manchurian
+home.</p>
+
+<a name="ill187"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 187">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717">
+			<img src="images/187.jpg" alt="SHACKLETON'S SHIP, THE NIMROD">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717" align="center">
+			<small>SHACKLETON'S SHIP, THE <i>NIMROD</i>, AMONG THE ICE IN
+			McMURDO SOUND, THE WINTER LAND QUARTERS OF THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION.<br>
+			<i>By Sir Ernest Shackleton's permission from his book "The
+			Heart of the Antarctic," published by Mr. Heinemann</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The spacious hut, brought out by Shackleton, was soon erected. Never
+was such a luxurious house set up on the bleak shores of the Polar
+seas. There was a dark room for developing, acetylene gas for lighting,
+a good stove for warming, and comfortable cubicles decorated with
+pictures. The dark room was excellent, and never was a book of travels
+more beautifully illustrated than Shackleton's <i>Heart of the
+Antarctic</i>.</p>
+
+<p>True, during some of the winter storms and blizzards the hut shook
+and trembled so that every moment its <a name="page539"></a>occupants thought it would be
+carried bodily away, but it stood its ground all right. The long winter
+was spent as usual in preparing for the spring expedition to the south,
+but it was 29th October 1908 before the weather made it possible to
+make a start. The party consisted of Shackleton, Adams, Marshall, and
+Wild, each leading a pony which dragged a sledge with food for
+ninety-one days.</p>
+
+<p>"A glorious day for our start," wrote Shackleton in his diary,
+"brilliant sunshine and a cloudless sky. As we left the hut where we
+had spent so many months in comfort we had a feeling of real regret
+that never again would we all be together there. A clasp of the hands
+means more than many words, and as we turned to acknowledge the men's
+cheer, and saw them standing on the ice by the familiar cliffs, I felt
+we must try to do well for the sake of every one concerned in the
+expedition."</p>
+
+<p>New land in the shape of ice-clad mountains greeted the explorers on
+22nd November. "It is a wonderful place we are in, all new to the world,"
+says Shackleton; "there is an impression of limitless solitude about
+it that makes us feel so small as we trudge along, a few dark specks
+on the snowy plain."</p>
+
+<p>They now had to quit the Barrier in order to travel south. Fortunately
+they found a gap, called the Southern Gateway, which afforded a direct
+line to the Pole. But their ponies had suffered badly during the march;
+they had already been obliged to shoot three of them, and on 7th
+December the last pony fell down a crevasse and was killed. They had
+now reached a great plateau some seven thousand feet above the sea;
+it rose steadily toward the south, and Christmas Day found them "lying
+in a little tent, isolated high on the roof of the world, far from
+the ways trodden by man." With forty-eight degrees of frost, drifting
+snow, and a biting wind, they <a name="page540"></a>spent the next few days hauling their
+sledges up a steep incline. They had now only a month's food left.
+Pressing on with reduced rations, in the face of freezing winds, they
+reached a height of ten thousand and fifty feet.</p>
+
+<p>It was the 6th of January, and they were in latitude 88 degrees, when
+a "blinding, shrieking blizzard" made all further advance impossible.
+For sixty hours the four hungry explorers lay in their sleeping-bags,
+nearly perished with cold. "The most trying day we have yet spent,"
+writes Shackleton, "our fingers and faces being continually
+frostbitten. To-morrow we will rush south with the flag. It is our
+last outward march."</p>
+
+<p>The gale breaking, they marched on till 9th January, when they stopped
+within ninety-seven miles of the Pole, where they hoisted the Union
+Jack, and took possession of the great plateau in the King's name.</p>
+
+<p>"We could see nothing but the dead-white snow plain. There was no break
+in the plateau as it extended towards the Pole. I am confident that
+the Pole lies on the great plateau we have discovered miles and miles
+from any outstanding land."</p>
+
+<p>And so the four men turned homewards. "Whatever our regret may be,
+we have done our best," said the leader somewhat sadly. Blinding
+blizzards followed them as they made their way slowly back. On 28th
+January they reached the Great Ice Barrier. Their food was well-nigh
+spent; their daily rations consisted of six biscuits and some
+horse-meat in the shape of the Manchurian ponies they had shot and
+left the November before. But it disagreed with most of them, and it
+was four very weak and ailing men who staggered back to the <i>Nimrod</i>
+toward the end of February 1909.</p>
+
+<p>Shackleton reached England in the autumn of 1909 to find that another
+Antarctic expedition was to leave our shores in the following summer
+under the command <a name="page541"></a>of Scott, in the <i>Terra Nova</i>. It was one of the
+best-equipped expeditions that ever started; motor-sledges had been
+specially constructed to go over the deep snow, which was fatal to
+the motor-car carried by Shackleton. There were fifteen ponies and
+thirty dogs. Leaving England in July 1910, Scott was established in
+winter quarters in M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Murdo Sound by 26th January 1911. It was November
+before he could start on the southern expedition.</p>
+
+<p>"We left Hut Point on the evening of 2nd November. For sixty miles
+we followed the track of the motors (sent on five days before). The
+ponies are going very steadily. We found the motor party awaiting us
+in latitude 80&frac12; degrees south. The motors had proved entirely
+satisfactory, and the machines dragged heavy loads over the worst part
+of the Barrier surface, crossing several crevasses. The sole cause
+of abandonment was the overheating of the air-cooled engines. We are
+building snow cairns at intervals of four miles to guide homeward
+parties and leaving a week's provisions at every degree of latitude.
+As we proceeded the weather grew worse, and snowstorms were frequent.
+The sky was continually overcast, and the land was rarely visible.
+The ponies, however, continued to pull splendidly."</p>
+
+<p>As they proceeded south they encountered terrific storms of wind and
+snow, out of which they had constantly to dig the ponies. Christmas
+passed and the New Year of 1912 dawned. On 3rd January when one hundred
+and fifty miles from the Pole, "I am going forward," says Scott, "with
+a party of five men with a month's provisions, and the prospect of
+success seems good, provided that the weather holds and no unforeseen
+obstacles arise."</p>
+
+<p>Scott and his companions successfully attained the object of their
+journey. They reached the South Pole on 17th January only to find that
+they had been forestalled <a name="page542"></a>by others! And it is remarkable to note that
+so correct were their observations, the two parties located the Pole
+within half a mile of one another.</p>
+
+<p>Scott's return journey ended disastrously. Blinding blizzards
+prevented rapid progress; food and fuel ran short; still the weakened
+men struggled bravely forward till, within a few miles of a d&eacute;p&ocirc;t of
+supplies, death overtook them.</p>
+
+<p>Scott's last message can never be forgotten. "I do not regret this
+journey which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardship, help one
+another, and meet death with as great fortitude as ever in the past....
+Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood,
+endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the
+heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must
+tell the tale; but surely, surely, a great, rich country like ours
+will see that those who are dependent upon us are properly provided
+for."</p>
+
+<p>It was on 14th December 1911 that Captain Amundsen had reached the
+Pole. A Norwegian, fired by the example of his fellow-countryman,
+Nansen, Amundsen had long been interested in both Arctic and Antarctic
+exploration. In a ship of only forty-eight tons, he had, with six others,
+made a survey of the North Magnetic Pole, sailed through the Behring
+Strait, and accomplished the North-West Passage, for which he was
+awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. On his
+return he planned an expedition to the North Pole. He had made known
+his scheme, and, duly equipped for North Polar expedition in Nansen's
+little <i>Fram</i>, Amundsen started. Suddenly the world rang with the news
+that Peary had discovered the North Pole, and that Amundsen had turned
+his prow southwards and was determined to make a dash for the South
+Pole. Landing in Whales Bay some four hundred miles to the east of
+Scott's winter quarters, his first visitors <a name="page543"></a>were the Englishmen on
+board the <i>Terra Nova</i>, who were taking their ship to New Zealand for
+the winter.</p>
+
+<p>Making a hut on the shore, Amundsen had actually started on his journey
+to the Pole before Scott heard of his arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"I am fully alive to the complication in the situation arising out
+of Amundsen's presence in the Antarctic," wrote the English explorer,
+"but as any attempt at a race might have been fatal to our chance of
+getting to the Pole at all, I decided to do exactly as I should have
+done had not Amundsen been here. If he gets to the Pole he will be
+bound to do it rapidly with dogs, and one foresees that success will
+justify him."</p>
+
+<p>Although the Norwegian explorer left his winter quarters on 8th
+September for his dash to the Pole, he started too early; three of
+his party had their feet frostbitten, and the dogs suffered severely,
+so he turned back, and it was not till 20th October, just a week before
+Scott's start, that he began in real earnest his historic journey.
+He was well off for food, for whales were plentiful on the shores of
+the Bay, and seals, penguins, and gulls abounded. The expedition was
+well equipped, with eight explorers, four sledges, and thirteen dogs
+attached to each.</p>
+
+<p>"Amundsen is a splendid leader, supreme in organisation, and the
+essential in Antarctic travel is to think out the difficulties before
+they arise." So said those who worked with him on his most successful
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>Through dense fog and blinding blizzards the Norwegians now made their
+way south, their Norwegian skis and sledges proving a substantial help.
+The crevasses in the ice were very bad; one dog dropped in and had
+to be abandoned; another day the dogs got across, but the sledge fell
+in, and it was necessary to climb down the crevasse, unpack the sledge,
+and pull up piece by <a name="page544"></a>piece till it was possible to raise the empty
+sledge. So intense was the cold that the very brandy froze in the bottle
+and was served out in lumps.</p>
+
+<p>"It did not taste much like brandy then," said the men, "but it burnt
+our throats as we sucked it."</p>
+
+<p>The dogs travelled well. Each man was responsible for his own team;
+he fed them and made them fond of him. Thus all through November the
+Norwegians travelled south, till they reached the vast plateau
+described by Shackleton. One tremendous peak, fifteen thousand feet
+high, they named "Frithjof Nansen."</p>
+
+<p>On 14th December they reached their goal; the weather was beautiful,
+the ground perfect for sledging.</p>
+
+<p>"At 3 p.m. we made halt," says Amundsen. "According to our reckoning,
+we had reached our destination. All of us gathered round the colours&mdash;a
+beautiful silken flag; all hands took hold of it, and, planting it
+on the spot, we gave the vast plateau on which the Pole is situate
+the name of 'The King Haakon <small>VII.</small>' It was a vast plain, alike in all
+directions, mile after mile."</p>
+
+<p>Here in brilliant sunshine the little party camped, taking
+observations till 17th December, when, fastening to the ground a
+little tent with the Norwegian flag and the <i>Fram</i> pennant, they gave
+it the name "Polheim" and started for home.</p>
+
+<a name="ill188"> </a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustration 188">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717">
+			<img src="images/188.jpg" alt="CAPTAIN ROALD AMUNDSEN TAKING SIGHTS AT THE SOUTH POLE">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="717" align="center">
+			<small>CAPTAIN ROALD AMUNDSEN TAKING SIGHTS AT THE SOUTH POLE.<br>
+			From a photograph, by permission of Mr. John Murray and the
+			<i>Illustrated London News</i>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So the North and South Poles yielded up their well-hoarded secrets
+after centuries of waiting, within two and a half years of one another.</p>
+
+<p>They had claimed more lives than any exploration had done before, or
+is ever likely to do again.</p>
+
+<p>And so ends the last of these great earth-stories&mdash;stories which have
+made the world what it is to-day&mdash;and we may well say with one of the
+most successful explorers of our times, "The future may give us
+thrilling stories of the conquest of the air, but the spirit of man
+has mastered the earth."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="dates"></a><a name="page545"></a>
+<h3>DATES OF CHIEF EVENTS</h3>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" summary="table of contents">
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><small><small>PAGE</small></small></td>
+		<td>&nbsp;</td>
+		<td align="right"><small><small>DATE</small></small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page4">4</a></td>
+		<td>The oldest known Ships</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 6000-5000</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page7">7</a></td>
+		<td>Expedition to Punt</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 1600</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page11">11</a></td>
+		<td>Phoenician Expeditions</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 700</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page19">19</a></td>
+		<td>Neco's Fleet built</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 613</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page23">23</a></td>
+		<td>Anaximander, the Greek, invents Maps</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 580</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page25">25</a></td>
+		<td>Hecat&aelig;us writes the First Geography</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 500</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page27">27</a></td>
+		<td>Herodotus describes Egypt</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 446</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page30">30</a></td>
+		<td>Hanno sails down West Coast of Africa</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 450</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page32">32</a></td>
+		<td>Xenophon crosses Asia Minor</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 401</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page38">38</a></td>
+		<td>Alexander the Great finds India</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 327</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page41">41</a></td>
+		<td>Nearchus navigates the Indian Ocean</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 326</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page45">45</a></td>
+		<td>The Geography of Eratosthenes</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 240-196</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page48">48</a></td>
+		<td>Pytheas discovers the British Isles and Thule</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 333</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page55">55</a></td>
+		<td>Julius C&aelig;sar explores France, Britain, Germany</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>B.C.</small> 60-54</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page61">61</a></td>
+		<td>Strabo's Geography</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>A.D.</small> 18</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page68">68</a></td>
+		<td>Agricola discovers the Highlands</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>A.D.</small> 83</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page71">71</a></td>
+		<td>Pliny's Geography</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>A.D.</small> 170</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page74">74</a></td>
+		<td>Ptolemy's Geography and Maps</td>
+		<td align="right"><small>A.D.</small> 159</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page78">78</a></td>
+		<td>The First Guide for Travellers</td>
+		<td align="right">Fourth century</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page83">83</a></td>
+		<td>St. Patrick explores Ireland</td>
+		<td align="right">432-93</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page85">85</a></td>
+		<td>St. Columba reaches the Orkney Isles</td>
+		<td align="right">563</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page85">85</a></td>
+		<td>St. Brandon crosses the Atlantic</td>
+		<td align="right">Sixth century</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page90">90</a></td>
+		<td>Willibald travels from Britain to Jerusalem</td>
+		<td align="right">721</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page92">92</a></td>
+		<td>The Christian Topography of Cosmas</td>
+		<td align="right">Sixth century</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page94">94</a></td>
+		<td>Naddod the Viking discovers Iceland</td>
+		<td align="right">861</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page95">95</a></td>
+		<td>Erik the Red discovers Greenland</td>
+		<td align="right">985</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page95">95</a></td>
+		<td>Lief discovers Newfoundland and North American Coast</td>
+		<td align="right">1000</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page97">97</a></td>
+		<td>Othere navigates the Baltic Sea</td>
+		<td align="right">890</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page99">99</a></td>
+		<td>Mohammedan Travellers to China</td>
+		<td align="right">831</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page103">103</a></td>
+		<td>Edrisi's Geography</td>
+		<td align="right">1154</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page108">108</a></td>
+		<td>Benjamin of Tudela visits India and China</td>
+		<td align="right">1160</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page110">110</a></td>
+		<td>Carpini visits the Great Khan</td>
+		<td align="right">1246</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page112">112</a></td>
+		<td>William de Rubruquis also visits the Great Khan</td>
+		<td align="right">1255</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page115">115</a></td>
+		<td>Maffio and Niccolo Polo reach China</td>
+		<td align="right">1260-71</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page117">117</a></td>
+		<td>Marco Polo's Travels</td>
+		<td align="right">1271-95</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page126">126</a></td>
+		<td>Ibn Batuta's Travels through Asia</td>
+		<td align="right">1324-48</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page126">126</a></td>
+		<td>Sir John Mandeville's Travels published</td>
+		<td align="right">1372</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page134">134</a></td>
+		<td>Hereford Mappa Mundi appeared</td>
+		<td align="right">1280</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page137">137</a></td>
+		<td>Anglo-Saxon Map of the World</td>
+		<td align="right">990</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page138">138</a></td>
+		<td>Prince Henry of Portugal encourages Exploration</td>
+		<td align="right">1418</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page140">140</a></td>
+		<td>Zarco and Vaz reach Porto Santo</td>
+		<td align="right">1419</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page140">140</a></td>
+		<td>Zarco discovers Madeira</td>
+		<td align="right">1420</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page142">142</a></td>
+		<td>Nuno Tristam discovers Cape Blanco</td>
+		<td align="right">1441</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page143">143</a></td>
+		<td>Gonsalves discovers Cape Verde Islands</td>
+		<td align="right">1442</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page144">144</a></td>
+		<td>Cadamosto reaches the Senegal River and Cape Verde</td>
+		<td align="right">1455</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page145">145</a></td>
+		<td>Diego Gomez reaches the Gambia River</td>
+		<td align="right">1458</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page148">148</a></td>
+		<td>Death of Prince Henry</td>
+		<td align="right">1460</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page149">149</a></td>
+		<td>Fra Mauro's Map</td>
+		<td align="right">1457</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page150">150</a></td>
+		<td>Diego Cam discovers the Congo</td>
+		<td align="right">1484</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page152">152</a></td>
+		<td>Bartholomew Diaz rounds the Cape of Good Hope</td>
+		<td align="right">1486</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page153">153</a></td>
+		<td>Martin Behaim makes his Globe</td>
+		<td align="right">1492</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page160">160</a></td>
+		<td>Christopher Columbus discovers West Indies</td>
+		<td align="right">1492</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page166">166</a></td>
+		<td>Columbus finds Jamaica and other Islands</td>
+		<td align="right">1493</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page167">167</a></td>
+		<td>Columbus finds Trinidad</td>
+		<td align="right">1498</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page169">169</a></td>
+		<td>Death of Columbus</td>
+		<td align="right">1504</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page170">170</a></td>
+		<td>Amerigo Vespucci finds Trinidad and Venezuela</td>
+		<td align="right">1499</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page175">175</a></td>
+		<td>First Map of the New World by Juan de la Cosa</td>
+		<td align="right">1500</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page177">177</a></td>
+		<td>Vasco da Gama reaches India by the Cape</td>
+		<td align="right">1497</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page181">181</a></td>
+		<td>Pedro Cabral discovers Brazil</td>
+		<td align="right">1500</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page188">188</a></td>
+		<td>Francisco Serrano reaches the Spice Islands</td>
+		<td align="right">1511</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page192">192</a></td>
+		<td>Balboa sees the Pacific Ocean</td>
+		<td align="right">1513</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page203">203</a></td>
+		<td>The First Circumnavigation of the World</td>
+		<td align="right">1519-22</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page206">206</a></td>
+		<td>Cordova discovers Yucatan</td>
+		<td align="right">1517</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page206">206</a></td>
+		<td>Juan Grijalva discovers Mexico</td>
+		<td align="right">1518</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page209">209</a></td>
+		<td>Cortes conquers Mexico</td>
+		<td align="right">1519</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page217">217</a></td>
+		<td>Pizarro conquers Peru</td>
+		<td align="right">1531</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page221">221</a></td>
+		<td>Orellana discovers the Amazon</td>
+		<td align="right">1541</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page225">225</a></td>
+		<td>Cabot sails to Newfoundland</td>
+		<td align="right">1497</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page228">228</a></td>
+		<td>Jacques Cartier discovers the Gulf of St. Lawrence</td>
+		<td align="right">1534</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page236">236</a></td>
+		<td>Sir Hugh Willoughby finds Nova Zembla</td>
+		<td align="right">1553</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page238">238</a></td>
+		<td>Richard Chancellor reaches Moscow <i>via</i> Archangel</td>
+		<td align="right">1554</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page240">240</a></td>
+		<td>Anthony Jenkinson crosses Russia to Bokhara</td>
+		<td align="right">1558</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page244">244</a></td>
+		<td>Pinto claims the discovery of Japan</td>
+		<td align="right">1542</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page245">245</a></td>
+		<td>Martin Frobisher discovers his Bay</td>
+		<td align="right">1576</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page249">249</a></td>
+		<td>Drake sails round the World</td>
+		<td align="right">1577-80</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page260">260</a></td>
+		<td>Davis finds his Strait</td>
+		<td align="right">1586</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page269">269</a></td>
+		<td>Barents discovers Spitzbergen</td>
+		<td align="right">1596</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page275">275</a></td>
+		<td>Hudson sails into his Bay</td>
+		<td align="right">1610</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page281">281</a></td>
+		<td>Baffin discovers his Bay</td>
+		<td align="right">1616</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page285">285</a></td>
+		<td>Sir Walter Raleigh explores Guiana</td>
+		<td align="right">1595</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page290">290</a></td>
+		<td>Champlain discovers Lake Ontario</td>
+		<td align="right">1615</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page298">298</a></td>
+		<td>Torres sails through his Strait</td>
+		<td align="right">1605</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page299">299</a></td>
+		<td>Le Maire rounds Cape Horn</td>
+		<td align="right">1617</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page302">302</a></td>
+		<td>Tasman finds Tasmania</td>
+		<td align="right">1642</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page306">306</a></td>
+		<td>Dampier discovers his Strait</td>
+		<td align="right">1698</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page312">312</a></td>
+		<td>Behring finds his Strait</td>
+		<td align="right">1741</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page322">322</a></td>
+		<td>Cook discovers New Zealand</td>
+		<td align="right">1769</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page326">326</a></td>
+		<td>Cook anchors in Botany Bay, Australia</td>
+		<td align="right">1770</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page333">333</a></td>
+		<td>Cook discovers the Sandwich Islands</td>
+		<td align="right">1777</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page338">338</a></td>
+		<td>La Perouse makes discoveries in China Seas</td>
+		<td align="right">1785-8</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page347">347</a></td>
+		<td>Bruce discovers the source of the Blue Nile</td>
+		<td align="right">1770</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page353">353</a></td>
+		<td>Mungo Park reaches the Niger</td>
+		<td align="right">1796</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page359">359</a></td>
+		<td>Vancouver explores his Island</td>
+		<td align="right">1792</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page362">362</a></td>
+		<td>Mackenzie discovers his River and British Columbia</td>
+		<td align="right">1789-93</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page366">366</a></td>
+		<td>Ross discovers Melville Bay</td>
+		<td align="right">1818</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page368">368</a></td>
+		<td>Parry discovers Lancaster Sound</td>
+		<td align="right">1819</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page372">372</a></td>
+		<td>Franklin reaches the Polar Sea by Land</td>
+		<td align="right">1819-22</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page378">378</a></td>
+		<td>Parry's discoveries on North American Coast</td>
+		<td align="right">1822</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page382">382</a></td>
+		<td>Franklin names the Mackenzie River</td>
+		<td align="right">1825</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page386">386</a></td>
+		<td>Beechey doubles Icy Cape</td>
+		<td align="right">1826</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page388">388</a></td>
+		<td>Parry attempts the North Pole by Spitzbergen</td>
+		<td align="right">1827</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page392">392</a></td>
+		<td>Denham and Clapperton discover Lake Tchad</td>
+		<td align="right">1822</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page396">396</a></td>
+		<td>Clapperton reaches the Niger</td>
+		<td align="right">1826</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page397">397</a></td>
+		<td>R&eacute;n&eacute; Caill&eacute; enters Timbuktu</td>
+		<td align="right">1829</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page402">402</a></td>
+		<td>Richard and John Lander find the Mouth of the Niger</td>
+		<td align="right">1830</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page404">404</a></td>
+		<td>Ross discovers Boothia Felix</td>
+		<td align="right">1829</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page405">405</a></td>
+		<td>James Ross finds the North Magnetic Pole</td>
+		<td align="right">1830</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page411">411</a></td>
+		<td>Bass discovers his Strait</td>
+		<td align="right">1797</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page413">413</a></td>
+		<td>Flinders and Bass sail round Tasmania</td>
+		<td align="right">1798</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page416">416</a></td>
+		<td>Flinders surveys South Coast of Australia</td>
+		<td align="right">1801-4</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page421">421</a></td>
+		<td>Sturt traces the Darling and Murray Rivers</td>
+		<td align="right">1828-31</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page424">424</a></td>
+		<td>Burke and Wills cross Australia</td>
+		<td align="right">1861</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page429">429</a></td>
+		<td>Ross discovers Victoria Land in the Antarctic</td>
+		<td align="right">1840</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page432">432</a></td>
+		<td>Franklin discovers the North-West Passage</td>
+		<td align="right">1847</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page440">440</a></td>
+		<td>Livingstone crosses Africa from West to East</td>
+		<td align="right">1849-56</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page452">452</a></td>
+		<td>Burton and Speke discover Lake Tanganyika</td>
+		<td align="right">1857</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page454">454</a></td>
+		<td>Speke sees Victoria Nyanza</td>
+		<td align="right">1858</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page457">457</a></td>
+		<td>Livingstone finds Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa</td>
+		<td align="right">1858-64</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page461">461</a></td>
+		<td>Speke and Grant enter Uganda</td>
+		<td align="right">1861</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page468">468</a></td>
+		<td>Baker meets Speke and Grant at Gondokoro</td>
+		<td align="right">1861</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page470">470</a></td>
+		<td>Baker discovers Albert Nyanza</td>
+		<td align="right">1864</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page477">477</a></td>
+		<td>Livingstone finds Lakes Meoro and Bangweolo</td>
+		<td align="right">1868</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page482">482</a></td>
+		<td>Stanley finds Livingstone</td>
+		<td align="right">1871</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page484">484</a></td>
+		<td>Livingstone dies at Ilala</td>
+		<td align="right">1873</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page499">499</a></td>
+		<td>Stanley finds the Mouth of the Congo</td>
+		<td align="right">1877</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page509">509</a></td>
+		<td>Nordenski&ouml;ld solves the North-East Passage</td>
+		<td align="right">1879</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page519">519</a></td>
+		<td>Younghusband enters Lhasa</td>
+		<td align="right">1904</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page524">524</a></td>
+		<td>Nansen reaches Farthest North</td>
+		<td align="right">1895</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page534">534</a></td>
+		<td>Peary reaches the North Pole</td>
+		<td align="right">1909</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#page544">544</a></td>
+		<td>Amundsen reaches the South Pole</td>
+		<td align="right">1911</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="index"></a>
+<h3>INDEX</h3>
+<br>
+
+Abram, <a href="#page4">4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Abyssinia, <a href="#page344">344-7</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Afghanistan, <a href="#page36">36</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Africa, <a href="#page20">20-2</a>,
+<a href="#page72">72</a>,
+<a href="#page103">103</a>,
+<a href="#page127">127</a>,
+<a href="#page339">339</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Africa, Central, <a href="#page349">349-56</a>,
+<a href="#page391">391-402</a>,
+<a href="#page442">442-500</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Africa, South, <a href="#page152">152</a>,
+<a href="#page173">173-6</a>,
+<a href="#page440">440</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Africa, West Coast, <a href="#page22">22</a>,
+<a href="#page30">30</a>,
+<a href="#page139">139</a>,
+<a href="#page143">143-51</a>,
+<a href="#page349">349</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Agricola, <a href="#page68">68</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Alaska, <a href="#page317">317</a>,
+<a href="#page334">334</a>,
+<a href="#page338">338</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Albert Nyanza, <a href="#page470">470</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Albuquerque, Alphonso d', <a href="#page184">184-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Alexander the Great, <a href="#page35">35-43</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Alexandria, <a href="#page45">45</a>,
+<a href="#page74">74</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Alfred the Great, <a href="#page96">96</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Almagro, Diego de, <a href="#page220">220</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Almeida, Francisco, <a href="#page184">184-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Almeida, Lorenzo, <a href="#page185">185-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Alvarado, Pedro de, <a href="#page206">206</a>,
+<a href="#page208">208</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Amazon, <a href="#page221">221</a>.<br>
+<br>
+America (Central), <a href="#page168">168</a>,
+<a href="#page170">170</a>,
+<a href="#page191">191</a>,
+<a href="#page205">205</a>.<br>
+<br>
+America (North), <a href="#page95">95</a>,
+<a href="#page228">228</a>,
+<a href="#page255">255</a>,
+<a href="#page275">275</a>,
+<a href="#page316">316</a>,
+<a href="#page358">358</a>.<br>
+<br>
+America (South), <a href="#page167">167</a>,
+<a href="#page170">170</a>,
+<a href="#page180">180</a>,
+<a href="#page196">196</a>,
+<a href="#page215">215</a>,
+<a href="#page252">252</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Amundsen, R., <a href="#page542">542-4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Anabasis</i> (of Xenophon), <a href="#page34">34</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Anaximander, <a href="#page23">23</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Andes, <a href="#page217">217</a>,
+<a href="#page220">220</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Antarctic regions, <a href="#page331">331</a>,
+<a href="#page428">428-31</a>,
+<a href="#page536">536-44</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Arab explorers, <a href="#page98">98-107</a>,
+<a href="#page126">126</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Arabian Nights, The</i>, <a href="#page101">101</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Arctic regions, <a href="#page53">53</a>,
+<a href="#page238">238</a>,
+<a href="#page259">259-84</a>,
+<a href="#page312">312-8</a>,
+<a href="#page365">365-90</a>,
+<a href="#page403">403-9</a>,
+<a href="#page501">501-10</a>,
+<a href="#page521">521-35</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Arculf, <a href="#page88">88-90</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Argonauts, <a href="#page13">13-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Auckland, <a href="#page429">429</a>.<br>
+<br><a name="australia"></a>
+Australia, <a href="#page296">296-301</a>,
+<a href="#page307">307-11</a>,
+<a href="#page326">326-38</a>,
+<a href="#page410">410-27</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Babylonia, <a href="#page3">3-4</a>,
+<a href="#page32">32</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Back, Sir George, <a href="#page372">372-4</a>,
+<a href="#page382">382</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Baffin, William, <a href="#page280">280-3</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Baffin's Bay, <a href="#page282">282-3</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Bagdad, <a href="#page109">109</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Bahamas, <a href="#page160">160</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Baker, Sir Samuel, <a href="#page465">465-73</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, <a href="#page190">190-3</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Balbus, <a href="#page72">72</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Bangweolo, Lake, <a href="#page477">477</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Banks, Sir Joseph, <a href="#page320">320</a>,
+<a href="#page336">336</a>,
+<a href="#page349">349</a>,
+<a href="#page413">413</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Barents, William, <a href="#page265">265-72</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Bass, George, <a href="#page410">410-3</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Baudin, Nicholas, <a href="#page414">414</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Behring, Vitus, <a href="#page312">312-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Behring's Strait, <a href="#page312">312-8</a>,
+<a href="#page334">334</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Benjamin of Tudela, <a href="#page108">108</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Black Sea, <a href="#page14">14</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Bogle, George, <a href="#page512">512</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Book of the Tartars</i>, <a href="#page97">97</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Boothia, <a href="#page404">404</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Borneo, <a href="#page102">102</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Botany Bay, <a href="#page326">326</a>,
+<a href="#page336">336</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Brandon's Isle, <a href="#page86">86-7</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Brazil, <a href="#page181">181</a>,
+<a href="#page196">196</a>.<br>
+<br>
+British Columbia, <a href="#page358">358</a>,
+<a href="#page362">362</a>.<br>
+<br>
+British Isles, <a href="#page48">48</a>,
+<a href="#page50">50-2</a>,
+<a href="#page57">57-60</a>,
+<a href="#page66">66-9</a>,
+<a href="#page74">74</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Bruce, James, <a href="#page339">339-48</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Burke, R. O'Hara, <a href="#page424">424</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Burton, Sir Richard, <a href="#page450">450-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Button, Sir Thomas, <a href="#page280">280</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Cabot, John and Sebastian, <a href="#page224">224-7</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cabral, Pedro, <a href="#page180">180-2</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cadamosto, Luigi, <a href="#page143">143-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Caill&eacute;, R&eacute;n&eacute;, <a href="#page396">396</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Calicut, <a href="#page129">129</a>,
+<a href="#page177">177-8</a>,
+<a href="#page181">181-3</a>,
+<a href="#page186">186</a>.<br>
+<br>
+California, <a href="#page255">255</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cam, Diego, <a href="#page150">150-1</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Canada, <a href="#page228">228-34</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cano, Juan del, <a href="#page204">204</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Carpentaria, <a href="#page300">300</a>,
+<a href="#page416">416</a>.<br>
+<br><a name="carpini"></a>
+Carpini, Johannes, <a href="#page110">110</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cartier, Jacques, <a href="#page228">228-34</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Caspian Sea, <a href="#page36">36</a>,
+<a href="#page240">240</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cassiterides, <i>see</i> "<a href="#tinislands">Tin Islands</a>."<br>
+<br>
+Cathay, <i>see</i> <a href="#china">China</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Ceylon, <a href="#page91">91</a>,
+<a href="#page105">105</a>,
+<a href="#page124">124</a>,
+<a href="#page185">185-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Champlain, Samuel, <a href="#page290">290-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Chancellor, Richard, <a href="#page235">235-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Chatham Island, <a href="#page358">358</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Chelyuskin, Cape, <a href="#page504">504</a>,
+<a href="#page522">522</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Chili, <a href="#page220">220</a>,
+<a href="#page254">254</a>.<br>
+<br><a name="china"></a>
+China, <a href="#page75">75</a>,
+<a href="#page92">92</a>,
+<a href="#page99">99-101</a>,
+<a href="#page110">110-24</a>,
+<a href="#page130">130-1</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Chitral, <a href="#page38">38</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Christian Topography</i>, <a href="#page92">92</a>,
+<a href="#page133">133</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Christmas Island, <a href="#page333">333</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Chukches, <a href="#page315">315</a>,
+<a href="#page507">507</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Circumnavigation of Africa, <a href="#page19">19-22</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Circumnavigation of the World, <a href="#page196">196-204</a>,
+<a href="#page249">249-57</a>,
+<a href="#page308">308</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Clapperton, Lieut. Hugh, <a href="#page391">391-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cochin, <a href="#page184">184-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Columbus, Christopher, <a href="#page155">155-70</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cook, James, <a href="#page319">319-35</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Congo River, <a href="#page150">150-1</a>,
+<a href="#page480">480</a>,
+<a href="#page491">491-500</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cordova, Francisco Hernando de, <a href="#page205">205</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cortes, Hernando, <a href="#page207">207-14</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cosmas, <a href="#page90">90-2</a>,
+<a href="#page132">132</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Cuba, <a href="#page161">161</a>,
+<a href="#page166">166</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Dampier, William, <a href="#page306">306-11</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Darien, <a href="#page168">168</a>,
+<a href="#page191">191-2</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Davis, John, <a href="#page259">259-64</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Davis Strait, <a href="#page260">260</a>,
+<a href="#page281">281</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Delphi, <a href="#page24">24</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Denham, Major, <a href="#page391">391-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Diaz, Bartholomew, <a href="#page151">151-4</a>,
+<a href="#page180">180-1</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Drake, Sir Francis, <a href="#page249">249-58</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Drusus (Germanicus), <a href="#page69">69-71</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Edrisi, <a href="#page108">108</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Egypt, <a href="#page4">4-8</a>,
+<a href="#page26">26</a>.<br>
+<br>
+"El Dorado," <a href="#page222">222</a>,
+<a href="#page285">285</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Eratosthenes, <a href="#page45">45-7</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Erik, <a href="#page94">94</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Eskimos, <a href="#page246">246</a>,
+<a href="#page262">262</a>,
+<a href="#page281">281</a>,
+<a href="#page367">367</a>,
+<a href="#page379">379</a>,
+<a href="#page385">385</a>,
+<a href="#page405">405</a>,
+<a href="#page435">435</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Flinders, Matthew, <a href="#page410">410-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Floki, <a href="#page94">94</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Florida, <a href="#page205">205</a>.<br>
+<br>
+France, <i>see</i> <a href="#gaul">Gaul</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Franklin, Sir John, <a href="#page368">368</a>,
+<a href="#page372">372-8</a>,
+<a href="#page382">382-7</a>,
+<a href="#page482">482-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Franz Joseph Land, <a href="#page526">526-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+"Friar John," <i>see</i> <a href="#carpini">Carpini</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Frobisher, Martin, <a href="#page245">245-8</a>,
+<a href="#page296">296</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="gama"></a>
+Gama, Vasco da, <a href="#page171">171-9</a>,
+<a href="#page182">182-3</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Gambia River, <a href="#page30">30</a>,
+<a href="#page145">145</a>,
+<a href="#page349">349</a>,
+<a href="#page355">355</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Gardar, <a href="#page94">94</a>.<br>
+<br><a name="gaul"></a>
+Gaul, <a href="#page53">53-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Germany, <a href="#page55">55-7</a>,
+<a href="#page69">69-71</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, <a href="#page259">259</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Gobi Desert, <a href="#page75">75</a>,
+<a href="#page118">118</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Gomez, Diego, <a href="#page145">145-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Good Hope, Cape of, <a href="#page21">21</a>,
+<a href="#page152">152-4</a>,
+<a href="#page174">174</a>,
+<a href="#page181">181</a>,
+<a href="#page257">257</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Grant, Captain J. A., <a href="#page460">460-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Greenland, <a href="#page95">95</a>,
+<a href="#page246">246</a>,
+<a href="#page260">260-3</a>,
+<a href="#page274">274</a>,
+<a href="#page282">282</a>,
+<a href="#page501">501</a>,
+<a href="#page521">521</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Grijalva, Juan, <a href="#page206">206</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Guiana, <a href="#page287">287-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Hanno, <a href="#page29">29-32</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Hawaii, <a href="#page333">333</a>,
+<a href="#page335">335</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Hawkins, Sir John, <a href="#page250">250</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Hayti, <a href="#page161">161</a>,
+<a href="#page168">168</a>,
+<a href="#page191">191</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Hecat&aelig;us, <a href="#page25">25</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Hedin, Sven, <a href="#page518">518</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Helena, <a href="#page77">77-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Henry of Portugal, Prince, <a href="#page138">138-49</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Herodotus, <a href="#page19">19-22</a>,
+<a href="#page26">26-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Himilco, <a href="#page49">49</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Holland, <a href="#page51">51</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Homer, <a href="#page16">16-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Honduras, <a href="#page213">213-4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Horn, Cape, <a href="#page253">253</a>,
+<a href="#page300">300</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Houghton, Major, <a href="#page350">350-1</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Huc, Abb&eacute;, <a href="#page514">514-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Hudson, Henry, <a href="#page273">273-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Hudson River, <a href="#page276">276</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Hudson Strait, <a href="#page248">248</a>,
+<a href="#page277">277</a>,
+<a href="#page281">281</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Hudson's Bay, <a href="#page246">246</a>,
+<a href="#page372">372</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Huron Lake, <a href="#page294">294</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Ibn Batuta, <a href="#page126">126-32</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Iceland, <a href="#page94">94</a>,
+<a href="#page277">277</a>.<br>
+<br>
+India, <a href="#page38">38-43</a>,
+<a href="#page66">66</a>,
+<a href="#page128">128</a>,
+<a href="#page177">177-86</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Ireland, <a href="#page59">59</a>,
+<a href="#page63">63</a>,
+<a href="#page66">66</a>,
+<a href="#page69">69</a>,
+<a href="#page83">83-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Ithobal, <a href="#page20">20-3</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem</i>, <a href="#page78">78-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Jamaica, <a href="#page166">166</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Japan, <a href="#page123">123</a>,
+<a href="#page241">241</a>,
+<a href="#page282">282</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Java, <a href="#page124">124</a>,
+<a href="#page328">328</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Jenkinson, Anthony, <a href="#page240">240-1</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Jerusalem, <a href="#page24">24</a>,
+<a href="#page77">77-9</a>,
+<a href="#page89">89</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Julius C&aelig;sar, <a href="#page54">54-60</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Kamtchatka, <a href="#page313">313-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Kara Sea, <a href="#page504">504</a>,
+<a href="#page522">522</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Kara Strait, <a href="#page503">503</a>.<br>
+<br>
+King Edward <small>VII.</small>'s Land, <a href="#page536">536</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Kin Sai, <a href="#page120">120</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Kublai Khan, <a href="#page115">115-25</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Kyber Pass, <a href="#page38">38</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Labrador, <a href="#page96">96</a>,
+<a href="#page228">228</a>,
+<a href="#page262">262-4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Ladrones Islands, <a href="#page202">202</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Lander, John and Richard, <a href="#page396">396</a>,
+<a href="#page399">399-402</a>.<br>
+<br>
+La Perouse, Comte de, <a href="#page338">338</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Lapland, <a href="#page238">238</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Le Maire, Isaac, <a href="#page299">299</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Lhasa, <a href="#page511">511-20</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Libya, <a href="#page20">20</a>,
+<a href="#page27">27-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Lief, <a href="#page95">95</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Livingstone, David, <a href="#page440">440-9</a>,
+<a href="#page456">456-9</a>,
+<a href="#page474">474-85</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Machin, Robert, <a href="#page141">141</a>.<br>
+<br>
+M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clintock, Sir Leopold, <a href="#page433">433-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+M<small><sup>c</sup></small>Clure, Sir R. J. Le M., <a href="#page433">433</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Mackenzie, Alexander, <a href="#page362">362-4</a>,
+<a href="#page382">382</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Madagascar, <a href="#page103">103</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Madeira, <a href="#page86">86</a>,
+<a href="#page140">140</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Magellan, Ferdinand, <a href="#page190">190</a>,
+<a href="#page193">193-202</a>,
+<a href="#page296">296</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Magellan's Strait, <a href="#page198">198-9</a>,
+<a href="#page253">253</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Magnetic Poles, <a href="#page405">405</a>,
+<a href="#page430">430</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Malabar, <a href="#page182">182-3</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Malacca, <a href="#page187">187-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Malay Archipelago, <a href="#page188">188-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Mandeville, Sir John, <a href="#page126">126</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Manilla, <a href="#page298">298</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Manning, Thomas, <a href="#page513">513</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Maoris, <a href="#page303">303</a>,
+<a href="#page322">322</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Maps (ancient), <a href="#page24">24</a>,
+<a href="#page46">46</a>,
+<a href="#page62">62</a>,
+<a href="#page75">75</a>,
+<a href="#page92">92</a>,
+<a href="#page108">108</a>,
+<a href="#page133">133-7</a>,
+<a href="#page149">149</a>,
+<a href="#page305">305</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Massoudy, <a href="#page107">107</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Meadows of Gold</i>, <a href="#page107">107</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Mesopotamia, <a href="#page2">2-4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Mexico, <a href="#page206">206-14</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Mongolia, <i>see</i> <a href="#china">China</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Montreal, <a href="#page232">232</a>,
+<a href="#page292">292</a>,
+<a href="#page295">295</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Mota, Antonio de, <a href="#page241">241</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Mozambique, <a href="#page176">176</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Mumbo Jumbo, <a href="#page350">350</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Murchison Falls, <a href="#page472">472</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Murray River, <a href="#page421">421</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Murrumbidgee River, <a href="#page420">420-4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Naddod, <a href="#page94">94</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Nansen, Fridtjof, <a href="#page521">521-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Natal, <a href="#page175">175</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Nearchus, <a href="#page41">41-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Neco, <a href="#page19">19-20</a>.<br>
+<br>
+New Albion, <a href="#page255">255</a>,
+<a href="#page333">333</a>,
+<a href="#page358">358</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Newfoundland, <a href="#page96">96</a>,
+<a href="#page225">225-7</a>,
+<a href="#page275">275</a>.<br>
+<br>
+New Guinea, <a href="#page298">298</a>,
+<a href="#page303">303-5</a>,
+<a href="#page310">310</a>.<br>
+<br>
+New Holland, <i>see</i> <a href="#australia">Australia</a>.<br>
+<br>
+New South Wales, <a href="#page328">328</a>,
+<a href="#page410">410</a>,
+<a href="#page415">415</a>.<br>
+<br>
+New Zealand, <a href="#page303">303</a>,
+<a href="#page322">322-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Niger River, <a href="#page72">72</a>,
+<a href="#page348">348</a>,
+<a href="#page353">353-6</a>,
+<a href="#page396">396</a>,
+<a href="#page399">399-402</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Nigeria, <a href="#page394">394-402</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Nile, The, <a href="#page4">4-9</a>,
+<a href="#page27">27</a>,
+<a href="#page339">339-42</a>,
+<a href="#page345">345-7</a>,
+<a href="#page454">454-62</a>,
+<a href="#page468">468</a>,
+<a href="#page470">470</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Nordenski&ouml;ld, Baron, <a href="#page501">501-10</a>.<br>
+<br>
+North-East Passage, <a href="#page235">235-40</a>,
+<a href="#page315">315</a>,
+<a href="#page501">501-10</a>.<br>
+<br>
+North-West Passage, <a href="#page245">245-64</a>,
+<a href="#page290">290</a>,
+<a href="#page332">332</a>,
+<a href="#page366">366</a>,
+<a href="#page403">403</a>,
+<a href="#page433">433</a>.<br>
+<br>
+North Pole, <a href="#page531">531-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Nova Scotia, <a href="#page229">229</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Nova Zembla, <a href="#page237">237</a>,
+<a href="#page265">265-72</a>,
+<a href="#page503">503</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Nyassaland (and lake), <a href="#page458">458-9</a>,
+<a href="#page475">475</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Ontario, <a href="#page294">294</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Orellana, Francisco de, <a href="#page220">220-2</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Orinoco, <a href="#page167">167</a>,
+<a href="#page285">285-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Otaheite, <a href="#page320">320-2</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Othere, <a href="#page96">96</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Oudney, Dr., <a href="#page391">391-4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Oxus, <a href="#page37">37</a>,
+<a href="#page117">117</a>,
+<a href="#page241">241</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Pacific Ocean, <a href="#page130">130</a>,
+<a href="#page192">192</a>,
+<a href="#page199">199-203</a>,
+<a href="#page250">250</a>,
+<a href="#page253">253</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Panama, <a href="#page191">191</a>,
+<a href="#page250">250</a>,
+<a href="#page306">306</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Park, Mungo, <a href="#page348">348-56</a>,
+<a href="#page396">396</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Parry, Sir W. E., <a href="#page365">365-71</a>,
+<a href="#page378">378-81</a>,
+<a href="#page388">388-90</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Patagonia, <a href="#page196">196-9</a>,
+<a href="#page252">252</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Paula, <a href="#page80">80</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Peary, R. E., <a href="#page530">530-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Pekin, <a href="#page115">115</a>,
+<a href="#page119">119</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Pelsart, Captain, <a href="#page300">300</a>,
+<a href="#page309">309</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Periplus</i> (of Hanno), <a href="#page29">29</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Persia, <a href="#page32">32-3</a>,
+<a href="#page117">117</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Peru, <a href="#page216">216-20</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Philippine Islands, <a href="#page202">202</a>,
+<a href="#page256">256</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Phillip, Captain, <a href="#page336">336</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Phoenicians, <a href="#page10">10-3</a>,
+<a href="#page19">19-23</a>,
+<a href="#page29">29-32</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Pilgrims, <a href="#page77">77-92</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Pinto, Mendex, <a href="#page241">241-2</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Pizarro, Francisco, <a href="#page215">215-23</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Pliny, <a href="#page66">66</a>,
+<a href="#page71">71-3</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Polo, Niccolo, Maffio, and Marco <a href="#page115">115-25</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Prester John, <a href="#page111">111</a>,
+<a href="#page126">126</a>,
+<a href="#page176">176</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Prickett, Abacuk, <a href="#page277">277</a>,
+<a href="#page280">280</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Przhevalsky, N. M., <a href="#page518">518</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Ptolemy, <a href="#page74">74-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Punjab, <a href="#page39">39</a>.<br>
+<br><a name="punt"></a>
+Punt, <a href="#page5">5-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Pytheas, <a href="#page48">48-53</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Quebec, <a href="#page290">290</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Quilimane River, <a href="#page175">175</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Quiros, Pedro Fernandez De, <a href="#page298">298</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Raleigh, Sir Walter, <a href="#page285">285-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Red Sea, <a href="#page5">5-7</a>,
+<a href="#page20">20-1</a> ,
+<a href="#page343">343</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Richardson, Sir John, <a href="#page372">372-87</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Ripon Falls, <a href="#page463">463</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Ross, Sir James, <a href="#page388">388</a>,
+<a href="#page403">403-9</a>,
+<a href="#page428">428-31</a>,
+<a href="#page433">433</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Ross, Sir John, <a href="#page365">365-8</a>,
+<a href="#page403">403-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Rubruquis, William de, <a href="#page112">112-4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Russia, <a href="#page238">238-40</a>,
+<a href="#page313">313</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Sahara, <a href="#page391">391</a>.<br>
+<br>
+St. Brandon, <a href="#page85">85-7</a>.<br>
+<br>
+St. Columba, <a href="#page84">84-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+St. Lawrence River, <a href="#page228">228</a>,
+<a href="#page230">230</a>,
+<a href="#page290">290</a>.<br>
+<br>
+St. Louis River, <a href="#page292">292</a>.<br>
+<br>
+St. Patrick, <a href="#page83">83-4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+St. Paul's Island, <a href="#page200">200</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Sandwich Islands, <a href="#page333">333</a>,
+<a href="#page335">335</a>.<br>
+<br>
+San Francisco, <a href="#page255">255</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Sargasso Sea, <a href="#page50">50</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Scandinavia, <a href="#page72">72</a>,
+<a href="#page93">93</a>,
+<a href="#page97">97</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Schouten, Cornelius, <a href="#page299">299</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Scotland, <a href="#page68">68</a>,
+<a href="#page84">84-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Scott, Captain R. F., <a href="#page536">536-42</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Senegal River, <a href="#page30">30</a>,
+<a href="#page144">144</a>,
+<a href="#page351">351</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Sequira, Diogo Lopes de, <a href="#page186">186</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Serrano, Francisco, <a href="#page188">188</a>,
+<a href="#page194">194</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Shackleton, Sir E. H., <a href="#page536">536-40</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Shirwa, Lake, <a href="#page457">457</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Siberia, <a href="#page313">313-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Sierra Leone, <a href="#page29">29-30</a>,
+<a href="#page143">143</a>.<br>
+<br>
+"Sindbad the Sailor," <a href="#page101">101-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Society Islands, <a href="#page322">322</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Socotra, <a href="#page184">184</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Solis, Juan Diaz de, <a href="#page196">196</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Somaliland, <i>see</i> <a href="#punt">Punt</a>.<br>
+<br>
+South Pole, <a href="#page536">536-44</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Spain, <a href="#page49">49</a>,
+<a href="#page64">64</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Speke, J. H., <a href="#page450">450-5</a>,
+<a href="#page460">460-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Spice Islands, <a href="#page188">188-90</a>,
+<a href="#page203">203</a>,
+<a href="#page256">256</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Spitzbergen, <a href="#page269">269</a>,
+<a href="#page274">274</a>,
+<a href="#page388">388</a>,
+<a href="#page501">501</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Staaten Land, <a href="#page299">299</a>,
+<a href="#page303">303</a>,
+<a href="#page324">324</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Stanley, Sir H. M., <a href="#page480">480-2</a>,
+<a href="#page486">486-500</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Stanley Falls, <a href="#page494">494</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Strabo, <a href="#page52">52</a>,
+<a href="#page61">61-7</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Sturt, Captain, <a href="#page418">418-24</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Sudan, The, <a href="#page468">468</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Sumatra, <a href="#page104">104</a>,
+<a href="#page124">124</a>,
+<a href="#page130">130</a>,
+<a href="#page187">187</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Sydney, <a href="#page337">337</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Sylvia of Aquitaine, <a href="#page80">80-2</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Tacitus, <a href="#page69">69-71</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tanganyika, <a href="#page452">452</a>,
+<a href="#page476">476</a>,
+<a href="#page491">491</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tartary, <a href="#page110">110</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tasman, Abel Jansen, <a href="#page302">302-5</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tasmania, <a href="#page302">302-5</a>,
+<a href="#page413">413</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tchad, Lake, <a href="#page392">392</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Thule, <a href="#page51">51-3</a>,
+<a href="#page97">97</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tibet, <a href="#page123">123</a>,
+<a href="#page511">511-20</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tierra del Fuego, <a href="#page199">199</a>,
+<a href="#page254">254</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Timbuktu, <a href="#page391">391-8</a>.<br>
+<br><a name="tinislands"></a>
+"Tin Islands," The, <a href="#page10">10</a>,
+<a href="#page12">12</a>,
+<a href="#page48">48-50</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tippu Tib, <a href="#page492">492</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Torres, Luiz Vaez de, <a href="#page298">298</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Torres Strait, <a href="#page298">298</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Trinidad, <a href="#page167">167</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tsana, Lake, <a href="#page345">345</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Tyre, <a href="#page29">29</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Uganda, <a href="#page461">461</a>,
+<a href="#page488">488</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Ulysses, <a href="#page16">16-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Vancouver, <a href="#page255">255</a>,
+<a href="#page357">357-61</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Vancouver, Captain, <a href="#page357">357-61</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Van Diemen's Land, <a href="#page302">302</a>,
+<a href="#page410">410-2</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Vasco da Gama, <i>see</i> <a href="#gama">Gama</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Vera Cruz, <a href="#page208">208-9</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Vespucci, Amerigo, <a href="#page169">169-70</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Victoria Falls, <a href="#page445">445</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Victoria Nyanza, <a href="#page454">454</a>,
+<a href="#page462">462</a>,
+<a href="#page487">487</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Vikings, <a href="#page93">93-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+West Indies, <a href="#page160">160-1</a>,
+<a href="#page164">164-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+White Sea, <a href="#page238">238</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Willibald, <a href="#page90">90</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Willoughby, Sir Hugh, <a href="#page235">235-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+Wills, W. J., <a href="#page424">424-6</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Xenophon, <a href="#page22">22-4</a>,
+<a href="#page33">33-4</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Younghusband, Sir F. E., <a href="#page519">519</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Zambesi River, <a href="#page442">442-8</a>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><small>PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN</small></center>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book of Discovery, by 
+Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF DISCOVERY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 23107-h.htm or 23107-h.zip *****
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's A Book of Discovery, by Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Book of Discovery
+       The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest
+       Times to the Finding of the South Pole
+
+Author: Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2007 [EBook #23107]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF DISCOVERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ron Swanson
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: PTOLEMY'S MAP OF THE WORLD, ORIGINALLY DRAWN ABOUT A.D.
+150. From the first printed edition of 1472 (the first book to have
+printed maps) and the famous Rome edition of 1508. It is only necessary
+to compare this map with the mythical geography represented in a
+mediaeval map such as the Hereford map of the world, made _eleven
+centuries_ later to recognise the extraordinary accuracy and
+scientific value of Ptolemy's geography.]
+
+
+
+
+A BOOK OF DISCOVERY
+THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S EXPLORATION, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO
+THE FINDING OF THE SOUTH POLE
+
+
+By M. B. SYNGE, F.R.Hist.S.
+AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF THE WORLD"
+"A SHORT HISTORY OF SOCIAL LIFE IN ENGLAND" ETC.
+
+
+_FULLY ILLUSTRATED FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES AND WITH MAPS_
+
+
+[Illustration: THE _GOLDEN HIND_ (_From the Chart of "Drake's
+Voyages"_)]
+
+
+LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD.
+35 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C., & EDINBURGH
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+"Hope went before them, and the world was wide."
+
+
+Such was 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 whereon no boat had ever
+sailed. It is the incentive of those to-day with the wander-thirst
+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 unrivalled 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
+liveth for evermore."
+
+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 never have 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 nerved Vasco
+da Gama to double the Stormy Cape, that induced Magellan 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 sixteenth century, when England set herself to take
+possession of her heritage in the North. Such an heroic 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 Orellana 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 mainyard was covered; but we had also
+to make use of sawdust for food, and rats became a great delicacy,"
+related Magellan, as he led his little ship across the unknown Pacific.
+
+Again, there is Franklin returning from the Arctic coast, and stilling
+the pangs of hunger with "pieces of singed hide mixed with lichen,"
+varied with "the horns and bones of a 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 mariner of dangerous
+coast and angry surf, no books of travel to relate the weird doings
+of fierce and inhospitable savages, no tinned foods to prevent the
+terrible scourge of sailors, scurvy. In their little wooden sailing
+ships the men of old faced every conceivable danger, and surmounted
+obstacles unknown to modern civilisation.
+
+   "Now strike your Sails ye jolly Mariners,
+    For we be come into a quiet Rode."
+
+For the most part we are struck with the light-heartedness of the olden
+sailor, 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, to 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 makyth a Port Pleasant."
+
+For the early navigators knew little of the art of navigation.
+
+Pytheas, who discovered the British Isles, was "a great
+mathematician." Diego Cam, who sailed to the mouth of the Congo, was
+"a knight of the King's household." Sir Hugh Willoughby, "a most
+valiant gentleman." Richard Chancellor, "a man of great estimation
+for many good parts of wit in him." Anthony Jenkinson, 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 seamen.
+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 an exploring party searching for
+an English lad named Smith, who had been starved to death.
+
+"Away, away, away, away; we reach the water of Djunjup; we shoot 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 sandhill; onwards I go regarding his footsteps.
+I see Mr. Smith dead. Two sleeps had he been dead; greatly did I weep,
+and much I grieved. 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 a 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 centre, the island
+of Thule in the north, and St. Brandon's Isles of the Blest in the
+west.
+
+Beautifully coloured 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 beflagged vessels with swelling sails." The land is
+ablaze with kings and potentates on golden thrones under canopies of
+angels. While over all presides the Madonna in her golden chair.
+
+The Hereford Mappa Mundi, drawn in the thirteenth century on a fine
+sheet of vellum, circular in form, is among the most interesting of
+the mediaeval 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 Haldingham. The
+map is surmounted by a representation of the Last Judgment, below which
+is Paradise as a circular island, with the four rivers and the figures
+of Adam and Eve. In the centre is Jerusalem. The world is divided into
+three--Asia, "Affrica," 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 pilot to Columbus,
+drawn in the fifteenth century, with St. 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 New World.
+
+The early maps of "Apphrica" are filled with camels and unicorns, lions
+and tigers, veiled figures and the turrets and spires of strange
+buildings--
+
+   "Geographers in Afric 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 to-day, 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 is yet unsolved; there are
+shores untrodden and rivers unsurveyed.
+
+"God hath given us some things, and not all things, that our successors
+also might have somewhat to do," wrote Barents in the sixteenth 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.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+   CHAP.                                                         PAGE
+      I. A LITTLE OLD WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   1
+     II. EARLY MARINERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
+    III. IS THE WORLD FLAT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
+     IV. HERODOTUS--THE TRAVELLER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
+      V. ALEXANDER THE GREAT EXPLORES INDIA . . . . . . . . . . .  35
+     VI. PYTHEAS FINDS THE BRITISH ISLES  . . . . . . . . . . . .  48
+    VII. JULIUS CAESAR AS EXPLORER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  54
+   VIII. STRABO'S GEOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  61
+     IX. THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND PLINY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  68
+      X. PTOLEMY'S MAPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  74
+     XI. PILGRIM TRAVELLERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  77
+    XII. IRISH EXPLORERS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  83
+   XIII. AFTER MOHAMMED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  88
+    XIV. THE VIKINGS SAIL THE NORTHERN SEAS . . . . . . . . . . .  93
+     XV. ARAB WAYFARERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  98
+    XVI. TRAVELLERS TO THE EAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
+   XVII. MARCO POLO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
+  XVIII. THE END OF MEDIAEVAL EXPLORATION . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
+    XIX. MEDIAEVAL MAPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
+     XX. PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
+    XXI. BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ REACHES THE STORMY CAPE . . . . . . . . 150
+   XXII. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
+  XXIII. A GREAT NEW WORLD  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
+   XXIV. VASCO DA GAMA REACHES INDIA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
+    XXV. DISCOVERY OF THE SPICE ISLANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
+   XXVI. BALBOA SEES THE PACIFIC OCEAN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
+  XXVII. MAGELLAN SAILS ROUND THE WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
+ XXVIII. CORTES EXPLORES AND CONQUERS MEXICO  . . . . . . . . . . 205
+   XXIX. EXPLORERS IN SOUTH AMERICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
+    XXX. CABOT SAILS TO NEWFOUNDLAND  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
+   XXXI. JACQUES CARTIER EXPLORES CANADA  . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
+  XXXII. SEARCH FOR A NORTH-EAST PASSAGE  . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
+ XXXIII. MARTIN FROBISHER SEARCHES FOR A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE . . . 245
+  XXXIV. DRAKE'S FAMOUS VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD  . . . . . . . . . 249
+   XXXV. DAVIS STRAIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
+  XXXVI. BARENTS SAILS TO SPITZBERGEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
+ XXXVII. HUDSON FINDS HIS BAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
+XXXVIII. BAFFIN FINDS HIS BAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
+  XXXIX. SIR WALTER RALEIGH SEARCHES FOR EL DORADO  . . . . . . . 285
+     XL. CHAMPLAIN DISCOVERS LAKE ONTARIO . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
+    XLI. EARLY DISCOVERERS OF AUSTRALIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
+   XLII. TASMAN FINDS TASMANIA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
+  XLIII. DAMPIER DISCOVERS HIS STRAIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
+   XLIV. BEHRING FINDS HIS STRAIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
+    XLV. COOK DISCOVERS NEW ZEALAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
+   XLVI. COOK'S THIRD VOYAGE AND DEATH  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
+  XLVII. BRUCE'S TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
+ XLVIII. MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
+   XLIX. VANCOUVER DISCOVERS HIS ISLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
+      L. MACKENZIE AND HIS RIVER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
+     LI. PARRY DISCOVERS LANCASTER SOUND  . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
+    LII. THE FROZEN NORTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
+   LIII. FRANKLIN'S LAND JOURNEY TO THE NORTH . . . . . . . . . . 382
+    LIV. PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
+     LV. THE SEARCH FOR TIMBUKTU  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
+    LVI. RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER DISCOVER THE MOUTH OF THE NIGER  399
+   LVII. ROSS DISCOVERS THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE . . . . . . . . . 403
+  LVIII. FLINDERS NAMES AUSTRALIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
+    LIX. STURT'S DISCOVERIES IN AUSTRALIA . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
+     LX. ROSS MAKES DISCOVERIES IN THE ANTARCTIC SEAS . . . . . . 428
+    LXI. FRANKLIN DISCOVERS THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE  . . . . . . . 432
+   LXII. DAVID LIVINGSTONE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
+  LXIII. BURTON AND SPEKE IN CENTRAL AFRICA . . . . . . . . . . . 450
+   LXIV. LIVINGSTONE TRACES LAKE SHIRWA AND NYASSA  . . . . . . . 456
+    LXV. EXPEDITION TO VICTORIA NYANZA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
+   LXVI. BAKER FINDS ALBERT NYANZA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
+  LXVII. LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
+ LXVIII. THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
+   LXIX. NORDENSKIOLD ACCOMPLISHES THE NORTH-EAST PASSAGE . . . . 501
+    LXX. THE EXPLORATION OF TIBET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
+   LXXI. NANSEN REACHES FARTHEST NORTH  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
+  LXXII. PEARY REACHES THE NORTH POLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
+ LXXIII. THE QUEST FOR THE SOUTH POLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
+
+         DATES OF CHIEF EVENTS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
+         INDEX  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
+
+
+
+
+COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+Ptolemy's Map of the World about A.D. 150 . . . . . .  _Frontispiece_
+    Taken from the first printed edition of 1472 and the Rome
+      edition of 1508.
+
+                                                          FACING PAGE
+The Polos leaving Venice for their Travels to the Far East  . . . 118
+    From a Miniature at the head of a late 14th century MS. of the
+      _Travels of Marco Polo_, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
+
+The Hereford Mappa Mundi of 1280  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
+    The original, made by RICHARD DE HALDINGHAM, Prebendary of
+      Hereford, hangs in the Chapter House Library, Hereford
+      Cathedral.
+
+Map of the World drawn in 1500, the first to show America . . . . 168
+    By JUAN DE LA COSA.
+
+The Dauphin Map of the World  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
+    Made by PIERRE DESCELLIERS 1546, by order of Francis I. for
+      the Dauphin (Henri II.) of France.
+
+Barents's Ship among the Arctic Ice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
+    From a coloured woodcut in Barents's _Three Voyages_
+     (De Veer), published in 1598.
+
+Ross's Winter Quarters in Felix Harbour . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
+
+The First Communication With Eskimos at Boothia Felix, 1830 . . . 404
+    From Drawings by ROSS in the _Narrative of his Expedition to
+      the North Magnetic Pole, A Second Voyage in Search of a
+      North-West Passage_, 1829-33.
+
+Shackleton's Ship, the _Nimrod_, among the Ice in McMurdo Sound . 538
+    From _The Heart of the Antarctic_ (published by Heinemann), by
+      kind permission of Sir ERNEST SHACKLETON.
+
+
+
+
+BLACK & WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                          FACING PAGE
+The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the time of
+    Homer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
+
+The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the time of
+    Ptolemy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  74
+
+The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the end of
+    the 13th century  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
+
+The Best Portrait of Columbus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
+    From the original Painting by an unknown artist in the Naval
+      Museum, Madrid.
+
+The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the time of
+    Columbus  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
+
+Amerigo Vespucci  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
+    From the Sculpture by GRAZZINI at the Uffizi Gallery,
+      Florence.
+
+Ferdinand Magellan, the first Circumnavigator . . . . . . . . . . 198
+    From the Engraving by FERDINAND SELMA.
+
+Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman to sail round the World . 252
+    After the Engraving attributed to HONDIUS.
+
+The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the time of
+    Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
+
+Karakakova Bay, where Captain Cook was murdered . . . . . . . . . 334
+    From the Engraving in the Atlas to COOK'S _Voyages_.
+
+The Unrolling of the Clouds: the World as known at the time of
+    Cook  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
+
+Mungo Park  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
+    From the Engraving in PARK'S _Travels into the Interior of
+      Africa_, 1799.
+
+Search for a North-West Passage: Parry's Ships cutting through
+    the Ice into Winter Harbour, 1819 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
+    From a Drawing by WILLIAM WESTALL, A.R.A., of a Sketch by
+      Lieut. BEECHEY, a member of the expedition. From PARRY'S
+      _Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of the North-West
+      Passage_.
+
+Lhasa and the Potala  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
+    From a Photograph by a member of Younghusband's Expedition to
+      Thibet.
+
+At the North Pole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534
+    From the Photograph in Admiral PEARY'S book _The North Pole_.
+
+Captain Roald Amundsen taking Sights at the South Pole  . . . . . 544
+    From a Photograph.
+
+Acknowledgment is due to the courtesy of Mr. John Murray and the
+_Illustrated London News_ for the photograph taken at the South Pole,
+facing page 544; to Admiral Peary for that taken at the North Pole,
+facing page 534; and to Sir Ernest Shackleton and Mr. Heinemann for
+the colour-plate of the _Nimrod_. Permissions have also been granted
+by Mr. John Murray (for illustrations from Livingstone's books and
+Admiral McClintock's _Voyage of the Fox_); by Messrs. Macmillan (for
+the colour-plate of the Polos leaving Venice, from the Bodleian); and
+by Messrs. Sampson, Low, Marston, & Co. (for illustrations from Sir
+H. M. Stanley's books).
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
+
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+The Garden of Eden with its Four Rivers . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
+    From the Hereford Map of the World.
+
+Babylonian Map of the World on Clay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
+    In the British Museum.
+
+The oldest known Ships: between 6000 and 5000 B.C.  . . . . . . .   4
+    From a pre-Egyptian Vase-painting.
+
+Egyptian Ship of the Expedition to Punt, about 1600 B.C.  . . . .   7
+    From a Rock-carving at Der el Bahari.
+
+The Ark on Ararat, and the Cities of Nineveh and Babylon  . . . .   8
+    From LEONARDO DATI'S Map of 1422.
+
+A Phoenician Ship, about 700 B.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
+    From a Bas-relief at Nineveh.
+
+Map of the Voyage of the Argonauts  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
+
+The Pillars of Hercules, as shown in a Mediaeval Map  . . . . . .  20
+    HIGDEN'S Map of the World. 1360 A.D.
+
+The Pillars of Hercules, as shown in the Anglo-Saxon Map of the
+    World, 10th century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
+
+A Greek Galley, about 500 B.C.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
+    From a Vase-painting.
+
+Jerusalem, the Centre of the World  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
+    From the Hereford Map of the World, 13th century.
+
+A Merchant-Ship of Athens, about 500 B.C. . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
+    From a Vase-painting.
+
+The Coast of Africa, after Ptolemy (Mercator's Edition), showing
+    Hanno's Voyage  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
+
+A Sketch Map of Alexander's Chief Exploratory Marches from Athens
+    to Hyderabad and Gaza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42
+
+Alexandria in Pizzigani's Map, 14th century . . . . . . . . . . .  44
+
+North Britain and the Island of Thule . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  52
+    From MERCATOR'S edition of Ptolemy's Map.
+
+A Portion of an old Roman Map of the World, showing the roads
+    through the Empire  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  62
+    From the Peutinger Table.
+
+The World-Island according to Strabo, 18 A.D. . . . . . . . . . .  65
+
+Hull of a Roman Merchant-Ship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  71
+    From a Roman model at Greenwich.
+
+A Roman Galley, about 110 A.D.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  73
+    From Trajan's Column at Rome.
+
+The First Stages of a Mediaeval Pilgrimage, London to Dover . . .  78
+    From MATTHEW OF PARIS'S _Itinerary_, 13th century.
+
+Jerusalem and the East  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  81
+    From MATTHEW OF PARIS'S _Itinerary_, 13th century.
+
+Ireland and St. Brandon's Isle  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  85
+    From the Catalan Map, 1375.
+
+The Mysterious Isle of St. Brandon  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  87
+    From MARTIN BEHAIM'S Map, 1492.
+
+The World-Map of Cosmas, 6th century  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  89
+    The oldest Christian Map.
+
+The Mountain of Cosmas  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  91
+
+A Viking Ship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  95
+    From Professor MONTELIUS'S book on Scandinavian archaeology.
+
+A Khalif on his Throne  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  99
+    From the Ancona Map, 1497.
+
+A Chinese Emperor giving Audience, 9th century  . . . . . . . . . 100
+    From an old Chinese MS. at Paris.
+
+The Scene of Sindbad's Voyages  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
+    From EDRISI'S Map, 1154.
+
+Sindbad's Giant Roc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
+    From an Oriental Miniature Painting.
+
+Jerusalem and the Pilgrims' Ways to it, 12th century  . . . . . . 109
+    From a Map of the 12th century at Brussels.
+
+Two Emperors of Tartary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
+    From the Catalan Map, 1375.
+
+A Tartar Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
+    From the Borgian Map, 1453.
+
+Initial Letter from the MS. of Rubruquis at Cambridge . . . . . . 113
+
+How the Brothers Polo set out from Constantinople with their
+    nephew Marco for China  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
+    From a Miniature Painting in 14th century _Livre des
+      Merveilles_.
+
+Marco Polo lands at Ormuz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
+    From a Miniature in the _Livre des Merveilles_.
+
+Kublai Khan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
+    From an old Chinese Encyclopaedia at Paris.
+
+Marco Polo  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
+    From a Woodcut in the first printed edition of MARCO POLO'S
+      _Travels_, 1477.
+
+A Japanese Fight against the Chinese at the time when Marco Polo
+    first saw the Japanese  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
+    From an ancient Japanese Painting.
+
+Sir John Mandeville on his Travels  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
+    From a MS. in the British Museum.
+
+An Emperor of Tartary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
+    From the Map ascribed to SEBASTIAN CABOT, 1544.
+
+A Caravan in Cathay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
+    From the Catalan Map, 1375.
+
+The Turin Map of the World, 8th century . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
+
+A T-map, 10th century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
+
+A T-map, 13th century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
+
+The Kaiser holding the World  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
+    From a 12th-century MS.
+
+The "Anglo-Saxon" Map of the World, drawn about 990 A.D.  . . . . 137
+    From the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum.
+
+Africa--from Ceuta to Madeira . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
+    From FRA MAURO'S Map, 1457.
+
+The Voyage to Cape Blanco from Cape Bojador . . . . . . . . . . . 142
+    From FRA MAURO'S Map, 1457.
+
+A Portion of Africa illustrating Cadamosto's Voyage beyond Cape
+    Blanco  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
+    From FRA MAURO'S Map, 1457.
+
+Sketch of Africa  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
+    From FRA MAURO'S Map of the World, 1457.
+
+Negro Boys  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
+    From CABOT'S Map, 1544.
+
+The West Coast of Africa  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
+    From MARTIN BEHAIM'S Map, 1492.
+
+The Parting of Columbus with Ferdinand and Isabella, 3rd August
+    1492  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
+    From DE BRY'S account of the _Voyages to India_, 1601.
+
+Columbus's Ship, the _Santa Maria_  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
+    From a Woodcut of 1493, supposed to be after a Drawing by
+      COLUMBUS.
+
+Columbus landing on Hispaniola  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
+    From a Woodcut of 1494.
+
+The first Representation of the People of the New World . . . . . 163
+    From a Woodcut published at Augsburg between 1497 and 1504.
+
+The Town of Isabella and the Colony founded by Columbus . . . . . 166
+    From a Woodcut of 1494.
+
+Vasco da Gama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
+    From a contemporary Portrait.
+
+Africa as it was known after da Gama's Expeditions  . . . . . . . 175
+    From JUAN DE LA COSA'S Map of 1500.
+
+Calicut and the Southern Indian Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
+    From JUAN DE LA COSA'S Map, 1500.
+
+The Malabar Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
+    From FRA MAURO'S Map.
+
+A Ship of Albuquerque's Fleet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
+    From a very fine Woodcut in the British Museum.
+
+A Ship of Java and the China Seas in the 16th century . . . . . . 187
+    From LINSCHOTEN'S _Navigatio ac Itinerarium_, 1598.
+
+One of the first Maps of the Pacific  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
+    From DIEGO RIBERO'S Map, 1529.
+
+Magellan's Fleet  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
+    From MERCATOR'S _Mappe Monde_, 1569.
+
+A Ship of the 16th century  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
+    From AMORETTI'S translation of _Magellan's Voyage round the
+      World_.
+
+"Hondius his Map of the Magellan Streight"  . . . . . . . . . . . 201
+    From a Map by JODOCUS HONDIUS, about 1590.
+
+The first Ship that sailed round the World  . . . . . . . . . . . 203
+    Magellan's _Victoria_, from HULSIUS'S _Collection of Voyages_,
+      1602.
+
+Hernando Cortes, Conqueror of Mexico  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
+    After the original Portrait at Mexico.
+
+The Battles of the Spaniards in Mexico  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
+    From an ancient Aztec Drawing.
+
+Pizarro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
+    From the Portrait at Cuzco.
+
+Peru and South America  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
+    From the Map of the World, 1544, usually ascribed to SEBASTIAN
+      CABOT.
+
+Peruvian Warriors of the Inca Period  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
+    From an ancient Peruvian Painting.
+
+Part of North America, showing Sebastian Cabot's Voyage to
+    Newfoundland  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
+    From the Map of 1544, usually ascribed to CABOT.
+
+Jacques Cartier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
+    From an old Pen-drawing at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
+
+Canada and the River St. Lawrence, showing Quebec . . . . . . . . 231
+    From LESCARBOT'S _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, 1609.
+
+New France, showing Newfoundland, Labrador, and the St. Lawrence  233
+    From JOCOMO DI GASTALDI'S Map, about 1550.
+
+Ivan Vasiliwich, King of Muscovie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
+    From an old Woodcut.
+
+Anthony Jenkinson's Map of Russia, Muscovy, and Tartary . . . . 242-3
+    Published in 1562.
+
+Greenlanders as seen by Martin Frobisher  . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
+    From Captain BESTE'S Account of Frobisher's _Voyages_, 1578.
+
+Sir Francis Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
+    From HOLLAND'S _Heroologia_, 1620.
+
+The Silver Map of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
+    From Medallion in British Museum.
+
+The Silver Map of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
+    From Medallion in British Museum.
+
+The _Golden Hind_ at New Albion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
+    From the Chart of Drake's _Voyages_.
+
+The _Golden Hind_ at Java . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
+    From the Chart of Drake's _Voyages_.
+
+An Eskimo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
+    From a Water-colour Drawing by JOHN WHITE, about 1585.
+
+A Ship of the late 16th century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
+    From Ortelius, 1598.
+
+Nova Zembla and the Arctic Regions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
+    From a Map in DE BRY'S _Grands Voyages_, 1598.
+
+Barents in the Arctic--"Hut wherein we wintered"  . . . . . . . . 269
+    From DE VEER'S Account of the _Voyages of Barents_, 1598.
+
+Hudson's Map of his Voyages in the Arctic . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
+    From his Book published in 1612.
+
+A Ship of Hudson's Fleet  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
+    From his _Voyages_, 1612.
+
+Baffin's Map of his Voyages to the North  . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
+    From original MS., drawn by BAFFIN, in the British Museum.
+
+Sir Walter Raleigh  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
+
+Raleigh's Map of Guinea, El Dorado, and the Orinoco Coast . . . . 289
+    From the original Map, drawn by RALEIGH, in British Museum.
+
+The first Settlement at Quebec  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
+    From CHAMPLAIN'S _Voyages_, 1613.
+
+The Defeat of the Iroquois by Champlain . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
+    From a Drawing in CHAMPLAIN'S _Voyages_, 1613.
+
+An early Map of "Terra Australis" called "Java la Grande" . . . . 297
+    From the "Dauphin" Map of 1546.
+
+The Wreck of Captain Pelsart's Ship, the _Batavia_, on the Coast
+    of New Holland  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
+    From the Dutch account of PELSART'S _Voyages_, 1647.
+
+Van Diemen's Land and two of Tasman's Ships . . . . . . . . . . . 304
+    From the Map drawn by TASMAN in his "Journal."
+
+Dampier's Ship, the _Cygnet_  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
+    From a Drawing in the Dutch edition of his _Voyage Round the
+      World_, 1698.
+
+Dampier's Strait and the Island of New Britain  . . . . . . . . . 311
+    From a Map in DAMPIER'S _Voyages_, 1697.
+
+Chart of Behring's Voyage from Kamtchatka to North America  . . . 317
+    From a Chart drawn in 1741 by Lieut. WAXELL.
+
+The Island of Otaheite, or St. George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
+    From a Painting by WILLIAM HODGES.
+
+A Maori Fort on the Coast between Poverty Bay and Cape Turnagain  323
+    From an Engraving in the Atlas to COOK'S first _Voyage_.
+
+Captain Cook's Vessel beached at the Entrance of Endeavour River  327
+    From an Engraving in the Atlas to COOK'S first _Voyage_.
+
+Captain James Cook  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
+    From the Painting by DANCE in the Gallery of Greenwich
+      Hospital.
+
+Port Jackson and Sydney Cove  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
+    From the Atlas to the _Voyage de l'Astrolabe_.
+
+A Nile Boat, or Canja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
+    From BRUCE'S _Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile_.
+
+An Arab Sheikh  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
+    From BRUCE'S _Travels_.
+
+The Camp of Ali, the Mohammedan Chief, at Benown  . . . . . . . . 353
+    From a Sketch by MUNGO PARK.
+
+Kamalia, a Native Village near the Southern Course of the Niger . 355
+    From a Sketch by MUNGO PARK.
+
+A Native Woman washing Gold in Senegal  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
+    From a Sketch by MUNGO PARK, made on his last expedition.
+
+Vancouver's Ship, the _Discovery_, on the Rocks in Queen
+    Charlotte's Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
+    From a Drawing in VANCOUVER'S _Voyage_, 1798.
+
+Parry's Ships, the _Hecla_ and _Griper_, in Winter Harbour  . . . 369
+    From a Drawing in PARRY'S _Voyage for the North-West Passage_,
+      1821.
+
+The North Shore of Lancaster Sound  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
+    From a Drawing in PARRY'S _Voyage for the North-West Passage_,
+      1821.
+
+A Winter View of Fort Enterprise  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
+    From a Drawing, by WILLIAM BACK, in Franklin's _Journey to the
+      Polar Sea_, 1823.
+
+Franklin's Expedition to the Polar Sea on the Ice . . . . . . . . 377
+    From a Drawing, by WILLIAM BACK, in Franklin's _Journey to the
+      Polar Sea_, 1823.
+
+An Eskimo watching a Seal Hole  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
+    From a Drawing in PARRY'S _Second Voyage for a North-West
+      Passage_, 1824.
+
+Fort Franklin, on the Great Bear Lake, in the Winter  . . . . . . 383
+    From a Drawing in FRANKLIN'S _Second Expedition to the Polar
+      Sea_, 1828.
+
+Franklin's Expedition crossing Back's Inlet . . . . . . . . . . . 385
+    From a Drawing, by Lieut. BACK, in Franklin's _Second
+      Expedition to the Polar Sea_, 1828.
+
+The Boats of Parry's Expedition hauled up on the Ice for the
+    Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
+    From a Drawing in PARRY'S _Attempt to Reach the North Pole_,
+      1828.
+
+Major Denham and his Party received by the Sheikh of Bornu  . . . 393
+    From a Drawing by Major DENHAM.
+
+The first European Picture of Timbuktu  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
+    From a Drawing in CAILLE'S _Tomboctou_, 1829.
+
+Richard and John Lander paddling down the Niger . . . . . . . . . 401
+    From a Drawing in the account of LANDER'S _Travels_, 1835.
+
+The Rosses on their Journey to the North Magnetic Pole  . . . . . 407
+    From a Drawing in ROSS'S _Second Voyage for a North-West
+      Passage_, 1835.
+
+"Somerset House," Ross's Winter Quarters on Fury Beach  . . . . . 409
+    From a Drawing in ROSS'S _Second Voyage for a North-West
+      Passage_, 1835.
+
+Matthew Flinders  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
+
+Cape Catastrophe  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
+    From FLINDERS' _Voyages_.
+
+The Huts of the Crew of the _Porpoise_ on the Sandbank, Wreck
+    Reef  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
+    From FLINDERS' _Voyages_.
+
+Captain Sturt at the Junction of the Rivers Darling and Murray  . 423
+    From the _Narrative of Sturt's Expedition_.
+
+The Burke and Wills Expedition leaving Melbourne, 1860  . . . . . 425
+    From a Drawing by WILLIAM STRUTT, an acquaintance of Burke.
+
+Burke and Wills at Cooper's Creek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
+    From a Woodcut in a contemporary Australian account of the
+      expedition.
+
+Part of the Great Southern Ice Barrier  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
+    From ROSS'S _Voyage in the Antarctic Regions_.
+
+Eskimos at Cape York watching the approach of the _Fox_ . . . . . 434
+    From McCLINTOCK'S _Voyage in Search of Franklin_.
+
+The Three Graves on Beechey Island  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
+    From McCLINTOCK'S _Voyage in Search of Franklin_.
+
+Exploring Parties starting from the _Fox_ . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
+    From McCLINTOCK'S _Voyage in Search of Franklin_.
+
+Livingstone, with his Wife and Family, at the Discovery of Lake
+    Ngami . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
+    From LIVINGSTONE'S _Missionary Travels_.
+
+The "Smoke" of the Zambesi (Victoria) Falls . . . . . . . . . . . 447
+    After a Drawing in LIVINGSTONE'S _Missionary Travels_.
+
+Burton in a Dug-out on Lake Tanganyika  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
+    After a Drawing by BURTON.
+
+Burton and his Companions on the march to Victoria Nyanza . . . . 453
+    From a Humorous Sketch by BURTON.
+
+The _Ma-Robert_ on the Zambesi  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
+    After a Drawing in LIVINGSTONE'S _Expedition to the Zambesi_.
+
+M'tesa, King of Uganda  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
+    From SPEKE'S _Journey to Discover the Source of the Nile_.
+
+The Ripon Falls on the Victoria Nyanza  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
+    From SPEKE'S _Journey to Discover the Source of the Nile_.
+
+Captains Speke and Grant  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
+
+Baker and his Wife crossing the Nubian Desert . . . . . . . . . . 469
+    From BAKER'S _Travels_.
+
+Baker's Boat in a Storm on Lake Albert Nyanza . . . . . . . . . . 471
+    From BAKER'S _Albert Nyanza_.
+
+The Discovery of Lake Bangweolo, 1868 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
+    From LIVINGSTONE'S _Last Journals_, by permission of Mr. John
+      Murray.
+
+Livingstone at Work on his Journal  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
+    From a Sketch by H. M. STANLEY.
+
+Livingstone entering the Hut at Ilala on the Night that he Died . 483
+    From LIVINGSTONE'S _Last Journals_, by permission of Mr. John
+      Murray.
+
+The last Entries in Livingstone's Diary . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
+
+Susi, Livingstone's Servant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
+    From a Sketch by H. M. STANLEY.
+
+Stanley and his Men marching through Unyoro . . . . . . . . . . . 489
+    From a Sketch, by STANLEY, in _Through the Dark Continent_.
+
+"Towards the Unknown": Stanley's Canoes starting from Vinya
+    Njara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
+    From _Through the Dark Continent_.
+
+The Seventh Cataract--Stanley Falls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
+    From _Through the Dark Continent_.
+
+The Fight below the Confluence of the Aruwimi and Livingstone
+    Rivers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
+    From a Sketch, by STANLEY, in _Through the Dark Continent_.
+
+Nordenskiold's Ship, the _Vega_, saluting Cape Chelyuskin . . . . 505
+    From a Drawing in HOVGAARD'S _Nordenskiold's Voyage_.
+
+Menka, Chief of the Chukches  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
+
+The _Vega_ frozen in for the Winter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
+    From a Drawing in HOVGAARD'S _Nordenskiold's Voyage_.
+
+The Potala at Lhasa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
+    From KIRCHER'S _China Illustrata_.
+
+Dr. Nansen  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
+    After a Photograph.
+
+The Ship that went Farthest North: the _Fram_ . . . . . . . . . . 527
+    From a Photograph.
+
+
+
+
+A BOOK OF DISCOVERY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+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 unwearying toil,
+they are revealing to us the life-stories of those who dwelt therein;
+they are disclosing secrets writ on weather-worn stones and tablets,
+bricks and cylinders, never before even guessed at.
+
+Thus we read the wondrous story of ancient days, and breathlessly
+wonder what marvellous 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, unsurpassed
+for their exquisite poetry and wondrous simplicity, of that great
+dateless time so full of mystery and awe.
+
+"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 in 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 into 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 planted a garden eastward in Eden ... and a river
+went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted,
+and became four heads. The name of the first is Pison ... and the name
+of the second river is Gihon; the name of the third river is Hiddekel
+(Tigris). And the fourth river is Euphrates."
+
+[Illustration: THE GARDEN OF EDEN WITH ITS FOUR RIVERS. From the
+Hereford Map of the World.]
+
+Now look at a modern map of Asia. Between Arabia and Persia there is
+a long valley watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, 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 this 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 round.
+
+[Illustration: BABYLONIAN MAP OF THE WORLD ON CLAY. Showing the ocean
+surrounding the world and the position of Babylon on the Euphrates.
+In the British Museum.]
+
+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,
+Chaldea, Assyria--all these long names belonged to this region, and
+around each centres 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 Setting 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 cypress were
+brought from Lebanon to Chaldea, limestone and marble from Syria,
+copper and lead from the shores of the Black Sea.
+
+And these dwellers about Babylonia built up a wonderful civilisation.
+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 (Kerbela), near the
+ancient mouth of the Euphrates, appears a traveller. There had
+doubtless been many before, but records are scanty and hard to piece
+together, and a detailed account of a traveller 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 travelled by the chief caravan routes of Syria into Egypt. Here
+about the fertile mouth of the Nile he would have found an ancient
+civilisation 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 civilisation, 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 tell us this.
+
+[Illustration: THE OLDEST KNOWN SHIPS: BETWEEN 6000 AND 5000 B.C. From
+a pre-Egyptian vase-painting.]
+
+On the coast of the Red Sea they built their long, narrow ships, which
+were rowed by some twenty 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."
+
+Petrie tells us of an Egyptian sailor who was sent to Punt or Somaliland
+"to fetch for Pharaoh sweet-smelling spices." He was shipwrecked on
+the way, and this is the account of his adventures--
+
+"'I was going,' he relates, 'to the mines of Pharaoh and I went down
+on the sea on a ship with a hundred and fifty 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; but 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 a burnt-offering unto the gods.
+Suddenly I heard a noise as of thunder, which I thought to be that
+of a wave of the sea. The trees shook and the earth was moved. I
+uncovered my eyes and I saw that a serpent drew near; his body was
+as if overlaid with gold, and his colour 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 blest,
+where nothing is lacking and which is filled with all good things.
+Thou shalt be four months in this isle. Then a ship shall come from
+thy land with sailors, and thou shalt 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 Pharaoh; I shall
+make him to know of thy greatness,' said the Egyptian stranger.
+
+"But the strange prince of Punt only smiled.
+
+"'Thou shalt 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 cypress, incense, ivory tusks, baboons, and apes, and thus laden
+he sailed home to his own people.
+
+[Illustration: EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE EXPEDITION TO PUNT, ABOUT 1600
+B.C. From a rock-carving at Der el Bahari.]
+
+Long centuries after this we get another glimpse at the land of Punt.
+This time it is in the reign of Queen Hatshepsu, who sent a great trading
+expedition into this famous country. Five ships started from Thebes,
+sailing down the river Nile and probably reaching the Red Sea by means
+of a canal. Navigation 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 coasts used by Egyptian merchants as markets
+for mother-of-pearl, emeralds, gold, and sweet-smelling perfumes.
+Thence the 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 ye come hither unto this land, which the people of Egypt
+know not?" asked the Chief of Punt. "Have ye come through the sky?
+Did ye 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. The 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 voyaged safely back
+to Thebes with all their booty and with pleasant recollections of the
+people of Somaliland.
+
+[Illustration: THE ARK ON ARARAT AND THE CITIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON.
+From Leonardo Dati's map of 1422.]
+
+In spite of these little expeditions the Egyptian world seemed still
+very small. The Egyptians thought of the earth with its land and sea
+as a long, oblong sort of box, the centre of which was Egypt. The sky
+stretched over it like an iron ceiling, the part toward the earth being
+sprinkled with lamps hung from 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 tree 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 northern was invisible. And
+why? Because they thought the Great Sea, the "Very Green," the
+Mediterranean, lay between it and Egypt. Beyond these mountain peaks,
+supporting the world, rolled a great river, an ocean stream, and the
+sun was as a ball of fire placed on a boat and carried round the ramparts
+of the world by the all-encircling water.
+
+So we realise 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+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 Somaliland, and that long years ago they
+had migrated north to the seacoast of that part of Syria known as
+Canaan.
+
+Living on the seashore, washed by the tideless Mediterranean, they
+soon became skilful sailors. They built ships and ventured forth on
+the deep; they made their way to the islands of Cyprus and Crete and
+thence to the islands of Greece, bringing back goods from other
+countries to barter with their less daring neighbours. 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 unknown lands, discovered by these master mariners--the
+admiration of the ancient world.
+
+[Illustration: A PHOENICIAN SHIP, ABOUT 700 B.C. From a bas-relief
+at Nineveh.]
+
+"The ships of Tarshish," said the old poet, "did sing of thee in thy
+market, and thou wast replenished and made very glorious in the midst
+of the seas; thy rowers have brought thee into great waters; the east
+wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas."
+
+All the world knew of the Phoenician seaports, Tyre and Sidon. 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 honourable of the earth. "O thou that
+art situate 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 thy 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 which thou spreadest forth to be
+thy sail.... The inhabitants of Sidon ... 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 undreamt of, Australia still a
+desolate island in an unknown sea. The burning eastern sun shone down
+on to vast stretches of desert-land uninhabited by man, great rivers
+flowed through dreary swamps unrealised, tempestuous waves beat
+against their shores, and melancholy winds swept over the face of
+endless ocean solitudes.
+
+And still, according to their untutored 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 Tin 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
+on to a shoal in order to keep the secret of the discovery. When he
+returned home his conduct was upheld by the State!
+
+But though the 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 learnt 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 to 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 Colchis in the Black Sea.
+
+Nowhere in all the history of exploration have we a more poetical
+account of the launching of a ship for distant lands: "Then they have
+stored her well with food and water, and pulled the ladder up on board,
+and settled themselves each man to his oar and kept time to Orpheus'
+harp; and away across the bay they rowed southward, while the people
+lined the cliffs; and the women wept while the men 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 rowed
+on "over the long swell of the sea, past Olympus, past the wooded 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 blasts,
+the land of cold and misery," and a great battle of the winds took
+place.
+
+[Illustration: A MAP OF THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGONAUTS. Drawn according
+to the principal classical traditions. The voyage through the ocean
+which, according to the ancient idea, surrounded the world will be
+especially noted.]
+
+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
+"that dreadful sea and 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."
+
+Wearily they sailed on past the coast of Asia; they passed Sinope 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 rowed three days to the
+eastward, while the Caucasus rose higher hour by hour, till they saw
+the dark stream of Phasis rushing headlong to the sea and, shining
+above the treetops, the golden roofs of the Child of the Sun."
+
+How they reached home no man knows. Some say they sailed up the Danube
+River and so came to the Adriatic, dragging their ship over the snowclad
+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 helmsman 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 weary and worn, with long, ragged beards and sunburnt
+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 labour, and the gallant comrades they had lost. And the people
+crowded round and asked them, "Who are you that sit weeping here?"
+
+"We are the sons of your princes, who sailed away many a year ago.
+We went to fetch the Golden 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 bewailed
+the valiant dead. Old and charming as is the story of the Argonauts,
+it is made up of travellers' tales, probably told to the Greeks by
+the Phoenicians of their adventures on unknown seas.
+
+The wanderings of Ulysses 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 recognised
+limits. They still dreamt that the earth was flat, and that the ocean
+stream flowed for ever round and round it. 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. Ulysses 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 Malea.
+
+"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 rowed the ships landward apace."
+
+Throughout all ages Cape Malea 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 ruinous winds over the
+teeming deep; but on the tenth day we set foot on the land of the
+lotus-eaters who eat a flowery food."
+
+Now ten days' sail to the south would have brought Ulysses to the coast
+of North Africa, and here we imagine the lotus-eaters dwelt. But their
+stay was short. For as soon as the mariners tasted the "honey-sweet
+fruit of the lotus" they forgot their homes, forgot their own land,
+and only wanted to stay with the "mild-eyed melancholy lotus-eaters."
+
+   "They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
+    Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
+    And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
+    Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
+    Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
+    Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
+    Then someone 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 Ulysses, "I led 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 Cyclops."
+
+No one knows exactly where the land of the Cyclops is. Some think it
+may be Sicily and the slopes of Mount Etna facing the sea.
+
+The famous rock of Scylla and whirlpool of Charybdis, known to the
+ancients as two sea-monsters, near the Straits of Messina, next
+claimed his attention. Let us see how Ulysses passed them.
+
+"We began to sail up the narrow strait," he says, lamenting. "For on
+the one side lay Scylla and on the other mighty Charybdis sucking down
+the salt sea water. Like a cauldron on a great fire she would seethe
+up through all her troubled deeps, and overhead the spray fell on the
+top of either cliff--the rock around roared horribly, and pale fear
+gat hold on my men. Toward her, then, we looked, fearing destruction;
+but Scylla meanwhile caught from out my hollow ships 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 Scylla, Charybdis,
+and the Cyclops were stories invented by the Phoenicians to frighten
+travellers 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 Scylla and Charybdis
+and from thence to the island of Ogygia, "in the centre of the sea."
+Finally he reached his home in Ithaca so changed, so aged and
+weather-worn, that only his dog Argus recognised him.
+
+This, very briefly, is Homer's world-picture of a bygone age, when
+those who were seized with a thirst for 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 to-day, for we have our maps
+and charts and know the whereabouts of every country and island about
+the tideless Mediterranean.
+
+[Illustration: "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"--I. The world as known
+at the time of Homer.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+IS THE WORLD FLAT?
+
+
+Still, although the men of ancient time were learning fast about the
+land and sea, they were woefully ignorant. Hesiod, a Greek poet, who
+lived seven hundred and fifty 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 Blest"; it
+might be the "sacred isle." One thing he asserted firmly: "Atlas
+upholds the broad Heaven ... standing on earth's verge with head and
+unwearied 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 for ever to support the
+ancient world on his head and hands, when the atlas of to-day 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 Neco, an enterprising Egyptian king, who built his ships in the
+Red Sea in the year 613 B.C. The story is told by Herodotus, the Greek
+traveller, 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 Neco,
+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 return to Egypt through them and by the
+Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt
+by way of the Erythraean 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."
+
+[Illustration: THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, AS SHOWN IN A MEDIAEVAL MAP.
+Higden's Map of the World, 1360 A.D.]
+
+To modern students, who have learnt 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 verse a delightful account
+of what this voyage may have been like.
+
+Ithobal of Tyre, Chief Captain of the seas, standing before Neco,
+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 Tarshish, Tyre, and Sidon, he built three goodly ships,
+"Ocean's children," in a "windless creek" on the Red Sea, how he loaded
+them with cloth and beads, "the wares wild 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 south to the unknown world and
+into the great nameless sea, by the coast of that "Large Land whence
+none hath come" they sailed.
+
+Ithobal 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 Pharaoh what his world
+    Holds hidden."
+
+South and ever south they sailed, "day after day and night succeeding
+night, close clinging to the shore." New stars appeared, lower and
+lower sank the sun, moons rose and waned, and still the coast stretched
+southwards till they reached a "Cape of Storms" and found the coast
+was turning north. And now occurred that strange phenomenon mentioned
+by Herodotus, that while sailing westwards the sun was on their right
+hand. "No man had seen that thing 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 Congo, past the Niger, past the island
+of Gorillas described by Hanno, who explored the west coast under Neco
+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 seen, where goes the Middle Sea
+    Unto the Setting Sun and the Unknown--
+    No more unknown, Ithobal's ships have sailed
+    Around all Africa. Our task is done.
+    These are the Pillars, this the Midland Sea.
+    The road to Tyre is yonder. Every wave
+    Is homely. Yonder, sure, Old Nilus 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
+a 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 neighbours.
+
+[Illustration: THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, AS SHOWN IN THE ANGLO-SAXON
+MAP OF THE WORLD, TENTH CENTURY.]
+
+"I remember," 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 oars, stretchers, ship-hooks, and spikes were
+there for bringing the ship in and out of the harbour! What numbers
+of shrouds, 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 length 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 favourable
+to those who are negligent or lazy; and it is their goodness that they
+do not destroy us when we are diligent."
+
+[Illustration: A GREEK GALLEY ABOUT 500 B.C. From a vase-painting.]
+
+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 colonisers themselves, and we have to thank a Greek
+philosopher living in Miletus, on 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 B.C. What was the map like? It
+was "a bronze tablet, whereupon 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 taught that the world hung free in the midst of the universe,
+or rather in the midst of the waters. The centre of the earth was at
+Delphi. In the world of legend there was a reason for this. Two eagles
+had been let 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 centre 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.
+
+[Illustration: JERUSALEM, THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD. From the Hereford
+Map of the World, thirteenth century.]
+
+In the same way, in those days of imperfect geography, as we hear of
+Delphi being the centre of the Greek world, so we hear of Jerusalem
+being considered the central point of the world.
+
+"This is Jerusalem," says Ezekiel, "in the midst of the nations and
+countries that are round about her." In the Mappa Mundi (thirteenth
+century) in Hereford Cathedral, Jerusalem is still the centre 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
+Hecataeus, who wrote it about 500 years B.C. It contains an account
+of the coast and islands of the Mediterranean Sea and an outline of
+all the lands the Greeks thought they knew. In the fragments that have
+come down to us, the famous old geographer 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 flowed the everlasting ocean stream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HERODOTUS--THE TRAVELLER
+
+
+The greatest traveller of olden times now comes upon the
+scene--Herodotus, the Greek, the "Father of History."
+
+He is a traveller 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
+marvellous 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 in weaving throw the woof 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 ropes and hooks to the outside of their sails, but the Egyptians
+to the inside. The Greeks write and read from left to right, but the
+Egyptians from right to left."
+
+After sailing for some seven hundred 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 Assuan, 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 past, 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 I 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 priest
+volunteers this explanation. On the frontiers of Egypt are two high
+mountain-peaks called Crophi and Mophi; in an unfathomable abyss
+between the two rose the Nile. But Herodotus does not believe in Crophi
+and Mophi; he inclines to the idea that the Nile rises away in the
+west and flows eastward right across Libya.
+
+He travelled a little about Libya himself, little realising 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 one hundred and twenty years--gold was so abundant that
+it was used even for the prisoners' chains--he had seen folks who lived
+on meat and milk only, never having seen bread or wine.
+
+[Illustration: A MERCHANT-SHIP OF ATHENS, ABOUT 500 B.C. From a
+vase-painting.]
+
+Some thirty days' 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 curve outwards in front
+of their heads, and if they moved forwards 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 beasts" must have been
+truly perilous, "for this is the 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 antelopes, 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 paint themselves red and eat honey and monkeys, another who grow
+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 traveller,
+visiting the famous seaport of Tyre on the way. "I visited 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 two thousand three hundred 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 know now to be three
+hundred 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 this same Black
+Sea.
+
+But here we must leave the old traveller and picture him reading aloud
+to his delighted hearers his account of his discoveries and
+explorations, discussing with the learned Greeks of the day the size
+and wonders of the world as they imagined it.
+
+News travelled 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 Carthaginian, 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 the expedition himself tells his own story. With an
+idea of colonising, he left Carthage--the most famous of the
+Phoenician colonies--with sixty 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 founded the first city. Below
+this city lay a great plain. Sailing thence westward we came to a
+promontory of Libya thickly 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 founded 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 Cape Verde they reached the mouth of the Gambia, "great
+and broad and full of crocodiles and river-horses," and thence coasted
+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
+issuing from the island and heard the sound of flutes and cymbals and
+drums and the noise of confused shouts.
+
+"Great fear then came upon us; we sailed therefore quickly thence 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 a great mountain which they called the chariot of the gods."
+They had a last adventure before they turned homewards 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, flaying 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."
+
+[Illustration: THE COAST OF AFRICA, AFTER PTOLEMY (MERCATOR'S
+EDITION). This map shows the extent of Hanno's voyage from the Pillars
+of Hercules, past the Equator, to what is now called Sierra Leone.]
+
+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 fifty-six 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 Cyrus, his brother, a dashing young prince,
+attempted to seize the throne. Collecting a huge army, including the
+famous Ten Thousand Greeks, he led them by way of Phrygia, Cilicia,
+and along the banks of the Euphrates to within fifty miles of the gates
+of Babylon. The journey took nearly five months, a distance of one
+thousand seven hundred miles through recognised tracks. Here a battle
+was fought and Cyrus was slain.
+
+It was midwinter when the Ten Thousand Greeks who had followed their
+leader so loyally through the plains of Asia Minor found themselves
+friendless and in great danger in the very heart of the enemy's country.
+
+How 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 neighbourhood 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 held
+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 tableland of Armenia. They crossed the Tigris near its
+source, and a little farther 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 north-east wind, "whose bitter
+blast was torture," increased their sufferings as they ploughed their
+way 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.
+
+But Xenophon 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, rent the air--
+
+"Thalassa! Thalassa! The sea! The sea!"
+
+True enough, on the distant horizon, glittering in the sunlight, was
+a narrow silver streak of sea--the Black Sea--the goal of all their
+hopes. The long struggle of five months was over; they could sail home
+now along the shores of the Black Sea. They had reached the 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 wrote the adventures of
+the Ten Thousand Greeks, and no geographical explorer ever recorded
+his travels through unknown countries more faithfully than did the
+Greek leader of twenty-three hundred years ago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+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 the 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 of a
+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 has fought and conquered
+the Persians twice, besieged Tyre, taken the Phoenician fleet,
+occupied Egypt, marched across the desert and crossed the Euphrates,
+passed over the plain 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 Susa, 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 over 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 twenty-six. It was four years since
+he had left Europe, and in that short time he had done wonders. He
+had conquered the whole western half of the Persian Empire. Now he
+resolutely turned his face to the unknown east and started forth on
+an expedition of exploration.
+
+Following the main highway from Media, which to-day leads from Teheran,
+capital of modern Persia, into the land of the Turkomans and the borders
+of Russia, he found himself between the great salt desert and the
+mountains, which to-day mark 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 Azof, 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.
+
+Onwards towards the east he marched with his great army. To conciliate
+the tribes through which he passed, he adopted Persian dress. This
+annoyed his Greek countrymen, but, "as they admired his other virtues,
+they thought he might be suffered to please himself a little and enjoy
+his vanity."
+
+Arrived at the modern boundary between Persia, Afghanistan, and Russia,
+he and his men pushed on across Afghanistan, by the caravan route that
+had long existed from the shores of the Caspian, by modern Herat,
+Kandahar,[1] which still bears the conqueror's name, and Kabul to
+India. Their way lay through deep snow, deeper than they had ever seen
+before; and by the time they had reached the mountains of Kabul it
+was midwinter.
+
+[Footnote 1: Kandahar = Alexandria in a modern form.]
+
+Between Alexander and India still lay the lofty range of the Hindu
+Koosh or Indian Caucasus. But before going south toward India, he
+turned northwards to explore the unknown country which lay about the
+river Oxus. They found the Oxus, a mighty stream, swollen with melting
+snows. There were no boats and no wood to build them, so Alexander
+pioneered his men across in "life-preservers" made out of their
+leather tent coverings and stuffed with straw. This river impressed
+the Greeks even more than the Euphrates and Tigris, as it impressed
+many an explorer and poet since these early days. Let us recall Matthew
+Arnold's famous description of the Oxus, now seen for the first time
+by the Greeks.
+
+   "But the majestic river floated on,
+    Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
+    Into the frosty starlight, and there moved
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin
+    To hem his watery march and dam his streams,
+    And split his currents; that for many a league
+    The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along
+    Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles--
+    Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had,
+    In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,
+    A foil'd circuitous wanderer--till at last
+    The long'd for dash of waves is heard, and wide
+    His luminous home of waters opens, bright
+    And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
+    Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea."
+
+Here in this valley the Greeks met more determined opposition than
+they had yet encountered since entering Asia, and over two years were
+occupied in reducing this single district (now Bokhara and Turkestan)
+to submission, though it was only some three hundred and fifty miles
+square, and in one single year Alexander had conquered a kingdom over
+one thousand miles in width.
+
+It was not till the spring of 327 B.C. that he was ready to cross the
+Hindu Koosh and begin the great expedition into India. The night before
+the start Alexander discovered that his troops were now so heavily
+laden with spoils that they were quite unfit for the long march. So
+in the early morning, when they were all ready to start, he suddenly
+set fire to his own baggage, and, giving orders that all his men were
+to do the same, the army started for the passes of the lofty mountain
+range. And--
+
+   "... as a troop of pedlars from Kabul
+    Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,
+    That vast sky neighbouring mountain of milk snow;
+    Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass
+    Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,
+    Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves
+    Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries--
+    In single file they move, and stop their breath,
+    For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows."
+
+The banks of the river of Kabul were reached at last. Sending part
+of the army by the now famous Kyber Pass toward the Indus, Alexander
+himself undertook to subdue the mountain tribes and get control of
+the Chitral passes. The shepherds of this region opposed him
+vigorously, but swiftly and pitilessly the King of Asia sacked their
+peaceful homes, and city after city fell to him as he advanced towards
+the boundaries of Kashmir.
+
+At last the valley of the Indus was reached. A bridge of boats was
+hastily thrown over, and Alexander and his army passed to the other
+side.
+
+Porus, the ruler of the country between the Indus and the river Hydaspes
+(Jehlam), sent presents of welcome to the invader, including three
+thousand animals for sacrifice, ten thousand sheep, thirty elephants,
+two hundred talents of silver, and seven hundred horsemen. The new
+king was also greeted with presents of ivory and precious stones. Even
+from far Kashmir came greetings to Alexander, whose fame was spreading
+rapidly. He now entered the Punjab, the "Land of the Five Rivers."
+But on the other side of the river Hydaspes a different reception
+awaited him.
+
+There the king (Porus) had assembled a sturdy, well-disciplined troop
+to dispute the passage of the river, which still separated the new
+King of Asia from his territory. But under cover of a mighty
+thunderstorm Alexander contrived to cross, though the river was
+rushing down yellow and fierce after the rains. Secretly the Greeks
+put together their thirty-oared galleys hidden in a wood, and utterly
+surprised Porus by landing on the other side. In their strange
+wanderings the Greeks had fought under varying conditions, but they
+had never faced elephants before. Nevertheless, they brilliantly
+repulsed an onslaught of these animals, who slowly retreated, "facing
+the foe, like ships backing water, and merely uttering a shrill, piping
+sound." Despite the elephants the old story was repeated, civilised
+arms triumphed over barbarians, and the army of Porus was annihilated,
+his chariots shattered, and thirty-three thousand men slain.
+
+The kingdom beyond the Hydaspes was now Alexander's. Ordering a great
+fleet of rafts and boats to be built for his proposed voyage to the
+mouth of the Indus, he pushed on to complete the conquest of the Five
+Stream Land, or the Punjab--the last province of the great Persian
+Empire. This was India--all that was known at this time. The India
+of the Ganges valley was beyond the knowledge of the Western world--the
+Ganges itself unknown to the Persians. And Alexander saw no reason
+to change his mind.
+
+"The great sea surrounds the whole earth," he stoutly maintained.
+
+But when he reached the eastern limit of the Punjab and heard that
+beyond lay a fertile land "where the inhabitants were skilled in
+agriculture, where there were elephants in yet greater abundance and
+men were superior in stature and courage," the world stretched out
+before him in an unexpected direction, and he longed to explore farther,
+to conquer new and utterly unknown worlds!
+
+But at last his men struck. They were weary, some were wounded, some
+were ill; seventy days of incessant rain had taken the heart out of
+them.
+
+"I am not ignorant, soldiers," said Alexander to the hesitating troops,
+"that during the last few days the natives of this country have been
+spreading all sorts of rumours to work upon your fears. The Persians
+in this way sought to terrify you with the gates of Cilicia, with the
+plains of Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates, and yet this
+river you crossed by a ford and that by means of a bridge. By my troth,
+we had long ago fled from Asia could fables have been able to scare
+us. We are not standing on the threshold of our enterprise, but at
+the very close. We have already reached the sunrise and the ocean,
+and unless your sloth and cowardice prevent, we shall thence return
+in triumph to our native land, having conquered the earth to its
+remotest bounds. I beseech you that ye desert not your king just at
+the very moment when he is approaching the limits of the inhabited
+world."
+
+But the soldiers, "with their heads bent earthwards," stood in silence.
+It was not that they _would_ not follow him beyond the sunset; they
+_could_ not. Their tears began to flow, sobs reached the ears of
+Alexander, his anger turned to pity, and he wept with his men.
+
+"Oh, sir," at last cried one of his men, "we have done and suffered
+up to the full measure of the capacity of mortal nature. We have
+traversed seas and lands, and know them better than do the inhabitants
+themselves. We are standing now almost on the earth's utmost verge,
+and yet you are preparing to go in quest of an India unknown even to
+the Indians themselves. You would fain root out, from their hidden
+recesses and dens, a race of men that herd with snakes and wild beasts,
+so that you may traverse as a conqueror more regions than the sun
+surveys. But while your courage will be ever growing, our vigour is
+fast waning to its end. See how bloodless be our bodies, pierced with
+how many wounds and gashed with how many scars! Our weapons are blunt,
+our armour worn out! We have been driven to assume the Persian dress!
+Which of us has a horse? We have conquered all the world, but are
+ourselves destitute of all things."
+
+The conqueror was at last conquered. The order to turn back was
+reluctantly given by the disappointed king and leader. It was received
+with shouts of joy from the mixed multitudes of his followers, and
+the expedition faced for home. Back they marched through the new lands
+where no less than two thousand cities had owned his sway, till they
+came to the banks of the river where the ships were building. Two
+thousand boats were ready, including eighty thirty-oared galleys.
+
+It was now September 326 B.C.
+
+Nearchus from Crete was made Admiral of the new fleet, which at dawn
+one October morning pushed out upon the river Hydaspes and set sail
+downstream towards the unknown sea, Alexander standing proudly on the
+prow of the royal galley. The trumpets rang out, the oars moved, and
+the strange argosy, "such as had never been seen before in these parts,"
+made its way down the unknown river to the unknown sea. Natives swarmed
+to the banks of the river to wonder at the strange sight, marvelling
+specially to see horses as passengers on board! The greater part of
+the army followed the ships on land, marching along the shores. At
+last the waters of the Hydaspes mingled with those of the Indus, and
+onwards down this great river floated the Persian fleet. Alexander
+had no pilots, no local knowledge of the country, but with his
+"unquenchable ambition to see the ocean and reach the boundaries of
+the world," he sailed on, "ignorant of everything on the way they had
+to pass." In vain they asked the natives assembled on the banks how
+far distant was the sea; they had never heard of the sea! At last they
+found a tide mixing its salt waters with the fresh. Soon a flood-tide
+burst upon them, forcing back the current of the river, and scattering
+the fleet. The sailors of the tideless Mediterranean knew nothing of
+the rise and fall of tides. They were in a state of panic and
+consternation. Some tried to push off their ships with long poles,
+others tried to row against the incoming tide; prows were dashed
+against poops, oars were broken, sterns were bumped, until at last
+the sea had flowed over all the level land near the river mouth.
+
+Suddenly a new danger appeared! The tide turned and the sea began to
+recede. Further misfortunes now befell the ships. Many were left high
+and dry; most of them were damaged in some way or another. Alexander
+sent horsemen to the seashore with instructions to watch for the return
+of the tide and to ride back in haste so that the fleet might be
+prepared.
+
+Thus they got safely out to sea on the next high tide.
+
+Alexander's explorations were now at an end. Leaving Nearchus to
+explore the seacoast at the mouth of the Indus, he left the spot near
+where the town of Hyderabad now stands, and turned his face toward
+the home he was never to reach. We must not linger over his terrible
+coast journey through the scorching desert of Beluchistan the billows
+of sand, the glare of the barren sea, the awful thirst, the long hungry
+marches of forty miles a day under the burning Eastern sun.
+
+[Illustration: A SKETCH-MAP OF ALEXANDER'S CHIEF EXPLORATORY MARCHES
+FROM ATHENS TO HYDERABAD AND GAZA. The dotted line shows the course
+of Nearchus' voyage down the river Indus, along the northern shores
+of the Indian Ocean, and up the Persian Gulf to Babylonia.]
+
+Our story is one of discovery, and we must turn to Nearchus, Admiral
+of the fleet, left behind at the mouth of the Indus to explore the
+coast to the Persian Gulf, where he was to meet Alexander if possible.
+Shortly after the fleet had emerged from the mouth of the Indus a
+violent south-west monsoon began to blow and Nearchus was obliged to
+seek shelter in a harbour, which he called the port of Alexander, but
+which to-day is known as Karachi, the most western seaport of India.
+The waters of the Indian Ocean were quite unknown to the Greeks, and
+they could only coast along in sight of land, anchoring at different
+points for the men to land and get water and food. Past the wild barren
+shores of Beluchistan they made their way; the natives subsisted on
+fish entirely even as they do to-day--even their huts being made of
+fish bones and their bread of pounded fish.
+
+They had but one adventure in their five months' cruise to the Persian
+Gulf, but we have a graphic account of how the terrified Greeks met
+a shoal of whales and how they frightened the whales away. Here is
+the story. One day towards daybreak they suddenly saw water spouting
+up from the sea, as if being violently carried upwards by whirlwinds.
+The sailors, feeling very frightened, asked their native guides what
+it meant. The natives replied that it was caused by whales blowing
+the water up into the air. At this explanation the Greek sailors were
+panic-stricken and dropped the oars from their hands. Nearchus saw
+that something must be done at once. So he bade the men draw up their
+ships in line as if for battle and row forward side by side towards
+the whales, shouting and splashing with their oars. At a given signal
+they duly advanced, and when they came near the sea-monsters they
+shouted with all their might and blew their trumpets and made all
+possible noise with their oars. On hearing which, says the old story,
+"the whales took fright and plunged into the depths, but not long after
+came to the surface again close to the sterns of the vessels and once
+more spouted great jets of water. Then the sailors shouted aloud at
+their happy and unlooked-for escape," and Nearchus was cheered as the
+saviour of the fleet. It is not uncommon to-day for steamers bound
+from Aden to Bombay to encounter what is called a "school of whales"
+similar to those which alarmed the fleet of Nearchus in the year 323
+B.C.
+
+The expedition was completely successful and Nearchus pioneered his
+fleet to the mouth of the Euphrates.
+
+But the death of Alexander the Great and the confusion that followed
+set back the advance of geographical discovery in this direction for
+some time.
+
+[Illustration: ALEXANDRIA IN PIZZIGANI'S MAP, FOURTEENTH CENTURY. The
+river with the buildings on its bank is the Nile.]
+
+Alexandria--one of the many towns founded by Alexander--had become
+the world centre of the learned from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Its
+position was unrivalled. Situated at the mouth of the Nile, it
+commanded the Mediterranean Sea, while by means of the Red Sea it held
+easy communication with India and Arabia. When Egypt had come under
+the sway of Alexander, he had made one of his generals ruler over that
+country, and men of intellect collected there to study and to write.
+A library was started, and a Greek, Eratosthenes, held the post of
+librarian at Alexandria for forty years, namely, from 240-196 B.C.
+During this period he made a collection of all the travels and books
+of earth description--the first the world had ever known--and stored
+them in the Great Library of which he must have felt so justly proud.
+But Eratosthenes did more than this. He was the originator of
+Scientific Geography. He realised that no maps could be properly laid
+down till something was known of the size and shape of the earth.
+
+By this time all men of science had ceased to believe that the world
+was flat; they thought of it as a perfect round, but fixed at the centre
+in space. Many had guessed at the size of the earth. Some said it was
+forty thousand miles round, but Eratosthenes was not content with
+guessing. He studied the length of the shadow thrown by the sun at
+Alexandria and compared it with that thrown by the sun at Syene, near
+the first cataract of the Nile, some five hundred miles distant, and,
+as he thought, in the same longitude. The differences in the length
+of these two shadows he calculated would represent one-fiftieth of
+the circumference of the earth which would accordingly be twenty-five
+thousand miles. There was no one to tell him whether he had calculated
+right or wrong, but we know to-day that he was wonderfully right. But
+he must know more. He must find out how much of this earth was habitable.
+To the north and south of the known countries men declared it was too
+hot or too cold to live. So he decided that from north to south, that
+is, from the land of Thule to the land of Punt (Somaliland), the
+habitable earth stretched for some three thousand eight hundred miles,
+while from east to west--that is, from the Pillars of Hercules (Straits
+of Gibraltar) to India--would be some eight thousand miles. All the
+rest was ocean. Ignoring the division of the world into three
+continents, he divided it into two, north and south, divided by the
+Mediterranean and by a long range of mountains intersecting the whole
+of Asia.
+
+Then the famous librarian drew a map of the world for his library at
+Alexandria, but it has perished with all the rest of the valuable
+treasure collected in this once celebrated city. We know that he must
+have made a great many mistakes in drawing a map of his little island
+world which measured eight thousand miles by three thousand eight
+hundred miles. It must have been quaintly arranged. The Caspian Sea
+was connected with a Northern Ocean, the Danube sent a tributary to
+the Adriatic, there was no Bay of Biscay, the British Isles lay in
+the wrong direction, Africa was not half its right size, the Ganges
+flowed into the Eastern Ocean, Ceylon was a huge island stretching
+east and west, while across the whole of Asia a mountain chain stretched
+in one long unbroken line. And yet, with all his errors, he was nearer
+the truth than men three centuries later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PYTHEAS FINDS THE BRITISH ISLES
+
+
+For some centuries past men had been pushing eastward, and to west,
+vast lands lay unexplored, undreamt of, amongst them a little far-off
+island "set in a silver sea." Pytheas was the first explorer to bring
+the world news of the British Isles.
+
+About the time that Alexander was making his way eastward through
+Persia, Pytheas was leaving the Greek colony of Marseilles for the
+west and north. The Phoenicians, with their headquarters at Carthage,
+had complete command of the mineral trade of Spain--the Mexico of the
+ancient world. They knew where to find the gold and silver from the
+rivers--indeed, they said that the coast, from the Tagus to the
+Pyrenees, was "stuffed with mines of gold and silver and tin." The
+Greeks were now determined to see for themselves--the men of Carthage
+should no longer have it all their own way. Where were these tin islands,
+kept so secret by the master-mariners of the ancient world?
+
+A committee of merchants met at Marseilles and engaged the services
+of Pytheas, a great mathematician, and one who made a study of the
+effect of the moon on the tides. All sorts of vague rumours had reached
+the ears of Pytheas about the northern regions he was about to visit.
+He would discover the homes of the tin and amber merchants, he would
+find the people who lived "at the back of the north wind," he would
+reach a land of perpetual sunshine, where swans sang like nightingales
+and life was one unending banquet.
+
+So Pytheas, the mathematician of Marseilles started off on his
+northern trip. Unfortunately, his diary and book called _The Circuit
+of the Earth_ have perished, and our story of geographical discovery
+is the poorer. But these facts have survived.
+
+The ships first touched at Cadiz, the "Tyre of the West," a famous
+port in those days, where Phoenician merchants lived, "careless and
+secure" and rich. This was the limit of Greek geographical knowledge;
+here were the Pillars of Hercules, beyond which all was dim and
+mysterious and interesting. Five days' sail, that is to say, some three
+hundred miles along the coast of Spain, brought Pytheas to Cape St.
+Vincent.
+
+He thought he was navigating the swift ocean river flowing round the
+world. He was, therefore, surprised to find as he rounded the Cape
+that the current had ceased, or, in his own words, the "ebb came to
+an end." Three days more and they were at the mouth of the Tagus. Near
+this part of the coast lay the Tin Islands, according to Greek ideas,
+though even to-day their exact locality is uncertain. Pytheas must
+have heard the old tradition that the Cassiterides were ten in number
+and lay near each other in the ocean, that they were inhabited by people
+who wore black cloaks and long tunics reaching to the feet, that they
+walked with long staves and subsisted by their cattle. They led a
+wandering life; they bartered hides, tin, and lead with the merchants
+in exchange for pottery, salt, and implements of bronze.
+
+That these islands had already been visited by Himilco the
+Carthaginian seems fairly certain. He had started from Cadiz for the
+north when Hanno started for the south. From the Tin Islands his fleet
+had ventured forth into the open sea. Thick fogs had hidden the sun
+and the ships were driven south before a north wind till they reached,
+though they did not know it, the Sargasso Sea, famous for its vast
+plains of seaweed, through which it was difficult to push the ships.
+
+"Sea animals," he tells us, "crept upon the tangled weed." It has been
+thought that with a little good fortune Himilco might have discovered
+America two thousand years before the birth of Columbus. But Himilco
+returned home by the Azores or Fortunate Islands, as they were called.
+
+Leaving the Tin Islands, Pytheas voyaged on to Cape Finisterre,
+landing on the island of Ushant, where he found a temple served by
+women priests who kept up a perpetual fire in honour of their god.
+Thence Pytheas sailed prosperously on up the English Channel till he
+struck the coast of Kent. Britain, he announced, was several days'
+journey from Ushant, and about one hundred and seventy miles to the
+north. He sailed round part of the coast, making notes of distances,
+but these are curiously exaggerated. This was not unnatural, for the
+only method of determining distance was roughly based on the number
+of miles that a ship could go in an hour along the shore. Measuring
+in this primitive fashion, Pytheas assures us that Britain is a
+continent of enormous size, and that he has discovered a "new world."
+It is, he says, three cornered in shape, something like the head of
+a battleaxe. The south side, lying opposite the coast of France, is
+eight hundred and thirty-five miles in length, the eastern coast is
+sixteen hundred and sixty-five miles, the western two thousand two
+hundred and twenty-two--indeed, the whole country was thought to be
+over four thousand miles in circumference. These calculations must
+have been very upsetting to the old geographers of that age, because
+up to this time they had decided that the whole world was only three
+thousand four hundred miles long and six thousand eight hundred broad.
+
+He tells us that he made journeys into the interior of Britain, that
+the inhabitants drink mead, and that there is an abundance of wheat
+in the fields.
+
+"The natives," he says, "collect the sheaves in great barns and thrash
+out the corn there, because they have so little sunshine that an open
+thrashing-place would be of little use in that land of clouds and rain."
+He seems to have voyaged north as far as the Shetland Islands, but
+he never saw Ireland.
+
+Having returned from the north of the Thames, Pytheas crossed the North
+Sea to the mouth of the Rhine, a passage which took about two and a
+half days. He gives a pitiable account of the people living on the
+Dutch coast and their perpetual struggle with the sea. The natives
+had not learnt the art of making dykes and embankments. A high tide
+with a wind setting toward the shore would sweep over the low-lying
+country and swamp their homes. A mounted horseman could barely gallop
+from the rush and force of these strong North Sea tides.
+
+But the Greek geographers would not believe this; they only knew the
+tideless Mediterranean, and they thought Pytheas was lying when he
+told of the fierce northern sea. Pytheas sailed past the mouth of the
+Elbe, noting the amber cast upon the shore by the high spring tides.
+But all these interesting discoveries paled before the famous land
+of Thule, six days' voyage north of Britain, in the neighbourhood of
+the frozen ocean. Grand excitement reigned among geographers when they
+heard of Thule, and a very sea of romance rose up around the name.
+Had Pytheas indeed found the end of the world? Was it an island? Was
+it mainland? In the childhood of the world, when so little was known
+and so much imagined, men's minds caught at the name of Thule--Ultima
+Thule--far-away Thule, and weaved round it many and beautiful legends.
+But to-day we ask: Was it Iceland? Was it Lapland? Was it one of the
+Shetland Isles?
+
+[Illustration: NORTH BRITAIN AND THE ISLAND OF THULE. From Mercator's
+edition of Ptolemy's map.]
+
+"Pytheas said that the farthest parts of the world are those which
+lie about Thule, the northernmost of the Britannic Isles, but he never
+said whether Thule was an island or whether the world was habitable
+by man as far as that point. I should think myself"--the speaker is
+Strabo, a famous Greek traveller who wrote seventeen books of
+geography--"I should think myself that the northern limit of habitude
+lies much farther to the south, for the writers of our age say nothing
+of any place beyond Ireland, which is situate in front of the northern
+parts of Britain." Pytheas said that Thule was six days' sail north
+of Britain. "But who in his senses would believe this?" cries Strabo
+again. "For Pytheas, who described Thule, has been shown to be the
+falsest of men. A traveller, starting from the middle of Britain and
+going five hundred miles to the north, would come to a country somewhere
+about Ireland, where living would be barely possible."
+
+The first account of the Arctic regions likewise reads like pure
+romance to the ignorant and untravelled. "After one day's journey to
+the north of Thule," says Pytheas, "men come to a sluggish sea, where
+there is no separation of sea, land, and air, but a mixture of these
+elements like the substance of jelly-fish, through which one can
+neither walk nor sail." Here the nights were very short, sometimes
+only two hours, after which the sun rose again. This, in fact, was
+the "Sleeping Palace of the Sun."
+
+With all this wealth of discovery, Pytheas returned home by the Bay
+of Biscay to the mouth of the Gironde; thence he sailed up the Garonne,
+and from the modern town of Bordeaux he reached Marseilles by an
+overland journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+JULIUS CAESAR AS EXPLORER
+
+
+Our next explorer is Julius Caesar. As Alexander the Great had combined
+the conqueror with the explorer, so now history repeats itself, and
+we find the Roman Caesar not only conquering, but exploring. It was
+Caesar who first dispelled the mist that lay over the country about
+the French Seine, the German Rhine, the English Thames--Caesar who
+gives us the first graphic account of crossing the English Channel
+from France to England. Pytheas had hinted at the fog-bound lands of
+the north--Caesar brought them into the light of day.
+
+Since the days of Alexander the centre of Empire had shifted from Greece
+to Rome, and Rome was now conquering and annexing land, as Persia had
+done in the olden days. Hence it was that Julius Caesar was in the
+year 58 B.C. appointed Governor of a new province recently brought
+under Roman sway, stretching from the Alps to the Garonne and northward
+to the Lake of Geneva, which at this time marked the frontier of the
+Roman Empire. Caesar made no secret of his intentions to subdue the
+tribes to the north of his province and bring all Gaul under the
+dominion of Rome. His appointment carried with it the command of four
+legions, including some twenty thousand soldiers. His chance soon came,
+and we find Caesar, with all the ability of a great commander, pushing
+forward with his army into the very heart of France one hundred and
+fifty miles beyond the Roman frontier.
+
+On the banks of the river Saone he defeated a large body of Celtic
+people who were migrating from Switzerland to make their homes in the
+warmer and roomier plains at the foot of the Pyrenees.
+
+While the defeated Celts returned to their chilly homes among the
+mountains, victorious Caesar resolved to push on at the head of his
+army toward the Rhine, where some German tribes under a "ferocious
+headstrong savage" threatened to overrun the country. After marching
+through utterly unknown country for three days, he heard that fresh
+swarms of invaders had crossed the Rhine, intending to occupy the more
+fertile tracts on the French side. They were making for the town we
+now call Besancon--then, as now, strongly fortified, and nearly
+surrounded by the river Doubs. By forced marches night and day, Caesar
+hastened to the town and took it before the arrival of the invaders.
+
+Accounts of the German tribes even now approaching were brought in
+by native traders and Gaulish chiefs, until the Roman soldiers were
+seized with alarm. Yes, said the traders, these Germans were "men of
+huge stature, incredible valour, and practised skill in wars; many
+a time they had themselves come across them, and had not been able
+to look them in the face or meet the glare of their piercing eyes."
+
+The Romans felt they were in an unknown land, about to fight against
+an unknown foe. Violent panic seized them, "completely paralysing
+every one's judgment and nerve." Some could not restrain their tears;
+others shut themselves up in their tents and bemoaned their fate. "All
+over the camp men were making their wills," until Caesar spoke, and
+the panic ceased. Seven days' march brought them to the plain of Alsace,
+some fifty miles from the Rhine. A battle was fought with the German
+tribes, and "the enemy all turned tail and did not cease their flight
+until they reached the Rhine." Some swam across, some found boats,
+many were killed by the Romans in hot pursuit.
+
+For the first time Romans beheld the German Rhine--that great river
+that was to form a barrier for so long between them and the tribes
+beyond. But Caesar's exploration was not to end here. The following
+year found him advancing against the Belgae--tribes living between
+the Rhine and the Seine. In one brilliant campaign he subdued the whole
+of north-eastern Gaul from the Seine to the Rhine. Leaving Roman
+soldiers in the newly conquered country, he returned to his province,
+and was some eight hundred miles away when he heard that a general
+rebellion was breaking out in that part we now know as Brittany. He
+at once ordered ships to be built on the Loire, "which flows into the
+ocean," oarsmen to be trained, seamen and pilots assembled.
+
+The spring of 56 B.C. found Caesar at the seat of war. His ships were
+ready on the Loire. But the navy of the Veneti was strong. They were
+a sea-going folk, who knew their own low rocky coast, intersected by
+shallow inlets of the sea; they knew their tides and their winds. Their
+flat-bottomed boats were suitable to shallows and ebbing tides. Bows
+and stern stood high out of the water to resist heavy seas and severe
+gales; the hulls were built of oak. Leather was used for sails to
+withstand the violent ocean storms. The long Roman galleys were no
+match for these, and things would have gone badly had not Caesar devised
+a plan for cutting the enemy's rigging with hooks "sharpened at the
+end and fixed to long poles." With these, the Romans cut the rigging
+of the enemy's ships forming the fleet of Brittany; the sails fell
+and the ships were rendered useless. One after another they were easily
+captured, and at sunset the victory lay with the Romans.
+
+The whole of Gaul, from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, seemed now subdued.
+Caesar had conquered as he explored, and the skill of his
+well-disciplined army triumphed everywhere over the untrained courage
+of the barbarian tribes.
+
+Still, the German tribes were giving trouble about the country of the
+Rhine, and in the words of the famous _Commentaries_, "Caesar was
+determined to cross the Rhine, but he hardly thought it safe to cross
+in boats. Therefore, although the construction of a bridge presented
+great difficulties on account of the breadth, swiftness, and depth
+of the stream, he nevertheless thought it best to make the attempt
+or else not cross at all." Indeed, he wanted to impress the wild German
+people on the other side with a sense of the vast power of the Roman
+Empire. The barbarian tribes beyond must, indeed, have been impressed
+with the skill of the Roman soldier. For in ten days the bridge was
+completed: timber had been hewn from the forest, brought to the banks
+of the Rhine, worked into shape, piles driven into the bed of the river,
+beams laid across. And Caesar led his army in triumph to the other
+side. They stood for the first time in the land of the Germans, near
+the modern town of Coblenz, and after eighteen days on the farther
+side, they returned to Gaul, destroying the bridge behind them.
+
+Caesar had now a fresh adventure in view. He was going to make his
+way to Britain. The summer of 55 B.C. was passing, and "in these parts,
+the whole of Gaul having a northerly trend, winter sets in early,"
+wrote Caesar afterwards. There would be no time to conquer, but he
+could visit the island, find out for himself what the people were like,
+learn about harbours and landing-places, "for of all this the Greeks
+knew practically nothing. No one, indeed, readily undertakes the
+voyage to Britain except traders, and even they know nothing of it
+except the coast."
+
+Caesar summoned all the traders he could collect and inquired the size
+of the island, what tribes dwelt there, their names, their customs,
+and the shortest sea passage. Then he sent for the ships which had
+vanquished the fleet of Brittany the previous year; he also assembled
+some eighty merchant ships on the northern coast of Gaul, probably
+not very far from Calais.
+
+It was near the end of August, when soon after midnight the wind served
+and he set sail. A vision of the great Roman--determined,
+resolute--rises before us as, standing on the deck of the galley, he
+looks out on to the dark waters of the unknown sea bound for the coast
+of England. After a slow passage the little fleet arrived under the
+steep white cliffs of the southern coast about nine o'clock next
+morning. Armed forces of barbarians stood on the heights above Dover,
+and, finding it impossible to land, Caesar gave orders to sail some
+seven miles farther along the coast, where they ran the ships aground
+not far from Deal.
+
+But the visit of the Romans to Britain on this occasion lasted but
+three days, for a violent storm scattered the ships with the horses
+on board.
+
+"The same night," says Caesar, "it happened to be full moon, which
+generally causes very high tides in the ocean, a fact of which our
+men were not aware."
+
+Indeed, we may well believe that a night of full moon and an unusually
+high tide would be a mystery to those children of the Mediterranean.
+Their ships had been beached and were lying high and dry when the
+rapidly rising tide overwhelmed them. Cables were broken, anchors lost,
+panic ensued.
+
+But Caesar's glory lay in overcoming obstacles, and it is well known
+how he got his troops and ships safely back across the Channel, and
+how preparations were hurried on in Gaul for a second invasion of
+Britain. This is not the place for the story of his campaign. He was
+the first to raise the curtain on the mysterious islands discovered
+by Pytheas.
+
+   "Far to the west, in the ocean wide,
+    Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
+    Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old."
+
+Caesar's remarks on this new-found land are interesting for us to-day.
+He tells us of "a river called the Thames, about eight miles from the
+sea." "The interior of Britain," he says, "is inhabited by a people
+who, according to tradition, are aboriginal. The population is
+immense; homesteads closely resembling those of the Gauls are met with
+at every turn, and cattle are very numerous. Gold coins are in use,
+or iron bars of fixed weight. Hares, fowls, and geese they think it
+wrong to taste; but they keep them for pastime or amusement. The climate
+is more equable than in Gaul, the cold being less severe. The island
+is triangular in shape, one side being opposite Gaul. One corner of
+this side, by Kent--the landing-place for almost all ships from
+Gaul--has an easterly, and the lower one a westerly, aspect. The extent
+of this side is about five hundred miles. The second trends off towards
+Spain. Off the coast here is Ireland, which is considered only half
+as large as Britain. Halfway across is an island called 'Man,' and
+several smaller islands also are believed to be situated opposite this
+coast, in which there is continuous night for thirty days. The length
+of this side is eight hundred miles. Thus the whole island is two
+thousand miles in circumference. The people of the interior do not,
+for the most part, cultivate grain, but live on milk and flesh-meat,
+and clothe themselves with skins. All Britons, without exception,
+stain themselves with woad, which produces a bluish tint. They wear
+their hair long."
+
+Caesar crossed the Thames. "The river can only be forded at one spot,"
+he tells us, "and there with difficulty." Farther he did not go. And
+so this is all that was known of Britain for many a long year to come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+STRABO'S GEOGRAPHY
+
+
+Strabo wrote his famous geography near the beginning of the Christian
+era, but he knew nothing of the north of England, Scotland, or Wales.
+He insisted on placing Ireland to the north, and scoffed at Pytheas'
+account of Thule.
+
+And yet he boasted a wider range than any other writer on geography,
+"for that those who had penetrated farther towards the West had not
+gone so far to the East, and those on the contrary who had seen more
+of the East had seen less of the West."
+
+Like Herodotus, Strabo had travelled himself from Armenia and western
+Italy, from the Black Sea to Egypt and up the Nile to Philae. But his
+seventeen volumes--vastly important to his contemporaries--read like
+a romance to us to-day, and a glance at the map laid down according
+to his descriptions is like a vague and distorted caricature of the
+real thing. And yet, according to the men of his times, he "surpasses
+all the geographical writings of antiquity, both in grandeur of plan
+and in abundance and variety of its materials."
+
+Strabo has summed up for us the knowledge of the ancient world as it
+was in the days of the Emperor Caesar Augustus of the great Roman Empire,
+as it was when in far-off Syria the Christ was born and the greater
+part of the known earth was under the sway of Rome.
+
+A wall-map had already been designed by order of Augustus to hang in
+a public place in Rome--the heart of the Empire--so that the young
+Romans might realise the size of their inheritance, while a list of
+the chief places on the roads, which, radiating from Rome, formed a
+network over the Empire, was inscribed on the Golden Milestone in the
+Forum.
+
+[Illustration: A PORTION OF AN OLD ROMAN MAP OF THE WORLD, SHOWING
+THE ROADS THROUGH THE EMPIRE, RIVERS, MOUNTAINS, AND THE SURROUNDING
+SEAS. This is a portion--a few inches--taken from the famous Peutinger
+Table, a long strip map on parchment, of the fourth century, derived
+from Augustan maps according to the measurements of Caesar Augustus
+Agrippa. It will be noticed how the roads, beginning with the Twelve
+Ways, which start from Rome in the centre, go in straight lines over
+all obstacles to the towns of the Empire. Distances are marked in stadia
+(about 1/9 mile).]
+
+We may well imagine with what keen interest the schoolmen of Alexandria
+would watch the extension of the Roman Empire. Here Strabo had studied,
+here or at Rome he probably wrote his great work toward the close of
+a long life. He has read his Homer and inclines to take every word
+he says as true. Herodotus he will have none of.
+
+"Herodotus and other writers trifle very much," he asserts, "when they
+introduce into their histories the marvellous like an interlude of
+some melody."
+
+In like manner he disbelieves poor Pytheas and his accounts of the
+land of Ultima Thule and his marvellous walks through Britain, while
+he clings to the writings of Eratosthenes.
+
+But in common with them all Strabo believes the world to be one vast
+island, surrounded on all sides by ocean into which the rivers flow,
+and the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf are but inlets. So is also the
+Mediterranean or "Our Sea," as he prefers to call it. This earth-island
+reaches north to south, from Ireland, "barely habitable on account
+of the cold," to the cinnamon country (Somaliland), "the most
+southerly point of the habitable earth." From west to east it stretches
+from the Pillars of Hercules right "through the middle of Our Sea"
+to the shores of Asia Minor, then across Asia by an imaginary chain
+of mountains to an imaginary spot where the Ganges, lately discovered,
+emptied its waters into the world-surrounding ocean stream.
+
+[Illustration: THE WORLD-ISLAND ACCORDING TO STRABO, 18 A.D. The blank
+space within the circle is one vast sea surrounding the world.]
+
+The breadth of the habitable earth is three thousand miles, the length
+about seven thousand--a little world, indeed, with the greater world
+lying all around it, still undreamt of by the old student of geography
+and the traveller after truth.
+
+He begins his book with a detailed account of southern Spain. He tells
+of her two hundred towns. "Those best known are situated on the rivers,
+estuaries, and seas; but the two which have acquired the greatest name
+and importance are Cordova and Cadiz. After these Seville is the most
+noted.... A vast number of people dwell along the Guadalquivir, and
+you may sail up it almost a hundred and twenty miles from the sea to
+Cordova and the places a little higher up. The banks and little inlets
+of this river are cultivated with the greatest diligence. The eye is
+also delighted with groves and gardens, which in this district are
+met with in the highest perfection. For fifty miles the river is
+navigable for ships of considerable size, but for the cities higher
+up smaller vessels are employed, and thence to Cordova river-boats.
+These are now constructed of planks joined together, but they were
+formerly made out of a single trunk. A chain of mountains, rich in
+metal, runs parallel to the Guadalquivir, approaching the river,
+sometimes more, sometimes less, toward the north."
+
+He grows enthusiastic over the richness of this part of southern Spain,
+famous from ancient days under the name of Tartessus for its wealth.
+"Large quantities of corn and wine are exported, besides much oil,
+which is of the first quality, also wax, honey, and pitch ... the
+country furnishes the timber for their shipbuilding. They have
+likewise mineral salt and not a few salt streams. A considerable
+quantity of salted fish is exported, not only from hence, but also
+from the remainder of the coast beyond the Pillars. Formerly they
+exported large quantities of garments, but they now send the
+unmanufactured wool remarkable for its beauty. The stuffs
+manufactured are of incomparable texture. There is a superabundance
+of cattle and a great variety of game, while on the other hand there
+are certain little hares which burrow in the ground (rabbits). These
+creatures destroy both seeds and trees by gnawing their roots. They
+are met with throughout almost the whole of Spain. It is said that
+formerly the inhabitants of Majorca and Minorca sent a deputation to
+the Romans requesting that a new land might be given them, as they
+were quite driven out of their country by these animals, being no longer
+able to stand against their vast multitudes." The seacoast on the
+Atlantic side abounds in fish, says Strabo. "The congers are quite
+monstrous, far surpassing in size those of Our Sea. Shoals of rich
+fat tunny fish are driven hither from the seacoast beyond. They feed
+on the fruit of stunted oak, which grows at the bottom of the sea and
+produces very large acorns. So great is the quantity of fruit, that
+at the season when they are ripe the whole coast on either side of
+the Pillars is covered with acorns thrown up by the tides. The tunny
+fish become gradually thinner, owing to the failure of their food as
+they approach the Pillars from the outer sea."
+
+He describes, too, the metals of this wondrous land--gold, silver,
+copper, and iron. It is astonishing to think that in the days of Strabo
+the silver mines employed forty thousand workmen, and produced
+something like 900 pounds a day in our modern money!
+
+But we cannot follow Strabo over the world in all his detail. He tells
+us of a people living north of the Tagus, who slept on the ground,
+fed on acorn-bread, and wore black cloaks by day and night. He does
+not think Britain is worth conquering--Ireland lies to the north, not
+west, of Britain; it is a barren land full of cannibals and wrapped
+in eternal snows--the Pyrenees run parallel to the Rhine--the Danube
+rises near the Alps--even Italy herself runs east and west instead
+of north and south. His remarks on India are interesting.
+
+"The reader," he says, "must receive the accounts of this country with
+indulgence. Few persons of our nation have seen it; the greater part
+of what they relate is from report. Very few of the merchants who now
+sail from Egypt by the Nile and the Arabian Gulf to India have proceeded
+as far as the Ganges."
+
+He is determined not to be led astray by the fables of the great size
+of India. Some had told him it was a third of the whole habitable world,
+some that it took four months to walk through the plain only. "Ceylon
+is said to be an island lying out at sea seven days' sail from the
+most southerly parts of India. Its length is about eight hundred miles.
+It produces elephants."
+
+Strabo died about the year 21 A.D., and half a century passed before
+Pliny wrote _An Account of Countries, Nations, Seas, Towns, Havens,
+Mountains, Rivers, Distances, and Peoples who now Exist or Formerly
+Existed_. Strange to say, he never refers in the most distant way to
+his famous predecessor Strabo. He has but little to add to the
+earth-knowledge of Strabo. But he gives us a fuller account of Great
+Britain, based on the fresh discoveries of Roman generals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND PLINY
+
+
+In the year 43 A.D. the Emperor Claudius resolved to send an expedition
+to the British coast, lying amid the mists and fog of the Northern
+Ocean.
+
+A gigantic army landed near the spot where Caesar had landed just a
+hundred years before. The discovery and conquest of Britain now began
+in real earnest. The Isle of Wight was overrun by Romans; the south
+coast was explored. Roman soldiers lost their lives in the bogs and
+swamps of Gloucestershire. The eastern counties, after fierce
+opposition, submitted at the last. The spirit of Caractacus and
+Boadicea spread from tribe to tribe and the Romans were constantly
+assailed. But gradually they swept the island. They reached the banks
+of the river Tyne; they crossed the Tweed and explored as far as the
+Firths of Clyde and Forth. From the coast of Galloway the Romans beheld
+for the first time the dim outline of the Irish coast. In the year
+83 A.D. Agricola, a new Roman commander, made his way beyond the Firth
+of Forth.
+
+"Now is the time to penetrate into the heart of Caledonia and to
+discover the utmost limits of Britain," cried the Romans, as they began
+their advance to the Highlands of Scotland. While a Roman fleet
+surveyed the coasts and harbours, Agricola led his men up the valley
+of the Tay to the edge of the Highlands, but he could not follow the
+savage Caledonians into their rugged and inaccessible mountains. To
+the north of Scotland they never penetrated, and no part of Ireland
+ever came under Roman sway, in that air "the Roman eagle never
+fluttered." The Roman account of Britain at this time is interesting.
+"Britain," says Tacitus, "the largest of all the islands which have
+come within the knowledge of the Romans, stretches on the east towards
+Germany, on the west towards Spain, and on the south it is even within
+sight of France.... The Roman fleet, at this period first sailing round
+this remotest coast, gave certain proof that Britain was an island,
+and at the same time discovered and subdued the Orkney Islands, till
+then unknown. Thule was also distinctly seen, which winter and eternal
+snow had hitherto concealed.... The sky in this country is deformed
+by clouds and frequent rains; but the cold is never extremely rigorous.
+The earth yields gold and silver and other metals--the ocean produces
+pearls."
+
+The account of Ireland is only from hearsay. "This island," continues
+Tacitus, "is less than Britain, but larger than those of Our Sea.
+Situated between Britain and Spain and lying commodiously to the Bay
+of Biscay, it would have formed a very beneficial connection between
+the most powerful parts of the Empire. Its soil, climate, and the
+manners and dispositions of its inhabitants are little different from
+those of Britain. Its ports and harbours are better known from the
+concourse of merchants for the purposes of commerce."
+
+Not only the British Isles, but a good deal of the wild North Sea and
+the low-lying coast on the opposite side were explored by Roman ships
+and Roman soldiers. Caesar had crossed the Rhine; he had heard of a
+great forest which took a man four months to cross, and in 16 A.D.
+a Roman general, Drusus, penetrated into the interior of Germany.
+Drusus crossed the Rhine near the coast, made his way across the river
+Weser, and reached the banks of the Elbe. But the fame of Drusus rests
+mainly on his navigation of the German Ocean or North Sea in a Roman
+fleet. Near the mouth of the Rhine a thousand ships were quickly built
+by expert Romans. "Some were short, with narrow stern and prow and
+broad in the middle, the easier to endure the shock of the waves; some
+had flat bottoms that without damage they might run aground; many were
+fitted for carrying horses and provisions, convenient for sails and
+swift with oars."
+
+The Roman troops were in high spirits as they launched their splendid
+fleet on the Northern Ocean and sailed prosperously to the mouth of
+the Elbe, startling the Frisians into submission. But no friendliness
+greeted them on the farther side of the river. The Germans were ready
+to defend their land, and further advance was impossible. Returning
+along the northern coast, the Romans got a taste of the storms of this
+northern ocean, of which they were in such complete ignorance.
+
+"The sea, at first calm," says Tacitus, "resounded with the oars of
+a thousand ships; but presently a shower of hail poured down from a
+black mass of clouds, at the same time storms raging on all sides in
+every variety, the billows rolling now here, now there, obstructed
+the view and made it impossible to manage the ships. The whole expanse
+of air and sea was swept by a south-west wind, which, deriving strength
+from the mountainous regions of Germany, its deep rivers and boundless
+tract of clouded atmosphere, and rendered still harsher by the rigour
+of the neighbouring north, tore away the ships, scattered and drove
+them into the open ocean or upon islands dangerous from precipitous
+rocks or hidden sandbanks. Having got a little clear of these, but
+with great difficulty, the tide turning and flowing in the same
+direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride
+at anchor or bale out the water that broke in upon them; horses, beasts
+of burthen, baggage, even arms were thrown overboard to lighten the
+holds of the ships, which took in water at their sides, and from the
+waves, too, running over them. Around were either shores inhabited
+by enemies, or a sea so vast and unfathomable as to be supposed the
+limit of the world and unbounded by lands. Part of the fleet was
+swallowed up; many were driven upon remote islands, where the men
+perished through famine. The galley of Drusus or, as he was hereafter
+called, Germanicus, alone reached the mouth of the Weser. Both day
+and night, amid the rocks and prominences of the shore, he reproached
+himself as the author of such overwhelming destruction, and was hardly
+restrained by his friends from destroying himself in the same sea.
+At last, with the returning tide and a favouring gale, the shattered
+ships returned, almost all destitute or with garments spread for
+sails."
+
+[Illustration: HULL OF A ROMAN MERCHANT-SHIP. From a Roman model in
+marble at Greenwich.]
+
+The wreck of the Roman fleet in the North Sea made a deep impression
+on the Roman capital, and many a garbled story of the "extreme parts
+of the world" was circulated throughout the Empire.
+
+Here was new land outside the boundaries of the Empire--country great
+with possibilities. Pliny, writer of the _Natural History_, now arises
+and endeavours to clear the minds of his countrymen by some account
+of these northern regions. Strabo had been dead some fifty years, and
+the Empire had grown since his days. But Pliny has news of land beyond
+the Elbe. He can tell us of Scandinavia, "an island of unknown extent,"
+of Norway, another island, "the inhabitants of which sailed as far
+as Thule," of the Seamen or Swedes who lived in the "northern half
+of the world."
+
+"It is madness to harass the mind with attempts to measure the world,"
+he asserts, but he proceeds to tell us the size of the world as accepted
+by him. "Our part of the earth, floating as it were in the ocean, which
+surrounds it, stretching out to the greatest extent from India to the
+Pillars at Cadiz, is eight thousand five hundred and sixty-eight
+miles ... the breadth from south to north is commonly supposed to be
+half its length."
+
+But how little was known of the north of Europe at this time is shown
+by a startling statement that "certain Indians sailing from India for
+the purposes of commerce had been driven by tempests into Germany."
+
+"Thus it appears," concludes Pliny, "that the seas flow completely
+round the globe and divide it into two parts."
+
+How Balbus discovered and claimed for the Empire some of the African
+desert is related by Pliny. He tells us, too, how another Roman general
+left the west coast of Africa, marched for ten days, reached Mt. Atlas,
+and "in a desert of dark-coloured sand met a river which he supposed
+to be the Niger."
+
+The home of the Ethiopians in Africa likewise interested Pliny.
+
+"There can be no doubt that the Ethiopians are scorched by their
+vicinity to the sun's heat, and that they are born like persons who
+have been burned, with beard and hair frizzled, while in the opposite
+and frozen parts of the earth there are nations with white skins and
+long light hair."
+
+Pliny's geography was the basis of much mediaeval writing, and his
+knowledge of the course of the Niger remained unchallenged, till Mungo
+Park re-discovered it many centuries after.
+
+[Illustration: A ROMAN GALLEY, ABOUT 110 A.D. From Trajan's Column
+at Rome.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PTOLEMY'S MAPS
+
+
+And so we reach the days of Ptolemy--the last geographer of the Pagan
+World. This famous Greek was born in Egypt, and the great Roman Empire
+was already showing signs of decay, while Ptolemy was searching the
+great Alexandrian library for materials for his book. Alexandria was
+now the first commercial city of the world, second only to Rome. She
+supplied the great population in the heart of the Empire with Egyptian
+corn. Ships sailed from Alexandria to every part of the known world.
+It was, therefore, a suitable place for Ptolemy to listen to the yarns
+of the merchants, to read the works of Homer, Herodotus, Eratosthenes,
+Strabo, Pliny, and others, to study and observe, and finally to write.
+
+He begins his great geography with the north-west extremities of the
+world--the British Isles, Iverna, and Albion as he calls Ireland and
+England. But he places Ireland much too far north, and the shape of
+Scotland has little resemblance to the original.[2] He realised that
+there were lands to the south of Africa, to the east of Africa, and
+to the north of Europe, all stretching far away beyond his ken. He
+agrees with Pliny about the four islands in the neighbourhood of
+Scandinavia, and draws the Volga correctly, He realises, too, that
+the Caspian is an inland sea, and unconnected with the surrounding
+ocean.
+
+[Footnote 2: If Ptolemy's longitudes are adjusted, he becomes
+extraordinarily correct.]
+
+[Illustration: "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"--II. THE WORLD AS KNOWN
+TO PTOLEMY AND THE ROMANS.]
+
+Perhaps the most remarkable part of Ptolemy's geography is that which
+tells us of the lands beyond the Ganges. He knows something of the
+"Golden Chersonese" or Malay Peninsula, something of China, where "far
+away towards the north, and bordering on the eastern ocean, there is
+a land containing a great city from which silk is exported, both raw
+and spun and woven into textures."
+
+The wonder is that Ptolemy did not know more of China, for that land
+had one of the oldest civilisations in the world, as wondrous as those
+of Assyria and Egypt. But China had had little or no direct intercourse
+with the West till after the death of Ptolemy. Merchants had passed
+between China and India for long centuries, and "the Indians had made
+journeys in the golden deserts in troops of one or two thousand, and
+it is said that they do not return from these journeys till the third
+or fourth year." This was the Desert of Gobi, called golden because
+it opened the way to wealth.
+
+But perhaps the most interesting part of this great geography, which
+was to inform the world for centuries yet to come, was the construction
+of a series of twenty-six maps and a general map of the known world.
+
+This was one of the most important maps ever constructed, and forms
+our frontispiece from mediaeval copies of the original. The twelve
+heads blowing sundry winds on to the world's surface are
+characteristic of the age. The twenty-six maps are in sections. They
+are the first maps to be drawn with lines of latitude and longitude.
+The measurements are very vague. The lines are never ruled; they are
+drawn uncertainly in red; they are neither straight nor regular,
+though the spaces between the lines indicate degrees of fifty miles.
+The maps are crowded with towns, each carefully walled in by little
+red squares and drawn by hand. The water is all coloured a sombre,
+greeny blue, and the land is washed in a rich yellow brown. A copy
+can be seen at the British Museum.
+
+It is only by looking back that we can realise the progress made in
+earth-knowledge. Ptolemy wrote just a thousand years after Homer, when
+the little world round the Mediterranean had become a great Empire
+stretching from the British Isles to China.
+
+Already the barbaric hordes which haunted the frontiers of the Roman
+Empire were breaking across the ill-defended boundaries, desolating
+streams were bursting over the civilised world, until at last the storm
+broke, the unity of the Empire was ended, commerce broken up, and the
+darkness of ignorance spread over the earth.
+
+During this time little in the way of progress was made, and for the
+next few centuries our only interest lies in filling up some of the
+shadowy places of the earth, without extending its known bounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PILGRIM TRAVELLERS
+
+
+Meanwhile a new inspiration had been given to the world, which affected
+travelling to no small extent.
+
+In far-off Roman province of Syria, the Christ had lived, the Christ
+had died. And His words were ringing through the land: "Go ye and make
+disciples of all the nations, preach the gospel to every creature."
+Here at once was a new incentive to travel, a definite reason for men
+to venture forth into the unknown, to brave dangers, to endure hardship.
+They must carry their Master's words "unto the ends of the world."
+The Roman Empire had brought men under one rule; they must now be
+brought to serve one God. So men passed out of Syria; they landed on
+the islands in the Mediterranean, they made their way to Asia Minor
+and across to Greece, until in the year 60 A.D. we get the graphic
+account of Paul the traveller, one of the first and most famous of
+the missionaries of the first century.
+
+Jerusalem now became, indeed, the world centre. A very stream of
+pilgrim travellers tramped to the Holy City from far-away lands to
+see for themselves the land where the Christ had lived and died.
+
+The pilgrim age begins with the journey of a woman--the beautiful and
+learned daughter of the King of Britain, Helena, mother of the Emperor
+Constantine. She was a student of divinity and a devoted Christian.
+In the year 326 she undertook the difficult journey to Jerusalem, where
+she is reported to have discovered the "true cross," which had been
+buried, with Pilate's inscription in "Hebrew and Greek and Latin."
+When the news of her discovery was noised abroad a very rush of pilgrims
+took place from every part of the world. Indeed, one pilgrim--his name
+is unknown--thought it worth while to write a guide-book for the
+benefit of his fellow-travellers. His _Itinerary from Bordeaux to
+Jerusalem_ is very interesting, being the first Christian guide-book
+and one of the earliest travel-documents ever written for the use of
+travellers. This ancient "Bradshaw" has been translated into English
+and throws light on fourth-century travelling. Enthusiastic indeed
+must these early pilgrims have been to undertake the long and toilsome
+journey.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST STAGES OF A MEDIAEVAL PILGRIMAGE: LONDON TO
+DOVER. From Matthew of Paris's _Itinerary_, thirteenth century.]
+
+The guide-book takes them, save for crossing the Bosphorus, entirely
+by land. It leads them from the "city of Bordeaux, where is the river
+Garonne in which the ocean ebbs and flows for one hundred leagues more
+or less," to Arles, with thirty changes and eleven halts in three
+hundred and seventy-two miles. There were milestones along the Roman
+roads to guide them, and houses at regular intervals where horses were
+kept for posting. From Arles the pilgrim goes north to Avignon, crosses
+the Alps, and halts at the Italian frontier. Skirting the north of
+Italy by Turin, Milan, and Padua, he reaches the Danube at Belgrade,
+passes through Servia and Bulgaria and so reaches Constantinople--the
+great new city of Constantine. "Grand total from Bordeaux to
+Constantinople, two thousand two hundred and twenty-one miles, with
+two hundred and thirty changes and one hundred and twelve halts."
+
+"From Constantinople," continues the guide-book, "you cross the
+strait and walk on through Asia Minor, passing the spot where lies
+King Hannibal, once King of the Africans." Thus onward through the
+long dreary miles to Tarsus, where "was born the Apostle Paul," till
+Syria is reached at last.
+
+Then the "Bradshaw" becomes a "Baedeker." Long and detailed accounts
+are given of the country through which the pilgrim has to pass. From
+Caesarea he is led to Jezreel by the spot "where David slew Goliath,"
+by "Job's country house" to Sichem, "where Joseph is laid," and thence
+to Jerusalem. Full accounts follow of the Holy City and Mount Sion,
+"the little hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified," the Mount
+of Olives, Jericho, Jordan, Bethlehem, and Hebron. "Here is a monument
+of square form built of stone of wondrous beauty," in which lie Abraham,
+Isaac, Jacob, Sara, Rebecca, and Leah.
+
+"From Constantinople to Jerusalem is one thousand one hundred and
+fifty-nine miles, with sixty-nine changes and fifty-eight halts."
+
+Here the guide-book ends abruptly with a brief summary of distances.
+Thither then flocked the pilgrims, some by land and some by sea, men
+and women from all parts of the world.
+
+"Even the Briton, separated from our world, leaves the setting sun
+and seeks a place known to him only by fame and the narrative of the
+Scriptures."
+
+One of the earliest was Paula of Rome--a weak, fragile woman accustomed
+to a life of luxury and ease, but, fired with the enthusiasm of her
+religion, she resolved to brave the dangers and hardships of a journey
+to the East. Her travels were written by St. Jerome.
+
+"When the winter was spent and the sea was open," he writes, "she longed
+and prayed to sail.... She went down to the harbour, accompanied by
+her brother, her relatives, her connections and, more than these, by
+her children, who strove to surpass the affection of the kindest of
+mothers. Soon the sails were swelling in the breeze, and the ship,
+guided by the oars, gained the open sea. Little Lexotinus piteously
+stretched forth his hands from the shore. Rufina, a grown-up girl,
+by her tears silently besought her mother to stay until she was married.
+Yet she herself, without a tear, turned her eyes heavenward,
+overcoming her love for her children by her love for God.... Meanwhile
+the ship was ploughing the sea--the winds were sluggish and all speed
+slow." But the ship passed between Scylla and Charybdis and reached
+Antioch in safety. From this spot she followed the guide-book
+directions until she arrived at Jerusalem. How Paula and one of her
+young daughters walked over the rough ground, endured the hardships
+of desert-life, and finally lived twenty years at Bethlehem, would
+take too long to tell. And she was but one of many.
+
+[Illustration: JERUSALEM AND THE EAST. From Matthew of Paris's
+_Itinerary_, thirteenth century.]
+
+Sylvia of Aquitaine, travelling at the same time, wrote a strangely
+interesting account of her travels. The early part of her manuscript
+is lost, and we find her first in Arabia. All was new and strange.
+
+"Meanwhile as we walked we arrived at a certain place, where the
+mountains between which we were passing opened themselves out and
+formed a great valley, very flat and extremely beautiful; and beyond
+the valley appeared Sinai, the holy mount of God.... This is the same
+great and flat valley in which the children of Israel waited during
+the days when holy Moses went up into the Mount of God.... It was late
+on the Sabbath when we came to the mountain, and, arriving at a certain
+monastery, the kindly monks who lived there entertained us, showing
+us all kindliness." Sylvia had to ascend the mountain on foot "because
+the ascent could not be made in a chair," but the view over "Egypt
+and Palestine and the Red Sea and the Mediterranean which leads to
+Alexandria, also the boundless territory of the Saracens, we saw below
+us, hard though it is to believe, all of which things these holy men
+pointed out to us."
+
+But we must not follow her to Jerusalem, or to Mesopotamia, where she
+saw "the great river Euphrates, rushing down in a torrent like the
+Rhine, but greater." She reached Constantinople by the guide-book
+route, having spent four years in travel, and walked two thousand miles
+to the very "limit of the Roman Empire." Her boundless energy is not
+exhausted yet. "Ladies, my beloved ones," she writes, "whilst I
+prepare this account for your pious zeal, it is already my purpose
+to go to Asia."
+
+But we must turn away for a moment from the stream of pilgrim travellers
+wending their weary way from Britain, France, Spain, and the east to
+Jerusalem, to follow the travels of St. Patrick through the wilds of
+Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IRISH EXPLORERS
+
+
+Patrick had been a pilgrim to Rome from the banks of the Clyde, where
+he lived, and, having seen the Pope, he had returned to Ireland by
+sea, landing on the Wicklow coast in the year 432. Hungry and tired
+after the long voyage, he tried to get some fish from the fishermen,
+but they replied by throwing stones at him, and he put out to sea again
+and headed north. Past Bray Head, past the Bay of Malahide he sailed,
+but he could get neither fish nor food till he reached a spot between
+the Liffey and the Boyne, where he built his first Christian church.
+
+Now in the fifth century, when light first breaks over Ireland, it
+breaks over a land torn by perpetual tribal strife, a land in the chaos
+of wild heathendom. It was reserved for St. Patrick to save her from
+increasing gloom.
+
+Patrick and his companions now sailed on past Louth, by the low-lying
+shore with long stretches of sandy flats, on under the shadow of great
+peaks frowning over the sea. He landed near Downpatrick, founded
+another church, and spent the winter in these parts, for the autumn
+was far advanced. Spring found him sailing back to the Boyne and
+attacking the fierce heathen king at Tara, the capital of Ireland.
+From Tara five great roads led to different parts of the island. St.
+Patrick now made his way through Meath to the very heart of the country,
+building churches as he went. Thence he crossed the Shannon, entered
+the great plain of Roscommon, passed by Mayo, and at length reached
+the western sea. He had now been eight years in Ireland, eight laborious
+years, climbing hills, wading through waters, camping out by night,
+building, organising, preaching. He loved the land on the western sea,
+little known as yet.
+
+                   "I would choose
+    To remain here on a little land,
+    After faring around churches and waters.
+    Since I am weary, I wish not to go further."
+
+St. Patrick climbed the great peak, afterwards called Croaghpatrick,
+and on the summit, exposed to wind and rain, he spent the forty days
+of Lent. From here he could look down on to one of the most beautiful
+bays in Ireland, down on to the hundred little islands in the glancing
+waters below, while away to the north and south stretched the rugged
+coast-line. And he tells us how the great white birds came and sang
+to him there. It would take too long to tell how he returned to Tara
+and started again with a train of thirteen chariots by the great
+north-western road to the spot afterwards known as Downpatrick Head;
+he passed along the broken coast to the extreme north where the great
+ocean surf breaks on the rugged shore, returning again to the Irish
+capital. He travelled over a great part of Ireland, founded three
+hundred and fifty churches, converted heathen tribes to Christianity
+and civilisation, and finally died at Armagh in 493. His work was
+carried on by St. Columba, a native of Ireland, who, "deciding to go
+abroad for Christ," sailed away with twelve disciples to a low rocky
+island off the west coast of Scotland, where he founded the famous
+monastery of Iona, about 563. Thence he journeyed away to the Highlands,
+making his way through rugged and mountainous country that had stayed
+the warlike Romans long years before. He even sailed across the stormy
+northern sea to the Orkney Islands.
+
+Let us picture the Scotland of the sixth century in order to realise
+those long lonely tramps of St. Columba and his disciples across the
+rough mountains, through the dense forests, across bleak moors and
+wet bogs, till after dreary wanderings they reached the coast, and
+in frail ships boldly faced the wild seas that raged round the northern
+islands.
+
+"We can see Columba and his disciples journeying on foot, as poor and
+as barely provided as were Christ and His disciples, with neither
+silver nor gold nor brass in their purses, and over a wilder country
+and among a wilder people."
+
+[Illustration: IRELAND AND ST. BRANDON'S ISLE. From the Catalan map,
+1375.]
+
+These pilgrims tramped to and fro clad in simple tunics over a monkish
+dress of undyed wool, bound round the waist by a strong cord, all their
+worldly goods on their backs and a staff in their hands. The hermit
+instinct was growing, and men were sailing away to lonely islands where
+God might be better served apart from the haunts of men. Perhaps it
+was this instinct that inspired St. Brandon to sail away across the
+trackless ocean in search of the Island of Saints reported in the
+western seas. His voyage suggests the old expedition of Ulysses. A
+good deal of it is mythical, some is added at a later date, but it
+is interesting as being an attempt to cross the wide Atlantic Ocean
+across which no man had yet sailed. For seven years St. Brandon sailed
+on the unknown sea, discovering unknown islands, until he reached the
+Island of Saints--the goal of his desires. And the fact remains that
+for ten centuries after this an island, known as Brandon's Isle, was
+marked on maps somewhere to the west of Ireland, though to the end
+it remained as mysterious as the island of Thule.
+
+Here is the old story. Brandon, abbot of a large Irish monastery
+containing one thousand monks, sailed off in an "osier boat covered
+with tanned hides and carefully greased," provisioned for seven years.
+After forty days at sea they reached an island with steep sides, where
+they took in fresh supplies. Thence the winds carried the ship to
+another island, where they found sheep--"every sheep was as great as
+an ox."
+
+"This is the island of sheep, and here it is ever summer," they were
+informed by an old islander.
+
+This may have been Madeira. They found other islands in the
+neighbourhood, one of which was full of singing-birds, and the passing
+years found them still tossing to and fro on the unknown sea, until
+at last the end came. "And St. Brandon sailed forty days south in full
+great tempest," and another forty days brought the ship right into
+a bank of fog. But when the fog lifted "they saw the fairest country
+eastward that any man might see, it was so clear and bright that it
+was a heavenly sight to behold; and all the trees were charged with
+ripe fruit." And they walked about the island for forty days and could
+not find the end. And there was no night there, and the climate was
+neither hot nor cold.
+
+"Be ye joyful now," said a voice, "for this is the land ye have sought,
+and our Lord wills that you laden your ship with the fruit of this
+land and hie you hence, for ye may no longer abide here, but thou shalt
+sail again into thine own country."
+
+[Illustration: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLE OF ST. BRANDON IN MARTIN BEHAIM'S
+MAP, 1492. As geographical knowledge increased, map-makers were
+compelled to put Brandon's Isle farther and farther away from Ireland,
+until here we find it off the coast of Africa and near the Equator.]
+
+So the monks took all the fruit they could carry, and, weeping that
+they might stay no longer in this happy land, they sailed back to
+Ireland. Hazy, indeed, was the geography of the Atlantic in the sixth
+century. Nor can we leave St. Brandon's story without quoting a modern
+poet, who believed that the voyage was to the Arctic regions and not
+in the Atlantic.
+
+   "Saint Brandon sails the Northern Main,
+    The brotherhood of saints are glad.
+    He greets them once, he sails again:
+    So late! Such storms! The saint is mad.
+    He heard across the howling seas
+    Chime convent bells on wintry nights;
+    He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,
+    Twinkle the monastery lights:
+    But north, still north, Saint Brandon steered,
+    And now no bells, no convents more,
+    The hurtling Polar lights are reached,
+    The sea without a human shore."
+
+Some three hundred years were to pass away before further discoveries
+in these quarters revealed new lands, three hundred years before the
+great energy of the Vikings brought to light Iceland, Greenland, and
+even the coast of America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AFTER MOHAMMED
+
+
+So once more we turn back to the East. Jerusalem is still the centre
+of the earth. But a change has passed over the world, which influenced
+not a little the progress of geography. Mohammed in the seventh century
+lived and died in Arabia. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His
+prophet," proclaimed his followers, the Arabs or Saracens as they were
+called. And just as men had travelled abroad to preach Christianity
+to those who knew it not, so now the Mohammedans set forth to teach
+the faith of their Lord and Master. But whereas Christianity was taught
+by peaceful means, Mohammedanism was carried by the sword. The Roman
+provinces of Syria and Egypt had been conquered by the Arabs, and the
+famous cities of Jerusalem and Alexandria were filled with teachers
+of the new faith. The Mohammedans had conquered Spain and were pressing
+by Persia towards India.
+
+What deep root their preaching took in these parts is still evident.
+Still the weary fight between the two religions continues.
+
+The first traveller of note through this distracted Europe was a
+Frenchman named Arculf, a Christian bishop. When he had visited the
+Holy Land and Egypt his ship was caught in a violent storm and driven
+on to the west coast of Scotland. After many adventures Arculf found
+himself at the famous convent of Iona, made welcome by an Irish monk
+Adamnan, who was deeply interested in Arculf's account of his
+wanderings, and wrote them down at his dictation, first on waxed
+tablets, copied later on to parchment. How tenderly the two monks dwell
+on all the glories of Jerusalem. "But in that beautiful place where
+once the Temple had been, the Saracens now frequent a four-sided house
+of prayer, which they have built, rudely constructing it by raising
+boards and great beams on some remains of ruins, which house can hold
+three thousand men at once." And Arculf draws on the waxed tablet the
+picture of some church or tomb to make his narrative clearer to his
+friend Adamnan.
+
+Perhaps the most interesting part of all the travels is the account
+of the lofty column that Arculf describes in the midst of Jerusalem.
+
+"This column," he says, "as it stands in the centre of the heaven,
+shining straight down from above, proves that the city of Jerusalem
+is situated in the middle of the earth."
+
+Arculf's journey aroused great interest among the newly converted
+Christians of the north, and Willibald, a high-born Englishman,
+started off in 721 to explore farther. But the road through Europe
+was now full of danger. The followers of Mohammed were strong, and
+it required true courage to face the perils of the long journey.
+Willibald was undaunted, and with his father and two brothers he sailed
+from Southampton, crossed to France, sailed up the Seine to Rouen,
+and reached Italy. Here the old father died. Willibald and his brothers
+travelled on through "the vast lands of Italy, through the depths of
+the valleys, over the steep brows of the mountains, over the levels
+of the plains, climbing on foot the difficult passes of the Alps, over
+the icebound and snow-capped summits," till they arrived at Rome.
+Thence they made their way to Syria, where they were at once thrown
+into prison by Mohammedan conquerors. They were brought before the
+ruler of the Mohammedan world, or Khalif, whose seat was at Damascus.
+He asked whence they came.
+
+"These men come from the western shore, where the sun sets: and we
+know not of any land beyond them, but water only," was the answer.
+
+Such was Britain to the Mohammedans. They never got a footing in that
+country: their Empire lay to the east, and their capital was even now
+shifting to Bagdad.
+
+[Illustration: THE WORLD-MAP OF COSMAS, SIXTH CENTURY. This is the
+oldest Christian map. It shows the flat world surrounded by the ocean,
+with the four winds and the four sacred rivers running out of the
+terrestrial Paradise; beyond all is the "terra ultra oceanum," "the
+world beyond the ocean, where men dwelt before the flood."]
+
+But before turning to their geographical discoveries we must see how
+Cosmas, the Egyptian merchant-monk, set the clock back by his quaint
+theories of the world in the sixth century. Cosmas hailed from
+"Alexander's great city." His calling carried him into seas and
+countries remote from home. He knew the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian
+Gulf, and the Red Sea. He had narrowly escaped shipwreck in the Indian
+Ocean, which in those days was regarded with terror on account of its
+violent currents and dense fogs. As the ship carrying the merchant
+approached this dread region, a storm gathered overhead, and flocks
+of albatross, like birds of ill-omen, hovered about the masts.
+
+"We were all in alarm," relates Cosmas, "for all the men of experience
+on board, whether passengers or sailors, began to say that we were
+near the ocean and called out to the pilot: 'Steer the ship to port
+and make for the gulf, or we shall be swept along by the currents and
+carried into the ocean and lost.' For the ocean rushing into the gulf
+was swelling with billows of portentous size, while the currents from
+the gulf were driving the ship into the ocean, and the outlook was
+altogether so dismal that we were kept in a state of great alarm."
+
+That he eventually reached India is clear, for he relates strange
+things concerning Ceylon. "There is a large oceanic island lying in
+the Indian Sea," he tells us. "It has a length of nine hundred miles
+and it is of the like extent in breadth. There are two kings in the
+island, and they are at feud the one with the other. The island, being
+as it is in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all
+parts of India, and from Persia and Ethiopia, and from the remotest
+countries, it receives silk, aloes, cloves, and other products ...
+farther away is the clove country, then Tzinista (China), which
+produces silk. Beyond this there is no other country, for the ocean
+surrounds it on the east."
+
+Cosmas was the first to realise that China was bounded on the east
+by the ocean. He tells us a good story about the "Lord of India," who
+always went to war with two thousand elephants. "Once upon a time this
+king would lay siege to an island city of the Indians, which was on
+every side protected by water. A long while he sat down before it,
+until, what with his elephants, his horses, and his soldiers, all the
+water had been drunk up. He then crossed over to the city dryshod and
+took it."
+
+[Illustration: THE MOUNTAIN OF COSMAS, CAUSING NIGHT AND DAY AND THE
+SEASONS.]
+
+But, strange as are the travels and information of Cosmas, still
+stranger is his _Christian Topography_. His commercial travelling
+done he retired, became a devout Christian monk, and devoted his
+leisure time in trying to reconcile all the progress of geographical
+knowledge with old Biblical ideas.
+
+He assures us that the world is flat and not round, and that it is
+surrounded by an immense wall supporting the firmament. Indeed, if
+we compare the maps of Cosmas in the sixth century with those of the
+Babylonians thousands of years before, there is mighty little
+difference. With amazing courage he refutes all the old theories and
+draws the most astounding maps, which, nevertheless, are the oldest
+Christian maps which survive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE VIKINGS SAIL THE NORTHERN SEAS
+
+
+A more interesting force than the pilgrim travellers now claims our
+attention, and we turn to the frozen north, to the wild region at the
+back of the north wind, for new activity and discovery. Out of this
+land of fable and myth, legend and poetry, the fierce inhabitants of
+Scandinavia begin to take shape. Tacitus speaks of them as "mighty
+in fame," Ptolemy as "savage and clothed in the skins of wild beasts."
+
+From time to time we have glimpses of these folk sailing about in the
+Baltic Sea. They were known to the Finns of the north as "sea-rovers."
+"The sea is their school of war and the storm their friend; they are
+sea-wolves that live on the pillage of the world," sang an old Roman
+long years ago. The daring spirit of their race had already attracted
+the attention of Britons across the seas. The careless glee with which
+they seized either sword or oar and waged war with the stormy seas
+for a scanty livelihood, raiding all the neighbouring coasts, had
+earned them the name of Vikings or creek men. Their black-sailed ships
+stood high out of the water, prow and stern ending in the head and
+tail of some strange animal, while their long beards, their loose
+shirts, and battleaxe made them conspicuous. "From the fury of the
+Northmen save us, Lord," prayed those who had come in contact with
+these Vikings.
+
+In the ninth century they spring into fame as explorers by the discovery
+of Iceland. It was in this wise. The chief of a band of pirates, one
+Naddod, during a voyage to the Faroe Islands was driven by a storm
+upon the eastern coast of an unknown land. Not a soul was to be seen.
+He climbed a high mountain covered with snow and took a look round,
+but though he could see far and wide, not a human being could he detect.
+So he named it Snow-land and sailed home to relate his adventures.
+
+A few years later another Viking, Gardar, bound for the west coast
+of Scotland, was likewise blown by a storm on to the coast of Snow-land.
+He sailed right round and found it to be an island. Considering that
+it was unsafe to navigate the icy northern seas in winter, he built
+himself a hut on the island, lived there till the spring, and returned
+home. His account of the island fired the enthusiasm of an old Viking
+called Floki, who sailed away, meaning to take possession of the newly
+discovered country. At the Faroe Islands he let fly three ravens. The
+first returned, the second came back to the ship, the third guided
+the navigator to the island which he sought. He met a quantity of drift
+ice about the northern part of the island and called it Ice-land, the
+name it has borne ever since. But amid the Arctic ice he spent a desolate
+winter; the island seemed full of lofty mountains covered with eternal
+snow. His companions, however, were delighted with the climate and
+the soil.
+
+"Milk drops from every plant and butter from every twig," they said;
+"this was a land where men might live free from the tyranny of kings."
+Free, indeed, for the island was totally uninhabited.
+
+[Illustration: A VIKING SHIP. A reconstruction (from Prof.
+Montelius's book on Scandinavian archaeology) of an actual Viking ship
+found, almost complete, at Gokstad, Norway.]
+
+Iceland soon became a refuge for pirates and other lawless characters.
+Among these was a young Viking called Erik the Red. He was too lawless
+even for Iceland, and, being banished for three years, he sailed away
+in 985 in search of new lands. At the end of his three years he returned
+and reported that he had discovered land with rich meadows, fine woods,
+and good fishing, which he had named Green-land. So glowing was his
+description that soon a party of men and women, with household goods
+and cattle, started forth in twenty-five ships to colonise the new
+land. Still the passion for discovery continued, and Erik's son Lief
+fitted out a vessel to carry thirty-five men in quest of land already
+sighted to the west.
+
+It was in the year 1000 that they reached the coast of North America.
+It was a barren and rocky shore to which Lief gave the name of Rock-land.
+Sailing farther, they found a low coast wooded to its edge, to which
+they gave the simple name of Woody-land. Two days later an island
+appeared, and on the mainland they discovered a river up which they
+sailed. On low bushes by the banks of the river they found sweet berries
+or wild grapes from which a sort of wine was made, so Lief called the
+land Vin-land. It is now supposed that Vinland and Woodyland are really
+Newfoundland and Labrador on the shores of North America. After this,
+shipload followed shipload from Iceland to colonise Vinland. But
+without success.
+
+So the Viking discoveries in these cold and inhospitable regions were
+but transitory. The clouds lifted but for a moment to settle down again
+over America, till it was rediscovered some five hundred years later.
+
+Before leaving these northern explorers let us remind ourselves of
+the old saga so graphic in its description of their ocean lives--
+
+   "Down the fiord sweep wind and rain;
+    Our sails and tackle sway and strain;
+        Wet to the skin
+        We're sound within.
+    Our sea-steed through the foam goes prancing,
+    While shields and spears and helms are glancing
+        From fiord to sea,
+        Our ships ride free,
+    And down the wind with swelling sail
+    We scud before the gathering gale."
+
+Now, while these fierce old Vikings were navigating unknown seas,
+Alfred the Great was reigning over England. Among his many and varied
+interests he was deeply thrilled in the geography of the world. He
+was always ready to listen to those who had been on voyages of discovery,
+and in his account of the geography of Europe he tells us of a famous
+old sea captain called Othere, who had navigated the unknown seas to
+the north of Europe.
+
+"Othere told his lord, King Alfred, that he dwelt northmost of all
+Northmen, on the land by the western sea. He said that the land is
+very long thence to the north; but it is all waste save that in a few
+places here and there Finns reside. He said that he wished to find
+out how far the land lay right north, or whether any man dwelt to the
+north of the waste. Then he went right north near the land, and he
+left all the way the waste land on the right and the wide sea on the
+left for three days. There was he as far north as the whale-hunters
+ever go. He then went yet right north, as far as he could sail in the
+next three days. After sailing for another nine days he came to a great
+river; they turned up into the river, but they durst not sail beyond
+it on account of hostility, for the land was all inhabited on the other
+side. He had not before met with any inhabited land since he came from
+his own home, for the land was uninhabited all the way on his right
+save by fishermen, hunters, and fowlers, and they were all Finns, and
+there was always a wide sea on his left."
+
+And as a trophy of distant lands and a proof of his having reached
+farthest north, Othere presented the King with a "snow-white walrus
+tooth."
+
+But King Alfred wanted his subjects to know more of the world around
+them, and even in the midst of his busy life he managed to write a
+book in Anglo-Saxon, which sums up for us the world's knowledge some
+nine hundred years after Ptolemy--nine hundred barren years as far
+as much geographical progress was concerned. Alfred does not even
+allude to Iceland, Greenland, or Vinland. The news of these
+discoveries had evidently not reached him. He repeats the old legend
+of Thule to the north-west of Ireland, "which is known to few, on
+account of its very great distance."
+
+So ends the brief but thrilling discoveries of the Northmen, who knew
+not fear, and we turn again to landsmen and the east.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ARAB WAYFARERS
+
+
+And now we leave the fierce energy of the Northmen westwards and turn
+to another energy, which was leading men toward the east, to the lands
+beyond the Euphrates, to India, across central Asia, even into far
+Cathay.
+
+These early travellers to the east were for the most part Arabs.
+Mohammed had bidden his followers to spread his teaching far and wide;
+this teaching had always appealed more to the eastern than to the
+western mind. So farther and farther to the east travelled the Arabs,
+converting the uncivilised tribes that Christianity had not reached.
+
+What a contrast are these Arabs to the explorers of the vigorous north.
+They always travelled by land and not by that sea which was life to
+the Viking folk. To the Arabs the encircling ocean was a very "Sea
+of Darkness"; indeed, the unknown ocean beyond China was called the
+"Sea of Pitchy Darkness." Their creed taught that the ocean was
+boundless, so that ships dared not venture out of sight of land, for
+there was no inhabited country beyond, and mariners would assuredly
+be lost in mists and fogs. So, while the Vikings tossed fearlessly
+about the wild northern seas, the Arab wayfarers rode eastward by
+well-known caravan tracks, trading and teaching the ways of Mohammed.
+Arabic enterprise had pushed on far beyond Ptolemy's world. The Arab
+centre lay in the city of Bagdad, the headquarters of the ruler or
+Khalif of the Mohammedan world. They had already opened up a
+considerable trade with the rapidly rising Mongol Empire, which no
+European had yet reached.
+
+[Illustration: A KHALIF ON HIS THRONE. From the Ancona map, 1497.]
+
+But as this country was to play a large part in the travels of the
+near future, it will be interesting to hear the account given by two
+Mohammedan friends who journeyed thither in the year 831, just four
+hundred years before Marco Polo's famous account. The early part of
+their story is missing, and we raise the curtain when they have arrived
+in the land of China itself, then a very small empire compared with
+what it is now.
+
+"The Emperor of China reckons himself next after the King of the Arabs,
+who they all allow to be the first and beyond all dispute the most
+powerful of kings, because he is the head of a great religion. In this
+great kingdom of China they tell us there are over two hundred cities;
+each city has four gates, at each of which are five trumpets, which
+the Chinese sound at certain hours of the day and of the night. There
+are also within each city ten drums, which they beat at the same time
+as a public token of their obedience to the Emperor, as also to signify
+the hour of the day and of the night, to which end they also have dials
+and clocks with weights.
+
+"China is a pleasant and fruitful country; the air is much better than
+the Indian provinces: much rain falls in both these countries. In India
+are many desert tracts, but China is inhabited and peopled throughout
+its whole extent. The Chinese are handsomer than the Indians, and come
+nearer the Arabs, not only in countenance, but in dress, in their way
+of riding, in their manners, and in their ceremonies. They wear long
+garments and girdles in form of belts. The Chinese are dressed in silk
+both winter and summer, and this kind of dress is common to the prince
+and the peasant. Their food is rice, which they often eat with a broth
+which they pour upon the rice. They have several sorts of fruits, apples,
+lemons, quinces, figs, grapes, cucumbers, walnuts, almonds, plums,
+apricots, and cocoanuts."
+
+[Illustration: A CHINESE EMPEROR GIVING AUDIENCE, NINTH CENTURY. From
+an old Chinese MS. at Paris, showing an Emperor of the dynasty that
+was ruling when the two Mohammedans visited China in 831.]
+
+Here, too, we get the first mention of tea, which was not introduced
+into Europe for another seven hundred years, but which formed a Chinese
+drink in the ninth century. This Chinese drink "is a herb or shrub,
+more bushy than the pomegranate tree an of a more pleasant scent, but
+somewhat bitter to the taste. The Chinese boil water and pour it in
+scalding hot upon this leaf, and this infusion keeps them from all
+distempers."
+
+Here, too, we get the first mention of china ware. "They have an
+excellent kind of earth, wherewith they make a ware of equal fineness
+with glass and equally transparent."
+
+There is no time here to tell of all the curious manners and customs
+related by these two Mohammedans. One thing struck them as indeed it
+must strike us to-day. "The Chinese, poor and rich, great and small,
+learn to read and write. There are schools in every town for teaching
+the poor children, and the masters are maintained at public charge....
+The Chinese have a stone ten cubits high erected in the public squares
+of their cities, and on this stone are engraved the names of all the
+medicines, with the exact price of each; and when the poor stand in
+need of physic they go to the treasury where they receive the price
+each medicine is rated at."
+
+It was out of such travels as these that the famous romance of "Sindbad
+the Sailor" took shape--a true story of Arab adventures of the ninth
+and tenth centuries in a romantic setting. As in the case of Ulysses,
+the adventures of many voyages are ascribed to one man and related
+in a collection of tales which bears the title of _The Arabian Nights_.
+
+Of course, Sindbad was a native of Bagdad, the Arab centre of everything
+at this time, and of course he journeyed eastwards as did most
+Mohammedans.
+
+"It occurred to my mind," says Sindbad, "to travel to the countries
+of other people; then I arose and collected what I had of effects and
+apparel and sold them, after which I sold my buildings and all that
+my hand possessed and amassed three thousand pieces of silver. So I
+embarked in a ship, and with a company of merchants we traversed the
+sea for many days and nights. We had passed by island after island
+and from sea to sea and land to land, and in every place we sold and
+bought and exchanged merchandise. We continued our voyage until we
+arrived at an island like one of the gardens of Paradise."
+
+Here they anchored and lit fires, when suddenly the master of the ship
+cried aloud in great distress: "Oh, ye passengers, come up quickly
+into the ship, leave your merchandise and flee for your lives, for
+this apparent island, upon which ye are, is not really an island, but
+it is a great fish that hath become stationary in the midst of the
+sea, and the sand hath accumulated upon it and trees have grown upon
+it, and when ye lighted a fire it felt the heat, and now it will descend
+with you into the sea and ye will all be drowned." As he spoke the
+island moved and "descended to the bottom of the sea with all that
+were upon it, and the roaring sea, agitated with waves, closed over
+it."
+
+Let Sindbad continue his own story: "I sank in the sea with the rest.
+But God delivered me and saved me from drowning and supplied me with
+a great wooden bowl, and I laid hold upon it and gat into it and beat
+the water with my feet as with oars, while the waves sported with me.
+I remained so a day and a night, until the bowl came to a stoppage
+under a high island whereupon were trees overhanging the sea. So I
+laid hold upon the branch of a lofty tree and clung to it until I landed
+on the island. Then I threw myself upon the island like one dead."
+
+After wandering about he found servants of the King of Borneo, and
+all sailed together to an island beyond the Malay Peninsula. And the
+King of Borneo sent for Sindbad and heaped him with honours. He gave
+him costly dress and made him superintendent of the seaport and adviser
+of affairs of state. And Sindbad saw many wonders in this far-distant
+sea. At last "one day I stood upon the shore of the sea, with a staff
+in my hand, as was my custom, and lo! a great vessel approached wherein
+were many merchants." They unloaded their wares, telling Sindbad that
+the owner of their goods, a man from Bagdad, had been drowned and they
+were selling his things.
+
+"What was the name of the owner of the goods?" asked Sindbad.
+
+"His name was Sindbad of the Sea."
+
+Then Sindbad cried: "Oh, master, know that I am the owner of the goods
+and I am Sindbad of the Sea."
+
+Then there was great rejoicing and Sindbad took leave of this King
+of Borneo and set sail for Bagdad--the Abode of Peace.
+
+[Illustration: THE SCENE OF SINDBAD'S VOYAGES AS SHOWN IN EDRISI'S
+MAP, 1154. The romance of "Sindbad the Sailor" is really a true story
+of Arab adventures at sea during the ninth and tenth centuries, put
+into a romantic setting and ascribed to one man. In the above map,
+which is a portion of the map of the world made by the famous Arab
+geographer, Edrisi, in 1154 A.D., many of the places to which Sindbad's
+story relates have been identified. Their modern names are as
+follows:--
+
+Kotroba is (probably) Socotra.       Rami, the "Island of Apes,"
+Koulam Meli is Coulan, near Cape         is Sumatra.
+    Comorin.                         Maid Dzaba, the "island with the
+HIND is INDIA.                           volcano," is Banca.
+Serendib is Ceylon.                  Senf is Tsiampa, S. Cochin--China.
+Murphili (or Monsul), the "Valley    Mudza (or Mehrage) is Borneo.
+    of Diamonds," is Masulipatam.    Kamrun is Java.
+Roibahat, the "Clove Islands," are   Maid, the Camphor Island, is
+    the Maldive Islands.                  Formosa.
+  Edrisi's names are those which are used in the _Arabian Nights_.]
+
+But the spirit of unrest was upon him and soon he was off again. Indeed,
+he made seven voyages in all, but there is only room here to note a
+few of the most important points in each. This time he sailed to the
+coast of Zanzibar, East Africa, and, anchoring on the beautiful island
+of Madagascar, amid sweet-smelling flowers, pure rivers, and warbling
+birds, Sindbad fell asleep. He awoke to find the ship had sailed away,
+leaving him without food or drink, and not a human being was to be
+seen on the island.
+
+"Then I climbed up into a lofty tree and began to look from it to the
+right and left, but saw nothing save sky and water and trees and birds
+and islands and sands."
+
+At last he found an enormous bird. Unwinding his turban, he twisted
+it into a rope and, tying one end round his wrist, tied the other to
+one of the bird's great feet. Up flew the giant bird high into the
+sky and Sindbad with it, descending somewhere in India in the Valley
+of Diamonds. This bird was afterwards identified as an enormous eagle.
+
+"And I arose and walked in that valley," says Sindbad, "and I beheld
+its ground to be composed of diamonds, with which they perforate
+minerals and jewels, porcelain, and the onyx, and it is a stone so
+hard that neither iron nor rock have any effect upon it. All that valley
+was likewise occupied by serpents and venomous snakes."
+
+Here Sindbad found the camphor trees, "under each of which trees a
+hundred men might shade themselves." From these trees flowed liquid
+camphor. "In this island, too, is a kind of wild beast, called
+rhinoceros--it is a huge beast with a single horn, thick, in the middle
+of its head, and it lifteth the great elephant upon its horn."
+
+Thus, after collecting heaps of diamonds, Sindbad returned to
+Bagdad--a rich man.
+
+[Illustration: SINDBAD'S GIANT ROC. From an Oriental miniature
+painting.]
+
+Again his soul yearns for travel. This time he starts for China, but
+his ship is driven out of its course and cast on the Island of Apes,
+probably Sumatra. These apes, "the most hideous of beasts, covered
+with hair like black felt," surrounded the ship. They climbed up the
+cables and severed them with their teeth to Sindbad's great alarm.
+He escaped to the neighbouring islands known as the Clove Islands,
+and again reached Bagdad safely. Again and yet again he starts forth
+on fresh adventures. Now he is sailing on the seas beyond Ceylon, now
+his ship is being pursued by a giant roc whose young have been killed
+and eaten by Sindbad. Sindbad as usual escapes upon a plank, and sails
+to an island, where he meets the "Old Man of the Sea," probably a huge
+ape from Borneo. On he passed to the "Island of Apes," where, every
+night, the people who reside in it go forth from the doors of the city
+that open upon the sea in their fear of the apes lest they should come
+down upon them in the night from the mountains. After this we find
+Sindbad trading in pepper on the Coromandel coast of modern India and
+discovering a wealth of pearls by the seashore of Ceylon. But at last
+he grew tired of seafaring, which was never congenial to Arabs.
+
+   "Hateful was the dark blue sky,
+    Vaulted o'er the dark blue sea;
+    Sore task to heart, worn out by many wars;
+    And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot stars."
+
+So he leaves private adventuring alone and is appointed by the Khalif
+of Bagdad to convey a letter and present to the Indian prince of
+Ceylon--an expedition that lasts him twenty-seven years. The presents
+were magnificent. They included a horse worth ten thousand pieces of
+gold, with its saddle adorned with gold set with jewels, a book, a
+splendid dress, and some beautiful white Egyptian cloth, Greek carpets,
+and a crystal cup. Having duly delivered these gifts, he took his leave,
+meaning to return to his own country. But the usual adventures befell
+him. This time his ship was surrounded by a number of boats on board
+of which were men like little devils with swords and daggers. These
+attacked the ship, captured Sindbad, and sold him to a rich man as
+a slave. He set him to shoot elephants from a tree with bows and arrows.
+At last, after many other adventures and having made seven long voyages,
+poor Sindbad reached his home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+TRAVELLERS TO THE EAST
+
+
+But if the Sindbad saga is based on the stories of Mohammedan travellers
+and sum up Arab adventure by sea in the tenth century, we must turn
+to another Arab--Massoudy by name--for land travel of the same period.
+Massoudy left his home at Bagdad very young and seems to have penetrated
+into every Mohammedan country from Spain to farther India. In his
+famous _Meadows of Gold_, with its one hundred and thirty-two chapters,
+dedicated to "the most illustrious Kings," he describes the various
+lands through which he has travelled, giving us at the same time a
+good deal of incorrect information about lands he has never seen.
+
+   "I have gone so far towards the setting sun
+    That I have lost all remembrance of the east,
+    And my course has taken me so far towards the rising sun
+    That I have forgotten the very name of west."
+
+One cannot but look with admiration on the energetic Arab traveller,
+when one remembers the labour of travel even in the tenth century.
+There were the long, hot rides through central Asia, under a burning
+sun, the ascent of unknown mountains, the crossing of unbridged rivers.
+From his lengthy work we will only extract a few details. Though he
+had "gone so far toward the setting sun," his knowledge of the West
+was very limited, and while Vikings tossed on the Atlantic westwards,
+Massoudy tells us that it is "impossible to navigate beyond the Pillars
+of Hercules, for no vessel sails on that sea; it is without cultivation
+or inhabitant, and its end, like its depth, is unknown." Such was the
+"Green Sea of Darkness" as it was called by the Arabs. Massoudy is
+more at home when he journeys towards the rising sun to the East, but
+his descriptions of China, the "Flowery Land," the "Celestial
+Country," were to be excelled by others.
+
+We must pass over Edrisi, who in 1153 wrote on "The going abroad of
+a curious Man to explore all the Wonders of the World," which wonders
+he explored very imperfectly, though he has left us a map of the world,
+which may be seen to-day at the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
+
+But we cannot pass over Benjamin of Tudela in so few words. "Our
+Benjamin" he is called by Pinkerton, who in the eighteenth century
+made a wonderful collection of voyages and travels of all ages. "Our
+Benjamin" was a Jew hailing from Tudela in Spain, and he started forth
+on his travels with a view to ascertaining the condition and numbers
+of Jews living in the midst of the great Mohammedan Empire. Benjamin
+made his way in the year 1160 to the "exceeding great city" of
+Constantinople, which "hath none to compare with it except Bagdad--the
+mighty city of the Arabs." With the great temple of St. Sophia and
+its pillars of gold and silver, he was immensely struck. In wrapt
+admiration he gazed at the Emperor's palace with its walls of beaten
+gold, its hanging crown suspended over the Imperial throne, blazing
+with precious stones, so splendid that the hall needed no other light.
+No less striking were the crimson embroidered garments worn by the
+Greeks, who rode to and from the city like princes on horseback.
+Benjamin turns sadly to the Jewish quarter. No Jew might ride on
+horseback here. All were treated as objects of contempt; they were
+herded together, often beaten in the streets.
+
+[Illustration: JERUSALEM AND THE PILGRIMS' WAYS TO IT IN THE TWELFTH
+CENTURY. From a map of the twelfth century at Brussels.]
+
+From the wealth and luxury of Constantinople Benjamin makes his way
+to Syria. At Jerusalem he finds some two hundred Jews commanding the
+dyeing trade. And here we must remind ourselves that the second crusade
+was over and the third had not yet taken place, that Jerusalem, the
+City of Peace, had been in the hands of the Mohammedans or Saracens
+till 1099, when it fell into the hands of the Crusaders. From Jerusalem,
+by way of Damascus, Benjamin entered Persia, and he gives us an
+interesting account of Bagdad and its Khalifs. The Khalif was the head
+of the Mohammedans in the same way that the Pope was the head of the
+Christians. "He was," says "Our Benjamin," "a very dignified personage,
+friendly towards the Jews, a kind-hearted man, but never to be seen."
+Pilgrims from distant lands, passing through Bagdad on their way to
+Mecca, prayed to be allowed to see "the brightness of his face," but
+they were only allowed to kiss one end of his garment. Now, although
+Benjamin describes the journey from Bagdad to China, it is very
+doubtful if he ever got to China himself, so we will leave him
+delighting in the glories of Bagdad, with its palm trees, its gardens
+and orchards, rejoicing in the statistics of Jews, and turn to the
+adventures of one, Carpini, who really did reach Tartary.
+
+This Carpini, or Friar John, was a Franciscan who was chosen by the
+Pope to go to the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which was threatening
+to overrun Christendom. On 16th April 1245, Friar John left the
+cloister for the unknown tract of country by which he had to pass into
+China. By way of Bohemia he passed into Russia, and, having annexed
+Brother Benedict in Poland and Brother Stephen in Bohemia, together
+with a guide, Carpini made his way eastwards. It was mid-winter; the
+travellers had to ride on Tartar horses, "for they alone could find
+grass under the snow, or live, as animals must in Tartary, without
+hay or straw." Sometimes Friar John fell so ill that he had to be placed
+in a cart and carried through the deep snow.
+
+[Illustration: TWO EMPERORS OF TARTARY. From the Catalan map, 1375.]
+
+It was Easter 1246, just a year after their start, that Friar John
+and his companions began the last section of their journey beyond the
+Volga, and "most tearfully we set out," not knowing whether it was
+"for life or for death." So thin had they all become that not one of
+them could ride. Still they toiled on, till one July day they entered
+Mongolia and found the headquarters of the Great Khan about half a
+day's journey from Karakorum. They arrived in time to witness the
+enthronement of the new Khan in August. Here were crowds of ambassadors
+from Russia and Persia as well as from outlying parts of the growing
+Mongol Empire. These were laden with gifts--indeed, there were no less
+than five hundred crates full of silks, satins, brocades, fur, gold
+embroidery. Friar John and his companions had no gifts to offer save
+the letter from the Pope.
+
+Impressive, indeed, in the eyes of the once cloistered friar must have
+been this first sight of Eastern splendour. High on a neighbouring
+hill stood the Khan's tent, resting on pillars plated with gold, top
+and sides covered with silk brocades, while the great ceremony took
+place. But the men of the West were not welcomed by the new Emperor
+of the East. It was supposed that he intended shortly to unfurl his
+Standard against the whole of the Western world, and in November Friar
+John and his companions found themselves formally dismissed with a
+missive from the Great Khan to the Pope, signed and sealed by the Khan
+himself.
+
+[Illustration: A TARTAR CAMP. From the Borgian map, 1453.]
+
+The return journey was even more trying; winter was coming on, and
+for nearly seven months the Pope's faithful envoys struggled on across
+the endless open plains of Asia towards Russia, resting their eyes
+on vast expanses of snow. At last they reached home, and Friar John
+wrote his _Book of the Tartars_, in which he informs us that Mongolia
+is in the east part of the world and that Cathay is "a country in the
+east of Asia." To the south-west of Mongolia he heard of a vast desert,
+where lived certain wild men unable to speak and with no joints in
+their legs. These occupy themselves in making felt out of camel's hair
+for garments to protect them from the weather.
+
+Again Carpini tells us about that mythical character figuring in the
+travel books of this time--Prester John. "The Mongol army," he says,
+"marched against the Christians dwelling in the greater India, and
+the king of that country, known by the name of Prester John, came forth
+with his army to meet them. This Prester John caused a number of hollow
+copper figures to be made, resembling men, which were stuffed with
+combustibles and set upon horses, each having a man behind on the horse,
+with a pair of bellows to stir up the fire. At the first onset of the
+battle these mounted figures were sent forward to the charge; the men
+who rode behind them set fire to the combustibles and then strongly
+blew with the bellows; immediately the Mongol horses and men were burnt
+with wild-fire and the air was darkened with smoke."
+
+We shall hear of Prester John again. For within a few years of the
+return of Friar John, another Franciscan friar, William de Rubruquis,
+was sent forth, this time by the French king, Louis, to carry letters
+to the Great Khan begging him to embrace Christianity and acknowledge
+the supremacy of the Pope. William and his chosen companions had a
+painful and difficult journey of some months before they reached the
+camps on the Volga of one of the great Mongol lords. Indeed, "if it
+had not been for the grace of God and the biscuit which we brought
+with us, we had surely perished," remarks the pious friar in the history
+of his adventures. Never once did they enjoy the shelter of a house
+or tent, but passed the nights in the open air in a cart. At last they
+were ordered to appear at the Court of the great ruler with all their
+books and vestments.
+
+"We were commanded to array ourselves in our sacred vestments to appear
+before the prince. Putting on, therefore, our most precious ornaments,
+I took a cushion in my arms, together with the Bible I had from the
+King of France and the beautiful Psalter which the Queen bestowed upon
+me: my companion at the same time carried the missal and a crucifix;
+and the clerk, clothed in his surplice, bore a censer in his hand.
+In this order we presented ourselves ... singing the Salve Regina."
+It is a strange picture this--the European friars, in all the vestments
+of their religion, standing before the Eastern prince of this far-off
+country. They would fain have carried home news of his conversion,
+but they were told in angry tones that the prince was "not a Christian,
+but a Mongol."
+
+[Illustration: INITIAL LETTER FROM THE MS. OF RUBRUQUIS AT CAMBRIDGE.
+Probably representing the friars starting on their journey.]
+
+They were dismissed with orders to visit the Great Khan at Karakorum.
+Resuming their journey early in August, the messengers did not arrive
+at the Court of the Great Khan till the day after Christmas. They were
+miserably housed in a tiny hut with scarcely room for their beds and
+baggage. The cold was intense. The bare feet of the friars caused great
+astonishment to the crowds of onlookers, who stared at the strange
+figures as though they had been monsters. However, they could not keep
+their feet bare long, for very soon Rubruquis found that his toes were
+frozen.
+
+Chanting in Latin the hymn of the Nativity, the visitors were at last
+admitted to the Imperial tent, hung about with cloth of gold, where
+they found the Khan. He was seated on a couch--a "little man of moderate
+height, aged about forty-five, and dressed in a skin spotted and glossy
+like a seal." The Mongol Emperor asked numerous questions about the
+kingdom of France and the possibility of conquering it, to the
+righteous indignation of the friars. They stayed in the country till
+the end of May, when they were dismissed, having failed in their mission,
+but having gained a good deal of information about the great Mongol
+Empire and its somewhat mysterious ruler.
+
+But while the kingdoms in Europe trembled before the growing expansion
+of the Mongol Empire and the dangers of Tartar hordes, the merchants
+of Venice rejoiced in the new markets which were opening for them in
+the East.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MARCO POLO
+
+
+Now Venice at this time was full of enterprising merchants--merchants
+such as we hear of in Shakspere's _Merchant of Venice_. Among these
+were two Venetians, the brothers Polo. Rumours had reached them of
+the wealth of the mysterious land of Cathay, of the Great Khan, of
+Europeans making their way, as we have seen, through barren
+wildernesses, across burning deserts in the face of hardships
+indescribable, to open up a highway to the Far East.
+
+So off started Maffio and Niccolo Polo on a trading enterprise, and,
+having crossed the Mediterranean, came "with a fair wind and the
+blessing of God" to Constantinople, where they disposed of a large
+quantity of their merchandise. Having made some money, they directed
+their way to Bokhara, where they fell in with a Tartar nobleman, who
+persuaded them to accompany him to the Court of the Great Khan himself.
+Ready for adventure, they agreed, and he led them in a north-easterly
+direction; now they were delayed by heavy snows, now by the swelling
+of unbridged rivers, so that it was a year before they reached Pekin,
+which they considered was the extremity of the East. They were
+courteously received by the Great Khan, who questioned them closely
+about their own land, to which they replied in the Tartar language
+which they had learnt on the way.
+
+Now since the days of Friar John there was a new Khan named Kublai,
+who wished to send messengers to the Pope to beg him to send a hundred
+wise men to teach the Chinese Christianity. He chose the Polo brothers
+as his envoys to the Pope, and accordingly they started off to fulfil
+his behests. After an absence of fifteen years they again reached
+Venice. The very year they had left home Niccolo's wife had died, and
+his boy, afterwards to become the famous traveller, Marco Polo, had
+been born. The boy was now fifteen.
+
+[Illustration: HOW THE BROTHERS POLO SET OUT FROM CONSTANTINOPLE WITH
+THEIR NEPHEW MARCO FOR CHINA. From a miniature painting in the
+fourteenth century _Livre des Merveilles_.]
+
+The stories told by his father and uncle of the Far East and the Court
+of the greatest Emperor on earth filled the boy with enthusiasm, and
+when in 1271 the brothers Polo set out for their second journey to
+China, not only were they accompanied by the young Marco, but also
+by two preaching friars to teach the Christian faith to Kublai Khan.
+
+[Illustration: MARCO POLO LANDS AT ORMUZ. From a miniature in the
+_Livre des Merveilles_.]
+
+Their journey lay through Armenia, through the old city of Nineveh
+to Bagdad, where the last Khalif had been butchered by the Tartars.
+Entering Persia as traders, the Polo family passed on to Ormuz, hoping
+to take ship from here to China. But, for some unknown reason, this
+was impossible, and the travellers made their way north-eastwards to
+the country about the sources of the river Oxus. Here young Marco fell
+sick of a low fever, and for a whole year they could not proceed.
+Resuming their journey at last "in high spirits," they crossed the
+great highlands of the Pamirs, known as the "roof of the world," and,
+descending on Khotan, found themselves face to face with the great
+Gobi Desert. For thirty days they journeyed over the sandy wastes of
+the silent wilderness, till they came to a city in the province of
+Tangut, where they were met by messengers from the Khan, who had heard
+of their approach. But it was not till May 1275 that they actually
+reached the Court of Kublai Khan after their tremendous journey of
+"one thousand days." The preaching friars had long since turned
+homewards, alarmed at the dangers of the way, so only the three
+stout-hearted Polos were left to deliver the Pope's message to the
+ruler of the Mongol Empire.
+
+[Illustration: THE POLOS LEAVING VENICE FOR THEIR TRAVELS TO THE FAR
+EAST. From a miniature which stands at the head of a late 14th century
+MS. of the _Travels of Marco Polo_ (or the Book of the Grand Khan)
+in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The drawing shows the Piazzetta at
+Venice, with the Polos embarking, and in the foreground indications
+of the strange lands they visited.]
+
+"The lord of all the earth," as he was called by his people, received
+them very warmly. He inquired at once who was the young man with them.
+
+"My lord," replied Niccolo, "he is my son and your servant."
+
+"Then," said the Khan, "he is welcome. I am much pleased with him."
+
+So the three Venetians abode at the Court of Kublai Khan. His summer
+palace was at Shang-tu, called Xanadu by the poet Coleridge--
+
+   "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
+    A stately pleasure dome decree,
+    Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
+    Through caverns measureless to man
+    Down to a sacred sea.
+    So twice five miles of fertile ground,
+    With walls and towers were girdled round:
+    And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
+    Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
+    And here were forests ancient as the hills,
+    Enfolding sunny spots of greenery."
+
+So the three Venetians abode at the Court of the Chinese Emperor for
+no less than seventeen years. Young Marco displayed so great
+intelligence that he was sent on a mission for the Khan some six months'
+journey distant; and so well did he describe the things he had seen
+and the lands through which he had passed, that the Khan heaped on
+him honours and riches. Let us hear what Marco says of his lord and
+master.
+
+[Illustration: KUBLAI KHAN. From an old Chinese Encyclopaedia at
+Paris.]
+
+"The Great Khan, lord of lords, named Kublai, is of middle stature,
+neither too full nor too short: he has a beautiful fresh complexion,
+his colour is fair, his eyes dark."
+
+The capital of the Empire, Pekin, two days' journey from the sea, and
+the residence of the Court during the months of December, January,
+and February, called out the unbounded enthusiasm of the Polos. The
+city, two days' journey from the ocean, in the extreme north-east of
+Cathay, had been newly rebuilt in a regular square, six miles on each
+side, surrounded by walls of earth and having twelve gates.
+
+"The streets are so broad and so straight," says Marco, "that from
+one gate another is visible. It contains many beautiful houses and
+palaces, and a very large one in the midst, containing a steeple with
+a large bell which at night sounds three times, after which no man
+must leave the city. At each gate a thousand men keep guard, not from
+dread of any enemy, but in reverence of the monarch who dwells within
+it, and to prevent injury by robbers."
+
+This square form of Pekin, the great breadth of the straight streets,
+the closing of the gates by sound of a bell--the largest in the
+world--is noted by all travellers to this far-eastern city of Cathay.
+
+But greater even than Pekin was the city of Kin-sai (Hang-tcheou-fou),
+the City of Heaven, in the south of China. It had but lately fallen
+into the hands of Kublai Khan.
+
+"And now I will tell you all its nobleness," says Marco, "for without
+doubt it is the largest city in the world. The city is one hundred
+miles in circumference and has twelve thousand stone bridges, and
+beneath the greater part of these a large ship might pass. And you
+need not wonder there are so many bridges, because the city is wholly
+on the water and surrounded by it like Venice. The merchants are so
+numerous and so rich that their wealth can neither be told nor believed.
+They and their ladies do nothing with their own hands, but live as
+delicately as if they were kings. These females also are of most angelic
+beauty, and live in the most elegant manner. The people are idolaters,
+subject to the Great Khan, and use paper money. They eat the flesh
+of dogs and other beasts, such as no Christian would touch for the
+world. In this city, too, are four thousand baths, in which the citizens,
+both men and women, take great delight and frequently resort thither,
+because they keep their persons very cleanly. They are the largest
+and most beautiful baths in the world, insomuch that one hundred of
+either sex may bathe in them at once. Twenty-five miles from thence
+is the ocean, and there is a city (Ning-po) which has a very fine port,
+with large ships and much merchandise of immense value from India and
+other quarters."
+
+[Illustration: "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"--III. The world as known
+at the end of the thirteenth century after the travels of Marco Polo
+and his contemporaries.]
+
+But though Marco revels in the description of wonderful cities, he
+is continually leading us back to the Great Khan himself. His festivals
+were splendid. The tables were arranged so that the Emperor sat higher
+than all the others, always with his face to the south. His sons and
+daughters were placed so that their heads were on a level with his
+feet. Some forty thousand people feast on these occasions, but the
+Khan himself is served only by his great barons, their mouths wrapped
+in rich towels embroidered in gold and silver, that their breath might
+not blow upon the plates. His presents were on a colossal scale; it
+was no rare occurrence for him to receive five thousand camels, one
+hundred thousand beautiful horses, and five thousand elephants
+covered with cloth of gold and silver.
+
+"And now I will relate a wonderful thing," says Marco. "A large lion
+is led into his presence, which, as soon as it sees him, drops down
+and makes a sign of deep humility, owning him its lord and moving about
+without any chain."
+
+His kingdom was ruled by twelve barons all living at Pekin. His
+provinces numbered thirty-four, hence their method of communication
+was very complete.
+
+"Messengers are sent to divers provinces," says Marco, "and on all
+the roads they find at every twenty-five miles a post, where the
+messengers are received. At each is a large edifice containing a bed
+covered with silk and everything useful and convenient for a
+traveller ... here, too, they find full four hundred horses, whom the
+prince has ordered to be always in waiting to convey them along the
+principal roads.... Thus they go through the provinces, finding
+everywhere inns and horses for their reception. Moreover, in the
+intervals between these stations, at every three miles are erected
+villages of about forty houses inhabited by foot-runners also employed
+on these dispatches. They wear large girdles set round with bells,
+which are heard at a great distance. Receiving a letter or packet,
+one runs full speed to the next village, when his approach being
+announced by bells, another is ready to start and proceed to the next,
+and so on. By these pedestrian messengers the Khan receives news in
+one day and night from places ten days' journey distant; in two days
+from those twenty off, and in ten from those a hundred days' journey
+distant. Thus he sends his messengers through all his kingdoms and
+provinces to know if any of his subjects have had their crops injured
+through bad weather; and, if any such injury has happened, he does
+not exact from them any tribute for that season--nay, he gives them
+corn out of his own stores to subsist on."
+
+This first European account of China is all so delightful that it is
+difficult to know where to stop. The mention of coal is interesting.
+"Throughout the whole province of Cathay," says Marco, "are a kind
+of black stones cut from the mountains in veins, which burn like logs.
+They maintain the fire better than wood. If you put them on in the
+evening they will preserve it the whole night, and it will be found
+burning in the morning. Throughout the whole of Cathay this fuel is
+used. They have also wood, but the stones are much less expensive."
+
+Neither can we pass over Marco's account of the wonderful stone bridge
+with its twenty-four arches of pure marble across the broad river,
+"the most magnificent object in the whole world," across which ten
+horsemen could ride abreast, or the Yellow River (Hoang-ho), "so large
+and broad that it cannot be crossed by a bridge, and flows on even
+to the ocean," or the wealth of mulberry trees throughout the land,
+on which lived the silkworms that have made China so famous for her
+silk.
+
+Then there are the people famous for their manufacture of fine
+porcelain ware. "Great quantities of porcelain earth were here
+collected into heaps and in this way exposed to the action of the
+atmosphere for some forty years, during which time it was never
+disturbed. By this process it became refined and fitted for
+manufacture." Such is Marco's only allusion to china ware. With regard
+to tea he is entirely silent.
+
+But he is the first European to tell us about the islands of Japan,
+fifteen hundred miles from the coast of China, now first discovered
+to the geographers of the West.
+
+"Zipangu," says Marco, "is an island situated at a distance from the
+mainland. The people are fair and civilised in their manners--they
+possess precious metals in extraordinary abundance. The people are
+white, of gentle manners, idolaters in religion under a king of their
+own. These folk were attacked by the fleet of Kublai Khan in 1264 for
+their gold, for the King's house, windows, and floors were covered
+with it, but the King allowed no exportation of it."
+
+[Illustration: MARCO POLO. From a woodcut in the first printed edition
+of Marco Polo's _Travels_, Nuremburg, 1477.]
+
+Thus Marco Polo records in dim outline the existence of land beyond
+that ever dreamed of by Europeans--indeed, denied by Ptolemy and other
+geographers of the West. In the course of his service under Kublai
+Khan he opened up the eight provinces of Tibet, the whole of south-east
+Asia from Canton to Bengal, and the archipelago of farther India. He
+tells us, too, of Tibet, that wide country "vanquished and wasted by
+the Khan for the space of twenty days' journey"--a great wilderness
+wanting people, but overrun by wild beasts. Here were great Tibetan
+dogs as large as asses. Still on duty for Kublai Khan, Marco reached
+Bengal, "which borders upon India." But he was glad enough to return
+to his adopted Chinese home, "the richest and most famous country of
+all the East."
+
+At last the Polo family wearied of Court honours, and they were anxious
+to return to their own people at Venice. However, the Khan was very
+unwilling to let them go. One day their chance came. The Persian ruler
+was anxious to marry a princess of the house of Kublai Khan, and it
+was decided to send the lady by sea under the protection of the trusted
+Polos, rather than to allow her to undergo the hardships of an overland
+journey from China to Persia.
+
+So in the year 1292 they bade farewell to the great Kublai Khan, and
+with the little princess of seventeen and her suite they set sail with
+an escort of fourteen ships for India. Passing many islands "with gold
+and much trade," after three months at sea they reached Java, at this
+time supposed to be the greatest island in the world, above three
+thousand miles round. At Sumatra they were detained five months by
+stress of weather, till at last they reached the Bay of Bengal. Sailing
+on a thousand miles westwards, they reached Ceylon--"the finest island
+in the world," remarks Marco. It was not till two years after their
+start and the loss of six hundred sailors that they arrived at their
+destination, only to find that the ruler of Persia was dead. However,
+they gave the little bride to his son and passed on by Constantinople
+to Venice, where they arrived in 1295.
+
+[Illustration: A JAPANESE FIGHT AGAINST THE CHINESE AT THE TIME WHEN
+MARCO POLO FIRST SAW JAPANESE. From an ancient Japanese painting.]
+
+And now follows a strange sequel to the story. After their long absence,
+and in their travel-stained garments, their friends and relations
+could not recognise them, and in vain did they declare that they were
+indeed the Polos--father, son, and uncle--who had left Venice
+twenty-four long years ago. It was no use; no one believed their story.
+So this is what they did. They arranged for a great banquet to be held,
+to which they invited all their relations and friends. This they
+attended in robes of crimson satin. Then suddenly Marco rose from the
+table and, going out of the room, returned with the three coarse,
+travel-stained garments. They ripped open seams, tore out the lining,
+and a quantity of precious stones, rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and
+emeralds poured forth. The company were filled with wonder, and when
+the story spread all the people of Venice came forth to do honour to
+their famous fellow-countrymen.
+
+Marco was surnamed Marco of the Millions, and never tired of telling
+the wonderful stories of Kublai Khan, the great Emperor who combined
+the "rude magnificence of the desert with the pomp and elegance of
+the most civilised empire in the Old World."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE END OF MEDIAEVAL EXPLORATION
+
+
+The two names of Ibn Batuta and Sir John Mandeville now conclude our
+mediaeval period of travel to the Eastward. Both the Arab and the
+Englishman date their travels between the years 1325 and 1355; but
+while Ibn Batuta, the traveller from Tangiers, adds very valuable
+information to our geographical knowledge, we have to lay the travel
+volumes of Sir John Mandeville aside and acknowledge sadly that his
+book is made up of borrowed experiences, that he has wantonly added
+fiction to fact, and distorted even the travel stories told by other
+travellers. And yet, strange to say, while the work of Ibn Batuta
+remains entirely disregarded, the delightful work of the Englishman
+is still read vigorously to-day and translated into nearly every
+European language. In it we read strange stories of Prester John, "the
+great Emperor of India, who is served by seven kings, seventy-two dukes,
+and three hundred and sixty earls"; he speaks of the "isle of Cathay":
+he repeats the legend of the island near Java on which Adam and Eve
+wept for one hundred years after they had been driven from Paradise;
+he speaks of giants thirty feet high, and of Pigmies who came dancing
+to see him.
+
+[Illustration: SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE ON HIS TRAVELS. From a MS. in the
+British Museum.]
+
+We turn to the Arab traveller for a solid document, which rings more
+true, and we cannot doubt his accounts of shipwreck and hardships
+encountered by the way. Ibn Batuta left Tangiers in the year 1324 at
+the early age of twenty-one on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He made his way
+across the north of Africa to Alexandria. Here history relates he met
+a learned and pious man named Imam.
+
+"I perceive," said Imam, "that you are fond of visiting distant
+countries?"
+
+"That is so," answered Ibn Batuta.
+
+"Then you must visit my brother in India, my brother in Persia, and
+my brother in China, and when you see them present my compliments to
+them."
+
+Ibn Batuta left Alexandria with a resolve to visit these three persons,
+and indeed, wonderful to say, he found them all three and presented
+to them their brother's compliments.
+
+He reached Mecca and remained there for three years, after which he
+voyaged down the Red Sea to Aden, a port of much trade. Coasting along
+the east coast of Africa, he reached Mombasa, from which port, so soon
+to fall into the hands of the Portuguese, he sailed to Ormuz, a "city
+on the seashore," at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Here he tells
+us of the head of a fish "that might be compared to a hill: its eyes
+were like two doors, so that people could go in at one eye and out
+at the other." Crossing central Arabia and the Black Sea, he found
+himself for the first time in a Christian city, and was much dismayed
+at all the bells ringing. He was anxious to go north through Russia
+to the Land of Darkness, of which he had heard such wonderful tales.
+It was a land where there were neither trees, nor stones, nor houses,
+where dogs with nails in their feet drew little sledges across the
+ice. Instead he went to Constantinople, arriving at sunset when the
+bells were ringing so loud "that the very horizon shook with the noise."
+Ibn was presented to the Emperor as a remarkable traveller, and a letter
+of safe conduct was given to him.
+
+He then made his way through Bokhara and Herat, Kandahar and Kabul,
+over the Hindu Koosh and across the Indus to Delhi, "the greatest city
+in the world." But at this time it was a howling wilderness, as the
+inhabitants had fled from the cruelty of the Turkish Emperor. Into
+his presence our traveller was now called and graciously received.
+
+"The lord of the world appoints you to the office of judge in Delhi,"
+said the Emperor; "he gives you a dress of honour with a saddled horse
+and a large yearly salary."
+
+Ibn held this office for eight years, till one day the Emperor called
+him and said: "I wish to send you as ambassador to the Emperor of China,
+for I know you are fond of travelling in foreign countries."
+
+The Emperor of China had sent presents of great value to the Emperor
+of India, who was now anxious to return the compliment. Quaint, indeed,
+were the gifts from India to China. There were one hundred high-bred
+horses, one hundred dancing girls, one hundred pieces of cotton stuff,
+also silk and wool, some black, some white, blue-green or blue. There
+were swords of state and golden candlesticks, silver basins, brocade
+dresses, and gloves embroidered with pearls. But so many adventures
+did Ibn Batuta have on his way to China that it is certain that none
+of these things ever reached that country, for eighty miles from Delhi
+the cavalcade was attacked and Ibn was robbed of all he had. For days
+he wandered alone in a forest, living on leaves, till he was rescued
+more dead than alive, and carried back to Delhi. The second start was
+also unfortunate. By a circuitous route he made his way to Calicut
+on the Malabar coast, where he made a stay of three months till the
+monsoons should permit him to take ship for China. The harbour of
+Calicut was full of great Chinese ships called junks. These junks
+struck him as unlike anything he had seen before. "The sails are made
+of cane reed woven together like a mat, which, when they put into port,
+they leave standing in the wind. In some of these vessels there will
+be a thousand men, sailors and soldiers. Built in the ports of China
+only, they are rowed with large oars, which may be compared to great
+masts. On board are wooden houses in which the higher officials reside
+with their wives."
+
+[Illustration: AN EMPEROR OF TARTARY. From the map ascribed to
+Sebastian Cabot, 1544.]
+
+The time of the voyage came; thirteen huge junks were taken, and the
+imperial presents were embarked. All was ready for a start on the morrow.
+Ibn stayed on shore praying in the mosque till starting-time. That
+night a violent hurricane arose and most of the ships in the harbour
+were destroyed. Treasure, crew, and officers all perished, and Ibn
+was left alone and almost penniless. He feared to return to Delhi,
+so he took ship, which landed him on one of a group of a thousand islands,
+which Ibn calls "one of the wonders of the world." The chief island
+was governed by a woman. Here he was made a judge, and soon became
+a great personage. But after a time he grew restless and set sail for
+Sumatra. Here at the court of the king, who was a zealous disciple
+of Mohammed, Ibn met with a kind reception, and after a fortnight,
+provided with provisions, the "restless Mohammedan" again voyaged
+northwards into the "Calm Sea," or the Pacific as we call it now. It
+was so still, "disturbed by neither wind nor waves," that the ship
+had to be towed by a smaller ship till they reached China.
+
+"This is a vast country," writes Ibn, "and it abounds in all sorts
+of good things--fruit, corn, gold, and silver. It is traversed by a
+great river--the Waters of Life--which runs through the heart of China
+for a distance of six months' journey. It is bordered with villages,
+cultivated plains, orchards, and markets, just like the Nile in
+Egypt."
+
+Ibn gives an amusing account of the Chinese poultry. "The cocks and
+hens are bigger than our geese. I one day bought a hen," he says, "which
+I wanted to boil, but one pot would not hold it and I was obliged to
+take two. As for the cocks in China, they are as big as ostriches."
+
+"'Pooh,' cried an owner of Chinese fowls, 'there are cocks in China
+much bigger than that,' and I found he had said no more than the truth."
+
+"Silk is very plentiful, for the worms which produce it require little
+attention. They have silk in such abundance that it is used for clothing
+even by poor monks and beggars. The people of China do not use gold
+and silver coin in their commercial dealings. Their buying and selling
+is carried on by means of pieces of paper about the size of the palm
+of the hand, carrying the seal of the Emperor." The Arab traveller
+has much to say about the superb painting of China. They study and
+paint every stranger that visits their country, and the portrait thus
+taken is exposed on the city wall. Thus, should a stranger do anything
+to make flight necessary, his portrait would be sent out into every
+province and he would soon be discovered.
+
+"China is the safest as well as the pleasantest of all the regions
+on the earth for a traveller. You may travel the whole nine months'
+journey to which the Empire extends without the slightest cause to
+fear, even if you have treasure in your charge. But it afforded me
+no pleasure. On the contrary, my spirit was sorely troubled within
+me to see how Paganism had the upper hand."
+
+[Illustration: A CARAVAN IN CATHAY. From the Catalan map, 1375.]
+
+Troubles now broke out among the Khan's family, which led to civil
+wars and the death of the Great Khan. He was buried with great pomp.
+A deep chamber was dug in the earth, into which a beautiful couch was
+placed, on which was laid the dead Khan with his arms and all his rich
+apparel, the earth over him being heaped to the height of a large hill.
+
+Batuta now hurried from the country, took a junk to Sumatra, thence
+to Calicut and by Ormuz home to Tangier, where he arrived in 1348.
+He had done what he set forth to do. He had visited the three brothers
+of Imam in Persia, India, and China. In addition he had travelled for
+twenty-four years and accomplished in all about seventy-five thousand
+miles.
+
+With him the history of mediaeval exploration would seem to end, for
+within eighty years of his death the modern epoch opens with the
+energies and enthusiasm of Prince Henry of Portugal.
+
+For the last few centuries we have found all travel undertaken more
+or less as a religious crusade.
+
+So far during the last centuries, travel had been for the most part
+by land. Few discoveries had been made by sea. Voyages were too
+difficult and dangerous. The Phoenicians had ventured far with
+intrepid courage. The Vikings had tossed fearlessly over their stormy
+northern seas to the yet unknown land of America, but this was long
+ago. Throughout the Middle Ages hardly a sail was to be seen on the
+vast Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, no ships ventured on what was held
+to be the Sea of Darkness, no man was emboldened to risk life and money
+on the unknown waters beyond his own safe home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MEDIAEVAL MAPS
+
+
+We cannot pass from the subject of mediaeval exploration without a
+word on the really delightful, if ignorant, maps of the period, for
+they illustrate better than any description the state of geography
+at this time. The Ptolemy map, summing up all the Greek and Roman
+learning, with its longitudes and latitudes, with its shaped
+continents and its many towns and rivers, "indicates the high-water
+mark of a tide that was soon to ebb."
+
+With the decline of the Roman Empire and the coming of Christianity
+we get a new spirit inspiring our mediaeval maps, in which Jerusalem,
+hitherto totally obscure, dominates the whole situation.
+
+The _Christian Topography_ of Cosmas in the sixth century sets a new
+model. Figures blowing trumpets representing the winds still blow on
+to the world, as they did in the days of Ptolemy, but the earth is
+once more flat and it is again surrounded by the ocean stream. Round
+this ocean stream, according to Cosmas, is an outer earth, the seat
+of Paradise, "the earth beyond the ocean where men dwelt before the
+Flood."
+
+Although these maps of Cosmas were but the expression of one man's
+ideas, they served as a model for others.
+
+There is, at Turin, a delightful map of the eighth century with the
+four winds and the ocean stream as usual. The world is divided into
+three--Asia, Africa, and Europe. Adam and Eve stand at the top; to
+the right of Adam lies Armenia and the Caucasus; to the left of Eve
+are Mount Lebanon, the river Jordan, Sidon, and Mesopotamia. At their
+feet lie Mount Carmel, Jerusalem, and Babylon.
+
+[Illustration: THE TURIN MAP OF THE WORLD, EIGHTH CENTURY.]
+
+In Europe we find a few names such as Constantinople, Italy, France.
+Britannia and Scotland are islands in the encircling sea. Africa is
+suitably represented by the Nile.
+
+Of much the same date is another map known as the Albi, preserved in
+the library at Albi in Languedoc. The world is square, with rounded
+corners; Britain is an island off the coast of Spain, and a beautiful
+green sea flows round the whole.
+
+An example of tenth-century map-making, known as the Cottoniana or
+Anglo-Saxon map, is in the British Museum. Here is a mixture of Biblical
+and classical knowledge. Jerusalem and Bethlehem are in their place
+and the Pillars of Hercules stand at the entrance of the Mediterranean
+Sea. The British Isles are still distorted, and quantities of little
+unnamed islands lie about the north of Scotland. In the extreme east
+lies an enormous Ceylon; in the north-east corner of Asia is drawn
+a magnificent lion with mane and curling tail, with the words around
+him: "Here lions abound." Africa as usual is made up of the Nile,
+Alexandria at its mouth, and its source in a lake.
+
+[Illustration: A T-MAP, TENTH CENTURY.]
+
+[Illustration: A T-MAP, THIRTEENTH CENTURY.]
+
+There is another form of these early maps. They are quite small and
+round. They are known as T-maps, being divided into three
+parts--Europe, Asia, and Africa. Jerusalem is always in the centre,
+and the ocean stream flows round.
+
+[Illustration: THE HEREFORD MAPPA MUNDI OF 1280. Drawn by Richard de
+Haldingham and Lafford, who was Prebendary of Lincoln (hence his name
+Lafford) before 1283, and Prebendary of Hereford in 1305. The original
+map hangs in the Chapter House Library of Hereford Cathedral. In it
+the original green of the seas reproduced here as green has become
+a dark brown by age.]
+
+After the manner of these, only on a very large scale, is the famous
+_Mappa Mundi_, by Richard of Haldingham, on the walls of the Hereford
+Cathedral of the thirteenth century. Jerusalem is in the centre, and
+the Crucifixion is there depicted. At the top is the Last Judgment,
+with the good and bad folk divided on either side. Adam and Eve are
+there, so are the Pillars of Hercules, Scylla and Charybdis, the Red
+Sea coloured red, the Nile and the Mountains of the Moon, strange beasts
+and stranger men.
+
+With the Hereford map came in that pictorial geography that makes the
+maps of the later Middle Ages so delightful.
+
+[Illustration: THE KAISER HOLDING THE WORLD. From a twelfth-century
+MS.]
+
+"This is indeed the true way to make a map," says a modern writer.
+"If these old maps erred in the course of their rivers and the lines
+of their mountains and space, they are not so misleading as your modern
+atlas with its too accurate measurements. For even your most primitive
+map, with Paradise in the east--a gigantic Jerusalem in the
+centre--gives a less distorted impression than that which we obtain
+from the most scientific chart on Mercator's projection."
+
+[Illustration: THE "ANGLO-SAXON" MAP OF THE WORLD, DRAWN ABOUT 990
+A.D. This map, which is found in one of the Cotton MSS. in the British
+Museum, is a geographical achievement remarkable in the age which
+produced it. It may perhaps be the work of an Irish scholar-monk. It
+shows real knowledge and scientific insight in one of the gloomiest
+of the "dark ages" of Europe.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL
+
+
+But now a new era was about to begin--a new age was dawning--and we
+open a wonderful chapter in the history of discovery, perhaps the most
+wonderful in all the world. In Portugal a man had arisen who was to
+awaken the slumbering world of travel and direct it to the high seas.
+
+And the name of this man was Henry, a son of King John of Portugal.
+His mother was an Englishwoman, daughter of "John of Gaunt,
+time-honoured Lancaster." The Prince was, therefore, a nephew of Henry
+IV. and great-grandson of Edward III. of England. But if English blood
+flowed in his veins he, too, was the son of the "greatest King that
+ever sat on the throne of Portugal," and at the age of twenty he had
+already learned something of the sea that lay between his father's
+kingdom and the northern coast of Africa. Thus, when in the year 1415
+King John planned a great expedition across the narrow seas to Ceuta,
+an important Moorish city in North Africa, it fell to Prince Henry
+himself to equip seven triremes, six biremes, twenty-six ships of
+burden, and a number of small craft. These he had ready at Lisbon when
+news reached him that the Queen, his mother, was stricken ill. The
+King and three sons were soon at her bedside. It was evident that she
+was dying.
+
+"What wind blows so strongly against the side of the house?" she asked
+suddenly.
+
+"The wind blows from the north," replied her sons.
+
+"It is the wind most favourable for your departure," replied Philippa.
+And with these words the English Queen died.
+
+This is not the place to tell how the expedition started at once as
+the dead Queen had wished, how Ceuta was triumphantly taken, and how
+Prince Henry distinguished himself till all Europe rang with his fame.
+Henry V. of England begged him to come over and take command of his
+forces. The Emperor of Germany sent the same request. But he had other
+schemes for his life. He would not fight the foes of England or of
+Germany, rather would he fight the great ocean whose waves dashed high
+against the coast of Portugal. He had learned something of inland
+Africa, of the distant coast of Guinea, and he was fired with the idea
+of exploring along this west coast of Africa and possibly reaching
+India by sea.
+
+Let us recall what was known of the Atlantic only six centuries ago.
+"It was," says an old writer, "a vast and boundless ocean, on which
+ships dared not venture out of sight of land. For even if the sailors
+knew the direction of the winds they would not know whither those winds
+would carry them, and, as there is no inhabited country beyond, they
+would run great risk of being lost in mist and vapour. The limit of
+the West is the Atlantic Ocean."
+
+The ocean was a new and formidable foe, hitherto unconquered and
+unexplored. At last one had arisen to attempt its conquest. As men
+had lifted the veil from the unknown land of China, so now the mists
+were to be cleared from the Sea of Darkness.
+
+On the inhospitable shores of southern Portugal, amid the "sadness
+of a waste of shifting sand, in a neighbourhood so barren that only
+a few stunted trees struggled for existence, on one of the coldest,
+dreariest spots of sunny Portugal," Prince Henry built his naval
+arsenal. In this secluded spot, far from the gaieties of Court life,
+with the vast Atlantic rolling measureless and mysterious before him,
+Prince Henry took up the study of astronomy and mathematics. Here he
+gathered round him men of science; he built ships and trained
+Portuguese sailors in the art of navigation, so far as it was known
+in those days.
+
+Then he urged them seawards. In 1418 two gentlemen of his household,
+Zarco and Vaz, volunteered to sail to Cape Bojador towards the south.
+They started off and as usual hugged the coast for some way, but a
+violent storm arose and soon they were driven out to sea. They had
+lost sight of land and given themselves up for lost when, at break
+of day, they saw an island not far off. Delighted at their escape,
+they named it Porto Santo and, overjoyed at their discovery, hastened
+back to Portugal to relate their adventures to Prince Henry. They
+described the fertile soil and delicious climate of the newly found
+island, the simplicity of its inhabitants, and they requested leave
+to return and make a Portuguese settlement there. To reward them,
+Prince Henry gave them three ships and everything to ensure success
+in their new enterprise. But unfortunately he added a rabbit and her
+family. These were turned out and multiplied with such astonishing
+rapidity that in two years' time they were numerous enough to destroy
+all the vegetation of the island.
+
+So Porto Santo was colonised by the Portuguese, and one Perestrello
+was made Governor of the island; and it is interesting to note that
+his daughter became the wife of Christopher Columbus. But the original
+founders, Zarco and Vaz, had observed from time to time a dark spot
+on the horizon which aroused their curiosity. Sailing towards it, they
+found an island of considerable size, uninhabited and very attractive,
+but so covered with woods that they named it Madeira, the Island of
+Woods.
+
+But although these two islands belong to Portugal to-day, and although
+Portugal claimed their discovery, it has been proved that already an
+Englishman and his wife had been there, and the names of the islands
+appear on an Italian map of 1351.
+
+[Illustration: AFRICA--FROM CEUTA TO MADEIRA, THE CANARIES, AND CAPE
+BOJADOR. From Fra Mauro's map, 1457.]
+
+The story of this first discovery is very romantic. In the reign of
+Edward III. a young man named Robert Machin sailed away from Bristol
+with a very wealthy lady. A north-east wind carried them out of their
+course, and after thirteen days' driving before a storm they were cast
+on to an island. It was uninhabited and well wooded and watered. But
+the sufferings and privations proved too much for the poor English
+lady, who died after three days, and Machin died a few days later of
+grief and exposure. The crew of the ship sailed away to the coast of
+Africa, there to be imprisoned by the Moors. Upon their escape in 1416
+they made known their discovery.
+
+So Zarco and Vaz divided the island of Madeira, calling half of it
+Funchal (the Portuguese for fennel, which grew here in great
+quantities) and the other half Machico after the poor English
+discoverer Machin. The first two Portuguese children born in the
+island of Madeira were called Adam and Eve.
+
+Year after year Prince Henry launched his little ships on the yet
+unknown, uncharted seas, urging his captains to venture farther and
+ever farther. He longed for them to reach Cape Bojador, and bitter
+was his disappointment when one of his squires, dismayed by
+travellers' tales, turned back from the Canary Islands.
+
+"Go out again," urged the enthusiastic Prince, "and give no heed to
+their opinions, for, by the grace of God, you cannot fail to derive
+from your voyage both honour and profit."
+
+[Illustration: THE VOYAGE TO CAPE BLANCO FROM CAPE BOJADOR. From Fra
+Mauro's map, 1457.]
+
+And the squire went forth from the commanding presence of the Prince
+resolved to double the Cape, which he successfully accomplished in
+1434. Seven years passed away, till in 1441 two men--Gonsalves, master
+of the wardrobe (a strange qualification for difficult navigation),
+and Nuno Tristam, a young knight--started forth on the Prince's
+service, with orders to pass Cape Bojador where a dangerous surf,
+breaking on the shore, had terrified other navigators. There was a
+story, too, that any man who passed Cape Bojador would be changed from
+white into black, that there were sea-monsters, sheets of burning
+flame, and boiling waters beyond. The young knight Tristam discovered
+the white headland beyond Cape Bojador, named it Cape Blanco, and took
+home some Moors of high rank to the Prince. A large sum was offered
+for their ransom, so Gonsalves conveyed them back to Cape Blanco and
+coasted along to the south, discovering the island of Arguin of the
+Cape Verde group and reaching the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone,
+reached by Hanno many centuries before this.
+
+Here he received some gold dust, and with this and some thirty negroes
+he returned to Lisbon, where the strange black negroes "caused the
+most lively astonishment among the people." The small quantity of gold
+dust created a sensation among the Portuguese explorers, and the
+spirit of adventure grew. No longer had the Prince to urge his
+navigators forth to new lands and new seas; they were ready and willing
+to go, for the reward was now obvious. The news was soon noised abroad,
+and Italians, then reckoned among the most skilful seamen of the time,
+flocked to Portugal, anxious to take service under the Prince.
+
+"Love of gain was the magic wand that drew them on and on, into unknown
+leagues of waters, into wild adventures and desperate affrays."
+
+The "Navigator" himself looked beyond these things. He would find a
+way to India; he would teach the heathen to be Christians. He was always
+ready to welcome those with superior knowledge of navigation; so in
+1454 he sent an Italian, known to history as Cadamosto, to sail the
+African seas. The young Venetian was but twenty-one, and he tells his
+story simply.
+
+"Now I--Luigi Ca da Mosto--had sailed nearly all the Mediterranean
+coasts, but, being caught by a storm off Cape St. Vincent, had to take
+refuge in the Prince's town, and was there told of the glorious and
+boundless conquests of the Prince, the which did exceedingly stir my
+soul--eager it was for gain above all things else. My age, my vigour,
+my skill are equal to any toil; above all, my passionate desire to
+see the world and explore the unknown set me all on fire with
+eagerness."
+
+In 1455 Cadamosto sailed from Portugal for Madeira, now "thickly
+peopled with Portuguese." From Madeira to the Canaries, from the
+Canaries to Cape Blanco, "natives black as moles were dressed in white
+flowing robes with turbans wound round their heads." Here was a great
+market of Arab traders from the interior, here were camels laden with
+brass, silver, and gold, as well as slaves innumerable.
+
+But Cadamosto pushed on for some four hundred miles by the low, sandy
+shore to the Senegal River. The Portuguese had already sailed by this
+part of the coast, and the negroes had thought their ships to be great
+birds from afar cleaving the air with their white wings. When the crews
+furled their sails and drew into shore the natives changed their minds
+and thought they were fishes, and all stood on the shore gazing stupidly
+at this new wonder.
+
+Cadamosto landed and pushed some two hundred and fifty miles up the
+Senegal River, where he set up a market, exchanging cotton and cloth
+for gold, while "the negroes came stupidly crowding round me,
+wondering at our white colour, which they tried to wash off, our dress,
+our garments of black silk and robes of blue cloth."
+
+Joined by two other ships from Portugal, the Italian explorer now
+sailed on to Cape Verde, so called from its green grass.
+
+"The land here," he tells us, "is all low and full of fine, large trees,
+which are continually green. The trees never wither like those in
+Europe; they grow so near the shore that they seem to drink, as it
+were, the water of the sea. The coast is most beautiful. Many countries
+have I been in, to East and West, but never did I see a prettier sight."
+
+But the negroes here--big, comely men--were lawless and impossible
+to approach, shooting at the Portuguese explorers with poisoned arrows.
+They discovered that the capital of the country was called Gambra,
+where lived a king, but the negroes of the Gambra were unfriendly;
+there was little gold to be had; his crews fell sick and ill, and
+Cadamosto turned home again. But he had reached a point beyond all
+other explorers of the time, a point where "only once did we see the
+North Star, which was so low that it seemed almost to touch the sea."
+We know that he must have been to within eleven degrees of the Equator,
+and it is disappointing to find the promising young Italian
+disappearing from the pages of history.
+
+[Illustration: A PORTION OF AFRICA FROM FRA MAURO'S MAP ILLUSTRATING
+CADAMOSTO'S VOYAGE BEYOND CAPE BLANCO.]
+
+And now we come to the last voyage planned by Prince Henry, that of
+Diego Gomez, his own faithful servant. It followed close on
+Cadamosto's return.
+
+No long time after, the Prince equipped a ship called the _Wren_ and
+set over it Diego Gomez, with two other ships, of which he was
+commander-in-chief. Their orders were to go as far as they could. Gomez
+wrote his own travels, and his adventures are best told in his own
+words. We take up his story from the far side of Cape Blanco.
+
+"After passing a great river beyond Rio Grande we met such strong
+currents in the sea that no anchor could hold. The other captains and
+their men were much alarmed, thinking we were at the end of the ocean,
+and begged me to put back. In the mid-current the sea was very clear,
+and the natives came off from the shore and brought us their merchandise.
+As the current grew even stronger we put back and came to a land, where
+were groves of palms near the shore, with their branches broken. There
+we found a plain covered with hay and more than five thousand animals
+like stags, but larger, who showed no fear of us. Five elephants with
+two young ones came out of a small river that was fringed by trees.
+We went back to the ships, and next day made our way from Cape Verde
+and saw the broad mouth of a great river, which we entered and guessed
+to be the Gambia. We went up the river as far as Cantor (some five
+hundred miles). Farther than this the ships could not go, because of
+the thick growth of trees and underwood. When the news spread through
+the country that the Christians were in Cantor, they came from Timbuktu
+in the north, from Mount Gelu in the south. Here I was told there is
+gold in plenty, and caravans of camels cross over there with goods
+from Carthage, Tunis, Fez, Cairo, and all the land of the Saracens.
+I asked the natives of Cantor about the road to the gold country. They
+told me the King lived in Kukia and was lord of all the mines on the
+right side of the river of Cantor, and that he had before the door
+of this palace a mass of gold just as it was taken from the earth,
+so large that twenty men could hardly move it, and that the King always
+fastened his horse to it. While I was thus trafficking with these
+negroes, my men became worn out with the heat, and so we returned
+towards the ocean."
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH OF AFRICA FROM FRA MAURO'S GREAT MAP OF THE WORLD,
+1457. In the African portions of Fra Mauro's map which have already
+been given they are shown exactly as Fra Mauro drew them, with the
+north at the _bottom_ and the south at the _top_, as is nearly always
+the case in mediaeval maps. In this outline of Africa, which is
+generally supposed to show the results of Prince Henry's labours, the
+map has been put the right way up. It was prepared between 1457 and
+1459.]
+
+But Diego Gomez had succeeded in making friends with the hostile
+natives of this part. He left behind him a better idea of Christian
+men than some of the other explorers had done. His own account of the
+conversion of the Mohammedan King who lived near the mouth of the river
+Gambia, which was visited on the return voyage, is most interesting.
+
+"Now the houses here are made of seaweed, covered with straw, and while
+I stayed here (at the river mouth) three days, I learned all the
+mischief that had been done to the Christians by a certain King. So
+I took pains to make peace with him and sent him many presents by his
+own men in his own canoes. Now the King was in great fear of the
+Christians, lest they should take vengeance upon him. When the King
+heard that I always treated the natives kindly he came to the river-side
+with a great force, and, sitting down on the bank, sent for me. And
+so I went and paid him all respect. There was a Bishop there of his
+own faith, who asked me about the God of the Christians, and I answered
+him as God had given me to know. At last the King was so pleased with
+what I said that he sprang to his feet and ordered the Mohammedan Bishop
+to leave his country within three days."
+
+So when the Portuguese returned home, Prince Henry sent a priest and
+a young man of his own household to the black King at the mouth of
+the Gambia. This was in 1458.
+
+"In the year of our Lord 1460, Prince Henry fell ill in his town on
+Cape St. Vincent," says his faithful explorer and servant, Diego Gomez,
+"and of that sickness he died."
+
+Such was the end of the man who has been called the "originator of
+modern discovery." What had he done? He had inspired and financed the
+Portuguese navigators to sail for some two thousand miles down the
+West African coast. "From his wave-washed home he inspired the courage
+of his men and planned their voyages, and by the purity of his actions
+and the devotion of his life really lived up to his inspiring motto,
+'Talent de bien faire.'" And more than this. For each successive
+discovery had been carefully noted at the famous Sagres settlement,
+and these had been worked up by an Italian monk named Fra Mauro into
+an enormous wall-map over six feet across, crammed with detail--the
+work of three years' incessant labour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ REACHES THE STORMY CAPE
+
+
+But though Prince Henry was dead, the enthusiasm he had aroused among
+Portuguese navigators was not dead, and Portuguese ships still stole
+forth by twos and threes to search for treasure down the West African
+coast. In 1462 they reached Sierra Leone, the farthest point attained
+by Hanno of olden days. Each new headland was now taken in the name
+of Portugal: wooden crosses already marked each successive discovery,
+and many a tree near the coast bore the motto of Prince Henry carved
+roughly on its bark. Portugal had officially claimed this "Kingdom
+of the Seas" as it was called, and henceforth stone crosses some six
+feet high, inscribed with the arms of Portugal, the name of the
+navigator, and the date of discovery, marked each newly found spot.
+
+It was not until 1471 that the navigators unconsciously crossed the
+Equator, "into a new heaven and a new earth." They saw stars unknown
+in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Northern Pole star sank nearly
+out of sight. Another thirteen years and Diego Cam, a knight of the
+King's household, found the mouth of the Congo and erected a great
+Portuguese pillar on the famous spot. It was in the year 1484 that
+Diego Cam was ordered to go "as far to the south as he could." He crossed
+the Equator, which for past years had been the limit of knowledge,
+and, continuing southwards he reached the mouth of the mighty river
+Congo, now known as the second of all the African rivers for size.
+The explorer ascended the river, falling in with peacefully inclined
+natives. But they could not make themselves understood, so Cam took
+back four of them to Portugal, where they learned enough Portuguese
+to talk a little. They were much struck with Portugal and the kind
+treatment they received from the King, who sent them back to their
+country laden with presents for their black King at home. So with Diego
+Cam they all sailed back to the Congo River. They were received by
+the King in royal state. Seated on a throne of ivory raised on a lofty
+wooden platform, he could be seen from all sides, his "black and
+glittering skin" shining out above a piece of damask given to him to
+wear by the Portuguese explorer. From his shoulder hung a dressed
+horse's tail, a symbol of royalty; on his head was a cap of palm leaves.
+
+It was here in this Congo district that the first negro was baptized
+in the presence of some twenty-five thousand heathen comrades. The
+ceremony was performed by Portuguese priests, and the negro King
+ordered all idols to be destroyed throughout his dominions. Here, too,
+a little Christian church was built, and the King and Queen became
+such earnest Christians that they sent their children to Portugal to
+be taught.
+
+[Illustration: NEGRO BOYS, FROM CABOT'S MAP, 1544.]
+
+But even the discoveries of Diego Cam pale before the great achievement
+of Bartholomew Diaz, who was now to accomplish the great task which
+Prince Henry the Navigator had yearned to see fulfilled--the rounding
+of the Cape of Storms.
+
+The expedition set sail for the south in August 1486. Passing the spot
+where Diego Cam had erected his farthest pillar, Diaz reached a
+headland, now known as Diaz Point, where he, too, placed a Portuguese
+pillar that remained unbroken till about a hundred years ago. Still
+to the south he sailed, struggling with wind and weather, to Cape Voltas,
+close to the mouth of the Orange River. Then for another fortnight
+the little ships were driven before the wind, south and ever south,
+with half-reefed sails and no land in sight. Long days and longer nights
+passed to find them still drifting in an unknown sea, knowing not what
+an hour might bring forth. At last the great wind ceased to blow and
+it became icy cold. They had sailed to the south of South Africa.
+Steering north, Diaz now fell in with land--land with cattle near the
+shore and cowherds tending them, but the black cowherds were so alarmed
+at the sight of the Portuguese that they fled away inland.
+
+We know now, what neither Diaz nor his crew even suspected, that he
+had actually rounded, without seeing, the Cape of Good Hope. The coast
+now turned eastward till a small island was reached in a bay we now
+call Algoa Bay. Here Bartholomew Diaz set up another pillar with its
+cross and inscription, naming the rock Santa Cruz. This was the first
+land beyond the Cape ever trodden by European feet. Unfortunately the
+natives--Kafirs--threw stones at them, and it was impossible to make
+friends and to land. The crews, too, began to complain. They were worn
+out with continual work, weary for fresh food, terrified at the heavy
+seas that broke on these southern shores. With one voice they protested
+against proceeding any farther. But the explorer could not bear to
+turn back; he must sail onwards now, just three days more, and then
+if they found nothing he would turn back. They sailed on and came to
+the mouth of a large river--the Great Fish River. Again the keen
+explorer would sail on and add to his already momentous discoveries.
+But the crews again began their complaints and, deeply disappointed,
+Diaz had to turn. "When he reached the little island of Santa Cruz
+and bade farewell to the cross which he had there erected, it was with
+grief as intense as if he were leaving his child in the wilderness
+with no hope of ever seeing him again." To him it seemed as though
+he had endured all his hardships in vain. He knew not what he had really
+accomplished as yet. But his eyes were soon to be opened. Sailing
+westward, Diaz at last came in sight of "that remarkable Cape which
+had been hidden from the eyes of man for so many centuries."
+
+[Illustration: THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. From Martin Behaim's map,
+1492.]
+
+Remembering their perils past, he called it "the Stormy Cape" and
+hastened home to the King of Portugal with his great news. The King
+was overjoyed, but he refused to name it the Cape of Storms. Would
+not such a name deter the seamen of the future? Was not this the
+long-sought passage to India? Rather it should be called the Cape of
+Good Hope, the name which it has held throughout the centuries. In
+the course of one voyage, Diaz had accomplished the great task which
+for the past seventy years Prince Henry had set before his people.
+He had lifted for the first time in the history of the world the veil
+that had hung over the mysterious extremity of the great African
+continent. The Phoenicians may have discovered it some seventeen
+hundred years before Diaz, but the record of tradition alone exists.
+
+Now with the new art of printing, which was transforming the whole
+aspect of life, the brilliant achievement of Bartholomew Diaz was made
+known far and wide.
+
+It was shortly to be followed by a yet more brilliant feat by a yet
+more brilliant navigator, "the most illustrious that the world has
+seen." The very name of Christopher Columbus calls up the vision of
+a resolute man beating right out into the westward unknown seas and
+finding as his great reward a whole new continent--a New World of whose
+existence mankind had hardly dreamt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
+
+
+Every event in the eventful life of Christopher Columbus is of supreme
+interest. We linger over all that leads up to the momentous start
+westwards: we recall his birth and early life at Genoa towards the
+middle of the fifteenth century, his apprenticeship to his father as
+a weaver of cloth, his devotion to the sea, his love of the little
+sailing ships that passed in and out of the busy Genoese harbour from
+all parts of the known world. At the age of fourteen the little
+Christoforo went to sea--a red-haired, sunburnt boy with bright blue
+eyes. He learnt the art of navigation, he saw foreign countries, he
+learnt to chart the seas, to draw maps, and possibly worked with some
+of the noted Italian draughtsmen. At the age of twenty-eight, in 1474,
+he left Genoa for Portugal, famous throughout the world for her recent
+discoveries, though as yet the Stormy Cape lay veiled in mystery.
+Columbus wanted to learn all he could about these discoveries; he made
+voyages to Guinea, Madeira, and Porto Santo. He also went to England
+and "sailed a hundred leagues to the island of Thule in 1477."
+
+He was now a recognised seaman of distinction, with courteous manners
+and fine appearance. He set himself to study maps and charts at Lisbon,
+giving special attention to instruments for making observations at
+sea. For many long years he had been revolving a scheme for reaching
+India by sailing westward instead of the route by Africa. The more
+he studied these things the more convinced he became that he was right.
+
+   "What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy,
+    Judged that the earth like an orange was round.
+    None of them ever said, 'Come along, follow me,
+    Sail to the West and the East will be found.'"
+
+It was not till the year 1480 that Columbus proposed to the King of
+Portugal his idea of sailing westwards. He explained his reasons: how
+there were grounds for thinking there was an unknown land to the west,
+how artistically sculptured pieces of wood had been driven across the
+ocean by the west wind, suggesting islands not yet discovered, how
+once the corpses of two men with broad faces, unlike Europeans, had
+been washed ashore, how on the west coast of Ireland seeds of tropical
+plants had been discovered.
+
+The King listened and was inclined to believe Columbus. But his
+councillors persuaded him to get from the Genoese navigator his plans,
+and while they kept Columbus waiting for the King's answer they sent
+off some ships privately to investigate the whole matter. The ships
+started westward, encountered a great storm, and returned to Lisbon,
+scoffing at the scheme of the stranger. When this news reached his
+ears, Columbus was very angry. He would have nothing more to do with
+Portugal, but left that country at once for Spain to appeal to the
+King and Queen of that land.
+
+Ferdinand and Isabella were busy with affairs of state and could not
+give audience to the man who was to discover a New World. It was not
+till 1491 that he was summoned before the King and Queen. Once more
+his wild scheme was laughed at, and he was dismissed the Court. Not
+only was he again indignant, but his friends were indignant too. They
+believed in him, and would not rest till they had persuaded the Queen
+to take up his cause. He demanded a good deal. He must be made Admiral
+and Viceroy of all the new seas and lands he might discover, as well
+as receiving a large portion of his gains. The Queen was prevailed
+on to provide means for the expedition, and she became so enthusiastic
+over it that she declared she would sell her own jewels to provide
+the necessary supplies. Columbus was created Admiral of the Ocean in
+all the islands and continents he might discover; two little ships
+were made ready, and it seemed as though the dream of his life might
+be fulfilled. The explorer was now forty-six; his red hair had become
+grey with waiting and watching for the possibility of realising his
+great scheme.
+
+[Illustration: THE PARTING OF COLUMBUS WITH FERDINAND AND ISABELLA,
+3RD AUGUST 1492. From De Bry's account of the _Voyages to India_, 1601.]
+
+At last the preparations were complete. The _Santa Maria_ was to lead
+the way with the Admiral on board; she was but one hundred tons' burden,
+with a high poop and a forecastle. It had been difficult enough to
+find a crew; men were shy about venturing with this stranger from Genoa
+on unknown seas, and it was a motley party that finally took service
+under Columbus. The second ship, the _Pinta_, was but half the size
+of the flagship; she had a crew of eighteen and was the fastest sailer
+of the little squadron, while the third, the _Nina_ of forty tons,
+also carried eighteen men.
+
+[Illustration: COLUMBUS'S SHIP, THE _SANTA MARIA_. From a woodcut of
+1493 supposed to be after a drawing by Columbus himself.]
+
+On 3rd August 1492 the little fleet sailed forth from Spain on a quest
+more perilous perhaps than any yet on record. No longer could they
+sail along with a coast always in sight; day after day and night after
+night they must sail on an unknown sea in search of an unknown land.
+No one ever expected to see them again. It has well been said that,
+"looking back at all that has grown out of it in the four centuries
+that have elapsed, we now know that the sailing of those three little
+boats over the bar was, since the Fall of Rome, the most momentous
+event in the world's history." The ships steered for the Canary Islands,
+and it was not till 9th September that the last land faded from the
+eyes of that daring little company.
+
+[Illustration: THE BEST PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS. From the original
+painting (by an unknown artist) in the Naval Museum at Madrid.]
+
+Something of a panic among the sailors ensued when they realised their
+helpless position; some even burst into tears, begging to be taken
+home. The days passed on. By the 16th they had come within the influence
+of the trade winds.
+
+"The weather was like April," says Columbus in his journal. Still
+westward they sailed, eagerly looking for signs of land. Now they see
+two pelicans, "an indication that land was near," now a large dark
+cloud to the north, another "sign that land is near."
+
+As the days pass on, their hopes die away and "the temper of the crews
+was getting uglier and uglier as the three little vessels forged
+westward through the blue weed-strewn waters." On 9th October hope
+revives; all night they hear birds passing through the still air.
+
+On the evening of the 11th a light was seen glimmering in the distance;
+from the high stern deck of the _Santa Maria_ it could be plainly seen,
+and when the sun rose on that memorable morning the low shores of land
+a few miles distant could be plainly seen. "Seabirds are wheeling
+overhead heedless of the intruders, but on the shore human beings are
+assembling to watch the strange birds which now spread their wings
+and sail towards the island.
+
+"The _Pinta_ leads and her crew are raising the 'Te Deum.' The crews
+of the _Santa Maria_ and the _Nina_ join in the solemn chant and many
+rough men brush away tears. Columbus, the two Pinzons, and some of
+the men step into the cutter and row to the shore." Columbus, fully
+armed under his scarlet cloak, sprang ashore, the unclothed natives
+fleeing away at sight of the first white man who had ever stepped on
+their shores. Then, unfurling the royal standard of Spain and setting
+up a large cross, the great navigator fell on his knees and gave thanks
+to God for this triumphant ending to his perilous voyage. He named
+the island San Salvador and formally took possession of it for Spain.
+It was one of the Bahama group, and is now known as Watling Island
+(British).
+
+"Thus was the mighty enterprise achieved, mighty in its conception,
+still more important in its results."
+
+But Columbus thought he had discovered the Indies, a new route to the
+east and the Cathay of Marco Polo. He had done more than this; he had
+discovered another continent. He had sailed over three thousand miles
+without seeing land, a feat unparalleled in the former history of
+discovery.
+
+He made friends with the natives, who resembled those of the Canary
+Islands. "I believe they would easily become Christians," wrote
+Columbus. "If it please our Lord at the time of my departure, I will
+take six from here that they may learn to speak." He also notes that
+they will make good slaves.
+
+[Illustration: COLUMBUS LANDING ON HISPANIOLA. From a woodcut of
+1494.]
+
+From island to island he now made his way, guided by natives. He hoped
+to find gold; he hoped to find Cathay, for he had a letter from Ferdinand
+and Isabella to deliver to the Great Khan. The charm and beauty of
+these enchanted islands were a source of joy to the explorer: "The
+singing of the little birds is such that it appears a man would wish
+never to leave here, and the flocks of parrots obscure the sun." The
+island of Cuba "seemed like heaven itself," but Columbus could not
+forget that he was searching for gold, for Oriental spices, for the
+land of Marco Polo, as he hastened from point to point, from island
+to island. Already the _Pinta_ under Martin Pinzon had gone off
+independently in search of a vague land of gold, to the vexation of
+the Admiral. A worse disaster was now to befall him. On Christmas Day,
+off the island of Hayti, the _Santa Maria_ struck upon a reef and went
+over. Columbus and his crew escaped on board the little _Nina_. But
+she was too small to carry home the double crew, and Columbus made
+a little fortress on the island where the native King was friendly,
+and left there a little colony of Spaniards.
+
+He now prepared for the homeward voyage, and one January day in 1493
+he left the newly discovered islands and set his face for home in
+company with the _Pinta_, which by this time had returned to him. For
+some weeks they got on fairly well. Then the wind rose. A violent storm
+came on; the sea was terrible, the waves breaking right over the little
+homeward-bound ships, which tossed about helplessly for long days and
+nights. Suddenly the _Pinta_ disappeared. The wind and sea increased.
+The little forty-ton _Nina_ was in extreme peril, and the crew gave
+themselves up for lost; their provisions were nearly finished.
+Columbus was agonised lest he should perish and the news of his great
+discovery should never reach Spain. Taking a piece of parchment, he
+noted down as best he could amid the tossing of the ship a brief account
+of his work, and, wrapping it in a waxed cloth, he put it into an empty
+cask and threw it overboard. Then, while the mountainous seas
+threatened momentary destruction, he waited and prayed.
+
+Slowly the storm abated, and on 18th February they reached the Azores.
+A few days for refreshment and on he sailed again, feverishly anxious
+to reach Spain and proclaim his great news. But on 3rd March the wind
+again rose to a hurricane and death stared the crew in the face. Still,
+"under bare poles and in a heavy cross-sea," they scudded on, until
+they reached the mouth of the Tagus. The news of his arrival soon spread,
+and excited crowds hurried to see the little ship that had crossed
+the fierce Atlantic. Bartholomew Diaz came aboard the _Nina_, and for
+a short time the two greatest explorers of their century were together.
+An enthusiastic welcome awaited him in Spain. Was he not the "Admiral
+of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy of the Western Indies," the only man who
+had crossed the unknown for the sake of a cherished dream?
+
+"Seven months had passed since Columbus had sailed from Spain in the
+dim light of that summer morning. Now he was back. Through tempestuous
+seas and raging winter gales he had guided his ship well, and Spain
+knew how to do him honour. His journey from the coast to the Court
+was like a royal progress. The roads were lined with excited people;
+the air was rent with shouts of joy."
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NEW WORLD.
+From a woodcut published at Augsburg between 1497 and 1504. The only
+copy known is in the British Museum. The inscription states that the
+Americans "eat each other," "become a hundred and fifty years of age,
+and have no government."]
+
+On Palm Sunday, 1493, he passed through the streets of Seville. A
+procession preceded him in which walked the six natives, or Indians
+as they were called, brought home by Columbus; parrots and other birds
+with strange and radiant colouring were also borne before the
+triumphant explorer, who himself rode on horseback among the mounted
+chivalry of Spain. From windows and roofs a dense throng watched
+Christopher Columbus as he rode through the streets of Seville. From
+here he passed on to Barcelona, to be received by the King and Queen.
+
+                      "The city decked herself
+    To meet me, roar'd my name: the king, the queen,
+    Bad me be seated, speak, and tell them all
+    The story of my voyage, and while I spoke
+    The crowd's roar fell as at the 'Peace be still.'
+    And when I ceased to speak, the king, the queen,
+    Sank from their thrones, and melted into tears,
+    And knelt, and lifted hand and heart and voice
+    In praise to God who led me thro' the waste.
+    And then the great 'Laudamus' rose to heaven."
+
+It is curious to think what a strange mistake caused all their rejoicing.
+Not only Spain, but the whole civilised world firmly believed that
+Columbus had discovered some islands off the coast of Asia, not far
+from the land of the Great Khan, in the Indian seas. Hence the islands
+were called the West Indies, which name they have kept to this day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A GREAT NEW WORLD
+
+
+The departure of Columbus six months later on his second voyage was
+a great contrast to the uncertain start of a year ago. The new fleet
+was ready by September 1493. The three largest ships were some four
+hundred tons' burden, with fourteen smaller craft and crews of fifteen
+thousand men. There was no dearth of volunteers this time. High-born
+Spaniards, thirsting for the wealth of the Indies, offered their
+services, while Columbus took his brother James and a Benedictine monk
+chosen by the Pope. They took orange and lemon seeds for planting in
+the new islands, horses, pigs, bulls, cows, sheep, and goats, besides
+fruit and vegetables.
+
+So, full of hope and joyful expectation, they set sail; and so well
+had Columbus calculated his distance and direction with but imperfect
+instruments at his disposal, that he arrived at the islands again on
+3rd November. It was another new island, which he named Domenica, as
+the day was Sunday. Making for the island of Hayti, where he had left
+his little Spanish colony, he passed many islands, naming Guadeloupe,
+San Martin, Santa Cruz, and others. Porto Rico was also found, but
+they arrived at Hayti to find no trace of Spaniards. Disaster had
+overtaken the colony, and the deserted men had been killed by the
+natives who had apparently been so friendly. Another spot was selected
+by Columbus, and a town was soon built to which he gave the name of
+Isabella.
+
+[Illustration: THE TOWN OF ISABELLA AND THE COLONY FOUNDED BY COLUMBUS.
+From a woodcut of 1494.]
+
+This is not the place to tell of the miserable disputes and squabbles
+that befell the little Spanish colony. We are here concerned with the
+fuller exploration of the West Indies by Columbus. Taking three ships
+provisioned for six months, with a crew of fifty-two, he set out for
+the coast of Cathay. Instead of this, he found the island of Jamaica,
+with its low, hazy, blue coast of extreme beauty. Still convinced that
+he was near the territory of the Great Khan, he explored the coast
+of Cuba, not realising that it was an island. He sailed about among
+the islands, till he became very ill, fever seized him, and at last
+his men carried him ashore at Isabella, thinking that he must die.
+He recovered to find a discontented colony, members of which had
+already sent back stories to Spain of the misdeeds of their founder.
+Columbus made up his mind to return to Spain to carry a true report
+of the difficulties of colonisation in the Indies.
+
+"It was June 1496 before he found himself again in the harbour of Cadiz.
+People had crowded down to greet the great discoverer, but instead
+of a joyous crew, flushed with new success and rich with the spoils
+of the golden Indies, a feeble train of wretched men crawled on
+shore--thin, miserable, and ill. Columbus himself was dressed as a
+monk, in a long gown girded with a cord. His beard was long and unshaven.
+The whole man was utterly broken down with all he had been through."
+
+But after a stay of two years in Spain, Columbus again started off
+on his third voyage. With six ships he now took a more southerly
+direction, hoping to find land to the south of the West Indies. And
+this he did, but he never lived to know that it was the great continent
+of South America. Through scorching heat, which melted the tar of their
+rigging, they sailed onwards till they were rewarded by the sight of
+land at last. Columbus had promised to dedicate the first land he saw
+to the Holy Trinity. What, then, was his surprise when land appeared
+from which arose three distinct peaks, which he at once named La
+Trinidad. The luxuriance of the island pleased the Spaniards, and as
+they made their way slowly along the shore their eyes rested for the
+first time, and unconsciously, on the mainland of South America. It
+appeared to the explorer as a large island which he called Isla Santa.
+Here oysters abounded and "very large fish, and parrots as large as
+hens." Between the island and the mainland lay a narrow channel through
+which flowed a mighty current. While the ships were anchoring here
+a great flood of fresh water came down with a great roar, nearly
+destroying the little Spanish ships and greatly alarming both Columbus
+and his men. It was one of the mouths of the river Orinoco, to which
+they gave the name of the Dragon's Mouth. The danger over, they sailed
+on, charmed with the beautiful shores, the sight of the distant
+mountains, and the sweetness of the air.
+
+[Illustration: "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"--IV. The world as known
+at the end of the fifteenth century after the discoveries of Columbus
+and his age.]
+
+Columbus decided that this must be the centre of the earth's surface,
+and with its mighty rivers surely it was none other than the earthly
+Paradise with the rivers of the Garden of Eden, that "some of the
+Fathers had declared to be situated in the extreme east of the Old
+World, and in a region so high that the flood had not overwhelmed it."
+The world then, said Columbus, could not be a perfect round, but
+pear-shaped. With these conclusions he hastened across to Hayti where
+his brother was ruling over the little colony in his absence. But
+treachery and mutiny had been at work. Matters had gone ill with the
+colony, and Columbus did not improve the situation by his presence.
+He was a brilliant navigator, but no statesman. Complaints reached
+Spain, and a Spaniard was sent out to replace Columbus. This
+high-handed official at once put the poor navigator in chains and
+placed him on board a ship bound for Spain. Queen Isabella was
+overwhelmed with grief when the snowy-haired explorer once again stood
+before her, his face lined with suffering. He was restored to royal
+favour and provided with ships to sail forth on his fourth and last
+voyage. But his hardships and perils had told upon him, and he was
+not really fit to undertake the long voyage to the Indies. However,
+he arrived safely off the coast of Honduras and searched for the straits
+that he felt sure existed, but which were not to be found till some
+eighteen years later by Magellan. The natives brought him cocoanuts,
+which the Spaniards now tasted for the first time; they also brought
+merchandise from a far land denoting some high civilisation. Columbus
+believed that he had reached the golden east, whence the gold had been
+obtained for Solomon's temple.
+
+Had Columbus only sailed west he might have discovered Mexico with
+all its wealth, and "a succession of splendid discoveries would have
+shed fresh glory on his declining age, instead of his sinking amidst
+gloom, neglect, and disappointment." At the isthmus of Darien,
+Columbus gave up the search. He was weary of the bad weather. Incessant
+downpours of rain, storms of thunder and lightning with terrific
+seas--these discouraged him. Disaster followed disaster. The food was
+nearly finished; the biscuit "was so full of maggots that the people
+could only eat it in the dark, when they were not visible." Columbus
+himself seemed to be at the point of death. "Never," he wrote, "was
+the sea seen so high, so terrific, so covered with foam; the waters
+from heaven never ceased--it was like a repetition of the deluge."
+
+He reached Spain in 1504 to be carried ashore on a litter, and to learn
+that the Queen of Spain was dead. He was friendless, penniless, and
+sick unto death.
+
+"After twenty years of toil and peril," he says pitifully, "I do not
+own a roof in Spain."
+
+   "I, lying here, bedridden and alone,
+    Cast off, put by, scouted by count and king,
+    The first discoverer starves."
+
+And so the brilliant navigator, Christopher Columbus, passed away,
+all unconscious of the great New World he had reached. Four centuries
+have passed away, but--
+
+   "When shall the world forget
+    The glory and the debt,
+    Indomitable soul,
+        Immortal Genoese?
+    Not while the shrewd salt gale
+    Whines amid shroud and sail,
+    Above the rhythmic roll
+    And thunder of the seas."
+
+It has been well said, "injustice was not buried with Columbus," and
+soon after his death an attempt was made, and made successfully, to
+name the New World after another--a Florentine pilot, Amerigo
+Vespucci.
+
+[Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD, DRAWN IN 1500, THE FIRST TO SHOW
+AMERICA. By Juan de la Cosa, who is supposed to have been the pilot
+of Columbus. At the top, between the two green masses representing
+America, La Cosa has drawn Columbus as St. Christopher carrying the
+infant Christ, according to the legend.]
+
+It was but natural that when the first discoveries by Columbus of land
+to westward had been made known, that others should follow in the track
+of the great navigator. Among these was a handsome young Spaniard--one
+Hojeda--who had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage. Soon after,
+he fitted out an expedition, 1499, reaching the mainland of the yet
+unknown continent near the Trinidad of Columbus. With him was Amerigo
+Vespucci. Here they found a native village with houses built on tree
+trunks and connected by bridges. It was so like a bit of old Venice
+that the explorers named it Little Venice or Venezuela, which name
+it bears to-day.
+
+Nothing was publicly known of this voyage till a year after the death
+of Columbus, when men had coasted farther to the south of Venezuela
+and discovered that this land was neither Asia nor Africa, that it
+was not the land of Marco Polo, but a new continent indeed.
+
+"It is proper to call it a New World," says Amerigo Vespucci. "Men
+of old said over and over again that there was no land south of the
+Equator. But this last voyage of mine has proved them wrong, since
+in southern regions I have found a country more thickly inhabited by
+people and animals than our Europe or Asia or Africa."
+
+[Illustration: AMERIGO VESPUCCI. From the sculpture by Grazzini in
+the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.]
+
+These words among others, and an account of his voyages published in
+Paris, 1507, created a deep impression. A letter from Columbus
+announcing his discoveries had been published in 1493, but he said
+nothing, because he knew nothing, of a New World. Men therefore said
+that Amerigo Vespucci had discovered a new continent, "wherefore the
+new continent ought to be called America from its discoverer Amerigo,
+a man of rare ability, inasmuch as Europe and Asia derived their names
+from women."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+VASCO DA GAMA REACHES INDIA
+
+
+Thus the name of America was gradually adopted for the New World, though
+the honour and glory of its first discovery must always belong to
+Christopher Columbus.
+
+But while all this wonderful development westwards was thrilling the
+minds of men, other great discoveries were being made to the East,
+whither the eyes of the Portuguese were still straining. Portugal had
+lost Columbus; she could lay no claim to the shores of America
+discovered by Spaniards, but the sea-route to India by the East was
+yet to be found by one of her explorers, Vasco da Gama. His achievement
+stands out brilliantly at this time; for, within a few years of the
+discovery of the New World, he had been able to tell the world that
+India and the East could be reached by the Cape of Good Hope!
+
+The dream of Prince Henry the Navigator was fulfilled!
+
+How Vasco da Gama was chosen for the great command has been graphically
+described by a Portuguese historian, whose words are received with
+caution by modern authorities. The King of Portugal--Dom
+Manuel--having set his kingdom in order, "being inspired by the Lord,
+took the resolution to inform himself about the affairs of India."
+He knew that the province of India was very far away, inhabited by
+dark people who had great riches and merchandise, and there was much
+risk in crossing the wide seas and land to reach it. But he felt it
+a sacred duty to try and reach it. He ordered ships to be built according
+to a design of Bartholomew Diaz, the Hero of the Cape, "low amidships,
+with high castles towering fore and aft; they rode the water like
+ducks." The ships ready, the King prayed the Lord "to show him the
+man whom it would please Him to send upon this voyage." Days passed.
+One day the King was sitting in his hall with his officers when he
+raised his eyes and saw a gentleman of his household crossing the hall.
+It suddenly occurred to the King that this was the man for his command,
+and, calling Vasco da Gama, he offered him the command at once. He
+was courageous, resolute, and firm of purpose. On his knees he accepted
+the great honour. A silken banner blazing with the Cross of the Order
+of Christ was bestowed upon him; he chose the _S. Gabriel_ for his
+flagship, appointed his brother to the _S. Raphael_, and prepared for
+his departure. Books and charts were supplied, Ptolemy's geography
+was on board, as well as the _Book of Marco Polo_. All being ready,
+Vasco da Gama and his captains spent the night in the little chapel
+by the sea at Belem, built for the mariners of Henry the Navigator.
+
+Next morning--it was July--they walked in solemn procession to the
+shore, lighted candles in their hands, priests chanting a solemn
+litany as they walked. The beach was crowded with people. Under the
+blazing summer sun they knelt once more before taking leave of the
+weeping multitudes. Listen to the Portuguese poet, Camoens, who makes
+Vasco da Gama the hero of his "Lusiad"--
+
+   "The neighbouring mountains murmur'd back the sound,
+    As if to pity moved for human woe;
+    Uncounted as the grains of golden sand,
+    The tears of thousands fell on Belem's strand."
+
+So the Portuguese embarked, weighed anchor, and unfurled the sails
+that bore the red cross of the Order of Christ. The four little ships
+started on what was to be the longest and most momentous voyage on
+record, while crowds stood on the shore straining their eyes till the
+fleet, under full sail, vanished from their sight.
+
+[Illustration: VASCO DA GAMA. From a contemporary portrait.]
+
+After passing Cape Verde, in order to escape the currents of the Gulf
+of Guinea, Vasco da Gama steered south-west into an unknown part of
+the South Atlantic. He did not know that at one time he was within
+six hundred miles of the coast of South America. Day after day, week
+after week passed in dreary monotony as they sailed the wide ocean
+that surrounds St. Helena, "a lonely, dreary waste of seas and
+boundless sky." Everything ends at last, and, having spent ninety-six
+days out of sight of land and sailed some four thousand five hundred
+miles, they drifted on to the south-west coast of Africa. It was a
+record voyage, for even Columbus had only been two thousand six hundred
+miles without seeing land. November found them in a broad bay, "and,"
+says the old log of the voyage, "we named it St. Helena," which name
+it still retains. After a skirmish with some tawny-coloured Hottentots
+the explorers sailed on, putting "their trust in the Lord to double
+the Cape."
+
+But the sea was all broken with storm, high rolled the waves, and so
+short were the days that darkness prevailed. The crews grew sick with
+fear and hardship, and all clamoured to put back to Portugal.
+
+With angry words Vasco da Gama bade them be silent, though "he well
+saw how much reason they had at every moment to despair of their lives";
+the ships were now letting in much water, and cold rains soaked them
+all to the skin.
+
+"All cried out to God for mercy upon their souls, for now they no longer
+took heed of their lives." At last the storm ceased, the seas grew
+calm, and they knew that, without seeing it, they had doubled the
+dreaded Cape, "on which great joy fell upon them and they gave great
+praise to the Lord."
+
+But their troubles were not yet over. The sea was still very rough,
+"for the winter of that country was setting in," and even the pilot
+suggested turning back to take refuge for a time. When Vasco da Gama
+heard of turning backward he cried that they should not speak such
+words, because as he was going out of the bar of Lisbon he had promised
+God in his heart not to turn back a single span's breadth of the way,
+and he would throw into the sea whosoever spoke such things. None could
+withstand such an iron will, and they struggled on to Mossel Bay,
+already discovered by Diaz. Here they landed "and bought a fat ox for
+three bracelets. This ox we dined off on Sunday; we found him very
+fat, and his meat nearly as toothsome as the beef of Portugal"--a
+pleasant meal, indeed, after three months of salted food. Here, too,
+they found "penguins as large as ducks, which had no feathers on their
+wings and which bray like asses."
+
+But there was no time to linger here. They sailed onwards till they
+had passed and left behind the last pillar erected by Diaz, near the
+mouth of the Great Fish River. All was new now. No European had sailed
+these seas, no European had passed this part of the African coast.
+On Christmas Day they found land to which, in commemoration of Christ's
+Nativity, they gave the name of Natal. Passing Delagoa Bay and Sofala
+without sighting them, Vasco da Gama at last reached the mouth of a
+broad river, now known as Quilimane River, but called by the weary
+mariners the River of Mercy or Good Tokens. Here they spent a month
+cleaning and repairing, and here for the first time in the history
+of discovery the fell disease of scurvy broke out. The hands and feet
+of the men swelled, their gums grew over their teeth, which fell out
+so that they could not eat. This proved to be one of the scourges of
+early navigation--the result of too much salted food on the high seas,
+and no cure was found till the days of Captain Cook. Arrived at
+Mozambique--a low-lying coral island--they found no less than four
+ocean-going ships belonging to Arab traders laden with gold, silver,
+cloves, pepper, ginger, rubies, and pearls from the East.
+
+[Illustration: AFRICA AS IT WAS KNOWN AFTER DA GAMA'S EXPEDITIONS.
+From Juan de la Cosa's map of 1500.]
+
+There were rumours, too, of a land belonging to Prester John where
+precious stones and spices were so plentiful that they could be
+collected in baskets. His land could only be reached by camels. "This
+information rendered us so happy that we cried with joy, and prayed
+God to grant us health that we might behold what we so desired," relates
+the faithful journal. But difficulties and delays prevented their
+reaching the ever-mythical land of Prester John. Their next
+landing-place was Mombasa. Here they were nearly killed by some
+treacherous Mohammedans, who hated these "dogs of Christians" as they
+called them. And the Portuguese were glad to sail on to Melindi, where
+the tall, whitewashed houses standing round the bay, with their
+coco-palms, maize fields, and hop gardens, reminded them of one of
+their own cities on the Tagus. Here all was friendly. The King of
+Melindi sent three sheep and free leave for the strangers to enter
+the port. Vasco, in return, sent the King a cassock, two strings of
+coral, three washhand basins, a hat, and some bells. Whereupon the
+King, splendidly dressed in a damask robe with green satin and an
+embroidered turban, allowed himself to be rowed out to the flagship.
+He was protected from the sun by a crimson satin umbrella.
+
+Nine days were pleasantly passed in the port at Melindi, and then,
+with a Christian pilot provided by the King, the most thrilling part
+of the voyage began with a start across the Arabian Gulf to the west
+coast of India. For twenty-three days the ships sailed to the
+north-east, with no land visible. Suddenly the dim outline of land
+was sighted and the whole crew rushed on deck to catch the first glimpse
+of the unknown coast of India. They had just discerned the outline
+of lofty mountains, when a thunderstorm burst over the land and a
+downpour of heavy rain blotted out the view.
+
+[Illustration: CALICUT AND THE SOUTHERN INDIAN COAST. From Juan de
+la Cosa's map, 1500.]
+
+At last on 21st May--nearly eleven months after the start from
+Portugal--the little Portuguese ships anchored off Calicut.
+
+"What has brought you hither?" cried the natives, probably surprised
+at their foreign dress; "and what seek ye so far from home?"
+
+"We are in search of Christians and spice," was the ready answer.
+
+"A lucky venture. Plenty of emeralds. You owe great thanks to God for
+having brought you to a country holding such riches," was the
+Mohammedan answer.
+
+"The city of Calicut," runs the diary, "is inhabited by Christians.
+They are of a tawny complexion. Some of them have big beards and long
+hair, whilst others clip their hair short as a sign that they are
+Christians. They also wear moustaches."
+
+Within the town, merchants lived in wooden houses thatched with palm
+leaves. It must have been a quaint sight to see Vasco da Gama,
+accompanied by thirteen of his Portuguese, waving the flag of their
+country, carried shoulder high through the densely crowded streets
+of Calicut on his way to the chief temple and on to the palace of the
+King. Roofs and windows were thronged with eager spectators anxious
+to see these Europeans from so far a country. Many a scuffle took place
+outside the palace gates; knives were brandished, and men were injured
+before the successful explorer reached the King of Calicut. The royal
+audience took place just before sunset on 28th May 1498. The King lay
+on a couch covered with green velvet under a gilt canopy, while Vasco
+da Gama related an account of Portugal and his King, the "lord of many
+countries and the possessor of great wealth exceeding that of any King
+of these parts, adding that for sixty years the Portuguese had been
+trying to find the sea-route to India. The King gave leave for the
+foreigners to barter their goods, but the Indians scoffed at their
+offer of hats, scarlet hoods, coral, sugar, and oil.
+
+"That which I ask of you is gold, silver, corals, and scarlet cloth,"
+said the King, "for my country is rich in cinnamon, cloves, ginger,
+pepper, and precious stones."
+
+Vasco da Gama left India with a scant supply of Christians and spices,
+but with his great news he now hurried back to Portugal. What if he
+had lost his brother Paul and over one hundred of his men after his
+two years' absence, he had discovered the ocean-route to India--a
+discovery more far-reaching than he had any idea of at this time.
+
+"And the King," relates the old historian, "overjoyed at his coming,
+sent a Nobleman and several Gentlemen to bring him to Court; where,
+being arrived through Crowds of Spectators, he was received with
+extraordinary honour. For this Glorious Price of Service, the
+Privilege of being called Don was annexed to his Family: To his Arms
+was added Part of the King's. He had a Pension of three thousand Ducats
+yearly, and he was afterwards presented to greater Honours for his
+Services in the Indies, where he will soon appear again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+DISCOVERY OF THE SPICE ISLANDS
+
+
+It was but natural that the Portuguese, flushed with victory, should
+at once dispatch another expedition to India.
+
+Was there some vexation in the heart of the "Admiral of India" when
+the command of the new fleet was given to Pedro Cabral? History is
+silent. Anyhow, in the March of 1500 we find this "Gentleman of Great
+Merit" starting off with thirteen powerfully armed ships and some
+fifteen hundred men, among them the veteran explorer Bartholomew Diaz,
+a party of eight Franciscan friars to convert the Mohammedans, eight
+chaplains, skilled gunners, and merchants to buy and sell in the King's
+name at Calicut. The King himself accompanied Cabral to the waterside.
+He had already adopted the magnificent title, "King, by the Grace of
+God, of Portugal, and of the Algarves, both on this side the sea and
+beyond it in Africa, Lord of Guinea and of the Conquest, Navigation,
+and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India."
+
+Then Cabral, flying a banner with the royal arms of Portugal, started
+on a voyage which was to secure for Portugal "an empire destined to
+be richer and greater than all her dominions in Asia." Sailing far
+to the west, he fell in with the South American continent and was
+carried to a new land. The men went on shore and brought word that
+"it was a fruitful country, full of trees and well inhabited. The people
+were swarthy and used bows and arrows." That night a storm arose and
+they ran along the coast to seek a port. Here Mass was said and parrots
+exchanged for paper and cloth. Then Cabral erected a cross (which was
+still shown when Lindley visited Brazil three hundred years later)
+and named the country the "Land of the Holy Cross." This name was,
+however, discarded later when the new-found land was identified with
+Brazil already sighted by Pinzon in one of the ships of Christopher
+Columbus.
+
+Meanwhile, unconscious of the importance of this discovery, Cabral
+sailed on towards the Cape of Good Hope. There is no time to tell of
+the great comet that appeared, heralding a terrific storm that
+suddenly burst upon the little fleet. In the darkness and tempest four
+ships went down with all hands--amongst them old Bartholomew Diaz,
+the discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope, who thus perished in the waters
+he had been the first to navigate.
+
+September found Cabral at last at anchor off Calicut. He found the
+King yet more resplendent than Vasco da Gama the year before. The old
+historians revel in their descriptions of him. "On his Head was a Cap
+of Cloth of Gold, at his Ears hung Jewels, composed of Diamonds,
+Sapphires, and Pearls, two of which were larger than Walnuts. His Arms,
+from the Elbow to the Wrist and from the knees downwards, were loaded
+with bracelets set with infinite Precious Stones of great Value. His
+Fingers and Toes were covered with Rings. In that on his great Toe
+was a large Rubie of a surprising Lustre. Among the rest there was
+a Diamond bigger than a large Bean. But all this was nothing, in
+comparison to the Richness of his Girdle, made with precious stones
+set in Gold, which cast a Lustre that dazzled every Body's Eyes."
+
+He allowed Cabral to establish a depot at Calicut for European goods,
+so a house was selected by the waterside and a flag bearing the arms
+of Portugal erected on the top. For a time all went well, but the
+Mohammedans proved to be difficult customers, and disputes soon arose.
+A riot took place; the infuriated native traders stormed the depot
+and killed the Portuguese within. Cabral in revenge bombarded the city,
+and, leaving the wooden houses in flames, he sailed away to Cochin
+and Cananor on the coast of Malabar. Soon after this he returned home
+with only six out of the thirteen ships, and from this time he
+disappears from the pages of history.
+
+Just before his return, the King of Portugal, thinking trade was well
+established between India and his own country, dispatched a "valiant
+gentleman" in command of four ships to carry merchandise to the newly
+discovered country. But his voyage and adventures are only important
+inasmuch as he discovered the island of Ascension when outward bound
+and the island of St. Helena on the way home. So favourable was the
+account of this island that all Portugal admirals were ordered for
+the future to touch there for refreshments.
+
+The news of Cabral's adventures at Calicut inspired a yet larger
+expedition to the East, and Vasco da Gama, now Admiral of the Eastern
+seas, was given command of some fifteen ships which sailed from the
+Tagus in February 1502. The expedition, though avowedly Christian,
+was characterised by injustice and cruelty. Near the coast of Malabar
+the Portuguese fleet met with a large ship full of Mohammedan pilgrims
+from Mecca. The wealth on board was known to be enormous, and Don Vasco
+commanded the owners to yield up their riches to the King of Portugal.
+This they somewhat naturally refused to do. Whereupon the Portuguese
+fired, standing calmly to watch the blazing ships with their human
+freight of men, women, and children. True, one historian declares that
+all the children were removed to the Portuguese ship to be converted
+into good little Catholics. Another is more nearly concerned with the
+money. "We took a Mecca ship on board of which were three hundred and
+eighty men and many women and children, and we took from it fully twelve
+thousand ducats, with goods worth at least another ten thousand. And
+we burned the ship and all the people on board with gunpowder on the
+first day of October."
+
+[Illustration: THE MALABAR COAST. From Fra Mauro's map.]
+
+Their instructions to banish every Mohammedan in Calicut was
+faithfully obeyed. Don Vasco seized and hanged a number of helpless
+merchants quietly trading in the harbour. Cutting off their heads,
+hands, and feet, he had them flung into a boat, which was allowed to
+drift ashore, with a cruel suggestion that the severed limbs would
+make an Indian curry. Once more Calicut was bombarded and Don Vasco
+sailed on to other ports on the Malabar coast, where he loaded his
+ships with spices taken from poor folk who dared not refuse. He then
+sailed home again, reaching Portugal "safe and sound, _Deo gratias_,"
+but leaving behind him hatred and terror and a very quaint idea of
+these Christians who felt it their duty to exterminate all followers
+of Mohammed.
+
+Conquest usually succeeds discovery, and the Portuguese, having
+discovered the entire coast of West, South, and a good deal of East
+Africa and western coast of India, now proceeded to conquer it for
+their own. It was a far cry from Portugal to India in these days, and
+the isolated depots on the coast of Malabar were obviously in danger,
+when the foreign ships laden with spoil left their shores. True, Vasco
+da Gama had left six little ships this time under Sodrez to cruise
+about the Indian seas, but Sodrez wanted treasure, so he cruised
+northwards and found the southern coasts of Arabia as well as the island
+of Socotra. He had been warned of the tempestuous seas that raged about
+these parts at certain seasons, but, heeding not the warning, he
+perished with all his knowledge and treasure.
+
+Expedition after expedition now left Portugal for the east coast of
+Africa and India. There were the two cousins Albuquerque, who built
+a strong fort of wood and mud at Cochin, leaving a garrison of one
+hundred and fifty trained soldiers under the command of one Pacheco,
+who saved the fort and kept things going under great difficulties.
+On the return of Albuquerque, the hero of Cochin, the King decided
+to appoint a Viceroy of India. He would fain have appointed Tristan
+d'Acunha,--the discoverer of the island that still bears his
+name,--but he was suddenly struck with blindness, and in his stead
+Dom Francisco Almeida, "a nobleman of courage and experience," sailed
+off with the title of Viceroy. Not only was he to conquer, but to command,
+not only to sustain the sea-power of Portugal, but to form a government.
+
+There is a story told of the ignorance of the men sent to man the ships
+under Almeida. So raw were they that they hardly knew their right hand
+from their left, still less the difference between starboard and
+larboard, till their captain hit on the happy notion of tying a bundle
+of garlic over one side of the ship and a handful of onions over the
+other, so the pilot gave orders to the helmsman thus: "Onion your helm!"
+or "Garlic your helm!"
+
+[Illustration: A SHIP OF ALBUQUERQUE'S FLEET. From a very fine woodcut,
+published about 1516, of Albuquerque's siege and capture of Aden. In
+the British Museum.]
+
+On the way out, Almeida built a strong fortress near Zanzibar,
+organised a regular Portuguese Indian pilot service, and established
+his seat of government at Cochin. Then he sent his son, a daring youth
+of eighteen, to bombard the city of Quilon, whose people were
+constantly intriguing against the Portuguese. Having carried out his
+orders, young Lorenzo, ordered to explore the Maldive Islands, was
+driven by a storm to an "island opposite Cape Comorin, called Ceylon,
+and separated from thence by a narrow sea," where he was warmly received
+by the native King, whose dress sparkled with diamonds. Lorenzo
+erected here a marble pillar with the arms of Portugal carved thereon
+and took possession of the island. He also sent back to Portugal the
+first elephant ever sent thither.
+
+Ceylon was now the farthest point which flew the flag of Portugal toward
+the east. Doubtless young Lorenzo would have carried it farther, but
+he was killed at the early age of twenty-one, his legs being shattered
+by a cannon-ball during a sea-fight. He sat by the mainmast and
+continued to direct the fighting till a second shot ended his short
+but brilliant career. The Viceroy, "whose whole being was centred in
+his devotion to his only son, received the tidings with outward
+stoicism." "Regrets," he merely remarked, "regrets are for women."
+
+Nevertheless he revenged the death of his son by winning a victory
+over the opposing fleet and bidding his captains rejoice over "the
+good vengeance our Lord has been pleased, of His mercy, to grant us."
+
+But the days of Almeida were numbered. He had subdued the Indian coast,
+he had extended Portuguese possessions in various directions, his term
+of office was over, and he was succeeded by the famous Albuquerque,
+who had already distinguished himself in the service of Portugal by
+his efforts to obtain Ormuz for the Portuguese. Now Viceroy of India,
+he found full scope for his boundless energy and vast ambition. He
+first attacked Calicut and reduced it to ashes. Then he turned his
+attention to Goa, which he conquered, and which became the commercial
+capital of the Portuguese in India for the next hundred years. Not
+only this, but it was soon the wealthiest city on the face of the earth
+and the seat of the government. Albuquerque's next exploit was yet
+more brilliant and yet more important.
+
+[Illustration: A SHIP OF JAVA AND THE CHINA SEAS IN THE SIXTEENTH
+CENTURY. From Linschoten's _Navigatio ac Itinerarium_, 1598.]
+
+In 1509 he had sent a Portuguese explorer Sequira with a small squadron
+to make discoveries in the East. He was to cross the Bay of Bengal
+and explore the coast of Malacca. Sequira reached the coast and found
+it a centre for trade from east and west, "most rich and populous."
+But he had reason to suspect the demonstrations of friendship by the
+king of these parts, and refused to attend a festival prepared in his
+honour. This was fortunate, for some of his companions who landed for
+trade were killed. He sailed about the island of Sumatra, "the first
+land in which we knew of men's flesh being eaten by certain people
+in the mountains who gild their teeth. In their opinion the flesh of
+the blacks is sweeter than that of whites." Many were the strange tales
+brought back to Cochin by Sequira from the new lands--rivers of
+oil--hens with flesh as black as ink--people with tails like sheep.
+
+Anyhow, Albuquerque resolved that Malacca should belong to the
+Portuguese, and with nineteen ships and fourteen hundred fighting men
+he arrived off the coast of Sumatra, spreading terror and dismay among
+the multitudes that covered the shore. The work of destruction was
+short, though the King of Pahang and King Mahomet came out in person
+on huge elephants to help in the defence of their city. At last every
+inhabitant of the city was driven out or slain, and the Portuguese
+plundered the city to their hearts' content. The old historian waxes
+eloquent on the wealth of the city, and the laden ships started back,
+leaving a fort and a church under the care of Portuguese conquerors.
+The amount of booty mattered little, as a violent storm off the coast
+of Sumatra disposed of several ships and a good deal of treasure.
+
+The fall of Malacca was one of vast importance to the Portuguese. Was
+it not the key to the Eastern gate of the Indian Ocean--the gate through
+which the whole commerce of the Spice Islands, the Philippines, Japan,
+and far Cathay passed on its road to the Mediterranean? Was it not
+one of the largest trade markets in Asia, where rode the strange ships
+of many a distant shore? The fame of Albuquerque spread throughout
+the Eastern world. But he was not content with Malacca. The Spice
+Islands lay beyond--the Spice Islands with all their cloves and
+nutmegs and their countless riches must yet be won for Portugal.
+
+Up to this year, 1511, they had not been reached by the Portuguese.
+But now Francisco Serrano was sent off from Malacca to explore farther.
+Skirting the north of Java, he found island after island rich in cloves
+and nutmeg. So struck was he with his new discoveries that he wrote
+to his friend Magellan: "I have discovered yet another new world larger
+and richer than that found by Vasco da Gama."
+
+It is curious to remember how vastly important was this little group
+of islands--now part of the Malay Archipelago and belonging to the
+Dutch--to the explorers of the sixteenth century. Strange tales as
+usual reached Portugal about these newly found lands. Here lived men
+with "spurs on their ankles like cocks," hogs with horns, hens that
+laid their eggs nine feet under ground, rivers with living fish, yet
+so hot that they took the skin off any man that bathed in their waters,
+poisonous crabs, oysters with shells so large that they served as fonts
+for baptizing children.
+
+Truly these mysterious Spice Islands held more attractions for the
+Portuguese explorers than did the New World of Columbus and Vespucci.
+Their possession meant riches and wealth and--this was not the end.
+Was there not land beyond? Indeed, before the Spice Islands were
+conquered by Portugal, trade had already been opened up with China
+and, before the century was half over, three Portuguese seamen had
+visited Japan.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+BALBOA SEES THE PACIFIC OCEAN
+
+
+It is said that Ferdinand Magellan, the hero of all geographical
+discovery, with his circumnavigation of the whole round world, had
+cruised about the Spice Islands, but what he really knew of them from
+personal experience no one knows. He had served under Almeida, and
+with Albuquerque had helped in the conquest of Malacca. After seven
+years of a "vivid life of adventure by sea and land, a life of siege
+and shipwreck, of war and wandering," inaction became impossible. He
+busied himself with charts and the art of navigation. He dreamt of
+reaching the Spice Islands by sailing _west_, and after a time he laid
+his schemes before the King of Portugal. Whether he was laughed at
+as a dreamer or a fool we know not. His plans were received with cold
+refusal. History repeats itself. Like Christopher Columbus twenty
+years before, Magellan now said good-bye to Portugal and made his way
+to Spain.
+
+Since the first discovery of the New World by Spain, that country had
+been busy sending out explorer after explorer to discover and annex
+new portions of America. Bold navigators, Pinzon, Mendoza, Bastidas,
+Juan de la Cosa, and Solis--these and others had almost completed the
+discovery of the east coast, indeed, Solis might have been the first
+to see the great Pacific Ocean had he not been killed and eaten at
+the mouth of the river La Plata. This great discovery was left to Vasco
+Nunez de Balboa, who first saw beyond the strange New World from the
+Peak of Darien. Now his discovery threw a lurid light on to the
+limitation of land that made up the new country and illuminated the
+scheme of Magellan.
+
+Balboa was "a gentleman of good family, great parts, liberal education,
+of a fine person, and in the flower of his age." He had emigrated to
+the new Spanish colony of Hayti, where he had got into debt. No debtor
+was allowed to leave the island, but Balboa, the gentleman of good
+family, yearned for further exploration; he "yearned beyond the
+sky-line where the strange roads go down." And one day the yearning
+grew so great that he concealed himself in a bread cask on board a
+ship leaving the shores of Hayti. For some days he remained hidden.
+When the ship was well out to sea he made his appearance. Angry, indeed,
+was the captain--so angry that he threatened to land the stowaway on
+a desert island. He was, however, touched by the entreaties of the
+crew, and Balboa was allowed to sail on in the ship. It was a fortunate
+decision, for when, soon after, the ship ran heavily upon a rock, it
+was the Spanish stowaway Balboa who saved the party from destruction.
+He led the shipwrecked crew to a river of which he knew, named Darien
+by the Indians. He did _not_ know that they stood on the narrow neck
+of land--the isthmus of Panama--which connects North and South America.
+The account of the Spanish intrusion is typical: "After having
+performed their devotions, the Spaniards fell resolutely on the
+Indians, whom they soon routed, and then went to the town, which they
+found full of provisions to their wish. Next day they marched up the
+country among the neighbouring mountains, where they found houses
+replenished with a great deal of cotton, both spun and unspun, plates
+of gold in all to the value of ten thousand pieces of fine gold."
+
+A trade in gold was set up by Balboa, who became governor of the new
+colony formed by the Spaniards; but the greed of these foreigners quite
+disgusted the native prince of these parts.
+
+"What is this, Christians? Is it for such a little thing that you
+quarrel? If you have such a love of gold, I will show you a country
+where you may fulfil your desires. You will have to fight your way
+with great kings whose country is distant from our country six suns."
+
+So saying, he pointed away to the south, where he said lay a great
+sea. Balboa resolved to find this great sea. It might be the ocean
+sought by Columbus in vain, beyond which was the land of great riches
+where people drank out of golden cups. So he collected some two hundred
+men and started forth on an expedition full of doubt and danger. He
+had to lead his troops, worn with fatigue and disease, through deep
+marshes rendered impassable with heavy rains, over mountains covered
+with trackless forest, and through defiles from which the Indians
+showered down poisoned arrows.
+
+At last, led by native guides, Balboa and his men struggled up the
+side of a high mountain. When near the top he bade his men stop. He
+alone must be the first to see the great sight that no European had
+yet beheld. With "transports of delight" he gained the top and, "silent
+upon a peak in Darien," he looked down on the boundless ocean, bathed
+in tropical sunshine. Falling on his knees, he thanked God for his
+discovery of the Southern Sea. Then he called up his men. "You see
+here, gentlemen and children mine, the end of our labours."
+
+The notes of the "Te Deum" then rang out on the still summer air, and,
+having made a cross of stones, the little party hurried to the shore.
+Finding two canoes, they sprang in, crying aloud joyously that they
+were the first Europeans to sail on the new sea, whilst Balboa himself
+plunged in, sword in hand, and claimed possession of the Southern Ocean
+for the King of Spain. The natives told him that the land to the south
+was _without end_, and that it was possessed by powerful nations who
+had abundance of gold. And Balboa thought this referred to the Indies,
+knowing nothing as yet of the riches of Peru.
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF THE FIRST MAPS OF THE PACIFIC. From Diego
+Ribero's map, 1529.]
+
+It is melancholy to learn that the man who made this really great
+discovery was publicly hanged four years later in Darien. But his news
+had reached Magellan. There was then a great Southern Ocean beyond
+the New World. He was more certain than ever now that by this sea he
+could reach the Spice Islands. Moreover, he persuaded the young King
+of Spain that his country had a right to these valuable islands, and
+promised that he would conduct a fleet round the south of the great
+new continent westward to these islands. His proposal was accepted
+by Charles V., and the youthful Spanish monarch provided Spanish ships
+for the great enterprise. The voyage was not popular, the pay was low,
+the way unknown, and in the streets of Seville the public crier called
+for volunteers. Hence it was a motley crew of some two hundred and
+eighty men, composed of Spaniards, Portuguese, Genoese, French,
+Germans, Greeks, Malays, and one Englishman only. There were five
+ships. "They are very old and patched," says a letter addressed to
+the King of Portugal, "and I would be sorry to sail even for the Canaries
+in them, for their ribs are soft as butter."
+
+Magellan hoisted his flag on board the _Trinidad_ of one hundred and
+ten tons' burden. The largest ship, _S. Antonio_, was captained by
+a Spaniard--Cartagena; the _Conception_, ninety tons, by Gaspar
+Quesada; the _Victoria_ of eighty-five tons, who alone bore home the
+news of the circumnavigation of the world, was at first commanded by
+the traitor Mendoza; and the little _Santiago_, seventy-five tons,
+under the brother of Magellan's old friend Serrano.
+
+What if the commander himself left a young wife and a son of six months
+old? The fever of discovery was upon him, and, flying the Spanish flag
+for the first time in his life, Magellan, on board the _Trinidad_,
+led his little fleet away from the shores of Spain. He never saw wife
+or child again. Before three years had passed all three were dead.
+
+Carrying a torch or faggot of burning wood on the poop, so that the
+ships should never lose sight of it, the _Trinidad_ sailed onwards.
+
+"Follow the flagship and ask no questions."
+
+Such were his instructions to his not too loyal captains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+MAGELLAN SAILS ROUND THE WORLD
+
+
+They had left Seville on 20th September 1519. A week later they were
+at the Canaries. Then past Cape Verde, and land faded from their sight
+as they made for the south-west. For some time they had a good run
+in fine weather. Then "the upper air burst into life" and a month of
+heavy gales followed. The Italian count, who accompanied the fleet,
+writes long accounts of the sufferings of the crew during these
+terrific Atlantic storms.
+
+"During these storms," he says, "the body of St. Anselm appeared to
+us several times; one night that it was very dark on account of the
+bad weather the saint appeared in the form of a fire lighted at the
+summit of the mainmast and remained there near two hours and a half,
+which comforted us greatly, for we were in tears only expecting the
+hour of perishing; and, when that holy light was going away from us,
+it gave out so great a brilliancy in the eyes of each, that we were
+like people blinded and calling out for mercy. For without any doubt
+nobody hoped to escape from that storm."
+
+Two months of incessant rain and diminished rations added to their
+miseries. The spirit of mutiny now began to show itself. Already the
+Spanish captains had murmured against the Portuguese commander.
+
+"Be they false men or true, I will fear them not; I will do my appointed
+work," said the commander firmly.
+
+It was not till November that they made the coast of Brazil in South
+America, already sighted by Cabral and explored by Pinzon. But the
+disloyal captains were not satisfied, and one day the captain of the
+_S. Antonio_ boarded the flagship and openly insulted Magellan. He
+must have been a little astonished when the Portuguese commander
+seized him by the collar, exclaiming: "You are my prisoner!" giving
+him into custody and appointing another in his place.
+
+Food was now procurable, and a quantity of sweet pine-apples must have
+had a soothing effect on the discontented crews. The natives traded
+on easy terms. For a knife they produced four or five fowls; for a
+comb, fish for ten men; for a little bell, a basket full of sweet
+potatoes. A long drought had preceded Magellan's visit to these parts,
+but rain now began with the advent of the strangers, and the natives
+made sure that they had brought it with them. Such an impression once
+made there was little difficulty in converting them to the Christian
+faith. The natives joined in prayer with the Spaniards, "remaining
+on their knees with their hands joined in great reverence so that it
+was a pleasure to see them," writes one of the party.
+
+The day after Christmas again found them sailing south by the coast,
+and early in the New Year they anchored at the mouth of the Rio de
+la Plata, where Solis had lost his life at the hands of the cannibals
+some five years before. He had succeeded Vespucci in the service of
+Spain, and was exploring the coast when a body of Indians, "with a
+terrible cry and most horrible aspect," suddenly rushed out upon them,
+killed, roasted, and devoured them.
+
+Through February and March, Magellan led his ships along the shores
+of bleak Patagonia seeking for an outlet for the Spice Islands. Winter
+was coming on and no straits had yet been found. Storm after storm
+now burst over the little ships, often accompanied by thunder and
+lightning; poops and forecastles were carried away, and all expected
+destruction, when "the holy body of St. Anselm appeared and
+immediately the storm ceased."
+
+[Illustration: AN ATLANTIC FLEET OF MAGELLAN'S TIME. From Mercator's
+_Mappe Monde_, 1569, where the drawing is spoken of as "Magellan's
+ships."]
+
+It was quite impossible to proceed farther to the unknown south, so,
+finding a safe and roomy harbour, Magellan decided to winter there.
+Port St. Julian he named it, and he knew full well that there they
+must remain some four or five months. He put the crew on diminished
+rations for fear the food should run short before they achieved their
+goal. This was the last straw. Mutiny had long been smouldering. The
+hardships of the voyage, the terrific Atlantic storms, the prospect
+of a long Antarctic winter of inaction on that wild Patagonian
+coast--these alone caused officers and men to grumble and to demand
+an immediate return to Spain.
+
+But the "stout heart of Magellan" was undaunted.
+
+On Easter Day the mutiny began. Two of the Spanish captains boarded
+the _S. Antonio_, seized the Portuguese captain thereof, and put him
+in chains. Then stores were broken open, bread and wine generously
+handed round, and a plot hatched to capture the flagship, kill Magellan,
+seize his faithful Serrano, and sail home to Spain.
+
+The news reached Magellan's ears. He at once sent a messenger with
+five men bearing hidden arms to summon the traitor captain on board
+the flagship. Of course he stoutly refused. As he did so, the messenger
+sprang upon him and stabbed him dead. As the rebellious captain fell
+dead on the deck of his ship, the dazed crew at once surrendered. Thus
+Magellan by his prompt measures quelled a mutiny that might have lost
+him the whole expedition. No man ever tried to mutiny again while he
+lived and commanded.
+
+The fleet had been two whole months in the Port S. Julian without seeing
+a single native.
+
+"However, one day, without any one expecting it, we saw a giant, who
+was on the shore of the sea, dancing and leaping and singing. He was
+so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist; he was well
+built; he had a large face, painted red all round, and his eyes also
+were painted yellow around them, and he had two hearts painted on his
+cheeks; he had but little hair on his head and it was painted white."
+
+The great Patagonian giant pointed to the sky to know whether these
+Spaniards had descended from above. He was soon joined by others
+evidently greatly surprised to see such large ships and such little
+men. Indeed, the heads of the Spaniards hardly reached the giants'
+waists, and they must have been greatly astonished when two of them
+ate a large basketful of biscuits and rats without skinning them and
+drank half a bucket of water at each sitting.
+
+With the return of spring weather in October 1520, Magellan led the
+little fleet upon its way. He was rewarded a few days later by finding
+the straits for which he and others had been so long searching.
+
+[Illustration: FERDINAND MAGELLAN, THE FIRST CIRCUMNAVIGATOR OF THE
+WORLD. After the engraving by Selma in Navarrete's _Coleccion de los
+Viages_.]
+
+"It was the straight," says the historian simply, "now cauled the
+straight of Magellans."
+
+A struggle was before them. For more than five weeks the Spanish
+mariners fought their way through the winding channels of the unknown
+straits. On one side rose high mountains covered with snow. The weather
+was bad, the way unknown. Do we wonder to read that "one of the ships
+stole away privily and returned into Spain," and the remaining men
+begged piteously to be taken home? Magellan spoke "in measured and
+quiet tones": "If I have to eat the leather of the ships' yards, yet
+will I go on and do my work." His words came truer than he knew. On
+the southern side of the strait constant fires were seen, which led
+Magellan to give the land the name it bears to-day--Tierra del Fuego.
+It was not visited again for a hundred years.
+
+[Illustration: A SHIP OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. From Amoretti's
+translation of _Magellan's Voyage round the World_.]
+
+At last the ships fought their way to the open sea--Balboa's Southern
+Ocean--and "when the Captain Magellan was past the strait and saw the
+way open to the other main sea he was so glad thereof that for joy
+the tears fell from his eyes."
+
+The expanse of calm waters seemed so pleasant after the heavy tiring
+storms that he called the still waters before him the Pacific Ocean.
+Before following him across the unknown waters, let us recall the
+quaint lines of Camoens--
+
+   "Along these regions, from the burning zone
+    To deepest south, he dares the course unknown.
+    A land of giants shall his eyes behold,
+    Of camel strength, surpassing human mould;
+    And, onward still, thy fame his proud heart's guide,
+    Beneath the southern stars' cold gleam he braves
+    And stems the whirls of land-surrounded waves,
+    For ever sacred to the hero's fame,
+    These foaming straits shall bear his deathless name.
+    Through these dread jaws of rock he presses on
+    Another ocean's breast, immense, unknown,
+    Beneath the south's cold wings, unmeasur'd, wide,
+    Received his vessels, through the dreary tide,
+    In darkling shades, where never man before
+    Heard the waves howl, he dares the nameless shore."
+
+Three little ships had now emerged, battered and worn, manned by crews
+gaunt and thin and shivering. Magellan took a northerly course to avoid
+the intense cold, before turning to cross the strange obscure ocean,
+which no European had yet realised. Just before Christmas the course
+was altered and the ships were turned to the north-west, in which
+direction they expected soon to find the Spice Islands. No one had
+any idea of the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.
+
+[Illustration: "HONDIUS HIS MAP OF THE MAGELLAN STREIGHT." From a map
+by Jodocus Hondius, about 1590. It gives a particularly clear picture
+of the ideas held by the age following Magellan's discovery of the
+land which, it was supposed, enveloped the southern point of South
+America.]
+
+"Well was it named the Pacific," remarks the historian, "for during
+three months and twenty days we met with no storm."
+
+Two months passed away, and still they sailed peacefully on, day after
+day, week after week, across a waste of desolate waters.
+
+   "Alone, alone, all, all alone,
+    Alone on a wide, wide sea."
+
+At last one January day they sighted a small wooded island, but it
+was uninhabited; they named it S. Paul's Island and passed on their
+way. They had expected to find the shores of Asia close by those of
+America. The size of the world was astounding. Another island was
+passed. Again no people, no consolation, only many sharks. There was
+bitter disappointment on board. They had little food left. "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 to prevent the chafing
+against the rigging. These hides we exposed to the sun first to soften
+them by putting them overboard for four or five days, after which we
+put them on the embers and ate them thus. We had also to make use of
+sawdust for food, and rats became a great delicacy." No wonder scurvy
+broke out in its worst form--nineteen died and thirteen lay too ill
+to work.
+
+For ninety-eight days they sailed across the unknown sea, "a sea so
+vast that the human mind can scarcely grasp it," till at last they
+came on a little group of islands peopled with savages of the lowest
+type--such expert thieves that Magellan called the new islands the
+Ladrones or isle of robbers. Still, there was fresh food here, and
+the crews were greatly refreshed before they sailed away. The food
+came just too late to save the one Englishman of the party--Master
+Andrew of Bristol--who died just as they moved away. Then they found
+the group afterwards known as the Philippines (after Philip II. of
+Spain). Here were merchants from China, who assured Magellan that the
+famous Spice Islands were not far off. Now Magellan had practically
+accomplished that he set out to do, but he was not destined to reap
+the fruits of his victory.
+
+With a good supply of fresh food the sailors grew better, and Magellan
+preferred cruising about the islands, making friends of the natives
+and converting them to Christianity, to pushing on for the Spice
+Islands. Here was gold, too, and he busied himself making the native
+rulers pay tribute to Spain. Easter was drawing near, and the Easter
+services were performed on one of the islands. A cross and a crown
+of thorns was set upon the top of the highest mountain that all might
+see it and worship. Thus April passed away and Magellan was still busy
+with Christians and gold. But his enthusiasm carried him too far. A
+quarrel arose with one of the native kings. Magellan landed with armed
+men, only to be met by thousands of defiant natives. A desperate fight
+ensued. Again and again the explorer was wounded, till "at last the
+Indians threw themselves upon him with iron-pointed bamboo spears and
+every weapon they had and ran him through--our mirror, our light, our
+comforter, our true guide--until they killed him."
+
+Such was the tragic fate of Ferdinand Magellan, "the greatest of
+ancient and modern navigators," tragic because, after dauntless
+resolution and unwearied courage, he died in a miserable skirmish at
+the last on the very eve of victory.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST SHIP THAT SAILED ROUND THE WORLD. Magellan's
+_Victoria_, from Hulsius's _Collection of Voyages_, 1602.]
+
+With grief and despair in their hearts, the remaining members of the
+crew, now only one hundred and fifteen, crowded on to the _Trinidad_
+and _Victoria_ for the homeward voyage. It was September 1522 when
+they reached the Spice Islands--the goal of all their hopes. Here they
+took on board some precious cloves and birds of Paradise, spent some
+pleasant months, and, laden with spices, resumed their journey. But
+the _Trinidad_ was too overladen with cloves and too rotten to
+undertake so long a voyage till she had undergone repair, so the little
+_Victoria_ alone sailed for Spain with sixty men aboard to carry home
+their great and wonderful news. Who shall describe the terrors of that
+homeward voyage, the suffering, starvation, and misery of the weary
+crew? Man after man drooped and died, till by the time they reached
+the Cape Verde Islands there were but eighteen left.
+
+When the welcome shores of Spain at length appeared, eighteen gaunt,
+famine-stricken survivors, with their captain, staggered ashore to
+tell their proud story of the first circumnavigation of the world by
+their lost commander, Ferdinand Magellan.
+
+We miss the triumphal return of the conqueror, the audience with the
+King of Spain, the heaped honours, the crowded streets, the titles,
+and the riches. The proudest crest ever granted by a sovereign--the
+world, with the words: "Thou hast encompassed me"--fell to the lot
+of Del Cano, the captain who brought home the little _Victoria_. For
+Magellan's son was dead, and his wife Beatrix, "grievously sorrowing,"
+had passed away on hearing the news of her husband's tragic end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+CORTES EXPLORES AND CONQUERS MEXICO
+
+
+One would have thought that the revelation of this immense sheet of
+water on the far side of America would have drawn other explorers to
+follow, but news was slowly assimilated in those days, and it was not
+till fifty-three years later that the Pacific was crossed a second
+time by Sir Francis Drake.
+
+In the maps of the day, Newfoundland and Florida were both placed in
+Asia, while Mexico was identified with the Quinsay of Marco Polo. For
+even while Magellan was fighting the gales of the Atlantic _en route_
+for his long-sought strait, another strange and wonderful country was
+being unveiled and its unsurpassed wealth laid at the feet of Spain.
+The starting-place for further Spanish exploration had been, from the
+days of Columbus, the West Indies. From this centre, the coast of
+Florida had been discovered in 1513; from here, the same year, Balboa
+had discovered the Pacific Ocean; from here in 1517 a little fleet
+was fitted out under Francisco Hernando de Cordova, "a man very prudent
+and courageous and strongly disposed to kill and kidnap Indians." As
+pilot he had been with Columbus on his fourth voyage some fourteen
+years before. He suggested that his master had heard rumours of land
+to the West, and sure enough, after sailing past the peninsula of
+Yucatan, they found signs of the Eastern civilisation so long sought
+in vain.
+
+"Strange-looking towers or pyramids, ascended by stone steps, greeted
+their eyes, and the people who came out in canoes to watch the ships
+were clad in quilted cotton doublets and wore cloaks and brilliant
+plumes."
+
+They had heard of the Spaniards. Indeed, only one hundred miles of
+sea divided Yucatan from Cuba, and they were anything but pleased to
+see these strangers off their coast.
+
+"Couez cotoche" (Come to my house), they cried, for which reason
+Cordova called the place Cape Catoche, as it is marked in our maps
+to-day. Along the coast sailed the Spaniards to a place called by the
+Indians Quimpeche, now known as Campechy Bay. They were astonished
+to find how civilised were these natives, and how unlike any others
+they had met in these parts. But the inhabitants resented the landing
+of Cordova and his men, and with arrows and stones and darts they killed
+or wounded a great number of Spaniards, including the commander
+himself, who sent an account of his voyage to the Governor of Cuba
+and died a few days later.
+
+His information was interesting and inspiring, and soon young Juan
+Grijalva was on his way to the same land, accompanied by "two hundred
+and fifty stout soldiers" and the old pilot, Alvarado, who had led
+both Columbus and Cordova. Grijalva explored for the first time the
+coast of this great new country.
+
+"Mexico, Mexico," repeated the Indians with whom they conversed. Gold,
+too, was produced, gold ornaments, gold workmanship, until the young
+and handsome Grijalva was fitted out completely with a complete suit
+of gold armour. He returned enthusiastic over the new land where lived
+a powerful ruler over many cities. Surely this was none other than
+the Great Khan of Marco Polo fame, with the riches and magnificence
+of an Eastern potentate--a land worthy of further exploration.
+
+The conqueror of Mexico now comes upon the scene--young, bold, devout,
+unscrupulous, "a respectable gentleman of good birth"--Hernando
+Cortes. Great was the enthusiasm in Cuba to join the new expedition
+to the long-lost lands of the Great Khan; men sold their lands to buy
+horses and arms, pork was salted, armour was made, and at last Cortes,
+a plume of feathers and a gold medal in his cap, erected on board his
+ship a velvet flag with the royal arms embroidered in gold and the
+words: "Brothers, follow the cross in faith, for under its guidance
+we shall conquer."
+
+[Illustration: HERNANDO CORTES, CONQUEROR OF MEXICO. After the
+original portrait at Mexico.]
+
+His address to his men called forth their devotion: "I hold out to
+you a glorious prize, but it is to be won by incessant toil. Great
+things are achieved only by great exertions, and glory was never the
+reward of sloth. If I have laboured hard and staked my all on this
+undertaking, it is for the love of that renown, which is the noblest
+recompense of man. But if any among you covet riches more, be but true
+to me, as I will make you masters of such as our countrymen have never
+dreamed of. You are few in number, but strong in resolution; doubt
+not but that the Almighty, who has never deserted the Spaniard in his
+contest with the infidel, will shield you, for your cause is a just
+cause, and you are to fight under the banner of the Cross."
+
+In this spirit of enthusiasm the fleet sailed from the shores of Cuba
+on 18th February 1519, and was soon on its way to the land of Mexico.
+The pilot Alvarado was with this expedition also. Rounding Cape
+Catoche and coasting along the southern shores of Campechy Bay, with
+a pleasant breeze blowing off the shore, Cortes landed with all his
+force--some five hundred soldiers--on the very spot where now stands
+the city of Vera Cruz. "Little did the conqueror imagine that the
+desolate beach on which he first planted his foot was one day to be
+covered by a flourishing city, the great mart of European and Oriental
+trade--the commercial capital of New Spain."
+
+On a wide, level plain Cortes encamped, his soldiers driving in stakes
+and covering them with boughs to protect themselves from the scorching
+rays of the fierce, tropical sun. Natives came down to the shore,
+bringing their beautiful featherwork cloaks and golden ornaments.
+Cortes had brought presents for the great King--the Khan as he
+thought--and these he sent with a message that he had come from the
+King of Spain and greatly desired an audience with the Great Khan.
+The Indians were greatly surprised to hear that there was another King
+in the world as powerful as their Montezuma, who was more god than
+king, who ate from dishes of gold, on whose face none dared look, in
+whose presence none dared speak without leave.
+
+To impress the messengers of the King, Cortes ordered his soldiers
+to go through some of their military exercises on the wet sands. The
+bold and rapid movement of the troops, the glancing of the weapons,
+and the shrill cry of the trumpet filled the spectators with
+astonishment; but when they heard the thunder of the cannon and
+witnessed the volumes of smoke and flame issuing from these terrible
+engines, the rushing of the balls as they hissed through the trees
+of the neighbouring forest shivering their branches, they were filled
+with consternation.
+
+To the intense surprise of the Spaniards, these messengers sketched
+the whole scene on canvas with their pencils, not forgetting the
+Spanish ships or "water-houses" as they called them, with their dark
+hulls and snow-white sails reflected in the water as they swung lazily
+at anchor.
+
+Then they returned to the King and related the strange doings of the
+white strangers who had landed on their shores; they showed him their
+picture-writing, and Montezuma, king of the great Mexican empire which
+stretched from sea to sea, was "sore troubled." He refused to see the
+Spaniards--the distance of his capital was too great, since the
+journey was beset with difficulties. But the presents he sent were
+so gorgeous, so wonderful, that Cortes resolved to see for himself
+the city which produced such wealth, whatever its ruler might decree.
+Here was a plate of gold as large as a coach wheel representing the
+sun, one in silver even larger, representing the moon; there were
+numbers of golden toys representing dogs, lions, tigers, apes, ducks,
+and wonderful plumes of green feathers.
+
+The man who had sailed across two thousand leagues of ocean held lightly
+the idea of a short land journey, however difficult, and Cortes began
+his preparations for the march to Mexico. He built the little
+settlement at Vera Cruz, "The Rich Town of the True Cross," on the
+seashore as a basis for operations. Although the wealth allured them,
+there were many who viewed with dismay the idea of the long and
+dangerous march into the heart of a hostile land. After all they were
+but a handful of men pitted against a powerful nation. Murmurs arose
+which reached the ears of Cortes. He was equal to the occasion and
+resolutely burnt all the ships in the harbour save one. Then panic
+ensued. Mutiny threatened.
+
+"I have chosen my part!" cried Cortes. "I will remain here while there
+is one to bear me company. If there be any so craven as to shrink from
+sharing the dangers of our glorious enterprise, let them go home. There
+is still one vessel left. Let them take that and return to Cuba. They
+can tell there how they have deserted their commander and their
+comrades, and patiently wait till we return loaded with the spoils
+of Mexico."
+
+He touched the right chord. Visions of future wealth and glory rose
+again before them, confidence in their leader revived, and, shouting
+bravely, "To Mexico! to Mexico!" the party started off on their
+perilous march. It was 16th August 1519 when the little army, "buoyant
+with high hopes and lofty plans of conquest," set forth. The first
+part of the way lay through beautiful country rich in cochineal and
+vanilla, with groves of many-coloured birds and "insects whose
+enamelled wings glistened like diamonds in the blazing sun of the
+tropics."
+
+Then came the long and tedious ascent of the Cordilleras leading to
+the tableland of Mexico. Higher and higher grew the mountains. Heavy
+falls of sleet and hail, icy winds, and driving rain drenched the little
+Spanish party as they made their way bravely upwards, till at last
+they reached the level of seven thousand feet to find the great
+tableland rolling out along the crest of the Cordilleras.
+
+Hitherto they had met with no opposition among the natives they had
+met. Indeed, as the little army advanced, it was often found that the
+inhabitants of the country fled awestruck from before them. Now the
+reason was this. The Mexicans believed in a god called the Bird-Serpent,
+around whom many a legend had grown up. Temples had been built in his
+honour and horrible human sacrifices offered to appease him, for was
+he not the Ruler of the Winds, the Lord of the Lightning, the Gatherer
+of the Clouds? But the bright god had sailed away one day, saying he
+would return with fair-skinned men to possess the land in the fulness
+of time. Surely, then, the time had come and their god had come again.
+Here were the fair-skinned men in shining armour marching back to their
+own again, and Cortes at their head--was he not the god himself? The
+cross, too, was a Mexican symbol, so Cortes was allowed to put it up
+in the heathen temples without opposition.
+
+The inhabitants of Tlascala--fierce republicans who refused to own
+the sway of Montezuma--alone offered resistance, and how Cortes fought
+and defeated them with his handful of men is truly a marvel.
+
+It was three months before they reached the goal of all their
+hopes--even the golden city of Mexico. The hardships and horrors of
+the march had been unsurpassed, but as the beautiful valley of Mexico
+unfolded itself before them in the early light of a July morning, the
+Spaniards shouted with joy: "It is the promised land! Mexico!
+Mexico!"
+
+"Many of us were disposed to doubt the reality of the scene before
+us and to suspect we were in a dream," says one of the party. "I thought
+we had been transported by magic to the terrestrial paradise."
+
+Water, cultivated plains, shining cities with shadowy hills beyond
+lay like some gorgeous fairyland before and below them. At every step
+some new beauty appeared in sight, and the wonderful City of the Waters
+with its towers and shining palaces arose out of the surrounding mists.
+
+The city was approached by three solid causeways some five miles long.
+It was crowded with spectators "eager to behold such men and animals
+as had never been seen in that part of the world."
+
+At any moment the little army of four hundred and fifty Spaniards might
+have been destroyed, surrounded as they were by overwhelming numbers
+of hostile Indian foes. It was a great day in the history of European
+discovery, when the Spaniard first set foot in the capital of the
+Western world. Everywhere was evidence of a crowded and thriving
+population and a high civilisation. At the walls of the city they were
+met by Montezuma himself. Amid a crowd of Indian nobles, preceded by
+officers of state bearing golden wands, was the royal palanquin
+blazing with burnished gold. It was borne on the shoulders of the nobles,
+who, barefooted, walked slowly with eyes cast to the ground.
+Descending from his litter, Montezuma then advanced under a canopy
+of gaudy featherwork powdered with jewels and fringed with silver.
+His cloak and sandals were studded with pearls and precious stones
+among which emeralds were conspicuous. Cortes dismounted, greeted the
+King, and spoke of his mission to the heathen and of his master, the
+mighty ruler of Spain. Everywhere Cortes and his men were received
+with friendship and reverence, for was he not the long-lost Child of
+the Sun? The Spanish explorer begged Montezuma to give up his idols
+and to stop his terrible human sacrifices. The King somewhat naturally
+refused. Cortes grew angry. He was also very anxious. He felt the
+weakness of his position, the little handful of men in this great
+populous city, which he had sworn to win for Spain. The King must go.
+"Why do we waste time on this barbarian? Let us seize him and, if he
+resists, plunge our swords into his body!" cried the exasperated
+commander.
+
+This is no place for the pathetic story of Montezuma's downfall.
+Prescott's _Conquest of Mexico_ is within the reach of all. It tells
+of the Spanish treachery, of the refusal of the Mexican ruler to accept
+the new faith, of his final appeal to his subjects, of chains,
+degradation, and death. It tells of the three great heaps of gold,
+pearls, and precious stones taken by Cortes, of the final siege and
+conquest.
+
+[Illustration: THE BATTLES OF THE SPANIARDS IN MEXICO. From an ancient
+Aztec drawing, showing a leader of the Spaniards with his native allies
+defeating the Mexicans.]
+
+The news of this immense Mexican Empire, discovered and conquered for
+Spain, brought honours from the King, Charles V., to the triumphant
+conqueror.
+
+Nor did Cortes stop even after this achievement. As Governor and
+Captain-General of Mexico, he sent off ships to explore the
+neighbouring coasts. Hearing that Honduras possessed rich mines and
+that a strait into the Pacific Ocean might be found, Cortes led an
+expedition by land. Arrived at Tabasco, he was provided with an Indian
+map of cotton cloth, whereon were painted all the towns, rivers,
+mountains, as far as Nicaragua. With this map and the mariner's compass,
+he led his army through gloomy woods so thick that no sun ever
+penetrated, and after a march of one thousand miles reached the
+seacoast of Honduras, took over the country for Spain to be governed
+with Mexico by himself.
+
+This enormous tract of country was known to the world as "New Spain."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+EXPLORERS IN SOUTH AMERICA
+
+
+The success of Cortes and his brilliant conquest of Mexico gave a new
+impulse to discovery in the New World. The spirit of exploration
+dominated every adventurous young Spaniard, and among those living
+in the West Indies there were many ready to give up all for the golden
+countries in the West, rumours of which were always reaching their
+ears.
+
+No sooner had these rich lands been realised than the news of Magellan's
+great voyage revealed the breadth of the ocean between America and
+Asia, and destroyed for ever the idea that the Spice Islands were near.
+Spanish enterprise, therefore, lay in the same direction as heretofore,
+and we must relate the story of how Pizarro discovered Peru for the
+King of Spain. He had accompanied Balboa to Darien, and had with him
+gazed out on to the unknown waters of the Pacific Ocean below. With
+Balboa after crossing the isthmus of Darien he had reached Panama on
+the South Sea, where he heard of a great nation far to the south. Like
+Mexico, it was spoken of as highly civilised and rich in mines of gold
+and silver. Many an explorer would have started off straightway for
+this new country, but there was a vast tract of dark forest and tangled
+underwood between Panama and Peru, which had damped the ardour of even
+the most ardent of Spanish explorers.
+
+But Pizarro was a man of courage and dauntless resolution, and he was
+ready to do and dare the impossible. He made a bad start. A single
+ship with some hundred men aboard left Panama under the command of
+Pizarro in 1526. He was ignorant of southern navigation, the Indians
+along the shore were hostile, his men died one by one, the rich land
+of Peru was more distant than they had thought, and, having at length
+reached the island of Gallo near the Equator, they awaited
+reinforcements from Panama. Great, then, was the disappointment of
+Pizarro when only one ship arrived and no soldiers. News of hardships
+and privations had spread through Panama, and none would volunteer
+to explore Peru. By this time the handful of wretched men who had
+remained with Pizarro, living on crabs picked up on the shore, begged
+to be taken home--they could endure no longer. Then came one of those
+tremendous moments that lifts the born leader of men above his fellows.
+Drawing his sword, Pizarro traced a line on the sand from east to west.
+"Friends," he cried, turning to the south, "on that side are toil,
+hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death, and on
+this side ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches, here
+Panama and its poverty. For my part, I go south."
+
+So saying, he stepped across the line. Twelve stout-hearted men
+followed him. The rest turned wearily homewards. The reduced but
+resolute little party then sailed south, and a voyage of two days
+brought them within sight of the long-sought land of Peru.
+Communication with the natives assured them that here was wealth and
+fortune to be made, and they hurried back to Panama, whence Pizarro
+sailed for Spain, for permission to conquer the empire of Peru. It
+is interesting to find Cortes contributing some of his immense wealth
+from Mexico towards this new quest.
+
+In February 1531 three small ships with one hundred and eighty soldiers
+and thirty-six horses sailed south under Pizarro. It was not till the
+autumn of 1532 that he was ready to start on the great march to the
+interior. A city called Cuzco was the capital--the Holy City with its
+great Temple of the Sun, the most magnificent building in the New World,
+had never yet been seen by Europeans. But the residence of the King
+was at Caxamalea, and this was the goal of the Spaniards for the
+present.
+
+Already the news was spreading through the land that "white and bearded
+strangers were coming up from the sea, clad in shining panoply, riding
+upon unearthly monsters, and wielding deadly thunderbolts."
+
+[Illustration: PIZARRO. From the portrait at Cuzco.]
+
+Pizarro's march to the heart of Peru with a mere handful of men was
+not unlike that of Cortes' expedition to Mexico. Both coveted the rich
+empire of unknown monarchs and dared all--to possess. Between Pizarro
+and his goal lay the stupendous mountain range of the Andes or South
+American Cordilleras, rock piled upon rock, their crests of
+everlasting snow glittering high in the heavens. Across these and over
+narrow mountain passes the troops had now to pass. So steep were the
+sides that the horsemen had to dismount and scramble up, leading their
+horses as best they might. Frightful chasms yawned below them,
+terrific peaks rose above, and at any moment they might be utterly
+destroyed by bodies of Peruvians in overwhelming numbers. It was
+bitterly cold as they mounted higher and higher up the dreary heights,
+till at last they reached the crest. Then began the
+descent--precipitous and dangerous--until after seven days of this
+the valley of Caxamalea unrolled before their delighted eyes, and the
+little ancient city with its white houses lay glittering in the sun.
+But dismay filled the stoutest heart when, spread out below for the
+space of several miles, tents as thick as snowflakes covered the ground.
+It was the Peruvian army. And it was too late to turn back. "So, with
+as bold a countenance as we could, we prepared for our entrance into
+Caxamalea."
+
+The Peruvians must already have seen the cavalcade of Spaniards, as
+with banners streaming and armour glistening in the rays of the evening
+sun Pizarro led them towards the city. As they drew near, the King,
+Atahualpa, covered with plumes of feathers and ornaments of gold and
+silver blazing in the sun, was carried forth on a throne followed by
+thirty thousand men to meet the strangers. It seemed to the Spanish
+leader that only one course was open. He must seize the person of this
+great ruler at once. He waved his white scarf. Immediately the cavalry
+charged and a terrible fight took place around the person of the ruler
+of Peru until he was captured and taken prisoner. Atahualpa tried to
+regain his liberty by the offer of gold, for he had discovered--amid
+all their outward show of religious zeal--a greed for wealth among
+these strange white men from over the stormy seas. He suggested that
+he should fill with gold the room in which he was confined as high
+as he could reach. Standing on tiptoe, he marked the wall with his
+hand. Pizarro accepted the offer, and the Spaniards greedily watched
+the arrival of their treasure from the roofs of palace and temple.
+They gained a sum of something like three million sterling and then
+put the King to death. Pizarro was the conqueror of Peru, and he had
+no difficulty in controlling the awestruck Peruvians, who regarded
+the relentless Spaniards as supernatural--the Children of the Sun
+indeed.
+
+[Illustration: PERU AND SOUTH AMERICA. From the Map of the World of
+1544, usually ascribed to Sebastian Cabot. At the top is shown the
+river Amazon, discovered by Orellana in 1541.]
+
+A year later these Children of the Sun entered the old town of
+Cuzco--the capital of this rich empire--where they found a city of
+treasure surpassing all expectation. Meanwhile Almagro, one of the
+most prominent among the Spanish explorers, had been granted a couple
+of hundred miles along the coast of Chili, which country he now
+penetrated; but the cold was so intense that men and horses were frozen
+to death, while the Chilians, clad in skins, were difficult to subdue.
+Almagro decided that Cuzco belonged to him, and miserable disputes
+followed between him and Pizarro, ending in the tragic end of the
+veteran explorer, Almagro.
+
+As the shiploads of gold reached the shores of Spain, more and more
+adventurers flocked over to the New World. They swarmed into "Golden
+Castile," about the city of Panama, and journeyed into the interior
+of the yet new and unknown world. There are terrible stories of their
+greed and cruelty to the native Indians. One story says that the Indians
+caught some of these Spaniards, tied their hands and feet together,
+threw them on the ground, and poured liquid gold into their mouths,
+crying, "Eat, eat gold, Christian!"
+
+Amongst other adventurers into South America at this time was Orellana,
+who crossed the continent from ocean to ocean. He had accompanied one
+of Pizarro's brothers into the land of the cinnamon forests, and with
+him had crossed the Andes in search of another golden kingdom beyond
+Quito. The expedition under Pizarro, consisting of some three hundred
+and fifty Spaniards, half of whom were horsemen, and four thousand
+Indians, set forward in the year 1540 to penetrate to the remote regions
+in the Hinterland, on the far side of the Andes. Their sufferings were
+intense. Violent thunderstorms and earthquakes terrified man and
+beast; the earth opened and swallowed up five hundred houses; rain
+fell in such torrents as to flood the land and cut off all communication
+between the explorers and cultivated regions; while crossing the lofty
+ridge of the Andes the cold was so intense that numbers of the party
+were literally frozen to death. At length they reached the land of
+the cinnamon trees, and, still pushing on, came to a river which must
+be crossed to reach the land of gold. They had finished their provisions,
+and had nothing to subsist on now save the wild fruit of the country.
+After following the course of the river for some way, Pizarro decided
+to build a little vessel to search for food along the river. All set
+to work, Pizarro and Orellana, one of his chief captains, working as
+hard as the men. They set up a forge for making nails, and burnt charcoal
+with endless trouble owing to the heavy rains which prevented the
+tinder from taking fire. They made nails from the shoes of the horses
+which had been killed to feed the sick. For tar they used the resin
+from the trees, for oakum they used blankets and old shirts. Then they
+launched the little home-made boat, thinking their troubles would be
+at an end. For some four hundred miles they followed the course of
+the river, but the supply of roots and berries grew scarcer and men
+perished daily from starvation. So Pizarro ordered Orellana to go
+quickly down the river with fifty men to some inhabited land of which
+they had heard, to fill the boat with provisions, and return.
+
+Off started Orellana down the river, but no villages or cultivated
+lands appeared; nothing was to be seen save flooded plains and gloomy,
+impenetrable forests. The river turned out to be a tributary of a much
+larger river. It was, indeed, the great river Amazon. Orellana now
+decided to go on down this great river and to desert Pizarro. True,
+his men were utterly weary, the current was too strong for them to
+row against, and they had no food to bring to their unhappy companions.
+There was likewise the possibility of reaching the kingdom of gold
+for which they were searching. There were some among his party who
+objected strongly to the course proposed by Orellana, to whom he
+responded by landing them on the edge of the dense forest and there
+leaving them to perish of hunger.
+
+It was the last day of 1540 that, having eaten their shoes and saddles
+boiled with a few wild herbs, they set out to reach the kingdom of
+gold. It was truly one of the greatest adventures of the age, and
+historic, for here we get the word El Dorado, used for the first time
+in the history of discovery--the legendary land of gold which was never
+found, but which attracted all the Elizabethan sailors to this
+romantic country. It would take too long to tell how they had to fight
+Indian tribes in their progress down the fast-flowing river, how they
+had to build a new boat, making bellows of their leather buskins and
+manufacturing two thousand nails in twenty days, how they found women
+on the banks of the river fighting as valiantly as men, and named the
+new country the Amazon land, and how at long last, after incredible
+hardship, they reached the sea in August 1541. They had navigated some
+two thousand miles. They now made their rigging and ropes of grass
+and sails of blankets, and so sailed out into the open sea, reaching
+one of the West India islands a few days later.
+
+And the deserted Pizarro? Tired of waiting for Orellana, he made his
+way sorrowfully home, arriving after two years' absence in Peru, with
+eighty men left out of four thousand three hundred and fifty, all the
+rest having perished in the disastrous expedition. And so we must leave
+the Spanish conquerors for the present, still exploring, still
+conquering, in these parts, ever adding glory and riches to Spain.
+Indeed, Spain and Portugal, as we have seen, entirely monopolise the
+horizon of geographical discovery till the middle of the sixteenth
+century, when other nations enter the arena.
+
+[Illustration: PERUVIAN WARRIORS OF THE INCA PERIOD. From an ancient
+Peruvian painting.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CABOT SAILS TO NEWFOUNDLAND
+
+
+It was no longer possible for the Old World to keep secret the wealth
+of the New World. English eyes were already straining across the seas,
+English hands were ready to grasp the treasure that had been Spain's
+for the last fifty years. While Spain was sending Christopher Columbus
+to and fro across the Atlantic to the West Indies, while Portugal was
+rejoicing in the success of Vasco da Gama, John Cabot, in the service
+of England, was making his way from Bristol to the New World. News
+of the first voyage of Columbus had been received by the Cabots--John
+and his son Sebastian--with infinite admiration. They believed with
+the rest of the world that the coast of China had been reached by sailing
+westward. Bristol was at this time the chief seaport in England, and
+the centre of trade for the Iceland fisheries. The merchants of the
+city had already ventured far on to the Atlantic, and various little
+expeditions had been fitted out by the merchants for possible
+discovery westward, but one after another failed, including the "most
+scientific mariner in all England," who started forth to find the
+island of Brazil to the west of Ireland, but, after nine miserable
+weeks at sea, was driven back to Ireland again by foul weather.
+
+Now Columbus had crossed the Atlantic, Cabot got leave from the English
+King, Henry VII., "to sail to the east, west, or north, with five ships
+carrying the English flag, to seek and discover all the islands,
+countries, regions, or provinces of pagans in whatever part of the
+world."
+
+Further, the King was to have one-fifth of the profits, and at all
+risks any conflict with Spain must be avoided. Nothing daunted, Cabot
+started off to fulfil his lord's commands in a tiny ship with eighteen
+men. We have the barest outlines of his proceedings. Practically all
+is contained in this one paragraph. "In the year 1497 John Cabot, a
+Venetian, and his son Sebastian discovered on the 24th of June, about
+five in the morning, that land to which no person had before ventured
+to sail, which they named Prima Vista or first seen, because, as I
+believe, it was the first part seen by them from the sea. The
+inhabitants use the skins and furs of wild beasts for garments, which
+they hold in as high estimation as we do our finest clothes. The soil
+yields no useful production, but it abounds in white bears and deer
+much larger than ours. Its coasts produce vast quantities of large
+fish--great seals, salmons, soles above a yard in length, and
+prodigious quantities of cod."
+
+[Illustration: PART OF NORTH AMERICA, SHOWING SEBASTIAN CABOT'S
+VOYAGE TO NEWFOUNDLAND. From the Map of 1544, usually ascribed to Cabot.
+The names in brackets are inserted in order to make this extract and
+its reference to Cabot's discoveries clear.]
+
+So much for the contemporary account of this historic voyage. A letter
+from England to Italy describes the effect of the voyage on England.
+"The Venetian, our countryman, who went with a ship from Bristol in
+quest of new islands, is returned and says that seven hundred leagues
+hence he discovered land, the territory of the Great Khan. He coasted
+for three hundred leagues and landed; he saw no human beings, but he
+has brought hither to the King certain snares which had been set to
+catch game and a needle for making nets. He also found some felled
+trees. Wherefore he supposed there were inhabitants, and returned to
+his ships in alarm. He was there three months on the voyage, and on
+his return he saw two islands to starboard, but would not land, time
+being precious, as he was short of provisions. He says the tides are
+slack and do not flow as they do here. The King of England is much
+pleased with this intelligence. The King has promised that in the
+spring our countryman shall have ten ships to his order, and at his
+request has conceded to him all the prisoners to man his fleet. The
+King has also given him money wherewith to amuse himself till then,
+and he is now at Bristol with his wife and sons. His name is Cabot,
+and he is styled the great Admiral. Vast honour is paid to him; he
+dresses in silk, and the English run after him like mad people."
+
+Yet another letter of the time tells how "Master John Cabot has won
+a part of Asia without a stroke of the sword." This Master John, too,
+"has the description of the world in a chart and also in a solid globe
+which he has made, and he shows where he landed. And they say that
+it is a good and temperate country, and they think that Brazil wood
+and silks grow there, and they affirm that that sea is covered with
+fishes."
+
+But "Master John" had set his heart on something greater. Constantly
+hugging the shore of America, he expected to find the island of Cipango
+(Japan) in the equinoctial region, where he should find all the spices
+of the world and any amount of precious stones.
+
+But after all this great promise Master John disappears from the pages
+of history and his son Sebastian continues to sail across the Atlantic,
+not always in the service of England, though in 1502 we find him
+bringing to the King of England three men taken in the Newfoundland,
+clothed in beasts' skins and eating raw flesh, and speaking a language
+which no man could understand. They must have been kindly dealt with
+by the King, for two years later the poor savages are "clothed like
+Englishmen."
+
+Though England claimed the discovery of this Newfoundland, the
+Portuguese declared that one of their countrymen, Cortereal--a
+gentleman of the royal household--had already discovered the "land
+of the cod-fish" in 1463. But then had not the Vikings already
+discovered this country five hundred years before?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+JACQUES CARTIER EXPLORES CANADA
+
+
+All the nations of Europe were now straining westward for new lands
+to conquer. French sailors had fished in the seas washing the western
+coast of North America; Verazzano, a Florentine, in the service of
+France, had explored the coast of the United States, and a good deal
+was known when Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman, steps upon the scene and
+wins for his country a large tract of land about the river St. Lawrence.
+His object was to find a way across America to Cathay. With two little
+ships of sixty tons and sixty-one "chosen men," Cartier left St. Malo
+on 20th April 1534. With prosperous weather he tells us he made the
+coast of Newfoundland in three weeks, which would mean sailing over
+one hundred miles a day. He was a little too early in the season, for
+the easterly winds which had helped him on his way had blocked the
+east coast of the island with Arctic ice. Having named the point at
+which he first touched land Cape Bona Vista, he cruised about till,
+the ice having melted, he could sail down the straits of Belle Isle
+between the mainland of Labrador and Newfoundland, already discovered
+by Breton fishermen. Then he explored the now familiar Gulf of St.
+Lawrence--the first European to report on it. All through June the
+little French ships sailed about the Gulf, darting across from island
+to island and cape to cape. Prince Edward Island appealed to him
+strongly. "It is very pleasant to behold," he tells us. "We found
+sweet-smelling trees as cedars, yews, pines, ash, willow. Where the
+ground was bare of trees it seemed very fertile and was full of wild
+corn, red and white gooseberries, strawberries, and blackberries, as
+if it had been cultivated on purpose." It now grew hotter, and Cartier
+must have been glad of a little heat. He sighted Nova Scotia and sailed
+by the coast of New Brunswick, without naming or surveying them. He
+describes accurately the bay still called Chaleur Bay: "We named this
+the Warm Bay, for the country is warmer even than Spain and exceedingly
+pleasant." They sailed up as far as they could, filled with hope that
+this might be the long-sought passage to the Pacific Ocean. Hope Cape
+they named the southern point, but they were disappointed by finding
+only a deep bay, and to-day, by a strange coincidence, the point
+opposite the northern shore is known as Cape Despair--the Cap d'Espoir
+of the early French mariners. Sailing on to the north amid strong
+currents and a heavy sea, Cartier at last put into a shelter (Gaspe
+Bay). Here, "on the 24th of July, we made a great cross thirty feet
+high, on which we hung up a shield with three fleurs-de-lis, and
+inscribed the cross with this motto: 'Vive le roi de France.' When
+this was finished, in presence of all the natives, we all knelt down
+before the cross, holding up our hands to heaven and praising God."
+
+[Illustration: JACQUES CARTIER. From an old pen drawing at the
+Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.]
+
+Storms and strong tides now decided Cartier to return to France. He
+knew nothing of the Cabot Strait between Newfoundland and the land
+afterwards called Nova Scotia, so he guided his little ships right
+through the Straits of Belle Isle, and after being "much tossed by
+a heavy tempest from the east, which we weathered by the blessing of
+God," he arrived safely home on 5th September, after his six months'
+adventure. He was soon commissioned to continue the navigation of
+these new lands, and in May 1535 he safely led three ships slightly
+larger than the last across the stormy Atlantic. Contrary winds, heavy
+gales, and thick fogs turned the voyage of three weeks into five--the
+ships losing one another not to meet again till the coast of Labrador
+was reached. Coasting along the southern coast, Cartier now entered
+a "very fine and large bay, full of islands, and with channels of
+entrance and exit in all winds." Cartier named it "Baye Saint Laurens,"
+because he entered it on 10th August--the feast of St. Lawrence.
+
+Do any of the English men and women who steam up the Gulf of St. Lawrence
+in the great ocean steamers to-day, on their way to Canada, ever give
+a thought to the little pioneer French ships that four hundred years
+ago thought they were sailing toward Cathay?
+
+"Savages," as Cartier calls the Indians, told him that he was near
+the mouth of the great river Hochelaga (now the St. Lawrence), which
+became narrower "as we approach towards Canada, where the water is
+fresh."
+
+"On the first day of September," says Cartier, "we set sail from the
+said harbour for Canada." Canada was just a native word for a town
+or village. It seems strange to read of the "lord of Canada" coming
+down the river with twelve canoes and many people to greet the first
+white men he had ever seen; strange, too, to find Cartier arriving
+at "the place called Hochelaga--twenty-five leagues above Canada,"
+where the river becomes very narrow, with a rapid current and very
+dangerous on account of rocks. For another week the French explorers
+sailed on up the unknown river. The country was pleasant, well-wooded,
+with "vines as full of grapes as they would hang." On 2nd October,
+Cartier arrived at the native town of Hochelaga. He was welcomed by
+hundreds of natives,--men, women, and children,--who gave the
+travellers as "friendly a welcome as if we had been of their own nation
+come home after a long and perilous absence." The women carried their
+children to him to touch them, for they evidently thought that some
+supernatural being had come up from the sea. All night they danced
+to the light of fires lit upon the shore.
+
+[Illustration: CANADA AND THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE, SHOWING QUEBEC
+(KEBEC). From Lescarbot's _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, 1609.]
+
+The next morning Cartier, "having dressed himself splendidly," went
+ashore with some of his men. All were well armed, though the natives
+seemed peacefully disposed. They marched along a well-beaten track
+to the Indian city, which stood in the midst of cultivated fields of
+Indian corn and maize. Again the inhabitants met them with signs of
+joy and gladness, and the King was carried shoulder high, seated on
+a large deer-skin with a red wreath round his head made of the skins
+of hedgehogs instead of a crown.
+
+A curious scene then took place. The King placed his crown on the head
+of the French explorer, before whom he humbled himself as before a
+god. Thus evidently did the people regard him, for they brought to
+him their blind, their lame, and their diseased folk that he might
+cure them. Touched with pity at the groundless confidence of these
+poor people, Cartier signed them with the sign of the cross. "He then
+opened a service book and read the passion of Christ in an audible
+voice, during which all the natives kept a profound silence, looking
+up to heaven and imitating all our gestures. He then caused our trumpets
+and other musical instruments to be sounded, which made the natives
+very merry."
+
+Cartier and his men then went to the top of the neighbouring mountain.
+The extensive view from the top created a deep impression on the French
+explorer; he grew enthusiastic over the beauty of the level valley
+below and called the place Mont Royal--a name communicated to the busy
+city of Montreal that lies below.
+
+Winter was now coming on, and Cartier decided against attempting the
+homeward voyage so late in the year; but to winter in the country he
+chose a spot between Montreal and Quebec, little thinking what the
+long winter months would bring forth. The little handful of Frenchmen
+had no idea of the severity of the Canadian climate; they little dreamt
+of the interminable months of ice and snow when no navigation was
+possible. Before Christmas had come round the men were down with
+scurvy; by the middle of February, "out of one hundred and ten persons
+composing the companies of our three ships, there were not ten in
+perfect health. Eight were dead already. The sickness increased to
+such a pitch that there were not above three sound men in the whole
+company; we were obliged to bury such as died under the snow, as the
+ground was frozen quite hard, and we were all reduced to extreme
+weakness, and we lost all hope of ever returning to France." From
+November to March four feet of snow lay upon the decks of their little
+ships. And yet, shut up as they were in the heart of a strange and
+unknown land, with their ships icebound and nought but savages around,
+there is no sound of murmur or complaint. "It must be allowed that
+the winter that year was uncommonly long" is all we hear.
+
+[Illustration: NEW FRANCE, SHOWING NEWFOUNDLAND, LABRADOR, AND THE
+ST. LAWRENCE. From Jocomo di Gastaldi's Map, about 1550. The "Isola
+de Demoni" is Labrador, and "Terra Nuova" and the islands south of
+it make up Newfoundland. The snaky-like line represents a sandbank,
+which was then thought, and agreed, to be the limit of fishing. Montreal
+(Port Real) will be noticed on the coast.]
+
+May found them free once more and making for home with the great news
+that, though they had not found the way to Cathay, they had discovered
+and taken a great new country for France.
+
+A new map of the world in 1536 marks Canada and Labrador, and gives
+the river St. Lawrence just beyond Montreal. A map of 1550 goes further,
+and calls the sea that washes the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador
+the "Sea of France," while to the south it is avowedly the "Sea of
+Spain."
+
+[Illustration: THE "DAUPHIN" MAP OF THE WORLD. MADE BY PIERRE
+DESCELIERS, 1546, TO THE ORDER OF FRANCIS I., FOR THE DAUPHIN (HENRI
+II. OF FRANCE). This map gives a remarkably clear and interesting view
+of geographical knowledge in the first half of the sixteenth century.
+(It is to be noted that all objects on one side of the Equinoctial
+are reversed.)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+SEARCH FOR A NORTH-EAST PASSAGE
+
+
+England was now awaking from her sleep--too late to possess the Spice
+Islands--too late for India and the Cape of Good Hope--too late, it
+would seem, for the New World. The Portuguese held the eastern route,
+the Spaniards the western route to the Spice Islands. But what if there
+were a northern route? All ways apparently led to Cathay. Why should
+England not find a way to that glorious land by taking a northern
+course?
+
+"If the seas toward the north be navigable we may go to these Spice
+Islands by a shorter way than Spain and Portugal," said Master Thorne
+of Bristol--a friend of the Cabots.
+
+"But the northern seas are blocked with ice and the northern lands
+are too cold for man to dwell in," objected some.
+
+"_There is no land uninhabitable, nor sea unnavigable_," was the
+heroic reply.
+
+"It was in this belief, and in this heroic temper, that England set
+herself to take possession of her heritage, the north. But it was not
+till the reign of Edward VI. that a Company of Merchant Adventurers
+was formed for the discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and
+places unknown," with old Sebastian Cabot as its first governor, and
+not till the year 1553 that three little ships under Sir Hugh Willoughby
+and Richard Chancellor were fitted out for a northern cruise. They
+carried letters of introduction from the boy-king of England to "all
+Kings, Princes, Rulers, Judges, and Governors of the Earth in all
+places under the universal heaven," including those "inhabiting the
+north-east parts of the world toward the mighty Empire of Cathay."
+
+Sir Hugh Willoughby, "a most valiant gentleman," hoisted the English
+flag on the _Bona Esperanza_, a good little ship of one hundred and
+twenty tons. The next in command was Richard Chancellor, "a man of
+great estimation for many good parts of wit in him," who sailed the
+_Edward Bonadventure_, which though not so fast as the flag-ship, was
+slightly larger. So certain were the promoters that the ships would
+reach the hot climates beyond Cathay that they had them sheathed with
+lead to protect them from worms which had proved so destructive in
+the tropics before.
+
+The account of the start of these first English Arctic explorers is
+too quaint to be passed in silence. "It was thought best that by the
+20th of May the Captains and Mariners should take shipping and depart
+if it pleased God. They, having saluted their acquaintance, one his
+wife, another his children, another his kinsfolk, and another his
+friends dearer than his kinsfolk, were ready at the day appointed.
+The greater ships are towed down with boats and oars, and the mariners,
+being all apparelled in sky-coloured cloth, made way with diligence.
+And being come near to Greenwich (where the Court then lay), the
+Courtiers came running out and the common people flocked together,
+standing very thick upon the shore: the Privy Council, they looked
+out of the windows of the Court, and the rest ran up to the tops of
+the towers, and the mariners shouted in such sort that the sky rang
+again with the noise thereof. But, alas! the good King Edward--he only
+by reason of his sickness was absent from this show."
+
+The ships dropped down to Woolwich with the tide and coasted along
+the east coast of England till "at the last with a good wind they hoisted
+up sail and committed themselves to the sea, giving their last adieu
+to their native country--many of them could not refrain from tears."
+Richard Chancellor himself had left behind two little sons, and his
+poor mind was tormented with sorrow and care.
+
+By the middle of July the North Sea had been crossed, and the three
+small ships were off the shores of Norway, coasting among the islands
+and fiords that line that indented kingdom. Coasting still northward,
+Willoughby led his ships to the Lofoten Islands, "plentifully
+inhabited by very gentle people" under the King of Denmark. They sailed
+on--
+
+   "To the west of them was the ocean,
+    To the right the desolate shore."
+
+till they had passed the North Cape, already discovered by Othere,
+the old sea-captain who dwelt in Helgoland.
+
+A terrible storm now arose, and "the sea was so outrageous that the
+ships could not keep their intended course, but some were driven one
+way and some another way to their great peril and hazard." Then Sir
+Hugh Willoughby shouted across the roaring seas to Richard Chancellor,
+begging him not to go far from him. But the little ships got separated
+and never met again. Willoughby was blown across the sea to Nova Zembla.
+
+   "The sea was rough and stormy,
+      The tempest howled and wailed,
+    And the sea-fog like a ghost
+      Haunted that dreary coast.
+    But onward still I sailed."
+
+The weather grew more and more Arctic, and he made his way over to
+a haven in Lapland where he decided to winter. He sent men to explore
+the country, but no signs of mankind could be found; there were bears
+and foxes and all manner of strange beasts, but never a human being.
+It must have been desperately dreary as the winter advanced, with ice
+and snow and freezing winds from the north. What this little handful
+of Englishmen did, how they endured the bitter winter on the desolate
+shores of Lapland, no man knows. Willoughby was alive in January
+1554--then all is silent.
+
+And what of Richard Chancellor on board the _Bonadventure_? "Pensive,
+heavy, and sorrowful," but resolute to carry out his orders, "Master
+Chancellor held on his course towards that unknown part of the world,
+and sailed so far that he came at last to the place where he found
+no night at all, but a continual light and brightness of the Sun,
+shining clearly upon the huge and mighty Sea." After a time he found
+and entered a large bay where he anchored, making friends with the
+fisher folk on the shores of the White Sea to the north of Russia.
+So frightened were the natives at the greatness of the English ships
+that at first they ran away, half-dead with fear. Soon, however, they
+regained confidence and, throwing themselves down, they began to kiss
+the explorer's feet, "but he (according to his great and singular
+courtesy) looked pleasantly upon them." By signs and gestures he
+comforted them until they brought food to the "new-come guests," and
+went to tell their king of the arrival of "a strange nation of singular
+gentleness and courtesy."
+
+Then the King of Russia or Muscovie--Ivan Vasiliwich--sent for Master
+Chancellor to go to Moscow. The journey had to be made in sledges over
+the ice and snow. A long and weary journey it must have been, for his
+guide lost the way, and they had travelled nearly one thousand five
+hundred miles before Master Chancellor came at last to Moscow, the
+chief city of the kingdom, "as great as the city of London with all
+its suburbs," remarks Chancellor. Arrived at the King's palace, Master
+Chancellor was received by one hundred Russian courtiers dressed in
+cloth of gold to the very ankles. The King sat aloft on a high throne,
+with a crown of gold on his head, holding in his hand a glittering
+sceptre studded with precious stones. The Englishman and his
+companions saluted the King, who received them graciously and read
+the letter from Edward VI. with interest. They did not know that the
+boy-king was dead, and that his sister Mary was on the throne of England.
+The King was much interested in the long beards grown by the Englishmen.
+That of one of the company was five foot two inches in length, "thick,
+broad, and yellow coloured." "This is God's gift," said the Russians.
+
+[Illustration: IVAN VASILIWICH, KING OF MUSCOVIE. From a sixteenth
+century woodcut.]
+
+To Edward VI. of England the King sent a letter by the hands of Richard
+Chancellor, giving leave readily for England to trade with Russia.
+
+Master Chancellor seems to have arrived home again safely with his
+account of Russia, which encouraged the Merchant Adventurers to send
+forth more ships to develop trade with this great new country of which
+they knew so little.
+
+To this end Anthony Jenkinson, "a resolute and intelligent gentleman,"
+was selected, and "with four tall, well-appointed ships he sailed on
+12th May 1557 toward the land of Russia." He reached Cape North on
+2nd July, and a few days later he passed the spot where Sir Hugh
+Willoughby and all his company had perished. Anchoring in the Bay of
+St. Nicholas, he took a sledge for Moscow, where he delivered his
+letters safely to the King. So icebound was the country that it was
+April 1558 before he was able to leave Moscow for the south, to
+accomplish, if possible, the orders of the Merchant Adventurers to
+find an overland route to Cathay. With letters of introduction from
+the Russian King to the princes and kings through whose dominions he
+was to pass, Master Jenkinson made his way to the Volga, whence he
+continued his voyage with a Russian captain who was travelling south
+in great style to take up a command at Astrakan with five hundred boats
+laden with soldiers, stores, food, and merchandise.
+
+After three months' travelling, and having passed over some one
+thousand two hundred miles, the Englishman reached the south. The city
+of Astrakan offered no attractions and no hope of trade, so Jenkinson
+boldly took upon himself to navigate the mouth of the Volga and to
+reach the Caspian Sea. He was the first Englishman to cross Russia
+from the White Sea to the Caspian. Never before on the Caspian had
+the red cross of St. George been seen flying from the masthead of a
+ship sailed by Englishmen. After three weeks' buffeting by contrary
+winds, they found themselves on the eastern shores, and, getting
+together a caravan of one thousand camels, they went forward. No sooner
+had they landed than they found themselves in a land of thieves and
+robbers. Jenkinson hastened to the Sultan of these parts, a noted
+robber himself, to be kindly received by the Tartar Prince, who set
+before him the flesh of a wild horse and some mare's milk. Then the
+little English party travelled on for three weeks through desolate
+land with no rivers, no houses, no inhabitants, till they reached the
+banks of the Oxus. "Here we refreshed ourselves," says the explorer,
+"having been three days without water and drink, and tarried there
+all the next day making merry with our slain horses and camels." For
+a hundred miles they followed the course of this great river until
+they reached another desert, where they were again attacked by bands
+of thieves and robbers.
+
+It was Christmas Eve when they at last reached Bokhara, only to find
+that the merchants were so poor that there was no hope of any trade
+worth following, though the city was full of caravans from India and
+the Far East. And here they heard that the way to Cathay was barred
+by reason of grievous wars which were going on. Winter was coming on;
+so Jenkinson remained for a couple of months before starting on his
+long journey home. With a caravan of six hundred camels he made his
+way back to the Caspian, and on 2nd September he had reached Moscow
+safely with presents of "a white cow's tail of Cathay and a drum of
+Tartary" for the King, which seemed to give that monarch the greatest
+pleasure. He evidently stayed for a time in Russia, for it is not till
+the year 1560 that we find him writing to the Merchant Adventurers
+that "at the next shipping I embark myself for England."
+
+[Illustration: ANTHONY JENKINSON'S MAP OF RUSSIA, MUSCOVY, AND
+TARTARY, PUBLISHED IN 1562.]
+
+While Jenkinson was endeavouring to reach the Far East by land, a
+Portuguese named Pinto had succeeded in reaching it by sea. The
+discovery of Japan is claimed by three people. Antonio de Mota had
+been thrown by a storm on to the island of Nison, called by the Chinese
+Jepwen--Japan--in the year 1542. Pinto claims to have discovered it
+the same year. It seems that the Japanese were expecting the return
+of a god, and as the white men hove in sight they exclaimed: "These
+are certainly the Chinchi cogies spoken of in our records, who, flying
+over the waters, shall come to be lords of the lands where God has
+placed the greatest riches of the world. It will be fortunate for us
+if they come as friends."
+
+Now men of the time refused to believe in the travels of Mendex Pinto.
+"He should be called Mendax Pinto," said one, "whose book is one
+continued chain of monstrous fiction which deserves no credit," while
+a hundred and fifty years later Congreve wrote--
+
+   "Ferdinando Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee,
+    Thou liar of the first magnitude."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+MARTIN FROBISHER SEARCHES FOR A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE
+
+
+So far the expeditions of Willoughby, Chancellor, and Jenkinson had
+all failed to reach the Far East. The Spanish had a way thither by
+Magellan's Strait, the Portuguese by the Cape of Good Hope. England
+in the middle of the sixteenth century had no way. What about a
+North-West Passage leading round Labrador from the Atlantic to the
+Pacific? England was waking up to possibilities of future exploration.
+She was also ready and anxious to annoy Spain for having monopolised
+the riches and wealth of the New World. And so it was that Queen
+Elizabeth turned with interest to the suggestions of one of her
+subjects--Martin Frobisher--"a mariner of great experience and
+ability," when he enthusiastically consulted her on the navigation
+of the North-West Passage. For the last fifteen years he had been trying
+to collect ships and men for the enterprise. "It is the only thing
+in the world left undone whereby a notable mind might be made famous
+and fortunate," he affirmed.
+
+But it was not till the year 1576 that he got a chance of fitting out
+two small ships--two very small ships--the _Gabriel_ of twenty tons,
+the _Michael_ of twenty-five tons, to explore the icy regions of the
+north. A wave of the Queen's hand gladdened his heart as he sailed
+past the palace of Greenwich, where the Court resided, and he was soon
+sailing northward harassed and battered by many storms. His little
+ten-ton pinnace was lost, and the same storm that overtook the little
+fleet to the north of Scotland so terrified the captain of the _Michael_
+that he deserted and turned home with the news that Frobisher had
+perished with all hands.
+
+Meanwhile Frobisher, resolute in his undertaking, was nearing the
+coast of Greenland--alone in the little _Gabriel_ with a mere handful
+of men all inexperienced in the art of navigating the Polar seas.
+
+   "And now there came both mist and snow,
+    And it grew wondrous cold"
+
+as Frobisher sailed his storm-beaten ship across the wintry seas. But
+"I will sacrifice my life to God rather than return home without
+discovering a north-west passage to Cathay," he told his eighteen men
+with sublime courage. Passing Cape Farewell, he sailed north-west with
+the Greenland current, which brought him to the icebound shores near
+Hudson's Bay. He did not see the straits afterwards discovered by
+Hudson, but, finding an inlet farther north, he sailed some hundred
+miles, in the firm belief that this was the passage for which he was
+searching, that America lay on his left and Asia on his right. Magellan
+had discovered straits in the extreme south; Frobisher made sure that
+he had found corresponding straits to the extreme north, and
+Frobisher's Straits they were accordingly named, and as such they
+appeared on the maps of the day till they had to be renamed Lumley's
+Inlet. The snow and ice made further navigation impossible for this
+year, and full of their great news they returned home accompanied by
+an Eskimo. These natives had been taken for porpoises by our English
+explorers, but later they were reported to be "strange infidels whose
+like was never seen, read, or heard of before."
+
+[Illustration: GREENLANDERS AS SEEN BY MARTIN FROBISHER. From Captain
+Beste's account of Frobisher's voyages, 1578.]
+
+Martin Frobisher was received with enthusiasm and "highly commended
+of all men for his great and notable attempt, but specially famous
+for the great hope he brought of the passage to Cathay." Besides the
+Eskimo the explorers carried home a black stone, which, when thrown
+on the fire by one of the sailor's wives, glittered like gold. The
+gold refiners of London were hastily called in, and they reported that
+it contained a quantity of gold.
+
+A new incentive was now given to Polar exploration. The Queen herself
+contributed a tall ship of some two hundred tons to the new expedition
+that was eagerly fitted out, and the High Admiral of all seas and waters,
+countries, lands, and isles, as Frobisher was now called, sailed away
+again for the icy north, more to search for gold than to discover the
+North-West Passage. He added nothing more to the knowledge of the world,
+and though he sailed through the strait afterwards known as Hudson's
+Strait, he never realised his discovery. His work was hampered by the
+quest for gold, for which England was eagerly clamouring, and he
+disappears from our history of discovery.
+
+The triumphant return of Francis Drake in 1580 laden with treasure
+from the Spice Islands put into the shade all schemes for a north-west
+passage for the moment.
+
+Nevertheless, this voyage of Martin Frobisher is important in the
+history of exploration. It was the first attempt of an Englishman to
+make search amid the ice of the Arctic regions--a search in which so
+many were yet to lay down their lives.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+DRAKE'S FAMOUS VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD
+
+   "Call him on the deep sea, call him up the sound,
+    Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
+    Where the old trade's plyin' and the old flag flyin',
+    They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!"
+                                                     HENRY NEWBOLT.
+
+
+Drake's famous voyage, as it is known to history (1577-1580), was
+indeed famous, for although Magellan's ship had sailed round the world
+fifty years before, Drake was the first Englishman to do so, and,
+further, he discovered for us land to the south of Magellan's Strait
+round which washed the waters of Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, showing
+that the mysterious land marked on contemporary maps as Terra
+Australis and joined to South America was a separate land altogether.
+He also explored the coast of America as far north as Vancouver Island,
+and disclosed to England the secret of the Spice Islands. The very
+name of Drake calls up a vision of thrilling adventure on the high
+seas. He had been at sea since he was a boy of fifteen, when he had
+been apprenticed to the master of a small ship trading between England
+and the Netherlands, and many a time he had sailed on the grey North
+Sea. "But the narrow seas were a prison for so large a spirit born
+for greater undertakings," and in 1567 we find Drake sailing forth
+on board the _Judith_ in an expedition over to the Spanish settlements
+in America under his kinsman, John Hawkins. Having crossed the
+Atlantic and filled his ships with Spanish treasure from "the Spanish
+Main," and having narrowly escaped death from the hands of the
+Spaniards, Drake had hurried home to tell of the riches of this new
+country still closed to all other nations. Two years later Drake was
+off again, this time in command himself of two ships with crews of
+seventy-three young men, their modest aim being nothing less than to
+seize one of the Spanish ports and empty into their holds the "Treasure
+House of the World." What if this act of reckless daring was
+unsuccessful? The undertaking was crowned with a higher success than
+that of riches, for Drake was the first Englishman to see the waters
+of the Pacific Ocean. His expedition was not unlike that of Balboa
+some sixty years before, as with eighteen chosen companions he climbed
+the forest-clad spurs of the ridge dividing the two great oceans.
+Arrived at the top, he climbed up a giant tree, and the Golden Sea
+of which he had so often heard--the Pacific Ocean of Magellan, the
+waters washing the golden shores of Mexico and Peru--all lay below
+him. Descending from the heights, he sank upon his knees and "humbly
+besought Almighty God of His goodness to give him life and leave to
+sail once in an English ship in that sea."
+
+[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. From Holland's _Heroologia_, 1620.]
+
+Jealously had the Spanish guarded this beautiful Southern Sea, now
+her secrets were laid bare, for an Englishman had gazed upon it and
+he was not likely to remain satisfied with this alone.
+
+In 1573 Drake came home with his wonderful news, and it was not long
+before he was eagerly talking over with the Queen a project for a raid
+into this very Golden Sea guarded by the Spaniards. Elizabeth promised
+help on condition that the object of the expedition should remain a
+secret. Ships were bought for "a voyage to Egypt"; there was the
+_Pelican_ of one hundred tons, the _Marygold_ of thirty tons, and a
+provision ship of fifty tons. A fine new ship of eighty tons, named
+the _Elizabeth_, mysteriously added itself to the little fleet, and
+the crews numbered in all some one hundred and fifty men. No expense
+was spared in the equipment of the ships. Musicians were engaged for
+the voyage, the arms and ammunition were of the latest pattern. The
+flagship was lavishly furnished: there were silver bowls and mugs and
+dishes richly gilt and engraved with the family arms, while the
+commander's cabin was full of sweet-smelling perfumes presented by
+the Queen herself. Thus, complete at last, Drake led his gay little
+squadron out of Plymouth harbour on 15th November 1577, bound for
+Alexandria--so the crews thought.
+
+Little did Drake know what was before him, as, dressed in his seaman's
+shirt, his scarlet cap with its gold band on his head, he waved farewell
+to England. Who could foresee the terrible beginning, with treachery
+and mutiny at work, or the glorious ending when the young Englishman
+sailed triumphantly home after his three years' voyage--the world
+encompassed?
+
+Having reached the Cape de Verde Islands in safety, the object of the
+expedition could no longer remain a secret, and Drake led his squadron
+boldly across the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+On 5th April the coast of Brazil appeared, but fogs and heavy weather
+scattered the ships and they had to run into the mouth of the La Plata
+for shelter. Then for six weary weeks the ships struggled southward,
+battered by gales and squalls during which nothing but the daring
+seamanship of the English navigators saved the little vessels from
+destruction. It was not till 20th June that they reached Port St. Julian
+of Magellan fame, on the desolate shores of Patagonia. As they entered
+the harbour, a grim sight met their eyes. On that windswept shore was
+the skeleton of the man hung by Magellan years before.
+
+[Illustration: THE SILVER MAP OF THE WORLD. From the medallion in the
+British Museum, probably struck in 1581, showing the line of Drake's
+voyage from England in 1577 westwards through the Magellan Strait to
+California and New Albion.]
+
+History was to repeat itself, and the same fate was now to befall an
+unhappy Englishman guilty of the same conduct.
+
+Drake had long had reason to suspect the second in command, Doughty,
+though he was his dear friend. He had been guilty of worse than
+disobedience, and the very success of the voyage was threatened. So
+Drake called a council together and Doughty was tried according to
+English law. After two days' trial he was found guilty and condemned
+to die. One of the most touching scenes in the history of exploration
+now took place. One sees the little English crews far away on that
+desolate shore, the ships lying at anchor in the harbour, the block
+prepared, the altar raised beside it, the two old friends, Drake and
+Doughty, kneeling side by side, then the flash of the sword and Drake
+holding up the head of his friend with the words, "Lo, this is the
+end of traitors."
+
+It was now midwinter, and for six weeks they remained in harbour till
+August came, and with three ships they emerged to continue their way
+to the Straits of Magellan. At last it was found and boldly they entered.
+From the towering mountains that guarded the entry, tempests of wind
+and snow swept down upon the "daring intruders." As they made their
+way through the rough and winding waters, they imagined with all the
+other geographers of their time that the unknown land to the south
+was one great continent leading beyond the boundaries of the world.
+Fires lit by the natives on this southern coast added terror to the
+wild scene. But at the end of sixteen days they found themselves once
+more in the open sea. They were at last on the Pacific Ocean. But it
+was anything but pacific. A terrible tempest arose, followed by other
+storms no less violent, and the ships were driven helplessly southward
+and westward far beyond Cape Horn. When they once more reached the
+coast they found in the place of the great southern continent an
+indented wind-swept shore washed by waves terrific in their height
+and strength. In the ceaseless gale the _Marygold_ foundered with all
+hands and was never heard of again. A week later the captain of the
+_Elizabeth_ turned home, leaving the _Pelican_, now called the _Golden
+Hind_, to struggle on alone. After nearly two months of storm, Drake
+anchored among the islands southward of anything yet known to the
+geographers, where Atlantic and Pacific rolled together in one
+boisterous flood. Walking alone to the farthest end of the island,
+Drake is said to have laid himself down and with his arms embraced
+the southernmost point of the known world.
+
+[Illustration: THE SILVER MAP OF THE WORLD. The reverse half, showing
+the route of Drake's voyage home from California in 1579-1580, through
+the Spice Islands and the Indian Ocean. The end of the homeward track,
+round the Azores, will be seen on the previous Silver Map
+illustration.]
+
+He showed that the Tierra del Fuego, instead of being part of a great
+continent--the Terra Australis--was a group of islands with open sea
+to east, south, and west. This discovery was first shown on a Dutch
+silver medallion struck in Holland about 1581, known as The Silver
+Map of the world, and may be seen to-day in the British Museum.
+
+[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO SAIL ROUND
+THE WORLD. After the engraving attributed to Hondius.]
+
+Remarking that the ocean he was now entering would have been better
+called "Mare Furiosum" than "Mare Pacificum," Drake now directed his
+course along the western coast of South America. He found the coast
+of Chili, but not as the general maps had described it, "wherefore
+it appeareth that this part of Chili hath not been truly hitherto
+discovered," remarked one on board the _Golden Hind_. Bristling with
+guns, the little English ship sailed along the unknown coast, till
+they reached Valparaiso. Here they found a great Spanish ship laden
+with treasure from Peru. Quickly boarding her, the English sailors
+bound the Spaniards, stowed them under the hatches, and hastily
+transferred the cargo on to the _Golden Hind_. They sailed on
+northwards to Lima and Panama, chasing the ships of Spain, plundering
+as they went, till they were deeply laden with stolen Spanish treasure
+and knew that they had made it impossible to return home by that coast.
+So Drake resolved to go on northward and discover, if possible, a way
+home by the north. He had probably heard of Frobisher's Strait, and
+hoped to find a western entrance.
+
+As they approached the Arctic regions the weather grew bitterly cold,
+and "vile, thick, stinking fogs" determined them to sail southward.
+They had reached a point near what we now know as Vancouver Island
+when contrary winds drove them back and they put in at a harbour, now
+known as San Francisco, to repair the ship for the great voyage across
+the Pacific and home by the Cape of Good Hope. Drake had sailed past
+seven hundred miles of new coast-line in twelve days, and he now turned
+to explore the new country, to which he gave the name of New Albion.
+The Indians soon began to gather in large quantities on the shore,
+and the King himself, tall and comely, advanced in a friendly manner.
+Indeed, he took off his crown and set it on the head of Drake and,
+hanging chains about his neck, the Indians made him understand that
+the land was now his and that they were his vassals.
+
+[Illustration: THE _GOLDEN HIND_ AT NEW ALBION. From the Chart of
+Drake's Voyages. 1589.]
+
+Little did King Drake dream, as he named his country New Albion, that
+Californian gold was so near. His subjects were loving and peaceable,
+evidently regarding the English as gods and reverencing them as such.
+The chronicler is eloquent in his detailed description of all the royal
+doings.
+
+"Before we left," he says, "our General caused to be set up a monument
+of our being there, as also of Her Majesty's right and title to that
+kingdom, namely, a plate of brass, fast nailed to a great and firm
+post, whereon is engraved Her Grace's name and the day and year of
+our arrival here, and of the free giving up of the province, both by
+the people and king, into Her Majesty's hands, together with Her
+Highness' picture and arms in a piece of sixpence current money. The
+Spanish never so much as set foot in this country--the utmost of their
+discoveries reaching only to many degrees southward of this place.
+
+"And now, as the time of our departure was perceived by the people,
+so did the sorrows and miseries seem to increase upon them--not only
+did they lose on a sudden all mirth, joy, glad countenance, pleasant
+speeches, agility of body, but with signs and sorrowings, with heavy
+hearts and grieved minds, they poured out woeful complaints and moans,
+with bitter tears and wringing of their hands, tormenting themselves.
+And, as men refusing all comfort, they only accounted themselves as
+those whom the gods were about to forsake."
+
+Indeed, the poor Indians looked on these Englishmen as gods, and, when
+the day came for them to leave, they ran to the top of the hills to
+keep the little ship in sight as long as possible, after which they
+burnt fires and made sacrifices at their departure.
+
+Drake left New Albion on 23rd July 1579, to follow the lead of Magellan
+and to pass home by the southern seas and the Atlantic Ocean. After
+sixty-eight days of quick and straight sailing, with no sight of land,
+they fell in with the Philippine Islands, and on 3rd November with
+the famous Spice Islands. Here they were well received by the King--a
+magnificent person attired in cloth of gold, with bare legs and shoes
+of Cordova skins, rings of gold in his hair, and a chain "of perfect
+gold" about his neck. The Englishmen were glad enough to get fresh
+food after their long crossing, and fared sumptuously on rice, hens,
+"imperfect and liquid sugar," sugar-canes, and a fruit they call figo,
+with plenty of cloves. On a little island near Celebes the _Golden
+Hind_ was thoroughly repaired for her long voyage home. But the little
+treasure-laden ship was nearly wrecked before she got away from the
+dangerous shoals and currents of these islands.
+
+"Upon the 9th of January we ran suddenly upon a rock, where we stuck
+fast from eight of the clock at night till four of the clock in the
+afternoon the next day, being, indeed, out of all hope to escape the
+danger; but our General, as he had always hitherto showed himself
+courageous, so now he and we did our best endeavours to save ourselves,
+which it pleased God so to bless, that in the end we cleared ourselves
+most happily of the danger."
+
+[Illustration: THE _GOLDEN HIND_ AT JAVA. From the Chart of Drake's
+Voyages.]
+
+Then they ran across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope
+in calm weather, abusing the Portuguese for calling it the most
+dangerous Cape in the world for intolerable storms, for "This Cape,"
+said the English, "is a most stately thing and the finest Cape we saw
+in the whole circumference of the earth."
+
+And so they came home. After nearly three years' absence Drake
+triumphantly sailed his little _Golden Hind_ into Plymouth harbour,
+where he had long ago been given up as lost. Shouts of applause rang
+through the land at the news that an Englishman had circumnavigated
+the world. The Queen sent for Drake to tell his wonderful story, to
+which she listened spellbound. A great banquet was held on board the
+little ship, at which Elizabeth was present and knighted Drake, while
+she ordered that the _Golden Hind_ should be preserved "as a worthy
+rival of Magellan's _Victoria_" and as "a monument to all posterity
+of that famous and worthy exploit of Sir Francis Drake." It was
+afterwards taken to pieces, and the best parts of wood were made into
+a chair at Oxford, commemorated by Cowley's lines--
+
+   "To this great ship, which round the world has run
+    And matched in race the chariot of the sun;
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Drake and his ship could ne'er have wished from fate
+    A happier station or more blest estate;
+    For lo, a seat of endless rest is given
+    To her in Oxford and to him in Heaven."
+
+Sir Francis Drake died at sea in 1596.
+
+   "The waves became his winding sheet, the waters were his tomb,
+    But for his fame the ocean sea was not sufficient room."
+
+[Illustration: "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"--V. The world as known
+after its circumnavigation by Sir Francis Drake in the years
+1577-1580.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+DAVIS STRAIT
+
+
+But even while Drake was sailing round the world, and Frobisher's
+search for a north-west passage had been diverted into a quest for
+gold, men's minds were still bent on the achievement of reaching Cathay
+by some northern route. A discourse by Sir Humphrey Gilbert to prove
+the existence of a passage by the north-west to Cathay and the East
+Indies, in ten chapters, was much discussed, and the Elizabethan
+seamen were still bent on its discovery.
+
+"When I gave myself to the study of geography," said Sir Humphrey,
+"and came to the fourth part of the world, commonly called America,
+which by all descriptions I found to be an island environed round by
+sea, having on the south side of it the Strait of Magellan, on the
+west side the Sea of the South, which sea runneth toward the north,
+separating it from the east parts of Asia, and on the north side the
+sea that severeth it from Greenland, through which Northern Seas the
+Passage lieth which I take now in hand to discover."
+
+The arguments of Sir Humphrey seemed conclusive, and in 1585 they chose
+John Davis, "a man well grounded in the principles of the art of
+navigation," to search for the North-West Passage to China. They gave
+him two little ships, the _Sunshine_ of fifty tons, with a crew of
+seventeen seamen, four musicians, and a boy, and the _Moonshine_ of
+thirty-five tons. It was a daring venture, but the expedition was
+ill-equipped to battle with the icebound seas of the frozen north.
+The ships left Dartmouth on 7th June, and by July they were well out
+on the Atlantic with porpoises and whales playing round them. Then
+came a time of fog and mist, "with a mighty great roaring of the sea."
+On 20th July they sailed out of the fog and beheld the snow-covered
+mountains of Greenland, beyond a wide stream of pack-ice--so gloomy,
+so "waste, and void of any creatures," so bleak and inhospitable that
+the Englishmen named it the Land of Desolation and passed on to the
+north. Rounding the point, afterwards named by Davis Cape Farewell,
+and sailing by the western coast of Greenland, they hoped to find the
+passage to Cathay. Landing amid the fiords and the "green and pleasant
+isles" about the coast, they anchored a while to refresh, and named
+their bay Gilbert Sound, after Sir Humphrey and Davis' own little boy,
+Gilbert, left at home.
+
+"The people of the country," says Davis, "having espied our ships,
+came down unto us in their canoes, holding up their right hand toward
+the sun. We doing the like, the people came aboard our ships, men of
+good stature, unbearded, small-eyed, and of tractable conditions. We
+bought the clothes from their backs, which were all made of seals'
+skins and birds' skins, their buskins, their hose, their gloves, all
+being commonly sewed and well dressed."
+
+[Illustration: AN ESKIMO. From a water-colour drawing by John White,
+about 1585, who may have seen Eskimo either in Frobisher's or Davis's
+voyages.]
+
+These simple Greenlanders who worshipped the sun gave Davis to
+understand that there was a great and open sea to the north-west, and
+full of hope he sailed on. But he soon abandoned the search, for the
+season was advancing, and, crossing the open sea, he entered the broad
+channel named after him Davis Strait, crossed the Arctic Circle, and
+anchored under a promontory, "the cliffs whereof were orient as gold,"
+naming it Mount Raleigh. Here they found four white bears of "a
+monstrous bigness," which they took to be goats or wolves, till on
+nearer acquaintance they were discovered to be great Polar bears.
+There were no signs of human life, no wood, no grass, no earth, nothing
+but rock, so they coasted southwards, and to their joy they found an
+open strait to the west free from ice. Eagerly they sailed the little
+_Moonshine_ and _Sunshine_ up the opening, which they called
+Cumberland Sound, till thick fogs and adverse winds drove them back.
+Winter was now advancing, the six months' provisions were ended, and,
+satisfied with having found an open passage westward, Davis sailed
+home in triumph to fit out another expedition as soon as spring came
+round. His news was received with delight. "The North-West Passage
+is a matter nothing doubtful," he affirmed, "but at any time almost
+to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air tolerable, and
+the waters very deep."
+
+With this certainty of success the merchants readily fitted out
+another expedition, and Davis sailed early in May 1586 with four ships.
+The little _Moonshine_ and _Sunshine_ were included in the new fleet,
+but Davis himself commanded the _Mermaid_ of one hundred and twenty
+tons. The middle of June found him on the west coast of Greenland,
+battling his way with great blocks of ice to his old quarters at Gilbert
+Sound. What a warm welcome they received from their old Eskimo friends;
+"they rowed to the boat and took hold on the oars and hung about with
+such comfortable joy as would require a long discourse to be uttered."
+Followed by a wondering crowd of natives eager to help him up and down
+the rocks, Davis made his way inland to find an inviting country, "with
+earth and grass such as our moory and waste grounds of England are";
+he found, too, mosses and wild flowers in the sheltered places. But
+his business lay in the icy waters, and he boldly pushed forward. But
+ice and snow and fog made further progress impossible; shrouds, ropes,
+and sails were turned into a frozen mass, and the crew was filled with
+despair. "Our men began to grow sick and feeble and hopeless of good
+success, and they advised me that in conscience I ought to regard the
+safety of mine own life with the preservation of theirs, and that I
+should not through my over-boldness leave their widows and fatherless
+children to give me bitter curses."
+
+So Davis rearranged his crews and provisions, and with the _Moonshine_
+and a selection of his best men he determined to voyage on "as God
+should direct him," while the _Mermaid_ should carry the sick and
+feeble and fainthearted home. Davis then crossed over the strait
+called by his name and explored the coast about Cumberland Sound. Again
+he tried here to discover the long-sought passage, but the brief summer
+season was almost past and he had to content himself with exploring
+the shores of Labrador, unconsciously following the track made by John
+Cabot eighty-nine years before.
+
+But on his return home the merchants of London were disappointed. Davis
+had indeed explored an immense extent of coast-line, and he had brought
+back a cargo of cod-fish and five hundred seal skins, but Cathay seemed
+as far off as ever. One merchant prince, Sanderson by name, was still
+very keen, and he helped Davis to fit out yet another expedition. With
+three ships, the _Sunshine_, the _Elizabeth_, and the _Helen_, the
+undaunted Arctic explorer now found himself for the third summer in
+succession at his old halting-place, Gilbert's Sound, on the west
+coast of Greenland.
+
+Leaving his somewhat discontented crews to go fishing off the coast
+of Labrador, he took the little twenty-ton pinnace, with a small party
+of brave spirits like his own, and made his way northwards in a free
+and open sea. The weather was hot, land was visible on both sides,
+and the English mariners were under the impression that they were
+sailing up a gulf. But the passage grew wider and wider, till Davis
+found himself with the sea all open to west and north. He had crossed
+the Arctic Circle and reached the most northerly point ever yet reached
+by an explorer. Seeing on his right a lofty cliff, he named it
+"Sanderson his Hope," for it seemed to give hope of the long-sought
+passage to Cathay.
+
+It was a memorable day in the annals of discovery, 30th June 1587,
+when Davis reached this famous point on the coast of Greenland. "A
+bright blue sea extended to the horizon on the north and west,
+obstructed by no ice, but here and there a few majestic icebergs with
+peaks snowy shooting up into the sky." To the eastward were the granite
+mountains of Greenland, and beyond them the white line of the mightiest
+glacier in the world. Rising immediately above the tiny vessel was
+the beetling wall of Hope Sanderson, with its summit eight hundred
+and fifty feet above sea-level. At its base the sea was a sheet of
+foam and spray. It must have been a scene like fairyland, for, as Davis
+remarked, there was "no ice towards the north, but a great sea, free,
+large, very salt and blue, and of an unsearchable depth."
+
+But again disappointment awaited him. That night a wind from the north
+barred further advance as a mighty bank of ice some eight feet thick
+came drifting down toward the Atlantic. Again and again he attempted
+to get on, but it was impossible, and reluctantly enough he turned
+the little ship southwards.
+
+"This Davis hath been three times employed; why hath he not found the
+passage?" said the folk at home when he returned and reported his doings.
+How little they realised the difficulties of the way. The commander
+of the twenty-ton _Ellen_ had done more than any man had done before
+him in the way of Arctic exploration. He had discovered seven hundred
+and thirty-two miles of coast from Cape Farewell to Sanderson's Hope;
+he had examined the whole coast of Labrador; he had "converted the
+Arctic regions from a confused myth into a defined area." "He lighted
+Baffin into his bay. He lighted Hudson into his strait. He lighted
+Hans Egede to the scene of his Greenland labour." And more than this,
+says his enthusiastic biographer: "His true-hearted devotion to the
+cause of Arctic discovery, his patient scientific research, his
+loyalty to his employers, his dauntless gallantry and enthusiasm form
+an example which will be a beacon-light to maritime explorers for all
+time to come."
+
+   "And Davis three times forth for the north-west made,
+    Still striving by that course t'enrich the English trade;
+    And as he well deserved, to his eternal fame,
+    There, by a mighty sea, immortalised his name."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+BARENTS SAILS TO SPITZBERGEN
+
+
+With the third failure of John Davis to find the North-West Passage
+the English search for Cathay came to an end for the present. But the
+merchants of Amsterdam took up the search, and in 1594 they fitted
+out an expedition under William Barents, a burgher of Amsterdam and
+a practical seaman of much experience. The three voyages of Barents
+form some of the most romantic reading in the history of geographical
+discovery, and the preface to the old book compiled for the Dutch after
+the death of Barents sums up in pathetic language the tragic story
+of the "three Voyages, so strange and wonderful that the like hath
+never been heard of before." They were "done and performed three
+years," says the old preface, "one after the other, by the ships of
+Holland, on the North sides of Norway, Muscovy, and Tartary, towards
+the kingdoms of Cathay and China, showing discoveries of the Country
+lying under 80 degrees: which is thought to be Greenland; where never
+any man had been before, with the cruel Bears and other Monsters of
+the sea and the unsupportable and extreme cold that is found to be
+in these places. And how that in the last Voyage the Ship was enclosed
+by the Ice, that it was left there, whereby the men were forced to
+build a house in the cold and desert country of Nova Zembla, wherein
+they continued ten months together and never saw nor heard of any man,
+in most great cold and extreme misery; and how after that, to save
+their lives, they were constrained to sail about one thousand miles
+in little open boats, along and over the main Seas in most great danger
+and with extreme labour, unspeakable troubles, and great hunger."
+
+Surely no more graphic summary of disaster has ever appeared than these
+words penned three hundred and fourteen years ago, which cry to us
+down the long, intervening ages of privation and suffering endured
+in the cause of science.
+
+[Illustration: A SHIP OF THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. From Ortelius,
+1598.]
+
+In the year 1594, then, four ships were sent forth from Amsterdam with
+orders to the wise and skilful pilot, William Barents, that he was
+to sail into the North Seas and "discover the kingdoms of Cathay and
+China." In the month of July the Dutch pilot found himself off the
+south coast of Nova Zembla, whence he sailed as the wind pleased to
+take him, ever making for the north and hugging the coast as close
+as possible. On 9th July they found a creek very far north to which
+they gave the name of Bear Creek, because here they suddenly discovered
+their first Polar bear. It tried to get into their boat, so they shot
+it with a musket, "but the bear showed most wonderful strength, for,
+notwithstanding that she was shot into the body, yet she leapt up and
+swam in the water; the men that were in the boat, rowing after her,
+cast a rope about her neck and drew her at the stern of the boat, for,
+not having seen the like bear before, they thought to have carried
+her alive in the ship and to have showed her for a strange wonder in
+Holland; but she used such force that they were glad they were rid
+of her, and contented themselves with her skin only." This they brought
+back to Amsterdam in great triumph--their first white Polar bear. But
+they went farther north than this, until they came to a plain field
+of ice and encountered very misty weather. Still they kept sailing
+on, as best they might, round about the ice till they found the land
+of Nova Zembla was covered with snow. From "Ice Point" they made their
+way to islands which they named Orange Islands after the Dutch Prince.
+Here they found two hundred walrus or sea-horses lying on the shore
+and basking in the sun.
+
+[Illustration: NOVA ZEMBLA AND THE ARCTIC REGIONS. From a map in De
+Bry's _Grands Voyages_, 1598.]
+
+"The sea-horse is a wonderful strong monster of the sea," they brought
+back word, "much bigger than an ox, having a skin like a seal, with
+very short hair, mouthed like a lion; it hath four feet, but no ears."
+The little party of Dutchmen advanced boldly with hatchets and pikes
+to kill a few of these monsters to take home, but it was harder work
+than they thought. The wind suddenly rose, too, and rent the ice into
+great pieces, so they had to content themselves by getting a few of
+their ivory teeth, which they reported to be half an ell long. With
+these and other treasures Barents was now forced to return from these
+high latitudes, and he sailed safely into the Texel after three and
+a half months' absence.
+
+His reports of Nova Zembla encouraged the merchants of Amsterdam to
+persevere in their search for the kingdoms of Cathay and China by the
+north-east, and a second expedition was fitted out under Barents the
+following year; but it started too late to accomplish much, and we
+must turn to the third expedition for the discovery which has for ever
+made famous the name of William Barents. It was yet early in the May
+of 1596 when he sailed from Amsterdam with two ships for the third
+and last time, bound once more for the frozen northern seas. By 1st
+June he had reached a region where there was no night, and a few days
+later a strange sight startled the whole crew, "for on each side of
+the sun there was another sun and two rainbows more, the one compassing
+round about the suns and the other right through the great circle,"
+and they found they were "under 71 degrees of the height of the Pole."
+
+Sighting the North Cape of Lapland, they held on a north-westerly
+course till on 9th June they came upon a little island which they named
+Bear Island. Here they nearly met their end, for, having ascended a
+steep snow mountain on the island to look around them, they found it
+too slippery to descend. "We thought we should all have broken our
+necks, it was so slippery, but we sat up on the snow and slid down,
+which was very dangerous for us, and break both our arms and legs for
+that at the foot of the hill there were many rocks." Barents himself
+seems to have sat in the boat and watched them with intense anxiety.
+They were once more amid ice and Polar bears. In hazy weather they
+made their way north till on the 19th they saw land, and the "land
+was very great." They thought it was Greenland, but it was really
+Spitzbergen, of which he was thus the discoverer.
+
+Many things astonished the navigators here. Although they were in such
+high latitudes, they saw grass and leafy trees and such animals as
+bucks and harts, while several degrees to the south "there groweth
+neither leaves nor grass nor any beasts that eat grass or leaves, but
+only such beasts as eat flesh, as bears and foxes."
+
+[Illustration: BARENTS IN THE ARCTIC: "HUT WHEREIN WE WINTERED." From
+De Veer's account of the voyages of Barents, 1598.]
+
+By 1st July he had explored the western shore and was sailing south
+to Bear Island. He never landed on the coast of Spitzbergen: so we
+have no further account of this Arctic discovery. Sailing across the
+wide northern sea now known as Barents Sea, he made land again in the
+north of Nova Zembla, and, hugging the western shore, came to Ice Point.
+Here they were sorely harassed by Polar bears and floating ice and
+bitter gales of wind. Still they coasted on till they had rounded the
+northern end of Nova Zembla and unexpectedly sailed into a good harbour
+where they could anchor. The wind now blew with redoubled vigour, the
+"ice came mightily driving in" until the little ship was nearly
+surrounded, "and withal the wind began more and more to rise and the
+ice still drave harder and harder, so that our boat was broken in pieces
+between the ship and the ice, and it seemed as if the ship would be
+crushed in pieces too."
+
+As the August days passed on, they tried to get out of their prison,
+but it was impossible, and there was nothing for it but to winter "in
+great cold, poverty, misery, and grief" in this bleak and barren spot.
+The successful pilot was to explore no more, but the rest of the tragic
+tale must be shortly told. With the ice heaping high, "as the salt
+hills that are in Spain," and the ship in danger of going to pieces,
+they collected trees and roots driven on to the desolate shores from
+Tartary, "wherewith as if God had purposely sent them unto us we were
+much comforted." Through the September days they drew wood across the
+ice and snow to build a house for the winter. Only sixteen men could
+work and they were none too strong and well.
+
+[Illustration: BARENTS'S SHIP AMONG THE ARCTIC ICE. From a coloured
+woodcut in the account of Barents's three voyages by Gerard de Veer,
+published in 1598.]
+
+Throughout October and November they were snowed up in their winter
+hut, with "foul stormie weather" outside, the wind blowing ceaselessly
+out of the north and snow lying deep around. They trapped a few foxes
+from day to day to eat, making warm caps out of their fur; they heated
+stones and took them into their cabin beds, but their sheets froze
+as they washed them and at last their clock froze too.
+
+"They looked pitifully upon one another, being in great fear that if
+the extremity of the cold grew to be more and more we should all die
+there with the cold." Christmas came and went and they comforted one
+another by remembering that the sun was as low as it could go, and
+that it must begin to come to them again; but "as the day lengthens,
+so the cold strengthens," and the snow now lay deeper until it covered
+the roof of their house.
+
+The New Year found them still imprisoned, "with great cold, danger,
+and disease." January, February, March, April passed and still the
+little ship was stuck fast in the ice. But as the sun began to gain
+power, hope revived, and they began to repair their boats, to make
+new sails, and repair tackle. They were too weak and ill to do much
+work, but by the middle of June the boats were fairly ready and they
+could cut a way through the ice to the open sea. This was their only
+hope of escape, to leave the ship behind and embark in two little open
+boats for the open sea.
+
+"Then William Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a musket's
+charge and hanged it up in the chimney, showing how we came out of
+Holland to sail to the kingdom of China, and how we had been forced
+in our extremity to make that house and had dwelt ten months therein,
+and how we were forced to put to sea in two small open boats, for that
+the ship lay fast in the ice."
+
+Barents himself was now too ill to walk, so they carried him to one
+of the little boats, and on 14th June 1597 the little party put off
+from their winter quarters and sailed round to Ice Point. But the pilot
+was dying. "Are we about Ice Point?" he asked feebly. "If we be, then
+I pray you lift me up, for I must view it once again."
+
+Then suddenly the wind began to rise, driving the ice so fast upon
+them "that it made our hair stand upright upon our heads, it was so
+fearful to behold, so that we thought verily that it was a foreshadowing
+of our last end."
+
+They drew the boats up on to the ice and lifted the sick commander
+out and laid him on the icy ground, where a few days later he died--"our
+chief guide and only pilot on whom we reposed ourselves next under
+God." The rest of the story is soon told.
+
+On 1st November 1597 some twelve gaunt and haggard men, still wearing
+caps of white fox and coats of bearskin, having guided their little
+open boats all the way from Nova Zembla, arrived at Amsterdam and told
+the story of their exploration to the astonished merchants, who had
+long since given them up as dead.
+
+It was not till 1871 that Barents' old winter quarters on Nova Zembla
+were discovered. "There stood the cooking-pans over the fireplace,
+the old clocks against the wall, the arms, the tools, the drinking
+vessels, the instruments and the books that had beguiled the weary
+hours of that long night, two hundred and seventy-eight years ago."
+Among the relics were a pair of small shoes and a flute which had
+belonged to a little cabin-boy who had died during the winter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+HUDSON FINDS HIS BAY
+
+
+Henry Hudson was another victim to perish in the hopeless search for
+a passage to China by the north. John Davis had been dead two years,
+but not till after he had piloted the first expedition undertaken by
+the newly formed East India Company for commerce with India and the
+East. It was now more important than ever to find a short way to these
+countries other than round by the Cape of Good Hope. So Henry Hudson
+was employed by the Muscovy Company "to discover a shorter route to
+Cathay _by sailing over the North Pole_." He knew the hardships of
+the way; he must have realised the fate of Willoughby, the failure
+of Frobisher, the sufferings of Barents and his men, the difficulties
+of Davis--indeed, it is more than probable that he had listened to
+Davis speaking on the subject of Arctic exploration to the merchants
+of London at his uncle's house at Mortlake.
+
+Never did man start on a bolder or more perilous enterprise than did
+this man, when he started for the North Pole in a little boat of eighty
+tons, with his little son Jack, two mates, and a crew of eight men.
+
+"Led by Hudson with the fire of a great faith in his eyes, the men
+solemnly marched to St. Ethelburga Church, off Bishopsgate Street,
+London, to partake of Holy Communion and ask God's aid. Back to the
+muddy water front, opposite the Tower, a hearty God-speed from the
+gentlemen of the Muscovy Company, pompous in self-importance and lace
+ruffles--and the little crew steps into a clumsy river-boat with
+brick-red sails."
+
+After a six weeks' tumble over a waste of waters, Hudson arrived off
+the coast of Greenland, the decks of the little _Hopewell_ coated with
+ice, her rigging and sails hard as boards, and a north-east gale of
+wind and snow against her. A barrier of ice forbade further advance;
+but, sailing along the edge of this barrier--the first navigator to
+do so--he made for the coast of Spitzbergen, already roughly charted
+by Barents. Tacking up the west coast to the north, Hudson now explored
+further the fiords, islands, and harbours, naming some of
+them--notably Whale Bay and Hakluyt Headland, which may be seen on
+our maps of to-day. By 13th July he had reached his Farthest North,
+farther than any explorer had been before him, farther than any to
+be reached again for over one hundred and fifty years. It was a land
+of walrus, seal, and Polar bear; but, as usual, ice shut off all further
+attempts to penetrate the mysteries of the Pole, thick fog hung around
+the little ship, and with a fair wind Hudson turned southward. "It
+pleased God to give us a gale and away we steered," says the old ship
+log. Hudson would fain have steered Greenland way and had another try
+for the north. But his men wanted to go home, and home they went, through
+"slabbie" weather.
+
+But the voice of the North was still calling Hudson, and he persuaded
+the Muscovy Company to let him go off again. This he did in the following
+year. Only three of his former crew volunteered for service, and one
+of these was his son. But this expedition was devoid of result. The
+icy seas about Nova Zembla gave no hope of a passage in this direction,
+and, "being void of hope, the wind stormy and against us, much ice
+driving, we weighed and set sail westward."
+
+[Illustration: HUDSON'S MAP OF HIS VOYAGES IN THE ARCTIC. From his
+book published in 1612.]
+
+Hudson's voyages for the Muscovy Company had already come under the
+notice of the Dutch, who were vying with the English for the discovery
+of this short route to the East. Hudson was now invited to undertake
+an expedition for the Dutch East India Company, and he sailed from
+Amsterdam in the early spring of 1609 in a Dutch ship called the
+_Half-Moon_, with a mixed crew of Dutch and English, including once
+more his own son. Summer found the enthusiastic explorer off the coast
+of Newfoundland, where some cod-fishing refreshed the crews before
+they sailed on south, partly seeking an opening to the west, partly
+looking for the colony of Virginia, under Hudson's friend, Captain
+John Smith. In hot, misty weather they cruised along the coast. They
+passed what is now Massachusetts, "an Indian country of great hills--a
+very sweet land." On 7th August, Hudson was near the modern town of
+New York, so long known as New Amsterdam, but mist hid the low-lying
+hills and the _Half-Moon_ drifted on to James River; then, driven back
+by a heat hurricane, he made for the inlet on the old charts, which
+might lead yet east.
+
+It was 2nd September when he came to the great mouth of the river that
+now bears his name. He had been beating about all day in gales and
+fogs, when "the sun arose and we saw the land all like broken islands.
+From the land which we had first sight of, we came to a large lake
+of water, like drowned land, which made it to rise like islands. The
+mouth hath many shores and the sea breaketh on them. This is a very
+good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see. At three of
+the clock in the afternoon we came to three great rivers. We found
+a very good harbour and went in with our ship. Then we took our nets
+to fish and caught ten great mullets of a foot and a half long each,
+and a ray as great as four men could haul into the ship. The people
+of the country came aboard of us, seeming very glad of our coming,
+and brought green tobacco--they go in deer skins, well-dressed, they
+desire clothes and are very civil--they have great store of maize,
+whereof they make good bread. The country is full of great and tall
+oaks." To this he adds that the women had red copper tobacco pipes,
+many of them being dressed in mantles of feathers or furs, but the
+natives proved treacherous. Sailing up the river, Hudson found it a
+mile broad, with high land on both sides. By the night of 19th September
+the little _Half-Moon_ had reached the spot where the river widens
+near the modern town of Albany. He had sailed for the first time the
+distance covered to-day by magnificent steamers which ply daily
+between Albany and New York city. Hudson now went ashore with an old
+chief of the country. "Two men were dispatched in quest of game," so
+records Hudson's manuscript, "who brought in a pair of pigeons. They
+likewise killed a fat dog and skinned it with great haste with shells.
+The land is the finest for cultivation that ever I in my life set foot
+upon."
+
+Hudson had not found a way to China, but he had found the great and
+important river that now bears his name. Yet he was to do greater things
+than these, and to lose his life in the doing. The following year,
+1610, found him once more bound for the north, continuing the endless
+search for a north-west passage--this time for the English, and not
+for the Dutch. On board the little _Discovery_ of fifty-five tons,
+with his young son, Jack, still his faithful companion, with a
+treacherous old man as mate, who had accompanied him before, with a
+good-for-nothing young spendthrift taken at the last moment "because
+he wrote a good hand," and a mixed crew, Hudson crossed the wide
+Atlantic for the last time. He sailed by way of Iceland, where "fresh
+fish and dainty fowl, partridges, curlew, plover, teale, and goose"
+much refreshed the already discontented crews, and the hot baths of
+Iceland delighted them. The men wanted to return to the pleasant land
+discovered in the last expedition, but the mysteries of the frozen
+North still called the old explorer, and he steered for Greenland.
+He was soon battling with ice upon the southern end of "Desolation,"
+whence he crossed to the snowy shores of Labrador, sailing into the
+great straits that bear his name to-day. For three months they sailed
+aimlessly about that "labyrinth without end" as it was called by Abacuk
+Prickett who wrote the account of this fourth and last voyage of Henry
+Hudson. But they could find no opening to the west, no way of escape.
+
+[Illustration: A SHIP OF HUDSON'S FLEET. From his _Voyages_, 1612.]
+
+Winter was coming on, "the nights were long and cold, and the earth
+was covered with snow." They were several hundred miles south of the
+straits, and no way had been found to the Pacific; they had followed
+the south shore "to the westernmost bay of all," James Bay, but lo!
+there was no South Sea. Hudson recognised the fact that he was
+land-bound and winter-bound in a desolate region, with a discontented
+crew, and that the discontent was amounting to mutiny. On 1st November
+they hauled up the ship and selected a wintering place. Ten days later
+they were frozen in, and snow was falling continuously every day. "We
+were victualled for six months, and of that which was good," runs the
+record. For the first three months they shot "partridges as white as
+milk," but these left with the advent of spring, and hunger seized
+on the handful of Englishmen wintering in this unknown land. "Then
+we went into the woods, hills, and valleys--and the moss and the frog
+were not spared." Not till the month of May did the ice begin to melt
+and the men could fish. The first day this was possible they caught
+"five hundred fish as big as good herrings and some trout," which
+revived their hopes and their health. Hudson made a last despairing
+effort to find a westward passage. But now the men rose in mutiny.
+"We would rather be hanged at home than starved abroad!" they cried
+miserably.
+
+So Hudson "fitted all things for his return, and first delivered all
+the bread out of the bread room (which came to a pound apiece for every
+man's share), and he wept when he gave it unto them." It was barely
+sufficient for fourteen days, and even with the fourscore small fish
+they had caught it was "a poor relief for so many hungry bellies."
+
+With a fair wind in the month of June, the little _Discovery_ was headed
+for home. A few days later she was stopped by ice. Mutiny now burst
+forth. The "master" and his men had lost confidence in each other.
+There were ruffians on board, rendered almost wild by hunger and
+privation. There is nothing more tragic in the history of exploration
+than the desertion of Henry Hudson and his boy in their newly discovered
+bay. Every detail of the conspiracy is given by Prickett. We know how
+the rumour spread, how the crew resolved to turn the "master" and the
+sick men adrift and to share the remaining provisions among themselves.
+And how in the early morning Hudson was seized and his arms bound behind
+him.
+
+"What does this mean?" he cried.
+
+"You will know soon enough when you are in the shallop," they replied.
+
+The boat was lowered and into it Hudson was put with his son, while
+the "poor, sick, and lame men were called upon to get them out of their
+cabins into the shallop." Then the mutineers lowered some powder and
+shot, some pikes, an iron pot, and some meal into her, and the little
+boat was soon adrift with her living freight of suffering, starving
+men--adrift in that icebound sea, far from home and friends and all
+human help. At the last moment the carpenter sprang into the drifting
+boat, resolved to die with the captain sooner than desert him. Then
+the _Discovery_ flew away with all sail up as from an enemy.
+
+And "the master" perished--how and when we know not.
+
+Fortunately the mutineers took home Hudson's journals and charts.
+Ships were sent out to search for the lost explorer, but the silence
+has never been broken since that summer's day three hundred years ago,
+when he was deserted in the waters of his own bay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+BAFFIN FINDS HIS BAY
+
+
+Two years only after the tragedy of Henry Hudson, another Arctic
+explorer appears upon the scene. William Baffin was already an
+experienced seaman in the prime of life; he had made four voyages to
+the icy north, when he was called on by the new Company of Merchants
+of London--"discoverers of the North-West Passage"--formed in 1612,
+to prepare for another voyage of discovery. Distressed beyond measure
+at the desertion of Henry Hudson, the Muscovy Company had dispatched
+Sir Thomas Button with our old friend Abacuk Prickett to show him the
+way. Button had reached the western side of Hudson's Bay, and after
+wintering there returned fully convinced that a north-west passage
+existed in this direction. Baffin returned from an expedition to
+Greenland the same year. The fiords and islets of west Greenland, the
+ice-floes and glaciers of Spitzbergen, the tidal phenomena of Hudson's
+Strait, and the geographical secrets of the far-northern bay were all
+familiar to him. "He was, therefore, chosen as mate and associate"
+to Bylot, one of the men who had deserted Hudson, but who had sailed
+three times with him previously and knew well the western seas. So
+in "the good ship called the _Discovery_," of fifty-five tons, with
+a crew of fourteen men and two boys, William Baffin sailed for the
+northern seas. May found the expedition on the coast of Greenland,
+with a gale of wind and great islands of ice. However, Baffin crossed
+Davis Strait, and after a struggle with ice at the entrance to Hudson's
+Strait he sailed along the northern side till he reached a group of
+islands which he named Savage Islands. For here were Eskimos
+again--very shy and fearful of the white strangers. "Among their
+tents," relates Baffin, "all covered with seal skins, were running
+up and down about forty dogs, most of them muzzled, about the bigness
+of our mongrel mastiffs, being a brindled black colour, looking almost
+like wolves. These dogs they used instead of horses, or rather as the
+Lapps do their deer, to draw their sledges from place to place over
+the ice, their sledges being shod or lined with bones of great fishes
+to keep them from wearing out, and the dogs have furniture and collars
+very fitting."
+
+The explorers went on bravely till they were stopped by masses of ice.
+They thought they must be at the mouth of a large bay, and, seeing
+no prospect of a passage to the west, they turned back. When, two
+hundred years later, Parry sailed in Baffin's track he named this place
+Baffin Land "out of respect to the memory of that able and enterprising
+navigator."
+
+The _Discovery_ arrived in Plymouth Sound by September, _without the
+loss of one man_--a great achievement in these days of salt junk and
+scurvy.
+
+"And now it may be," adds Baffin, "that some expect I should give my
+opinion concerning the Passage. To these my answer must be that
+doubtless there _is_ a Passage. But within this Strait, which is called
+Hudson Strait, I am doubtful, supposing to the contrary."
+
+Baffin further suggested that if there was a Passage it must now be
+sought by Davis Strait.
+
+Accordingly another expedition was fitted out and Baffin had his
+instructions: "For your course, you must make all possible haste to
+Cape Desolation; and from hence you, William Baffin, as pilot, keep
+along the coast of Greenland and up Davis Strait, until you come toward
+the height of 80 degrees, if the land will give you leave. Then shape
+your course west and southerly, so far as you shall think it convenient,
+till you come to the latitude of 60 degrees, then direct your course
+to fall in with the land of _Yedzo_, leaving your further sailing
+southward to your own discretion: although our desires be if your
+voyage prove so prosperous that you may have the year before you that
+you go far south as that you may touch the north part of Japan from
+whence we would have you bring home one of the men of the country and
+so, God blessing you, with all expedition to make your return home
+again."
+
+The _Discovery_ had proved a good little ship for exploration, so she
+was again selected by Baffin for this new attempt in the far north.
+Upon 26th March 1616 she sailed from Gravesend, arriving off the coast
+of Greenland in the neighbourhood of Gilbert Sound about the middle
+of May. Working against terrible winds, they plied to the northward,
+the old ship making but slow progress, till at last they sighted
+"Sanderson his Hope," the farthest point of Master Davis. Once more
+English voices broke the silence of thirty years. The people who
+appeared on the shore were wretchedly poor. They lived on seals' flesh,
+which they ate raw, and clothed themselves in the skins. Still
+northwards they sailed, cruising along the western coast. Though the
+ice was beginning to disappear the weather kept bitterly cold, and
+on Midsummer Day the sails and ropes were frozen too hard to be handled.
+Stormy weather now forced them into a sound which they named Whale
+Sound from the number of whales they discovered here. It was declared
+by Baffin to be the "greatest and largest bay in these parts."
+
+But beyond this they could not go; so they sailed across the end of
+what we now know as Baffin's Bay and explored the opposite coast of
+America, naming one of the greater openings Lancaster Sound, after
+Sir James Lancaster of East India Company fame.
+
+"Here," says Baffin pitifully, "our hope of Passage began to grow less
+every day."
+
+It was the old story of ice, advancing season, and hasty conclusions.
+
+[Illustration: BAFFIN'S MAP OF HIS VOYAGES TO THE NORTH. From the
+original MS., drawn by Baffin, in the British Museum.]
+
+"There is no hope of Passage to the north of Davis' Straits," the
+explorer further asserts; but he asserts wrongly, for Lancaster Sound
+was to prove an open channel to the West.
+
+So he returned home. He had not found the Passage, but he had discovered
+the great northern sea that now bears his name. The size of it was
+for long plunged in obscurity, and the wildest ideas centred round
+the extent of this northern sea. A map of 1706 gives it an indefinite
+amount of space, adding vaguely: "Some will have Baffin's Bay to run
+as far as this faint Shadow," while a map of 1818 marks the bay, but
+adds that "it is not now believed."
+
+For the next two hundred years the icebound regions of the north were
+practically left free from invasion, silent, inhospitable,
+unapproachable.
+
+But while these Arctic explorers were busy battling with the northern
+seas to find a passage which should lead them to the wealth of the
+East, others were exploring the New World and endeavouring by land
+and river to attain the same end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+SIR WALTER RALEIGH SEARCHES FOR EL DORADO
+
+
+It is pleasant to turn from the icy regions of North America to the
+sunny South, and to follow the fortunes of that fine Elizabethan
+gentleman, Sir Walter Raleigh, to "the large, rich, and beautiful
+Empire of Guiana and the Great and Golden City of Manoa (which the
+Spaniards call El Dorado)." Ever since the conquest of Peru, sixty
+years before, there had floated about rumours of a great kingdom
+abounding in gold. The King of this Golden Land was sprinkled daily
+with gold dust, till he shone as the sun, while Manoa was full of golden
+houses and golden temples with golden furniture. The kingdom was
+wealthier than Peru; it was richer than Mexico. Expedition after
+expedition had left Spain in search of this El Dorado, but the region
+was still plunged in romantic mists. Raleigh had just failed to
+establish an English colony in Virginia. To gain a rich kingdom for
+his Queen, to extend her power and enrich her treasury was now his
+greatest object in life. What about El Dorado?
+
+"Oh, unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it
+seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and
+but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires
+of El Dorado."
+
+February 1595 found him ready and leaving England with five ships and,
+after a good passage of forty-six days, landing on the island of
+Trinidad, and thence making his way to the mouth of the Orinoco. Here
+Raleigh soon found that it was impossible to enter the Orinoco with
+his English ships, but, nothing daunted, he took a hundred men and
+provisions for a month in three little open boats, and started forward
+to navigate this most difficult labyrinth of channels, out of which
+they were guided by an old Indian pilot named Ferdinando. They had
+much to observe. The natives, living along the river-banks, dwelt in
+houses all the summer, but in the winter months they constructed small
+huts to which they ascended by means of ladders.
+
+These folk were cannibals, but cannibals of a refined sort, who "beat
+the bones of their lords into powder" and mixed the powder with their
+drinks. The stream was very strong and rapid, and the men rowed against
+it in great discomfort, "the weather being extreme hot, the river
+bordered with very high trees that kept away the air, and the current
+against us every day stronger than the other," until they became, as
+Raleigh tells us, "wearied and scorched and doubtful."
+
+The heat increased as they advanced, and the crews grew weaker as the
+river "ran more violently against them." But Raleigh refused to return
+yet, lest "the world would laugh us to scorn."
+
+Fortunately delicious fruits hung over the banks of the Orinoco, and,
+having no bread and for water only the thick and troubled water of
+the river, they refreshed themselves gladly. So they rowed on up the
+great river, through province after province of the Indians, but no
+El Dorado appeared. Suddenly the scene changed as if by magic, the
+high banks giving way to low-lying plains; green grass grew close to
+the water's edge, and deer came down to feed.
+
+"I never saw a more beautiful country," says Raleigh, "nor more lively
+prospects, hills raised here and there over the valleys, the river
+winding into different branches, plains without bush or stubble, all
+fair green grass, deer crossing our path, the birds towards evening
+singing on every tree with a thousand several tunes, herons of white,
+crimson, and carnation perching on the riverside, the air fresh with
+a gentle wind, and every stone we stooped to pick up promised either
+gold or silver." His account of the great cataract at the junction
+of the tributary Caroni is very graphic. They had already heard the
+roar, so they ran to the tops of some neighbouring hills, discovering
+the wonderful "breach of waters" which ran down Caroli, and from that
+"mountain see the river how it ran in three parts, about twenty miles
+off, and there appeared some ten or twelve overfalls in sight, every
+one as high over the other as a church tower, which fell with that
+fury that the rebound of waters made it seem as if it had been all
+covered over with a great shower of rain; and in some places we took
+it at the first for a smoke that had risen over some great town."
+
+[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]
+
+The country was the province of Guiana, but it was not El Dorado, the
+object of their quest. And though it was very beautiful, it was
+inhabited by cannibals; moreover, winter was advancing, and they were
+already some four hundred miles from their ships in little open boats
+and in the heart of a strange country.
+
+Suddenly, too, the river began to rise, to "rage and overflow very
+fearfully," rain came down in torrents accompanied by great gusts of
+wind, and the crews with no change of clothes got wet through, sometimes
+ten times a day. "Whosoever had seen the fury of that river after it
+began to rise would perchance have turned his back somewhat sooner
+than we did if all the mountains had been gold or precious stones,"
+remarked Raleigh, who indeed was no coward. So they turned the boats
+for home, and at a tremendous rate they spun down the stream, sometimes
+doing as much as one hundred miles a day, till after sundry adventures
+they safely reached their ships at anchor off Trinidad. Raleigh had
+not reached the golden city of Manoa, but he gave a very glowing account
+of this country to his Queen.
+
+"Guiana," he tells her, "is a country that hath yet her maidenhood.
+The face of the earth hath not been torn, the graves have not been
+opened for gold. It hath never been entered by any army of strength,
+and never conquered by any Christian prince. Men shall find here more
+rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with gold, than either
+Cortes found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru, and the shining glory of
+this conquest will eclipse all those of the Spanish nation."
+
+But Raleigh had brought back no gold, and his schemes for a conquest
+of Guiana were received coldly by the Queen. She could not share his
+enthusiasm for the land--
+
+   "Where Orinoco, in his pride,
+    Rolls to the main no tribute tide,
+    But 'gainst broad Ocean wages far
+    A rival sea of roaring war;
+    While in ten thousand eddies driven
+    The billows fling their foam to heaven;
+    And the pale pilot seeks in vain
+    Where rolls the river, where the main."
+
+But, besides the Orinoco in South America, there was the St. Lawrence
+in North America, still very imperfectly known. Since Jacques Cartier
+had penetrated the hitherto undisturbed regions lying about the "river
+of Canada," little had been explored farther west, till Samuel
+Champlain, one of the most remarkable men of his day, comes upon the
+scene, and was still discovering land to the west when Raleigh was
+making his second expedition to Guiana in the year 1617.
+
+[Illustration: RALEIGH'S MAP OF GUINEA, EL DORADO, AND THE ORINOCO
+COAST. From the original map, drawn by Raleigh, in the British Museum.
+This map, like so many of the older charts, is drawn upside down, the
+South being at the top and the East on the left, while the Panama Isthmus
+is at the bottom on the right. The river above the "Lake of Manoa"
+is the Amazon.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+CHAMPLAIN DISCOVERS LAKE ONTARIO
+
+
+To discover a passage westward was still the main object of those who
+made their way up the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. This, too, was the
+object of Samuel Champlain, known as "the Father of New France," when
+he arrived with orders from France to establish an industrial colony
+"which should hold for that country the gateway of the Golden East."
+He had already ascended the river Saguenay, a tributary of the St.
+Lawrence, till stopped by rapids and rocks, and the natives had told
+him of a great salt sea to the north, which was Hudson's Bay, discovered
+some seven years later, in 1610. He now made his way to a spot called
+by the natives Quebec, a word meaning the strait or narrows, this being
+the narrowest place in the whole magnificent waterway. He had long
+been searching for a suitable site for a settlement, but "I could find
+none more convenient," he says, "or better situated than the point
+of Quebec, so called by the savages, which was covered with nut trees."
+Accordingly here, close to the present Champlain market, arose the
+nucleus of the city of Quebec--the great warehouse of New France.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST SETTLEMENT AT QUEBEC. From Champlain's
+_Voyages_, 1613. The bigger house in front is Champlain's own
+residence.]
+
+Having passed the winter of 1608 at Quebec, the passion of exploration
+still on him, in a little two-masted boat piloted by Indians, he went
+up the St. Lawrence, towards Cartier's Mont Royal. From out the thick
+forest land that lined its banks, Indians discovered the steel-clad
+strangers and gazed at them from the river-banks in speechless wonder.
+The river soon became alive with Indian canoes, but the Frenchmen made
+their way to the mouth of the Richelieu River, where they encamped
+for a couple of days' hunting and fishing. Then Champlain sailed on,
+his little two-masted boat outstripping the native canoes, till the
+unwelcome sound of rapids fell on the silent air, and through the dark
+foliage of the islet of St. John he could see "the gleam of snowy foam
+and the flash of hurrying waters." The Indians had assured him that
+his boat could pass unobstructed through the whole journey. "It
+afflicted me and troubled me exceedingly," he tells us, "to be obliged
+to return without having seen so great a lake, full of fair islands
+and bordered with the fine countries which they had described to me."
+He could not bear to give up the exploration into the heart of a land
+unvisited by white men. So, sending back his party, accompanied only
+by two Frenchmen as brave as himself, he stepped into an Indian canoe
+to be carried round the rapids and so continue his perilous
+journey--perilous, indeed, for bands of hostile natives lurked in the
+primeval forests that clothed the river-banks in dense masses.
+
+As they advanced the river widened out; the Indian canoes carried them
+safely over the broad stream shimmering in the summer sun till they
+came to a great silent lake over one hundred miles long, hitherto
+unexplored. The beauty of the new country is described with enthusiasm
+by the delighted explorer, but they were now in the Mohawk country
+and progress was fraught with danger. They travelled only by night
+and lay hidden by day in the depth of the forest, till they had reached
+the far end of the lake, named Lake Champlain after its discoverer.
+They were near the rocky promontory where Fort Ticonderoga was
+afterwards built, when they met a party of Iroquois; war-cries pealed
+across the waters of the lake, and by daybreak battle could no longer
+be averted. Champlain and his two companions, in doublet and hose,
+buckled on their breastplates, cuisses of steel and plumed helmets,
+and with sword and arquebus advanced. Their firearms won the day, but
+all hope of further advance was at an end, and Champlain returned to
+Quebec with his great story of new lands to the south. It was not till
+the spring of 1611 that he was again free to start on another exploring
+expedition into the heart of Canada.
+
+[Illustration: THE DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS BY CHAMPLAIN AND HIS PARTY
+ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN. From a drawing in Champlain's _Voyages_, 1613.]
+
+His journey to the rapids of the St. Louis has been well described:
+"Like specks on the broad bosom of the waters, two pigmy vessels held
+their course up the lonely St. Lawrence. They passed abandoned
+Tadoussac, the channel of Orleans, the tenantless rock of Quebec, the
+wide Lake of St. Peter with its crowded archipelago, and the forest
+plain of Montreal. All was solitude. Hochelaga had vanished, and of
+the savage population that Cartier had found sixty-eight years before,
+no trace remained."
+
+In a skiff with a few Indians, Champlain tried to pass the rapids of
+St. Louis; but oars, paddles, and poles alike proved vain against the
+foaming surges, and he was forced to return, but not till the Indians
+had drawn for him rude plans of the river above, with its chain of
+rapids and its lakes and its cataracts. They were quite impassable,
+said the natives, though, indeed, to these white strangers everything
+seemed possible.
+
+"These white men must have fallen from the clouds," they said. "How
+else could they have reached us through the woods and rapids which
+even we find it hard to pass?" Champlain wanted to get to the upper
+waters of the Ottawa River, to the land of the cannibal Nipissings,
+who dwelt on the lake that bears their name; but they were enemies,
+and the natives refused to advance into their country.
+
+Two years later he accomplished his desire, and found himself at last
+in the land of the Nipissings. He crossed their lake and steered his
+canoes down the French river. Days passed and no signs of human life
+appeared amid the rocky desolation, till suddenly three hundred
+savages, tattooed, painted, and armed, rushed out on them. Fortunately
+they were friendly, and it was from them that Champlain learned the
+good news that the great freshwater lake of the Hurons was close at
+hand.
+
+What if the Friar Le Caron, one of Champlain's party, had preceded
+him by a few days, Champlain was the first white man to give an account
+of it, if not the first to sail on its beautiful waters. For over one
+hundred miles he made his way along its eastern shores, until he reached
+a broad opening with fields of maize and bright patches of sunflower,
+from the seeds of which the Indians made their hair-oil. After staying
+a few days at a little Huron village where he was feasted by friendly
+natives, Champlain pushed on by Indian trails, passing village after
+village till he reached the narrow end of Lake Simcoe. A "shrill clamour
+of rejoicing and the screaming flight of terrified children" hailed
+his approach. The little fleet of canoes pursued their course along
+the lake and then down the chain of lakes leading to the river Trent.
+The inhabited country of the Hurons had now given place to a desolate
+region with no sign of human life, till from the mouth of the Trent,
+"like a flock of venturous wild fowl," they found themselves floating
+on the waters of Lake Ontario, across which they made their way safely.
+
+It was a great day in the life of Champlain when he found himself in
+the very heart of a hostile land, having discovered the chain of inland
+lakes of which he had heard so much. But they were now in the land
+of the Iroquois--deadly foes of the Hurons. There was nothing for it
+but to fight, and a great battle now took place between the rival tribes,
+every warrior yelling at the top of his voice. Champlain himself was
+wounded in the fray, and all further exploration had to be abandoned.
+He was packed up in a basket and carried away on the back of a Huron
+warrior. "Bundled in a heap," wrote the explorer, "doubled and
+strapped together after such a fashion that one could move no more
+than an infant in swaddling clothes, I never was in such torment in
+my life, for the pain of the wound was nothing to that of being bound
+and pinioned on the back of one of our savages. As soon as I could
+bear my weight, I got out of this prison." How Champlain wintered with
+the Hurons, who would not allow him to return to Quebec, how he got
+lost while hunting in one of the great forests in his eagerness to
+shoot a strange-looking bird, how the lakes and streams froze, and
+how his courage and endurance were sorely tried over the toilsome
+marches to Lake Simcoe, but how finally he reached Montreal by way
+of Nipissing and the Ottawa River, must be read elsewhere. Champlain's
+work as an explorer was done. Truly has he been called the Father of
+New France. He had founded Quebec and Montreal; he had explored Canada
+as no man has ever done before or since. Faithful to the passion of
+his life, he died in 1635 at Quebec--the city he had founded and loved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+EARLY DISCOVERERS OF AUSTRALIA
+
+
+While the French and English were feverishly seeking a way to the East,
+either by the North Pole or by way of America, the Dutch were busy
+discovering a new land in the Southern Seas.
+
+And as we have seen America emerging from the mist of ages in the
+sixteenth century, so now in the seventeenth we have the great Island
+Continent of Australia mysteriously appearing bit by bit out of the
+yet little-known Sea of the South. There is little doubt that both
+Portuguese and Spanish had touched on the western coast early in the
+sixteenth century, but gave no information about it beyond sketching
+certain rough and undefined patches of land and calling it Terra
+Australis in their early maps; no one seems to have thought this
+mysterious land of much importance. The maritime nations of that
+period carefully concealed their knowledge from one another. The proud
+Spaniard hated his Portuguese neighbour as a formidable rival in the
+race for wealth and fame, and the Dutchman, who now comes on the scene,
+was regarded by both as a natural enemy by land or sea.
+
+Magellan in 1520 discovered that the Terra Australis was not joined
+to South America, as the old maps had laid down; and we find Frobisher
+remarking in 1578 that "Terra Australis seemeth to be a great, firm
+land, lying under and about the South Pole, not thoroughly discovered.
+It is known at the south side of the Strait of Magellan and is called
+Terra del Fuego. It is thought this south land about the pole Antarctic
+is far bigger than the north land about the pole Arctic; but whether
+it be so or not, we have no certain knowledge, for we have no particular
+description thereof, as we have of the land about the North Pole."
+
+[Illustration: AN EARLY MAP OF "TERRA AUSTRALIS," CALLED "JAVA LA
+GRANDE" IN ITS SUPPOSED EASTERN PART. From the "Dauphin" map of 1546.
+There was then supposed to be a great mainland of Java, separated from
+the island of "Java Minor" by a narrow strait. See the copy of the
+whole of this map in colour, where it will be seen that the "Terra
+Australis" was supposed to stretch from east to west.]
+
+And even one hundred years later the mystery was not cleared up. "This
+land about the straits is not perfectly discovered whether it be
+continent or islands. Some take it for continent, esteeming that Terra
+Australis or the Southern Continent may for the largeness thereof take
+a first place in the division of the whole world."
+
+The Spaniards were still masters of the sea, when one Lieutenant Torres
+first sailed through the strait dividing Australia from New Guinea,
+already discovered in 1527. As second in command, he had sailed from
+America under a Spaniard, De Quiros, in 1605, and in the Pacific they
+had come across several island groups. Among others they sighted the
+island group now known as the New Hebrides. Quiros supposed that this
+was the continent for which he was searching, and gave it the name
+of "Terra Australis del Espirito Santo." And then a curious thing
+happened. "At one hour past midnight," relates Torres in his account
+of the voyage, "the _Capitana_ (Quiros' ship) departed without any
+notice given us and without making any signal."
+
+After waiting for many days, Torres at last set sail, and, having
+discovered that the supposed land was only an island, he made his way
+along the dangerous coast of New Guinea to Manila, thus passing through
+the straits that were afterwards named after him, and unconsciously
+passing almost within sight of the very continent for which he was
+searching.
+
+This was the end of Spanish enterprise for the present. The rivals
+for sea-power in the seventeenth century were England and Holland.
+Both had recently started East India Companies, both were keen to take
+a large part in East Indian trade and to command the sea. For a time
+the Dutch had it all their own way; they devoted themselves to founding
+settlements in the East Indies, ever hoping to discover new islands
+in the South Seas as possible trade centres. Scientific discovery held
+little interest for them.
+
+As early as 1606 a Dutch ship--the little _Sun_--had been dispatched
+from the Moluccas to discover more about the land called by the
+Spaniards New Guinea, because of its resemblance to the West African
+coast of Guinea. But the crews were greeted with a shower of arrows
+as they attempted a landing, and with nine of their party killed, they
+returned disheartened.
+
+A more ambitious expedition was fitted out in 1617 by private
+adventurers, and two ships--the _Unity_ and the _Horn_--sailed from
+the Texel under the command of a rich Amsterdam merchant named Isaac
+Le Maire and a clever navigator, Cornelius Schouten of Horn. Having
+been provided with an English gunner and carpenter, the ships were
+steered boldly across the Atlantic. Hitherto the object of the
+expedition had been kept a secret, but on crossing the line the crews
+were informed that they were bound for the Terra Australis del Espirito
+Santo of Quiros. The men had never heard of the country before, and
+we are told they wrote the name in their caps in order to remember
+it. By midwinter they had reached the eastern entrance of the Straits
+of Magellan, through which many a ship had passed since the days of
+Magellan, some hundred years before this. Unfortunately, while
+undergoing some necessary repairs here, the little _Horn_ caught fire
+and was burnt out, the crews all having to crowd on to the _Unity_.
+Instead of going through the strait they sailed south and discovered
+Staaten Land, which they thought might be a part of the southern
+continent for which they were seeking. We now know it to be an island,
+whose heights are covered with perpetual snow. It was named by Schouten
+after the Staaten or States-General of Holland. Passing through the
+strait which divided the newly discovered land from the Terra del Fuego
+(called later the Straits of Le Maire after its discoverer), the
+Dutchmen found a great sea full of whales and monsters innumerable.
+Sea-mews larger than swans, with wings stretching six feet across,
+fled screaming round the ship. The wind was against them, but after
+endless tacking they reached the southern extremity of land, which
+Schouten named after his native town and the little burnt
+ship--_Horn_--and as Cape Horn it is known to-day.
+
+But the explorers never reached the Terra Australis. Their little ship
+could do no more, and they sailed to Java to repair.
+
+Many a name on the Australian map to-day testifies to Dutch enterprise
+about this time. In 1616, Captain Dirck Hartog of Amsterdam discovered
+the island that bears his name off the coast of Western Australia.
+A few years later the captain of a Dutch ship called the _Lewin_ or
+_Lioness_ touched the south-west extremity of the continent, calling
+that point Cape Lewin. Again a few years and we find Captain Nuyts
+giving his name to a part of the southern coast, though the discovery
+seems to have been accidental. In 1628, Carpentaria received its name
+from Carpenter, a governor of the East India Company. Now, one day
+a ship from Carpenter's Land returned laden with gold and spice;
+and though certain men had their suspicions that these riches had been
+fished out of some large ship wrecked upon the inhospitable coast,
+yet a little fleet of eleven ships was at once dispatched to reconnoitre
+further. Captain Pelsart commanded the _Batavia_, which in a great
+storm was separated from the other ships and driven alone on to the
+shoals marked as the Abrolhos (a Portuguese word meaning "Open your
+eyes," implying a sharp lookout for dangerous reefs) on the west coast
+of Australia. It was night when the ship struck, and Captain Pelsart
+was sick in bed. He ran hastily on to the deck. The moon shone bright.
+The sails were up. The sea appeared to be covered with white foam.
+Captain Pelsart charged the master with the loss of the ship, and asked
+him "in what part of the world he thought they were."
+
+"God only knows that," replied the master, adding that the ship was
+fast on a bank hitherto undiscovered. Suddenly a dreadful storm of
+wind and rain arose, and, being surrounded with rocks and shoals, the
+ship was constantly striking. "The women, children, and sick people
+were out of their wits with fear," so they decided to land these on
+an island for "their cries and noise served only to disturb them."
+The landing was extremely difficult owing to the rocky coast, where
+the waves were dashing high. When the weather had moderated a bit,
+Captain Pelsart took the ship and went in search of water, thereby
+exploring a good deal of coast, which, he remarked, "resembled the
+country near Dover." But his exploration amounted to little, and the
+account of his adventures is mostly taken up with an account of the
+disasters that befell the miserable party left on the rock-bound
+islands of Abrolhos--conspiracies, mutinies, and plots. His was only
+one of many adventures on this unknown and inhospitable coast, which
+about this time, 1644, began to take the name of New Holland.
+
+[Illustration: THE WRECK OF CAPTAIN PELSART'S SHIP THE _BATAVIA_ ON
+THE COAST OF NEW HOLLAND, 1644. From the Dutch account of Pelsart's
+_Voyages_, 1647.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+TASMAN FINDS TASMANIA
+
+
+At this time Anthony Van Diemen was governor at Batavia, and one of
+his most trusted commanders was Abel Tasman. In 1642, Tasman was given
+command of two ships "for making discoveries of the Unknown South
+Land," and, hoisting his flag on board the _Sea-Hen_, he sailed south
+from Batavia without sighting the coast of Australia. Despite foggy
+weather, "hard gales, and a rolling sea," he made his way steadily
+south. It was three months before land was sighted, and high mountains
+were seen to the southeast. The ship stood in to shore. "As the land
+has not been known before to any European, we called it Anthony Van
+Diemen's Land in honour of our Governor-General, who sent us out to
+make discoveries. I anchored in a bay and heard the sound of people
+upon the shore, but I saw nobody. I perceived in the sand the marks
+of wild beasts' feet, resembling those of a tiger."
+
+Setting up a post with the Dutch East India Company's mark, and leaving
+the Dutch flag flying, Tasman left Van Diemen's Land, which was not
+to be visited again for over one hundred years, when it was called
+after its first discoverer. He had no idea that he was on an island.
+Tasman now sailed east, and after about a week at sea he discovered
+a high mountainous country, which he named "Staaten Land." "We found
+here abundance of inhabitants: they had very hoarse voices and were
+very large-made people; they were of colour between brown and yellow,
+their hair long and thick, combed up and fixed on the top of their
+heads with a quill in the very same manner that Japanese fastened their
+hair behind their heads."
+
+Tasman anchored on the north coast of the south island of New Zealand,
+but canoes of warlike Maoris surrounded the ships, a conflict took
+place in which several Dutch seamen were killed, the weather grew
+stormy, and Tasman sailed away from the bay he named Murderer's
+Bay--rediscovered by Captain Cook about a hundred years later.
+
+"This is the second country discovered by us," says 'Tasman. "We named
+it Staaten Land in honour of the States-General. It is possible that
+it may join the other Staaten Land (of Schouten and Le Maire to the
+south of Terra del Fuego), but it is uncertain; it is a very fine country,
+and we hope it is part of the unknown south continent." Is it necessary
+to add that this Staaten Land was really New Zealand, and the bay where
+the ships anchored is now known as Tasman Bay? When the news of Tasman's
+discoveries was noised abroad, all the geographers, explorers, and
+discoverers at once jumped to the conclusion that this was the same
+land on whose coast Pelsart had been wrecked. "It is most evident,"
+they said, "that New Guinea, Carpentaria, New Holland, Van Diemen's
+Land make all one continent, from which New Zealand seems to be
+separated by a strait, and perhaps is part of another continent
+answering to Africa as this plainly does to America, making indeed
+a very large country."
+
+After a ten months' cruise Tasman returned to Batavia. He had found
+Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, without sighting Australia.
+
+A second expedition was now fitted out. The instructions for the
+commodore, Captain Abel Jansen Tasman, make interesting reading. The
+orders are detailed and clear. He will start the end of January 1644,
+and "we shall expect you in July following attended with good success."
+
+"Of all the lands, countries, islands, capes, inlets, bays, rivers,
+shoals, reefs, sands, cliffs, and rocks which you pass in this
+discovery you are to make accurate maps--be particularly careful about
+longitude and latitude. But be circumspect and prudent in landing with
+small craft, because at several times New Guinea has been found to
+be inhabited by cruel, wild savages. When you converse with any of
+these savages behave well and friendly to them, and try by all means
+to engage their affection to you. You are to show the samples of the
+goods which you carry along with you, and inquire what materials and
+goods they possess. To prevent any other European nation from reaping
+the fruits of our labour in these discoveries, you are everywhere to
+take possession in the name of the Dutch East India Company, to put
+up some sign, erect a stone or post, and carve on them the arms of
+the Netherlands. The yachts are manned with one hundred and eleven
+persons, and for eight months plentifully victualled. Manage
+everything well and orderly, take notice you see the ordinary portion
+of two meat and two pork days, and a quarter of vinegar and a
+half-quarter of sweet oil per week."
+
+[Illustration: VAN DIEMAN'S LAND AND TWO OF TASMAN'S SHIPS. From the
+map drawn by Tasman in his "Journal."]
+
+He was to coast along New Guinea to the farthest-known spot, and to
+follow the coast _despite adverse winds_, in order that the Dutch might
+be sure "whether this land is not divided from the great known South
+Continent or not."
+
+What he accomplished on this voyage is best seen in "The complete map
+of the Southern Continent surveyed by Captain Abel Tasman," which was
+inlaid on the floor of the large hall in the Stadthouse at Amsterdam.
+The Great South Land was henceforth known as New Holland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+DAMPIER DISCOVERS HIS STRAIT
+
+
+It was not long before the great stretch of coast-line carefully
+charted by Tasman became known to the English, and while the Dutch
+were yet busy exploring farther, Dampier--the first Englishman to
+visit the country--had already set foot on its shores.
+
+"We lie entirely at the mercy of the Dutch East India Company's
+geography for the outline of this part of the coast of New Holland:
+for it does not appear that the ships of any other nation have ever
+approached it," says an old history of the period.
+
+Some such information as this became known in South America, in which
+country the English had long been harassing the Spaniards. It reached
+the ears of one William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who had lived
+a life of romance and adventure with the buccaneers, pillaging and
+plundering foreign ships in these remote regions of the earth. He had
+run across the Southern Pacific carrying his life in his hand. He had
+marched across the isthmus of Panama--one hundred and ten miles in
+twenty-three days--through deep and swiftly flowing rivers, dense
+growths of tropical vegetation full of snakes, his only food being
+the flesh of monkeys. Such was the man who now took part in a
+privateering cruise under Captain Swan, bound for the East Indies.
+
+On 1st March 1686, Swan and Dampier sailed away from the coast of Mexico
+on the voyage that led to Dampier's circumnavigation of the globe.
+For fifty days they sailed without sighting land, and when at last
+they found themselves off the island of Guam, they had only three days'
+food left, and the crews were busy plotting to kill Captain Swan and
+eat him, the other commanders sharing the same fate in turn.
+
+"Ah, Dampier," said Captain Swan, when he and all the men had refreshed
+themselves with food, "you would have made but a poor meal," for Dampier
+was as lean as the Captain was "fat and fleshy." Soon, however, fresh
+trouble arose among the men. Captain Swan lost his life, and Dampier
+on board the little _Cygnet_ sailed hurriedly for the Spice Islands.
+
+[Illustration: DAMPIER'S SHIP THE _CYGNET_. From a drawing in the
+Dutch edition of his _Voyage Round the World_, 1698.]
+
+He was now on the Australian parallels, "in the shadow of a world lying
+dark upon the face of the ocean." It was January 1688 when Dampier
+sighted the coast of New Holland and anchored in a bay, which they
+named Cygnet Bay after their ship, somewhere off the northern coast
+of eastern Australia. Here, while the ship was undergoing repairs,
+Dampier makes his observations.
+
+"New Holland," he tells us, "is a very large tract of land. It is not
+yet determined whether it is an island or a main continent, but I am
+certain that it joins neither to Africa, Asia, or America."
+
+"The inhabitants of this country," he tells us, "are the miserablest
+people in the world. They have no houses, but lie in the open air without
+any covering, the earth being their bed and the heaven their canopy.
+Their food is a small sort of fish, which they catch at low tide, while
+the old people that are not able to stir abroad by reason of their
+age and the tender infants wait their return, and what Providence has
+bestowed on them they presently broil on the coals and eat it in common.
+They are tall and thin, and of a very unpleasing aspect; their hair
+is black, short, and curled, like that of the negroes of Guinea."
+
+This Englishman's first description of the Australian natives cannot
+fail to be interesting. "After we had been here a little while, we
+clothed some of the men, designing to have some service from them for
+it; for we found some wells of water here, and intended to carry two
+or three barrels of it aboard. But it being somewhat troublesome to
+carry to the canoes, we thought to have made these men to have carry'd
+it for us, and therefore we gave them some clothes; to one an old pair
+of breeches, to another a ragged shirt, to a third a jacket that was
+scarce worth owning. We put them on, thinking that this finery would
+have brought them to work heartily for us; and our water being filled
+in small, long barrels, about six gallons in each, we brought these
+our new servants to the wells and put a barrel on each of their shoulders.
+But they stood like statues, without motion, but grinn'd like so many
+monkeys staring one upon another. So we were forced to carry the water
+ourselves."
+
+They had soon had enough of the new country, weighed anchor, and steered
+away to the north. Dampier returned to England even a poorer man than
+he had left it twelve years before. After countless adventures and
+hairbreadth escapes, after having sailed entirely round the world,
+he brought back with him nothing but one unhappy black man, "Prince
+Jeoly," whom he had bought for sixty dollars. He had hoped to recoup
+himself by showing the poor native with his rings and bracelets and
+painted skin, but he was in such need of money on landing that he gladly
+sold the poor black man on his arrival in the Thames.
+
+But Dampier had made himself a name as a successful traveller, and
+in 1699 he was appointed by the King, William III., to command the
+_Roebuck_, two hundred and ninety tons, with a crew of fifty men and
+provisions for twenty months. Leaving England in the middle of January
+1699, he sighted the west coast of New Holland toward the end of July,
+and anchored in a bay they called Sharks Bay, not far from the rocks
+where the _Batavia_ was wrecked with Captain Pelsart in 1629. He gives
+us a graphic picture of this place, with its sweet-scented trees, its
+shrubs gay as the rainbow with blossoms and berries, its many-coloured
+vegetation, its fragrant air and delicious soil. The men caught sharks
+and devoured them with relish, which speaks of scarce provisions.
+Inside one of the sharks (eleven feet long) they found a hippopotamus.
+"The flesh of it was divided among my men," says the Captain, "and
+they took care that no waste should be made of it, but thought it,
+as things stood, good entertainment."
+
+As it had been with Pelsart, so now with Dampier, fresh water was the
+difficulty, and they sailed north-east in search of it. They fell in
+with a group of small rocky islands still known as Dampier's
+Archipelago, one island of which they named Rosemary Island, because
+"there grow here two or three sorts of shrubs, one just like rosemary."
+Once again he comes across natives--"very much the same blinking
+creatures, also abundance of the same kind of flesh-flies teasing them,
+with the same black skins and hair frizzled." Indeed, he writes as
+though the whole country of New Holland was a savage and worthless
+land inhabited by dreadful monsters.
+
+"If it were not," he writes, "for that sort of pleasure which results
+from the discovery even of the barrenest spot upon the globe, this
+coast of New Holland would not have charmed me much." His first sight
+of the kangaroo--now the emblem of Australia--is interesting. He
+describes it as "a sort of raccoon, different from that of the West
+Indies, chiefly as to the legs, for these have very short fore-legs,
+but go jumping upon them as the others do, and like them are very good
+meat." This must have been the small kangaroo, for the large kind was
+not found till later by Captain Cook in New South Wales.
+
+But Dampier and his mates could not find fresh water, and soon wearied
+of the coast of New Holland; an outbreak of scurvy, too, decided them
+to sail away in search of fresh foods. Dampier had spent five weeks
+cruising off the coast; he had sailed along some nine hundred miles
+of the Australian shore without making any startling discoveries. A
+few months later the _Roebuck_ stood off the coast of New Guinea, "a
+high and mountainous country, green and beautiful with tropical
+vegetation, and dark with forests and groves of tall and stately
+trees." Innumerable dusky-faced natives peeped at the ship from behind
+the rocks, but they were not friendly, and this they showed by climbing
+the cocoanut trees and throwing down cocoanuts at the English, with
+passionate signs to them to depart. But with plenty of fresh water,
+this was unlikely, and the crews rowed ashore, killed and salted a
+good load of wild hogs, while the savages still peeped at them from
+afar.
+
+Thus then they sailed on, thinking they were still coasting New Guinea.
+So doing, they arrived at the straits which still bear the name of
+the explorer, and discovered a little island which he called New
+Britain. He had now been over fifteen months at sea and the _Roebuck_
+was only provisioned for twenty months, so Dampier, who never had the
+true spirit of the explorer in him, left his discoveries and turned
+homewards. The ship was rotten, and it took three months to repair
+her at Batavia before proceeding farther. With pumps going night and
+day, they made their way to the Cape of Good Hope; but off the island
+of Ascension the _Roebuck_ went down, carrying with her many of
+Dampier's books and papers. But though many of the papers were lost,
+the "Learned and Faithful Dampier" as he is called, the "Prince of
+Voyagers," has left us accounts of his adventures unequalled in those
+strenuous ocean-going days for their picturesque and graphic details.
+
+[Illustration: DAMPIER'S STRAITS AND THE ISLAND OF NEW BRITAIN. From
+a map in Dampier's _Voyages_, 1697.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+BEHRING FINDS HIS STRAIT
+
+
+In the great work of Arctic exploration during the eighteenth and
+nineteenth centuries, it is to England and Russia that we owe our
+knowledge at the present day. It is well known how Peter the Great
+of Russia journeyed to Amsterdam to learn shipbuilding under the Dutch,
+and to England to learn the same art under the English, and how the
+Russian fleet grew in his reign. Among the Danish shipbuilders at
+Petersburg was one Vitus Behring, already a bold and able commander
+on the high seas.
+
+The life of the great Russian Czar was drawing to its close--he was
+already within a few weeks of the end--when he planned an expedition
+under this same Vitus Behring, for which he wrote the instructions
+with his own hands.
+
+"(1) At Kamtchatka two decked boats are to be built. (2) With these
+you are to sail northward along the coast and, as the end of the coast
+is not known, this land is undoubtedly America. (3) For this reason
+you are to inquire where the American coast begins, and go to some
+European colony and, when European ships are seen, you are to ask what
+the coast is called, note it down, make a landing, and after having
+charted the coast return."
+
+Were Asia and America joined together, or was there a strait between
+the two? The question was yet undecided in 1725. Indeed, the east coast
+of Asia was only known as far as the island of Yezo, while the Pacific
+coast of America had been explored no farther than New Albion.
+
+Peter the Great died on 28th January 1725. A week later Behring started
+for Kamtchatka. Right across snow-covered Russia to the boundary of
+Siberia he led his expedition. March found him at Tobolsk. With rafts
+and boats they then made their way by the Siberian rivers till they
+reached Yakutsk, where they spent their first winter. Not till the
+middle Of June 1726 did Behring reach the capital of East Siberia.
+The rest of the journey was through utterly unknown land. It was some
+six hundred and eighty-five miles eastwards to Okhotsk through a rough
+and mountainous country, cut up by deep and bridgeless streams; the
+path lay over dangerous swamps and through dense forest.
+
+The party now divided. Behring, with two hundred horses, travelled
+triumphantly, if painfully, to Okhotsk in forty-five days. The town
+consisted of eleven huts containing Russian families who lived by
+fishing. Snow lay deep on the frozen ground, and the horses died one
+by one for lack of food, but the undaunted explorer had soon got huts
+ready for the winter, which was to be spent in felling trees and pushing
+forward the building of his ship, the _Fortuna_, for the coming voyage
+of discovery. Behring himself had made a successful journey to the
+coast, but some of the party encountered terrible hardships, and it
+was midsummer 1727 before they arrived, while others were overtaken
+by winter in the very heart of Siberia and had to make their way for
+the last three hundred miles on foot through snow in places six feet
+deep. Their food was finished, famine became a companion to cold, and
+they were obliged to gnaw their shoes and straps and leathern bags.
+Indeed, they must have perished had they not stumbled on Behring's
+route, where they found his dead horses. But at last all was ready
+and the little ship _Fortuna_ was sailing bravely across the Sea of
+Okhotsk some six hundred and fifty miles to the coast of Kamtchatka.
+This she did in sixteen days. The country of Kamtchatka had now to
+be crossed, and with boats and sledges this took the whole winter.
+It was a laborious undertaking following the course of the Kamtchatka
+River; the expedition had to camp in the snow, and few natives were
+forthcoming for the transport of heavy goods.
+
+It was not till March 1728 that Behring reached his goal, Ostrog, a
+village near the sea, inhabited by a handful of Cossacks. From this
+point, on the bleak shores of the Arctic sea, the exploring party were
+ordered to start. It had taken over three years to reach this
+starting-point, and even now a seemingly hopeless task lay before
+them.
+
+After hard months of shipbuilding, the stout little _Gabriel_ was
+launched, her timber had been hauled to Ostrog by dogs, while the
+rigging, cable, and anchors had been dragged nearly two thousand miles
+through one of the most desolate regions of the earth. As to the food
+on which the explorers lived: "Fish oil was their butter and dried
+fish their beef and pork. Salt they were obliged to get from the sea."
+Thus supplied with a year's provisions, Behring started on his voyage
+of discovery along an unknown coast and over an unknown sea. On 13th
+July 1728 the sails of the _Gabriel_ were triumphantly hoisted, and
+Behring, with a crew of forty-four, started on the great voyage. His
+course lay close along the coast northwards. The sea was alive with
+whales, seals, sea-lions, and dolphins as the little party made their
+way north, past the mouth of the Anadir River. The little _Gabriel_
+was now in the strait between Asia and America, though Behring knew
+it not. They had been at sea some three weeks, when eight men came
+rowing towards them in a leathern boat. They were the Chukches--a
+warlike race living on the north-east coast of Siberia, unsubdued and
+fierce. They pointed out a small island in the north, which Behring
+named the Isle of St. Lawrence in honour of the day. Then he turned
+back. He felt he had accomplished his task and obeyed his orders.
+Moreover, with adverse winds they might never return to Kamtchatka,
+and to winter among the Chukches was to court disaster. After a cruise
+of three months they reached their starting-point again. Had he only
+known that the coast of America was but thirty-nine miles off, the
+results of his voyage would have been greater. As it was, he ascertained
+that "there really does exist a north-east passage, and that from the
+Lena River it is possible, provided one is not prevented by Polar ice,
+to sail to Kamtchatka and thence to Japan, China, and the East Indies."
+
+The final discovery was left for Captain Cook. As he approached the
+straits which he called after Behring, the sun broke suddenly through
+the clouds, and the continents of Asia and America were visible at
+a glance.
+
+There was dissatisfaction in Russia with the result of Behring's
+voyage, and though five years of untold hardship in the "extremest
+corner of the world" had told on the Russian explorer, he was willing
+and anxious to start off again. He proposed to make Kamtchatka again
+his headquarters, to explore the western coast of America, and to chart
+the long Arctic coast of Siberia--a colossal task indeed.
+
+So the Great Northern Expedition was formed, with Behring in command,
+accompanied by two well-known explorers to help, Spangberg and
+Chirikoff, and with five hundred and seventy men under him. It would
+take too long to follow the various expeditions that now left Russia
+in five different directions to explore the unknown coasts of the Old
+World. "The world has never witnessed a more heroic geographical
+enterprise than these Arctic expeditions." Amid obstacles
+indescribable the north line of Siberia, hitherto charted as a
+straight line, was explored and surveyed. Never was greater courage
+and endurance displayed. If the ships got frozen in, they were hauled
+on shore, the men spent the long winter in miserable huts and started
+off again with the spring, until the northern coast assumed shape and
+form.
+
+One branch of the Great Northern Expedition under Behring was composed
+of professors to make a scientific investigation of Kamtchatka! These
+thirty learned Russians were luxuriously equipped. They carried a
+library with several hundred books, including _Robinson Crusoe_ and
+_Gulliver's Travels_, seventy reams of writing-paper, and artists'
+materials. They had nine wagonloads of instruments, carrying
+telescopes fifteen feet long. A surgeon, two landscape painters, one
+instrument maker, five surveyors accompanied them, and "the convoy
+grew like an avalanche as it worked its way into Siberia." Behring
+seems to have moved this "cumbersome machine" safely to Yakutsk,
+though it took the best part of two years. Having left Russia in 1733,
+it was 1741 when Behring himself was ready to start from the harbour
+of Okhotsk for the coast of America with two ships and provisions for
+some months. He was now nearly sixty, his health was undermined with
+vexation and worry, and the climate of Okhotsk had nearly killed him.
+
+On 18th July--just six weeks after the start--Behring discovered the
+continent of North America. The coast was jagged, the land covered
+with snow, mountains extended inland, and above all rose a peak
+towering into the clouds--a peak higher than anything they knew in
+Siberia or Kamtchatka, which Behring named Mount St. Elias, after the
+patron saint of the day. He made his way with difficulty through the
+string of islands that skirt the great peninsula of Alaska. Through
+the months of August and September they cruised about the coast in
+damp and foggy weather, which now gave way to violent storms, and
+Behring's ship was driven along at the mercy of the wind. He himself
+was ill, and the greater part of his crew were disabled by scurvy.
+At last one day, in a high-running sea, the ship struck upon a rock
+and they found themselves stranded on an unknown island off the coast
+of Kamtchatka. Only two men were fit to land; they found a dead whale
+on which they fed their sick. Later on sea-otters, blue and white foxes,
+and sea-cows provided food, but the island was desolate and
+solitary--not a human being was to be seen.
+
+[Illustration: THE CHART OF BEHRING'S VOYAGE FROM KAMTCHATKA TO NORTH
+AMERICA. From a chart drawn in 1741 by Lieut. Waxell, a member of
+Behring's expedition. It is also interesting for the drawing of the
+sea-cow, one of the very few authentic drawings of this curious animal,
+which has long been extinct, and is only known by these drawings.]
+
+Here, however, the little party was forced to winter. With difficulty
+they built five underground huts on the sandy shore of the island now
+known as Behring Island. And each day amid the raging snowstorms and
+piercing winds one man went forth to hunt for animal food.
+
+Man after man died, and by December, Behring's own condition had become
+hopeless. Hunger and grief had added to his misery, and in his sand-hut
+he died. He was almost buried alive, for the sand rolled down from
+the pit in which he lay and covered his feet. He would not have it
+removed, for it kept him warm. Thirty more of the little expedition
+died during that bitter winter on the island; the survivors, some
+forty-five persons, built a ship from the timbers of the wreck, and
+in August 1742 they returned to Kamtchatka to tell the story of
+Behring's discoveries and of Behring's death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+COOK DISCOVERS NEW ZEALAND
+
+
+But while the names of Torres, Carpenter, Tasman, and Dampier are still
+to be found on our modern maps of Australia, it is the name of Captain
+Cook that we must always connect most closely with the discovery of
+the great island continent--the Great South Land which only became
+known to Europe one hundred and fifty years ago.
+
+Dampier had returned to England in 1701 from his voyage to New Holland,
+but nearly seventy years passed before the English were prepared to
+send another expedition to investigate further the mysterious land
+in the south.
+
+James Cook had shown himself worthy of the great command that was given
+to him in 1768, although exploration was not the main object of the
+expedition. Spending his boyhood in the neighbourhood of Whitby, he
+was familiar with the North Sea fishermen, with the colliers, even
+with the smugglers that frequented this eastern coast. In 1755 he
+entered the Royal Navy, volunteering for service and entering H.M.S.
+_Eagle_ as master's mate. Four years later we find him taking his share
+on board H.M.S. _Pembroke_ in the attack on Quebec by Wolfe, and later
+transferred to H.M.S. _Northumberland_, selected to survey the river
+and Gulf of St. Lawrence. So satisfactory was his work that a few years
+later he was instructed to survey and chart the coasts of Newfoundland
+and Labrador. While engaged on this work, he observed an eclipse of
+the sun, which led to the appointment that necessitated a voyage to
+the Pacific Ocean. It had been calculated that a Transit of Venus would
+occur in June 1769. A petition to the King set forth: "That, the British
+nation being justly celebrated in the learned world for their
+knowledge of astronomy, in which they are inferior to no nation upon
+earth, ancient or modern, it would cast dishonour upon them should
+they neglect to have correct observations made of this important
+phenomenon." The King agreed, and the Royal Society selected James
+Cook as a fit man for the appointment. A stout, strongly built collier
+of three hundred and seventy tons was chosen at Whitby, manned with
+seventy men, and victualled for twelve months. With instructions to
+observe the Transit of Venus at the island of Georgeland (Otaheite),
+to make further discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean and to explore
+New Zealand if possible, Cook hoisted his flag on H.M.S. _Endeavour_
+and started in May 1768.
+
+It was an interesting party on board, joined at the last moment by
+Mr. Joseph Banks, a very rich member of the Royal Society and a student
+of Natural History. He had requested leave to sail in "the ship that
+carries the English astronomers to the new-discovered country in the
+South Sea." "No people ever went to sea better fitted out for the
+purpose of Natural History, nor more elegantly," says a contemporary
+writer. "They have a fine library, they have all sorts of machines
+for catching and preserving insects, they have two painters and
+draughtsmen--in short, this expedition will cost Mr. Banks 10,000
+pounds."
+
+Their astronomical instruments were of the best, including a portable
+observatory constructed for sixteen guineas. But most important of
+all was the careful assortment of provisions, to allay, if possible,
+that scourge of all navigators, the scurvy. A quantity of malt was
+shipped to be made into wort, mustard, vinegar, wheat, orange and lemon
+juice and portable soup was put on board, and Cook received special
+orders to keep his men with plenty of fresh food whenever this was
+possible. He carried out these orders strenuously, and at Madeira we
+find him punishing one of his own seamen with twelve lashes for refusing
+to eat fresh beef. Hence they left Rio de Janeiro "in as good a condition
+for prosecuting the voyage as on the day they left England."
+
+[Illustration: THE ISLAND OF OTAHEITE, OR ST. GEORGE. From a painting
+by William Hodges, who accompanied Captain Cook.]
+
+Christmas Day was passed near the mouth of the river Plate, and, early
+in the New Year of 1769, the _Endeavour_ sailed through the Strait
+of Le Maire. The wealthy Mr. Banks landed on Staaten Island and hastily
+added a hundred new plants to his collection. Then they sailed on to
+St. George's Island. It had been visited by Captain Wallis in the
+_Dolphin_ the previous year; indeed, some of Cook's sailors had served
+on board the _Dolphin_ and knew the native chiefs of the island. All
+was friendly, tents were soon pitched, a fort built with mounted guns
+at either side, the precious instruments landed, and on 3rd June, with
+a cloudless sky and in intolerable heat, they observed the whole
+passage of the planet Venus over the sun's disk.
+
+After a stay of three months they left the island, taking Tupia, a
+native, with them. Among other accomplishments this Tupia roasted dogs
+to perfection, and Cook declares that dogs' flesh is "next only to
+English lamb."
+
+They visited other islands in the group--now known as the Society
+Islands and belonging to France--and took possession of all in the
+name of His Britannic Majesty, George III.
+
+All through the month of September they sailed south, till on 7th
+October land was sighted. It proved to be the North Island of New
+Zealand, never before approached by Europeans from the east. It was
+one hundred and twenty-seven years since Tasman had discovered the
+west coast and called it Staaten Land, but no European had ever set
+foot on its soil. Indeed, it was still held to be part of the Terra
+Australis Incognita.
+
+The first to sight land was a boy named Nicholas Young, hence the point
+was called "Young Nick's Head," which may be seen on our maps to-day,
+covering Poverty Bay. The natives here were unfriendly, and Cook was
+obliged to use firearms to prevent an attack. The Maoris had never
+seen a great ship before, and at first thought it was a very large
+bird, being struck by the size and beauty of its wings (sails). When
+a small boat was let down from the ship's side they thought it must
+be a young unfledged bird, but when the white men in their
+bright-coloured clothes rowed off in the boat they concluded these
+were gods.
+
+Cook found the low sandy coast backed by well-wooded hills rising to
+mountains on which patches of snow were visible, while smoke could
+be seen through the trees, speaking of native dwellings. The natives
+were too treacherous to make it safe landing for the white men, so
+they sailed out of Poverty Bay and proceeded south. Angry Maoris shook
+their spears at the Englishmen as they coasted south along the east
+coast of the North Island. But the face of the country was unpromising,
+and Cook altered his course for the north at a point he named Cape
+Turnagain. Unfortunately he missed the only safe port on the east coast
+between Auckland and Wellington, but he found good anchorage in what
+is now known as Cook's Bay. Here they got plenty of good fish, wild
+fowl, and oysters, "as good as ever came out of Colchester." Taking
+possession of the land they passed in the name of King George, Cook
+continued his northerly course, passing many a river which seemed to
+resemble the Thames at home. A heavy December gale blew them off the
+northernmost point of land, which they named North Cape, and Christmas
+was celebrated off Tasman's islands, with goose-pie.
+
+[Illustration: AN IPAH, OR MAORI FORT, ON THE COAST BETWEEN POVERTY
+BAY AND CAPE TURNAGAIN. From an engraving in the Atlas to Cook's first
+_Voyage_.]
+
+The New Year of 1770 found Cook off Cape Maria van Diemen, sailing
+south along the western coast of the North Island, till the _Endeavour_
+was anchored in Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte's Sound, only about seventy
+miles from the spot where Tasman first sighted land.
+
+Here the English explorer landed. The country was thickly wooded, but
+he climbed a hill, and away to the eastward he saw that the seas washing
+both east and west coasts of the northern island were united. He had
+solved one problem. Tasman's Staaten Land was not part of a great
+southern continent. He now resolved to push through his newly
+discovered straits between the two islands, and, having done this,
+he sailed north till he reached Cape Turnagain. And so he proved beyond
+a doubt that this was an island. The men thought they had done enough.
+But Cook, with the true instinct of an explorer, turned a deaf ear
+to the murmurings of his crew for roast beef and Old England, and
+directed his course again south. From the natives he had learned of
+the existence of two islands, and he must needs sail round the southern
+as he had sailed round the northern isle. Storms and gales harassed
+the navigators through the month of February as they made their way
+slowly southwards. Indeed, they had a very narrow escape from death
+towards the end of the month, when in a two days' gale, with heavy
+squalls of rain, their foresail was split to pieces and they lost sight
+of land for seven days, nearly running on to submerged rocks which
+Cook named The Traps.
+
+It was nearly dark on 14th March when they entered a bay which they
+suitably christened Dusky Bay, from which they sailed to Cascade Point,
+named from the four streams that fell over its face.
+
+"No country upon earth," remarks Cook, "can appear with a more rugged
+and barren aspect than this does from the sea, for, as far inland as
+the eye can reach, nothing is to be seen but the summit of these rocky
+mountains." At last on 24th March they rounded the north point of the
+South Island. Before them lay the familiar waters of Massacre Bay,
+Tasman Bay, and Queen Charlotte Sound.
+
+"As we have now circumnavigated the whole of this country, it is time
+for me to think of quitting it," Cook remarks simply enough.
+
+Running into Admiralty Bay, the _Endeavour_ was repaired for her
+coming voyage home. Her sails, "ill-provided from the first," says
+Banks, "were now worn and damaged by the rough work they had gone
+through, particularly on the coast of New Zealand, and they gave no
+little trouble to get into order again."
+
+While Banks searched for insects and plants, Cook sat writing up his
+_Journal_ of the circumnavigation. He loyally gives Tasman the honour
+of the first discovery, but clearly shows his error in supposing it
+to be part of the great southern land.
+
+The natives he describes as "a strong, raw-boned, well-made, active
+people rather above the common size, of a dark brown colour, with black
+hair, thin black beards, and white teeth. Both men and women paint
+their faces and bodies with red ochre mixed with fish oil. They wear
+ornaments of stone, bone, and shells at their ears and about their
+necks, and the men generally wear long white feathers stuck upright
+in their hair. They came off in canoes which will carry a hundred
+people; when within a stone's throw of the ship, the chief of the party
+would brandish a battleaxe, calling out: 'Come ashore with us and we
+will kill you.' They would certainly have eaten them too, for they
+were cannibals."
+
+The ship was now ready and, naming the last point of land Cape Farewell,
+they sailed away to the west, "till we fall in with the east coast
+of New Holland." They had spent six and a half months sailing about
+in New Zealand waters, and had coasted some two thousand four hundred
+miles.
+
+Nineteen days' sail brought them to the eagerly sought coast, and on
+28th April, Cook anchored for the first time in the bay known afterwards
+to history as Botany Bay, so named from the quantity of plants found
+in the neighbourhood by Mr. Banks. Cutting an inscription on one of
+the trees, with the date and name of the ship, Cook sailed north early
+in May, surveying the coast as he passed and giving names to the various
+bays and capes. Thus Port Jackson, at the entrance of Sydney harbour,
+undiscovered by Cook, was so named after one of the Secretaries of
+the Admiralty--Smoky Cape from smoke arising from native
+dwellings--Point Danger by reason of a narrow escape on some
+shoals--while Moreton Bay, on which Brisbane, the capital of
+Queensland, now stands, was named after the President of the Royal
+Society. As they advanced, the coast became steep, rocky, and
+unpromising.
+
+"Hitherto," reports Cook, "we had safely navigated this dangerous
+coast, where the sea in all parts conceals shores that project suddenly
+from the shore and rocks that rise abruptly like a pyramid from the
+bottom more than one thousand three hundred miles. But here we became
+acquainted with misfortune, and we therefore called the point which
+we had just seen farthest to the northward, Cape Tribulation."
+
+It was the 10th of May. The gentlemen had left the deck "in great
+tranquillity" and gone to bed, when suddenly the ship struck and
+remained immovable except for the heaving of the surge that beat her
+against the crags of the rock upon which she lay. Every one rushed
+to the deck "with countenances which sufficiently expressed the
+horrors of our situation." Immediately they took in all sails, lowered
+the boats, and found they were on a reef of coral rocks. Two days of
+sickening anxiety followed, the ship sprang a leak, and they were
+threatened with total destruction. To their intense relief, however,
+the ship floated off into deep water with a high tide. Repairs were
+now more than ever necessary, and the poor battered collier was taken
+into the "Endeavour" river. Tupia and others were also showing signs
+of scurvy; so a hospital tent was erected on shore, and with a supply
+of fresh fish, pigeons, wild plantains, and turtles they began to
+improve. Here stands to-day the seaport of Cooktown, where a monument
+of Captain Cook looks out over the waters that he discovered.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN COOK'S VESSEL BEACHED AT THE ENTRANCE OF
+ENDEAVOUR RIVER, WHERE THE SEAPORT OF COOKTOWN NOW STANDS. From an
+engraving in the Atlas to Cook's first _Voyage_.]
+
+The prospect of further exploration was not encouraging. "In whatever
+direction we looked, the sea was covered with shoals as far as the
+eye could see." As they sailed out of their little river, they could
+see the surf breaking on the "Great Barrier Reef." Navigation now
+became very difficult, and, more than once, even Cook himself almost
+gave up hope. Great, then, was their joy when they found themselves
+at the northern promontory of the land which "I have named York Cape
+in honour of His late Royal Highness the Duke of York. We were in great
+hopes that we had at last found out a passage into the Indian Seas."
+And he adds an important paragraph: "As I was now about to quit the
+eastern coast of New Holland, which I am confident no European had
+ever seen before, I once more hoisted the English colours, and I now
+took possession of the whole eastern coast in right of His Majesty
+King George III., by the name of New South Wales, with all the bays,
+harbours, rivers, and islands situated upon it."
+
+This part of the new land was called by the name of New South Wales.
+
+So the _Endeavour_ sailed through the straits that Torres had
+accidentally passed one hundred and sixty-four years before, and, just
+sighting New Guinea, Cook made his way to Java, for his crew were sickly
+and "pretty far gone with longing for home." The ship, too, was in
+bad condition; she had to be pumped night and day to keep her free
+from water, and her sails would hardly stand the least puff of wind.
+They reached Batavia in safety and were kindly received by the Dutch
+there.
+
+Since leaving Plymouth two years before, Cook had only lost seven men
+altogether--three by drowning, two frozen, one from consumption, one
+from poisoning--none from scurvy--a record without equal in the
+history of Navigation. But the climate of Batavia now wrought havoc
+among the men. One after another died, Tupia among others, and so many
+were weakened with fever that only twenty officers and men were left
+on duty at one time.
+
+Glad, indeed, they were to leave at Christmas time, and gladder still
+to anchor in the Downs and to reach London after their three years'
+absence. The news of his arrival and great discoveries seems to have
+been taken very quietly by those at home. "Lieutenant Cook of the Navy,"
+says the _Annual Register_ for 1771, "who sailed round the globe, was
+introduced to His Majesty at St. James's, and presented to His Majesty
+his _Journal_ of his voyage, with some curious maps and charts of
+different places that he had drawn during the voyage; he was presented
+with a captain's commission."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+COOK'S THIRD VOYAGE AND DEATH
+
+
+Although the importance of his discoveries was not realised at this
+time, Cook was given command of two new ships, the _Resolution_ and
+_Adventure_, provisioned for a year for "a voyage to remote parts,"
+a few months later. And the old _Endeavour_ went back to her collier
+work in the North Sea.
+
+Perhaps a letter written by Cook to a friend at Whitby on his return
+from the second voyage is sufficient to serve our purpose here; for,
+though the voyage was important enough, yet little new was discovered.
+And after spending many months in high latitudes, Cook decided that
+there was no great southern continent to the south of New Holland and
+New Zealand.
+
+
+"DEAR SIR,"--he writes from London in September 1775--"I now sit down
+to fulfil the promise I made you to give you some account of my last
+voyage. I left the Cape of Good Hope on 22nd November 1772 and proceeded
+to the south, till I met with a vast field of ice and much foggy weather
+and large islets or floating mountains of ice without number. After
+some trouble and not a little danger, I got to the south of the field
+of ice; and after beating about for some time for land, in a sea strewed
+with ice, I crossed the Antarctic circle and the same evening (17th
+January 1773) found it unsafe, or rather impossible, to stand farther
+to the south for ice.
+
+"Seeing no signs of meeting with land in these high latitudes, I stood
+away to the northward, and, without seeing any signs of land, I thought
+proper to steer for New Zealand, where I anchored in Dusky Bay on 26th
+March and then sailed for Queen Charlotte's Sound. Again I put to sea
+and stood to the south, where I met with nothing but ice and excessive
+cold, bad weather. Here I spent near four months beating about in high
+latitudes. Once I got as high as seventy-one degrees, and farther it
+was not possible to go for ice which lay as firm as land. Here we saw
+ice mountains, whose summits were lost in clouds. I was now fully
+satisfied that there was no Southern Continent. I nevertheless
+resolved to spend some time longer in these seas, and with this
+resolution I stood away to the north."
+
+
+In this second voyage Cook proved that there was no great land to the
+south of Terra Australis or South America, except the land of ice lying
+about the South Pole.
+
+But he did a greater piece of work than this. He fought, and fought
+successfully, the great curse of scurvy, which had hitherto carried
+off scores of sailors and prevented ships on voyages of discovery,
+or indeed ships of war, from staying long on the high seas without
+constantly landing for supplies of fresh food. It was no uncommon
+occurrence for a sea captain to return after even a few months' cruise
+with half his men suffering from scurvy. Captain Palliser on H.M.S.
+_Eagle_ in 1756 landed in Plymouth Sound with one hundred and thirty
+sick men out of four hundred, twenty-two having died in a month. Cook
+had resolved to fight this dreaded scourge, and we have already seen
+that during his three years' cruise of the _Endeavour_ he had only
+to report five cases of scurvy, so close a watch did he keep on his
+crews. In his second voyage he was even more particular, with the result
+that in the course of three years he did not lose a single man from
+scurvy. He enforced cold bathing, and encouraged it by example. The
+allowance of salt beef and pork was cut down, and the habit of mixing
+salt beef fat with the flour was strictly forbidden. Salt butter and
+cheese were stopped, and raisins were substituted for salt suet; wild
+celery was collected in Terra del Fuego and breakfast made from this
+with ground wheat and portable soup. The cleanliness of the men was
+insisted on. Cook never allowed any one to appear dirty before him.
+He inspected the men once a week at least, and saw with his own eyes
+that they changed their clothing; equal care was taken to keep the
+ship clean and dry between decks, and she was constantly "cured with
+fires" or "smoked with gunpowder mixed with vinegar."
+
+For a paper on this subject read before the Royal Society in 1776,
+James Cook was awarded a gold medal (now in the British Museum).
+
+But although the explorer was now forty-eight, he was as eager for
+active adventure as a youth of twenty. He had settled the question
+of a southern continent. Now when the question of the North-West
+Passage came up again, he offered his services to Lord Sandwich, first
+Lord of the Admiralty, and was at once accepted. It was more than two
+hundred years since Frobisher had attempted to solve the mystery,
+which even Cook--the first navigator of his day--with improved ships
+and better-fed men, did not succeed in solving. He now received his
+secret instructions, and, choosing the old _Resolution_ again, he set
+sail in company with Captain Clerke on board the _Discovery_ in the
+year 1776 for that voyage from which there was to be no return. He
+was to touch at New Albion (discovered by Drake) and explore any rivers
+or inlets that might lead to Hudson's or Baffin's Bay.
+
+After once more visiting Tasmania and New Zealand, he made a prolonged
+stay among the Pacific Islands, turning north in December 1777. Soon
+after they had crossed the line, and a few days before Christmas, a
+low island was seen on which Cook at once landed, hoping to get a fresh
+supply of turtle. In this he was not disappointed. Some three hundred,
+"all of the green kind and perhaps as good as any in the world," were
+obtained; the island was named Christmas Island, and the _Resolution_
+and _Discovery_ sailed upon their way. A few days later they came upon
+a group of islands hitherto unknown. These they named after the Earl
+of Sandwich, the group forming the kingdom of Hawaii--the chief island.
+Natives came off in canoes bringing pigs and potatoes, and ready to
+exchange fish for nails. Some were tempted on board, "the wildness
+of their looks expressing their astonishment." Anchorage being found,
+Cook landed, and as he set foot on shore a large crowd of natives pressed
+forward and, throwing themselves on their faces, remained thus till
+Cook signed to them to rise.
+
+[Illustration: CAPIAIN JAMES COOK. From the painting by Dance in the
+gallery of Greenwich Hospital.]
+
+With a goodly supply of fresh provisions, Cook sailed away from the
+Sandwich Islands, and after some five weeks' sail to the north the
+"longed-for coast of New Albion was seen." The natives of the country
+were clad in fur, which they offered for sale. They exacted payment
+for everything, even for the wood and water that the strangers took
+from their shores. The weather was cold and stormy, and the progress
+of the little English ships was slow. By 22nd March they had passed
+Cape Flattery; a week later they named Hope Bay, "in which we hoped
+to find a good harbour, and the event proved we were not mistaken."
+All this part of the coast was called by Cook King George's Sound,
+but the native name of Nootka has since prevailed. We have an amusing
+account of these natives. At first they were supposed to be dark
+coloured, "till after much cleaning they were found to have skins like
+our people in England." Expert thieves they were. No piece of iron
+was safe from them. "Before we left the place," says Cook, "hardly
+a bit of brass was left in the ship. Whole suits of clothes were stripped
+of every button, copper kettles, tin canisters, candlesticks, all went
+to wreck, so that these people got a greater variety of things from
+us than any other people we had visited."
+
+It was not till 26th April that Cook at last managed to start forward
+again, but a two days' hard gale drove him from the coast and onwards
+to a wide inlet to which he gave the name of Prince William's Sound.
+Here the natives were just like the Eskimos in Hudson's Bay. The ships
+now sailed westward, doubling the promontory of Alaska, and on 9th
+August they reached the westernmost point of North America, which they
+named Cape Prince of Wales. They were now in the sea discovered by
+Behring, 1741, to which they gave his name. Hampered by fog and ice,
+the ships made their way slowly on to a point named Cape North. Cook
+decided that the eastern point of Asia was but thirteen leagues from
+the western point of America. They named the Sound on the American
+side Norton Sound after the Speaker of the House of Commons. Having
+passed the Arctic Circle and penetrated into the Northern Seas, which
+were never free from ice, they met Russian traders who professed to
+have known Behring. Then having discovered four thousand miles of new
+coast, and refreshed themselves with walrus or sea-horse, the
+expedition turned joyfully back to the Sandwich Islands.
+
+On the last day of November, Cook discovered the island of Owhyhee
+(Hawaii), which he carefully surveyed, till he came to anchor in
+Karakakooa Bay.
+
+The tragic death of Captain Cook at the hands of these natives is well
+known to every child. The reason for his murder is not entirely
+understood to-day, but the natives, who had hitherto proved friendly,
+suddenly attacked the English explorer and slew him, and "he fell into
+the water and spoke no more."
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN COOK, THE DISCOVERER OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS,
+WITH HIS SHIPS IN KEALAKEKUA BAY, HAWAII, WHERE HE WAS MURDERED. From
+an engraving in the Atlas to _Cook's Voyages_, 1779.]
+
+Such was the melancholy end of England's first great navigator--James
+Cook--the foremost sailor of his time, the man who had circumnavigated
+New Zealand, who had explored the coast of New South Wales, named
+various unknown islands in the Pacific Ocean, and discovered the
+Sandwich Islands. He died on 14th February 1779. It was not till 11th
+January 1780 that the news of his death reached London, to be recorded
+in the quaint language of the day by the _London Gazette_.
+
+"It is with the utmost concern," runs the announcement, "that we inform
+the Public, that the celebrated Circumnavigator, Captain Cook, was
+killed by the inhabitants of a new-discover'd island in the South Seas.
+The Captain and crew were first treated as deities, but, upon their
+revisiting that Island, hostilities ensued and the above melancholy
+scene was the Consequence. This account is come from Kamtchatka by
+Letters from Captain Clerke and others. But the crews of the Ships
+were in a very good state of health, and all in the most desirable
+condition. His successful attempts to preserve the Healths of his
+Crews are well known, and his Discoveries will be an everlasting Honour
+to his Country."
+
+_Cook's First Voyages_ were published in 1773, and were widely read,
+but his account of the new country did not at once attract Europeans
+to its shores. We hear of "barren sandy shores and wild rocky coast
+inhabited by naked black people, malicious and cruel," on the one hand,
+"and low shores all white with sand fringed with foaming surf," with
+hostile natives on the other.
+
+[Illustration: "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"--VI. The world as known
+after the voyages of Captain Cook (1768-1779).]
+
+It was not till eighteen years after Cook's death that Banks--his old
+friend--appealed to the British Government of the day to make some
+use of these discoveries. At last the loss of the American colonies
+in 1776 induced men to turn their eyes toward the new land in the South
+Pacific. Banks remembered well his visit to Botany Bay with Captain
+Cook in 1770, and he now urged the dispatch of convicts, hitherto
+transported to America, to this newly found bay in New South Wales.
+
+So in 1787 a fleet of eleven ships with one thousand people on board
+left the shores of England under the command of Captain Phillip. After
+a tedious voyage of thirty-six weeks, they reached Botany Bay in
+January 1788.
+
+Captain Phillip had been appointed Governor of all New South Wales,
+that is from Cape York to Van Diemen's Land, still supposed to be part
+of the mainland. But Phillip at once recognised that Botany Bay was
+not a suitable place for a settlement. No white man had described these
+shores since the days of Captain Cook. The green meadows of which Banks
+spoke were barren swamps and bleak sands, while the bay itself was
+exposed to the full sweep of violent winds, with a heavy sea breaking
+with tremendous surf against the shore.
+
+"Warra, warra!" (begone, begone), shouted the natives, brandishing
+spears at the water's edge as they had done eighteen years before.
+In an open boat--for it was midsummer in these parts--Phillip surveyed
+the coast; an opening marked Port Jackson on Cook's chart attracted
+his notice and, sailing between two rocky headlands, the explorer
+found himself crossing smooth, clear water with a beautiful harbour
+in front and soft green foliage reaching down to the water's edge.
+Struck with the loveliness of the scene, and finding both wood and
+water here, he chose the spot for his new colony, giving it the name
+of Sydney, alter Lord Sydney, who as Home Secretary had appointed him
+to his command.
+
+[Illustration: PORT JACKSON AND SYDNEY COVE A FEW YEARS AFTER COOK
+AND PHILLIP. From the Atlas to the _Voyage de l'Astrolabe_.]
+
+"We got into Port Jackson," he wrote to Lord Sydney, "early in the
+afternoon, and had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in
+the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in perfect
+security."
+
+"To us," wrote one of his captains, "it was a great and important day,
+and I hope will mark the foundation of an empire."
+
+But, interesting as it is, we cannot follow the fortunes of this first
+little English colony in the South Pacific Ocean.
+
+The English had not arrived a day too soon. A few days later the French
+explorer, La Perouse, guided hither by Cook's chart, suddenly made
+his appearance on the shores of Botany Bay. The arrival of two French
+men-of-war caused the greatest excitement among the white strangers
+and the black natives.
+
+La Perouse had left France in 1785 in command of two ships with orders
+to search for the North-West Passage from the Pacific side--a feat
+attempted by Captain Cook only nine years before--to explore the China
+seas, the Solomon Islands, and the Terra Australis. He had reached
+the coast of Alaska in June 1786, but after six weeks of bad weather
+he had crossed to Asia in the early part of the following year.
+
+Thence he had made his way by the Philippine Islands to the coasts
+of Japan, Korea, and "Chinese Tartary." Touching at Quelpart, he
+reached a bay near our modern Vladivostock, and on 2nd August 1787
+he discovered the strait that bears his name to-day, between Saghalien
+and the North Island of Japan. Fortunately, from Kamtchatka, where
+he had landed, he had sent home his journals, notes, plans, and maps
+by Lesseps--uncle of the famous Ferdinand de Lesseps of Suez Canal
+fame.
+
+On 26th January 1788 he landed at Botany Bay. From here he wrote his
+last letter to the French Government. After leaving this port he was
+never seen again. Many years later, in 1826, the wreck of his two ships
+was found on the reefs of an island near the New Hebrides.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+BRUCE'S TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA
+
+
+Perhaps one of the strangest facts in the whole history of exploration
+is that Africa was almost an unknown land a hundred years ago, and
+stranger still, that there remains to-day nearly one-eleventh of the
+whole area still unexplored. And yet it is one of the three old
+continents that appear on every old chart of the world in ancient days,
+with its many-mouthed Nile rising in weird spots and flowing in sundry
+impossible directions. Sometimes it joins the mysterious Niger, and
+together they flow through country labelled "Unknown" or "Desert" or
+"Negroland," or an enterprising cartographer fills up vacant spaces
+with wild animals stalking through the land.
+
+The coast tells a different tale. The west shores are studded with
+trading forts belonging to English, Danes, Dutch, and Portuguese,
+where slaves from the interior awaited shipment to the various
+countries that required negro labour. The slave trade was the great,
+in fact the only, attraction to Africa at the beginning of the
+eighteenth century. In pursuit of this, men would penetrate quite a
+long way into the interior, but through the long centuries few
+explorers had travelled to the Dark Continent.
+
+Towards the end of the century we suddenly get one man--a young Scottish
+giant, named James Bruce, thirsting for exploration for its own sake.
+He cared not for slaves or gold or ivory. He just wanted to discover
+the source of the Nile, over which a great mystery had hung since the
+days of Herodotus. The Mountains of the Moon figure largely on the
+Old World maps, but Bruce decided to rediscover these for himself.
+Herodotus had said the Nile turned west and became the Niger, others
+said it turned east and somehow joined the Tigris and Euphrates. Indeed,
+such was the uncertainty regarding its source that to discover the
+source of the Nile seemed equivalent to performing the impossible.
+
+James Bruce, athletic, daring, standing six feet four, seemed at the
+age of twenty-four made for a life of travel and adventure. His business
+took him to Spain and Portugal. He studied Arabic and the ancient
+language of Abyssinia. He came under the notice of Pitt, and was made
+consul of Algiers. The idea of the undiscovered sources of the Nile
+took strong hold of Bruce's imagination.
+
+"It was at this moment," he says, "that I resolved that this great
+discovery should either be achieved by me or remain--as it has done
+for three thousand years--a defiance to all travellers."
+
+A violent dispute with the old bey of Algiers ended Bruce's consulate,
+and in 1765, the spirit of adventure strong upon him, he sailed along
+the North African coast, landed at Tunis, and made his way to Tripoli.
+On the frontier he found a tribe of Arabs set apart to destroy the
+lions which beset the neighbourhood. These people not only killed but
+ate the lions, and they prevailed on Bruce to share their repast. But
+one meal was enough for the young explorer.
+
+In burning heat across the desert sands he passed on. Once a great
+caravan arrived, journeying from Fez to Mecca, consisting of three
+thousand men with camels laden with merchandise. But this religious
+pilgrimage was plundered in the desert soon after. Arrived at Bengazi,
+Bruce found a terrible famine raging, so he embarked on a little Greek
+ship bound for Crete. It was crowded with Arabs; the captain was
+ignorant; a violent storm arose and, close to Bengazi, the ship struck
+upon a rock. Lowering a boat, Bruce and a number of Arabs sprang in
+and tried to row ashore. But wave after wave broke over them, and at
+last they had to swim for their lives. The surf was breaking on the
+shore, and Bruce was washed up breathless and exhausted. Arabs
+flocking down to plunder the wreck, found Bruce, and with blows and
+kicks stripped him of all his clothes and left him naked on the barren
+shore. At last an old Arab came along, threw a dirty rag over him,
+and led him to a tent, whence he reached Bengazi once more, and soon
+after crossed to Crete.
+
+[Illustration: A NILE BOAT, OR CANJA. From Bruce's _Travels to
+Discover the Source of the Nile_.]
+
+It was not till July 1768 that the explorer at last reached Cairo _en
+route_ for Abyssinia, and five months later embarked on board a Nile
+boat, or canja. His cabin had close latticed windows made not only
+to admit fresh air, but to be a defence against a set of robbers on
+the Nile, who were wont to swim under water in the dark or on goatskins
+to pilfer any passing boats. Then, unfurling her vast sails, the canja
+bore Bruce on the first stage of his great journey. The explorer spent
+some time in trying to find the lost site of old Memphis, but this
+was difficult. "A man's heart fails him in looking to the south," he
+says; "he is lost in the immense expanse of desert, which he sees full
+of pyramids before him. Struck with terror from the unusual scene of
+vastness opened all at once upon leaving the palm trees, he becomes
+dispirited from the effect of the sultry climate."
+
+For some days the canja, with a fair wind, stemmed the strong current
+of the Nile. "With great velocity" she raced past various villages
+through the narrow green valley of cultivation, till the scene changed
+and large plantations of sugar-canes and dates began. "The wind had
+now become so strong that the canja could scarcely carry her sails;
+the current was rapid and the velocity with which she dashed against
+the water was terrible." Still she flew on day after day, till early
+in January they reached the spot "where spreading Nile parts
+hundred-gated Thebes." Solitude and silence reigned over the
+magnificent old sepulchres; the hundred gates were gone, robbers
+swarmed, and the traveller hastened away. So on to Luxor and Karnac
+to a great encampment of Arabs, who held sway over the desert which
+Bruce had now to cross. The old sheikh, whose protection was necessary,
+known as the Tiger from his ferocious disposition, was very ill in
+his tent. Bruce gave him some lime water, which eased his pain, and,
+rising from the ground, the old Arab stood upright and cried: "Cursed
+be those of my people that ever shall lift up their hand against you
+in the desert."
+
+He strongly advised Bruce to return to Kenne and cross the desert from
+there instead of going on by the Nile. Reluctantly Bruce turned back,
+and on 16th February 1769 he joined a caravan setting out to cross
+the desert to the shores of the Red Sea.
+
+"Our road," he says, "was all the way in an open plain bounded by
+hillocks of sand and fine gravel--perfectly hard, but without trees,
+shrubs, or herbs. There are not even the traces of any living creature,
+neither serpent, lizard, antelope, nor ostrich--the usual inhabitants
+of the most dreary deserts. There is no sort of water--even the birds
+seem to avoid the place as pestilential--the sun was burning hot."
+In a few days the scene changed, and Bruce is noting that in four days
+he passes more granite, porphyry, marble, and jasper than would build
+Rome, Athens, Corinth, Memphis, Alexandria, and half a dozen more.
+At last after a week's travel they reached Cossier, the little
+mud-walled village on the shores of the Red Sea. Here Bruce embarked
+in a small boat, the planks of which were sewn together instead of
+nailed, with a "sort of straw mattress as a sail," for the emerald
+mines described by Pliny, but he was driven back by a tremendous storm.
+Determined to survey the Red Sea, he sailed to the north, and after
+landing at Tor at the foot of Mount Sinai, he sailed down the bleak
+coast of Arabia to Jidda, the port of Mecca.
+
+[Illustration: AN ARAB SHEIKH. From Bruce's _Travels_.]
+
+By this time he was shaking with ague and fever, scorched by the burning
+sun, and weather-beaten by wind and storm--moreover, he was still
+dressed as a Turkish soldier. He was glad enough to find kindly English
+at Jidda, and after two months' rest he sailed on to the Straits of
+Babelmandeb. Being now on English ground, he drank the King's health
+and sailed across to Masuah, the main port of Abyssinia. Although he
+had letters of introduction from Jidda he had some difficulty with
+the chief of Masuah, but at last, dressed in long white Moorish robes,
+he broke away, and in November 1769 started forth for Gondar, the
+capital of Abyssinia.
+
+It was nearly one hundred and fifty years since any European of note
+had visited the country, and it was hard to get any information.
+
+His way led across mountainous country--rugged and steep. "Far above
+the top of all towers that stupendous mass, the mountain of Taranta,
+probably one of the highest in the world, the point of which is buried
+in the clouds and very rarely seen but in the clearest weather; at
+other times abandoned to perpetual mist and darkness, the seat of
+lightning, thunder, and of storm." Violent storms added to the terrors
+of the way, trees were torn up by the roots, and swollen streams rushed
+along in torrents.
+
+Bruce had started with his quadrant carried by four men, but the task
+of getting his cumbersome instruments up the steep sides of Taranta
+was intense. However, they reached the top at last to find a huge plain,
+"perhaps one of the highest in the world," and herds of beautiful cattle
+feeding. "The cows were completely white, with large dewlaps hanging
+down to their knees, white horns, and long silky hair." After
+ninety-five days' journey, on 14th February Bruce reached Gondar, the
+capital, on the flat summit of a high hill.
+
+Here lived the King of Abyssinia, a supposed descendant of King
+Solomon; but at the present time the country was in a lawless and
+unsettled condition. Moreover, smallpox was raging at the palace, and
+the royal children were smitten with it. Bruce's knowledge of medicine
+now stood him again in good stead. He opened all the doors and windows
+of the palace, washed his little patients with vinegar and warm water,
+sent away those not already infected, and all recovered. Bruce had
+sprung into court favour. The ferocious chieftain, Ras Michael, who
+had killed one king, poisoned another, and was now ruling in the name
+of a third, sent for him. The old chief was dressed in a coarse, dirty
+garment wrapped round him like a blanket, his long white hair hung
+down over his shoulders, while behind him stood soldiers, their lances
+ornamented with shreds of scarlet cloth, one for every man slain in
+battle.
+
+Bruce was appointed "Master of the King's horse," a high office and
+richly paid.
+
+But "I told him this was no kindness," said the explorer. "My only
+wish was to see the country and find the sources of the Nile."
+
+But time passed on and they would not let him go, until, at last, he
+persuaded the authorities to make him ruler over the province where
+the Blue Nile was supposed to rise. Amid great opposition he at last
+left the palace of Gondar on 28th October 1770, and was soon on his
+way to the south "to see a river and a bog, no part of which he could
+take away"--an expedition wholly incomprehensible to the royal folk
+at Gondar. Two days' march brought him to the shores of the great Lake
+Tsana, into which, despite the fact that he was tremendously hot and
+that crocodiles abounded there, the hardy young explorer plunged for
+a swim. And thus refreshed he proceeded on his way. He had now to
+encounter a new chieftain named Fasil, who at first refused to give
+him leave to pass on his way. It was not until Bruce had shown himself
+an able horseman and exhibited feats of strength and prowess that leave
+was at last granted. Fasil tested him in this wise. Twelve horses were
+brought to Bruce, saddled and bridled, to know which he would like
+to ride. Selecting an apparently quiet beast, the young traveller
+mounted.
+
+"For the first two minutes," he says, "I do not know whether I was
+most in the earth or in the air; he kicked behind, reared before, leaped
+like a deer all four legs off the ground--he then attempted to gallop,
+taking the bridle in his teeth; he continued to gallop and ran away
+as hard as he could, flinging out behind every ten yards, till he had
+no longer breath or strength and I began to think he would scarce carry
+me to the camp."
+
+On his return Bruce mounted his own horse, and, taking his
+double-barrelled gun, he rode about, twisting and turning his horse
+in every direction, to the admiration of these wild Abyssinian folk.
+Not only did Fasil now let him go, but he dressed him in a fine, loose
+muslin garment which reached to his feet, gave him guides and a handsome
+grey horse.
+
+"Take this horse," he said, "as a present from me. Do not mount it
+yourself; drive it before you, saddled and bridled as it is; no man
+will touch you when he sees that horse." Bruce obeyed his orders, and
+the horse was driven in front of him. The horse was magic; the people
+gave it handfuls of barley and paid more respect to it than to Bruce
+himself, though in many cases the people seemed scared by the
+appearance of the horse and fled away.
+
+On 2nd November the Nile came into sight. It was only two hundred and
+sixty feet broad; but it was deeply revered by the people who lived
+on its banks. They refused to allow Bruce to ride across, but insisted
+on his taking off his shoes and walking through the shallow stream.
+It now became difficult to get food as they crossed the scorching hot
+plains. But Bruce was nearing his goal, and at last he stood at the
+top of the great Abyssinian tableland. "Immediately below us appeared
+the Nile itself, strangely diminished in size, now only a brook that
+had scarcely water to turn a mill." Throwing off his shoes, trampling
+down the flowers that grew on the mountain-side, falling twice in his
+excitement, Bruce ran down in breathless haste till he reached the
+"hillock of green sod" which has made his name so famous.
+
+"It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at
+that moment, standing in that spot which had baffled the genius,
+industry, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns for the course of
+near three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the
+heads of their armies--fame, riches, and honour had been held out for
+a series of ages without having produced one man capable of wiping
+off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind or adding
+this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere
+private Briton, I triumphed here over kings and their armies. I was
+but a few minutes arrived at the source of the Nile, through numberless
+dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me
+but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence. I was,
+however, but then half through my journey, and all those dangers which
+I had already passed awaited me again on my return. I found a
+despondency gaining ground fast upon me and blasting the crown of
+laurels I had too rashly woven for myself."
+
+Bruce then filled a large cocoa-nut shell, which he had brought from
+Arabia, full of the Nile water, and drank to the health of His Majesty
+King George III.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+MUNGO PARK AND THE NIGER
+
+
+Bruce died in the spring of 1794. Just a year later another Scotsman,
+Mungo Park, from Selkirk, started off to explore the great river
+Niger--whose course was as mysterious as that of the Nile. Most of
+the early geographers knew something of a great river running through
+Negroland. Indeed, Herodotus tells of five young men, the Nasamones,
+who set out to explore the very heart of Africa. Arrived at the edge
+of the great sandy desert, they collected provisions and supplied
+themselves with water and plunged courageously into the unknown. For
+weary days they made their way across to the south, till they were
+rewarded by finding themselves in a fertile land well watered by lakes
+and marshes, with fruit trees and a little race of men and women whom
+they called pigmies.
+
+And a large river was flowing from west to east--probably the Niger.
+But the days of Herodotus are long since past. It was centuries later
+when the Arabs, fiery with the faith of Mohammed, swept over the
+unexplored lands. "With a fiery enthusiasm that nothing could
+withstand, and inspired by a hope of heaven which nothing could shake,
+they swept from district to district, from tribe to tribe," everywhere
+proclaiming to roving multitudes the faith of their master. In this
+spirit they had faced the terrors of the Sahara Desert, and in the
+tenth century reached the land of the negroes, found the Niger, and
+established schools and mosques westward of Timbuktu.
+
+Portugal had then begun to play her part, and the fifteenth century
+is full of the wonderful voyages inspired by Prince Henry of Portugal,
+which culminated in the triumph of Vasco da Gama's great voyage to
+India by the Cape of Good Hope.
+
+Then the slave trade drew the Elizabethan Englishmen to the shores
+of West Africa, and the coast was studded with forts and stations in
+connection with it. Yet in the eighteenth century the Niger and
+Timbuktu were still a mystery.
+
+In 1778 the African Association was founded, with our old friend Sir
+Joseph Banks as an active member inquiring for a suitable man to follow
+up the work of the explorer Houghton, who had just perished in the
+desert on his way to Timbuktu.
+
+The opportunity produced the man. Mungo Park, a young Scotsman, bitten
+with the fever of unrest, had just returned from a voyage to the East
+on board an East India Company's ship. He heard of this new venture,
+and applied for it. The African Association instantly accepted his
+services, and on 22nd May 1795, Mungo Park left England on board the
+_Endeavour_, and after a pleasant voyage of thirty days landed at the
+mouth of the river Gambia. The river is navigable for four hundred
+miles from its mouth, and Park sailed up to a native town, where the
+_Endeavour_ was anchored, while he set out on horseback for a little
+village, Pisania, where a few British subjects traded in slaves, ivory,
+and gold. Here he stayed a while, to learn the language of the country.
+Fever delayed him till the end of November, when the rains were over,
+the native crops had been reaped, and food was cheap and plentiful.
+On 3rd December he made a start, his sole attendants being a negro
+servant, Johnson, and a slave boy. Mungo Park was mounted on a strong,
+spirited little horse, his attendants on donkeys. He had provisions
+for two days, beads, amber, and tobacco for buying fresh food, an
+umbrella, a compass, a thermometer and pocket sextant, some pistols
+and firearms, and "thus attended, thus provided, thus armed, Mungo
+Park started for the heart of Africa."
+
+[Illustration: MUNGO PARK. From the engraving in Park's _Travels into
+the Interior of Africa_, 1799.]
+
+Three days' travelling brought him to Medina, where he found the old
+king sitting on a bullock's hide, warming himself before a large fire.
+He begged the English explorer to turn back and not to travel into
+the interior, for the people there had never seen a white man and would
+most certainly destroy him. Mungo Park was not so easily deterred,
+and taking farewell of the good old king, he took a guide and proceeded
+on his way.
+
+A day's journey brought him to a village where a curious custom
+prevailed. Hanging on a tree, he found a sort of masquerading dress
+made out of bark. He discovered that it belonged to a strange bugbear
+known to all the natives of the neighbourhood as Mumbo Jumbo. The
+natives or Kafirs of this part had many wives, with the result that
+family quarrels often took place. If a husband was offended by his
+wife he disappeared into the woods, disguised himself in the dress
+of Mumbo Jumbo, and, armed with the rod of authority, announced his
+advent by loud and dismal screams near the town. All hurried to the
+accepted meeting-place, for none dare disobey. The meeting opened with
+song and dance till midnight, when Mumbo Jumbo announced the offending
+wife. The unlucky victim was then seized, stripped, tied to a post,
+and beaten with Mumbo's rod amid the shouts of the assembled company.
+
+A few days before Christmas, Park entered Fatticonda--the place where
+Major Houghton had been robbed and badly used. He therefore took some
+amber, tobacco, and an umbrella as gifts to the king, taking care to
+put on his best blue coat, lest it should be stolen. The king was
+delighted with his gifts; he furled and unfurled his umbrella to the
+great admiration of his attendants. "The king then praised my blue
+coat," says Park, "of which the yellow buttons seemed particularly
+to catch his fancy, and entreated me to give it to him, assuring me
+that he would wear it on all public occasions. As it was against my
+interests to offend him by a refusal, I very quietly took off my
+coat--the only good one in my possession--and laid it at his feet."
+Then without his coat and umbrella, but in peace, Park travelled onward
+to the dangerous district which was so invested with robbers that the
+little party had to travel by night. The howling of wild beasts alone
+broke the awful silence as they crept forth by moonlight on their way.
+But the news that a white man was travelling through their land spread,
+and he was surrounded by a party of horsemen, who robbed him of nearly
+all his possessions. His attendant Johnson urged him to return, for
+certain death awaited him. But Park was not the man to turn back, and
+he was soon rewarded by finding the king's nephew, who conducted him
+in safety to the banks of the Senegal River.
+
+Then he travelled on to the next king, who rejoiced in the name of
+Daisy Korrabarri. Here Mungo learnt to his dismay that war was going
+on in the province that lay between him and the Niger, and the king
+could offer no protection. Still nothing deterred the resolute
+explorer, who took another route and continued his journey. Again he
+had to travel by night, for robbers haunted his path, which now lay
+among Mohammedans. He passed the very spot where Houghton had been
+left to die of starvation in the desert. As he advanced through these
+inhospitable regions, new difficulties met him. His attendants firmly
+refused to move farther. Mungo Park was now alone in the great desert
+Negroland, between the Senegal and the Niger, as with magnificent
+resolution he continued his way. Suddenly a clear halloo rang out on
+the night air. It was his black boy, who had followed him to share
+his fate. Onward they went together, hoping to get safely through the
+land where Mohammedans ruled over low-caste negroes. Suddenly a party
+of Moors surrounded him, bidding him come to Ali, the chief, who wished
+to see a white man and a Christian. Park now found himself the centre
+of an admiring crowd. Men, women, and children crowded round him,
+pulling at his clothes and examining his waistcoat buttons till he
+could hardly move. Arrived at Ali's tent, Mungo found an old man with
+a long white beard. "The surrounding attendants, and especially the
+ladies, were most inquisitive; they asked a thousand questions,
+inspected every part of my clothes, searched my pockets, and obliged
+me to unbutton my waistcoat and display the whiteness of my skin--they
+even counted my toes and fingers, as if they doubted whether I was
+in truth a human being." He was lodged in a hut made of corn stalks,
+and a wild hog was tied to a stake as a suitable companion for the
+hated Christian. He was brutally ill-treated, closely watched, and
+insulted by "the rudest savages on earth." The desert winds scorched
+him, the sand choked him, the heavens above were like brass, the earth
+beneath as the floor of an oven. Fear came on him, and he dreaded death
+with his work yet unfinished. At last he escaped from this awful
+captivity amid the wilds of Africa. Early one morning at sunrise, he
+stepped over the sleeping negroes, seized his bundle, jumped on to
+his horse, and rode away as hard as he could. Looking back, he saw
+three Moors in hot pursuit, whooping and brandishing their
+double-barrelled guns. But he was beyond reach, and he breathed again.
+Now starvation stared him in the face. To the pangs of hunger were
+added the agony of thirst. The sun beat down pitilessly, and at last
+Mungo fell on the sand. "Here," he thought--"here after a short but
+ineffectual struggle I must end all my hopes of being useful in my
+day and generation; here must the short span of my life come to an
+end."
+
+[Illustration: THE CAMP OF ALI, THE MOHAMMEDAN CHIEF, AT BENOWN. From
+a sketch by Mungo Park.]
+
+But happily a great storm came and Mungo spread out his clothes to
+collect the drops of rain, and quenched his thirst by wringing them
+out and sucking them. After this refreshment he led his tired horse,
+directing his way by the compass, lit up at intervals by vivid flashes
+of lightning. It was not till the third week of his flight that his
+reward came. "I was told I should see the Niger early next day," he
+wrote on 20th July 1796. "We were riding through some marshy ground,
+when some one called out 'See the water!' and, looking forwards, I
+saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission--the
+long-sought-for majestic Niger glittering to the morning sun, as broad
+as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly _to the eastward_.
+I hastened to the brink and, having drunk of the water, lifted up my
+fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things, for having
+thus far crowned my endeavours with success. The circumstance of the
+Niger's flowing towards the east did not excite my surprise, for
+although I had left Europe in great hesitation on this subject, I had
+received from the negroes clear assurances that its general course
+was _towards the rising sun_."
+
+He was now near Sego--the capital of Bambarra--on the Niger, a city
+of some thirty thousand inhabitants. "The view of this extensive city,
+the numerous canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the
+cultivated state of the surrounding country, formed altogether a
+prospect of civilisation and magnificence which I little expected to
+find in the bosom of Africa." The natives looked at the poor, thin,
+white stranger with astonishment and fear, and refused to allow him
+to cross the river. All day he sat without food under the shade of
+a tree, and was proposing to climb the tree and rest among its branches
+to find shelter from a coming storm, when a poor negro woman took pity
+on his deplorable condition. She took him to her hut, lit a lamp, spread
+a mat upon the floor, broiled him a fish, and allowed him to sleep.
+While he rested she spun cotton with other women and sang: "The winds
+roared and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came
+and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk, no wife
+to grind his corn"; and all joined in the chorus: "Let us pity the
+white man, no mother has he."
+
+[Illustration: KAMALIA, A NATIVE VILLAGE NEAR THE SOUTHERN COURSE OF
+THE NIGER. From a sketch by Mungo Park.]
+
+Mungo Park left in the morning after presenting his landlady with two
+of his last four brass buttons. But though he made another gallant
+effort to reach Timbuktu and the Niger, which, he was told, "ran to
+the world's end," lions and mosquitoes made life impossible. His horse
+was too weak to carry him any farther, and on 29th July 1796 he sadly
+turned back. "Worn down by sickness, exhausted by hunger and fatigue,
+half-naked, and without any article of value by which I might get
+provisions, clothes, or lodging, I felt I should sacrifice my life
+to no purpose, for my discoveries would perish with me." Joining a
+caravan of slaves, he reached the coast after some nineteen hundred
+miles, and after an absence of two years and nine months he found a
+suit of English clothes, "disrobed his chin of venerable encumbrance,"
+and sailed for home. He published an account of the journey in 1799,
+after which he married and settled in Scotland as a doctor. But his
+heart was in Africa, and a few years later he started off again to
+reach Timbuktu. He arrived at the Gambia early in April 1805. "If all
+goes well," he wrote gaily, "this day six weeks I expect to drink all
+your healths in the water of the Niger." He started this time with
+forty-four Europeans, each with donkeys to carry baggage and food,
+but it was a deplorable little party that reached the great river on
+19th August. Thirty men had died on the march, the donkeys had been
+stolen, the baggage lost. And the joy experienced by the explorer in
+reaching the waters of the Niger, "rolling its immense stream along
+the plain," was marred by the reduction of his little party to seven.
+Leave to pass down the river to Timbuktu was obtained by the gift of
+two double-barrelled guns to the King, and in their old canoes patched
+together under the magnificent name of "His Majesty's schooner the
+_Joliba_" (great water), Mungo Park wrote his last letter home.
+
+[Illustration: A NATIVE WOMAN WASHING GOLD IN SENEGAL. From a sketch
+by Mungo Park made on his last expedition.]
+
+"I am far from desponding. I have changed a large canoe into a tolerably
+good schooner, on board of which I shall set sail to the east with
+a fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger or perish
+in the attempt; and though all the Europeans who are with me should
+die, and though I myself were half-dead, I would still persevere; and
+if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at least
+die on the Niger."
+
+It was in this spirit that the commander of the _Joliba_ and a crew
+of nine set forth to glide down a great river toward the heart of savage
+Africa, into the darkness of the unexplored.
+
+The rest is silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+VANCOUVER DISCOVERS HIS ISLAND
+
+
+While Mungo Park was attempting to find the course of the Niger, the
+English were busy opening up the great fur-trading country in North
+America. Although Captain Cook had taken possession of Nootka Sound,
+thinking it was part of the coast of New Albion, men from other nations
+had been there to establish with the natives a trade in furs. The
+Spaniards were specially vigorous in opening up communications on this
+bleak bit of western coast. Great Britain became alarmed, and decided
+to send Captain Vancouver with an English ship to enforce her rights
+to this valuable port.
+
+Vancouver had already sailed with Cook on his second southern voyage;
+he had accompanied him on the _Discovery_ during his last voyage. He
+therefore knew something of the coast of North-West America. "On the
+15th of December 1790, I had the honour of receiving my commission
+as commander of His Majesty's sloop the _Discovery_, then lying at
+Deptford, where I joined her," says Vancouver. "Lieutenant Broughton
+having been selected as a proper officer to command the _Chatham_,
+he was accordingly appointed. At day dawn on Friday the 1st of April
+we took a long farewell of our native shores. Having no particular
+route to the Pacific Ocean pointed out in my instructions, I did not
+hesitate to prefer the passage by way of the Cape of Good Hope."
+
+In boisterous weather Vancouver rounded the Cape, made some
+discoveries on the southern coast of New Holland, surveyed part of
+the New Zealand coast, discovered Chatham Island, and on 17th April
+1792 he fell in with the coast of New Albion. It was blowing and raining
+hard when the coast, soon after to be part of the United States of
+America, was sighted by the captains and crews of the _Discovery_ and
+_Chatham_. Amid gales of wind and torrents of rain they coasted along
+the rocky and precipitous shores on which the surf broke with a dull
+roar. It was dangerous enough work coasting along this unsurveyed
+coast, full of sunken rocks on which the sea broke with great violence.
+Soon they were at Cape Blanco (discovered by Martin D'Aguilar), and
+a few days later at Cape Foulweather of Cook fame, close to the
+so-called straits discovered by the Greek pilot John da Fuca in 1592.
+Suddenly, relates Vancouver, "a sail was discovered to the westward.
+This was a very great novelty, not having seen any vessel during the
+last eight months. She soon hoisted American colours, and proved to
+be the ship _Columbia_, commanded by Captain Grey, belonging to Boston.
+He had penetrated about fifty miles into the disputed strait. He spoke
+of the mouth of a river that was inaccessible owing to breakers." (This
+was afterwards explored by Vancouver and named the Columbia River on
+which Washington now stands.)
+
+Having examined two hundred and fifteen miles of coast, Vancouver and
+his two ships now entered the inlet--Da Fuca Straits--now the boundary
+between the United States and British Columbia. All day they made their
+way up the strait, till night came, and Vancouver relates with pride
+that "we had now advanced farther up this inlet than Mr. Grey or any
+other person from the civilised world."
+
+"We are on the point of examining an entirely new region," he adds,
+"and in the most delightfully pleasant weather." Snowy ranges of hills,
+stately forest trees, vast spaces, and the tracks of deer reminded
+the explorers of "Old England." The crews were given holiday, and great
+joy prevailed. Natives soon brought them fish and venison for sale,
+and were keen to sell their children in exchange for knives, trinkets,
+and copper. As they advanced through the inlet, the fresh beauty of
+the country appealed to the English captain: "To describe the beauties
+of this region will be a very grateful task to the pen of a skilful
+panegyrist--the serenity of the climate, the pleasing landscapes, and
+the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, require only
+to be enriched by the industry of man with villages, mansions, and
+cottages to render it the most lovely country that can be imagined."
+
+A fortnight was spent among the islands of this inlet, which "I have
+distinguished by the name of Admiralty Inlet," and on 4th June 1792
+they drank the health of the King, George III., in a double allowance
+of grog, and on his fifty-fourth birthday took formal possession of
+the country, naming the wider part of the strait the Gulf of Georgia
+and the mainland New Georgia. The two ships then made their way through
+the narrow and intricate channels separating the island of Vancouver
+from the mainland of British Columbia, till at last, early in August,
+they emerged into an open channel discovered by an Englishman four
+years before and named Queen Charlotte's Sound. Numerous rocky islets
+made navigation very difficult, and one day in foggy weather the
+_Discovery_ suddenly grounded on a bed of sunken rocks. The _Chatham_
+was near at hand, and at the signal of distress lowered her boats for
+assistance. For some hours, says Vancouver, "immediate and inevitable
+destruction presented itself." She grounded at four in the p.m. Till
+two next morning all hands were working at throwing ballast overboard
+to lighten her, till, "to our inexpressible joy," the return of the
+tide floated her once more. Having now satisfied himself that this
+was an island lying close to the mainland, Vancouver made for Nootka
+Sound, where he arrived at the end of August.
+
+[Illustration: VANCOUVER'S SHIP, THE _DISCOVERY_, ON THE ROCKS IN
+QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S SOUND. From a drawing in Vancouver's _Voyage_,
+1798.]
+
+At the entrance of the Sound he was visited by a Spanish officer with
+a pilot to lead them to a safe anchorage in Friendly Cove, where the
+Spanish ship, under one Quadra, was riding at anchor. Civilities were
+interchanged "with much harmony and festivity. As many officers as
+could be spared from the vessel, and myself dined with Senor Quadra,
+and were gratified with a repast we had lately been little accustomed
+to. A dinner of five courses, consisting of a superfluity of the best
+provisions, was served with great elegance; a royal salute was fired
+on drinking health to the sovereigns of England and Spain, and a salute
+of seventeen guns to the success of the service in which the _Discovery_
+and _Chatham_ were engaged." But when the true nature of Vancouver's
+mission was disclosed, there was some little difficulty, for the
+Spaniards had fortified Nootka, built houses, laid out gardens, and
+evidently intended to stay. Vancouver sent Captain Broughton home to
+report the conduct of the Spaniards, and spent his time surveying the
+coast to the south. Finally all was arranged satisfactorily, and
+Vancouver sailed off to the Sandwich Islands. When he returned home
+in the autumn of 1794 he had completed the gigantic task of surveying
+nine thousand miles of unknown coast chiefly in open boats, with only
+the loss of two men in both crews--a feat that almost rivalled that
+of Captain Cook.
+
+It has been said that Vancouver "may proudly take his place with Drake,
+Cook, Baffin, Parry, and other British navigators to whom England
+looks with pride and geographers with gratitude."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+MACKENZIE AND HIS RIVER
+
+
+Even while Vancouver was making discoveries on the western coast of
+North America, Alexander Mackenzie, an enthusiastic young Scotsman,
+was making discoveries on behalf of the North-Western Company, which
+was rivalling the old Hudson Bay Company in its work of expansion.
+His journey right across America from sea to sea is worthy of note,
+and it has well been said that "by opening intercourse between Atlantic
+and Pacific Oceans and forming regular establishments through the
+interior and at both extremes, as well as along the coasts and islands,
+the entire command of the fur trade of North America might be obtained.
+To this may be added the fishing in both seas and the markets of the
+four quarters of the globe."
+
+Mackenzie had already explored the great river flowing through North
+America to the Arctic seas in 1789. He had brought back news of its
+great size, its width, its volume of water, only to be mistrusted,
+till many years later it was found that every word was true, and
+tributes were paid not only to his general accuracy, but to his general
+intelligence as an explorer.
+
+In 1792 he started off again, and this time he discovered the immense
+country that lay hidden behind the Rocky Mountains, known to-day as
+British Columbia. He ascended the Peace River, which flows from the
+Rocky Mountains, and in the spring of 1793, having made his way with
+much difficulty across this rugged chain, he embarked on a river
+running to the south-west. Through wild mountainous country on either
+side he paddled on; the cold was still intense and the strong mountain
+currents nearly dashed the canoes to pieces. His Indian guides were
+obstinate, ignorant, and timid. Mackenzie relates some of his
+difficulties in graphic language: "Throughout the whole of this day
+the men had been in a state of extreme ill-humour, and as they did
+not choose to vent it openly upon me, they disputed and quarrelled
+among themselves. About sunset the canoe struck upon the stump of a
+tree, which broke a large hole in her bottom, a circumstance that gave
+them an opportunity to let loose their discontents without reserve.
+I left them as soon as we had landed and ascended an elevated bank.
+It now remained for us to fix on a proper place for building another
+canoe, as the old one was become a complete wreck. At a very early
+hour of the morning every man was employed in making preparations for
+building another canoe, and different parties went in search of wood
+and gum." While the boat was building, Mackenzie gave his crew a good
+lecture on their conduct. "I assured them it was my fixed unalterable
+determination to proceed in spite of every difficulty and danger."
+
+The result was highly satisfactory. "The conversation dropped and the
+work went on."
+
+In five days the canoe was ready and they were soon paddling happily
+onwards towards the sea, where the Indians told him he would find white
+men building houses. They reached the coast some three weeks later.
+The Salmon River, as it is called, flows through British Columbia and
+reaches the sea just north of Vancouver Island, which had been
+discovered by Vancouver the year before.
+
+Alexander Mackenzie had been successful. Let us hear the end of his
+tale: "I now mixed up some vermilion in melted grease, and inscribed
+in large characters, on the south-east face of the rock on which we
+had slept last night, this brief memorial--'Alexander Mackenzie, from
+Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred
+and ninety three.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+PARRY DISCOVERS LANCASTER SOUND
+
+
+The efforts of Arctic explorers of past years, Frobisher, Davis,
+Baffin, Behring, and Cook, had all been more or less frustrated by
+the impenetrable barrier of ice, which seemed to stretch across the
+Polar regions like a wall, putting an end to all further advance.
+
+Now, early in the nineteenth century, this impenetrable bar of ice
+had apparently moved and broken up into detached masses and icebergs.
+The news of a distinct change in the Polar ice was brought home by
+various traders in the Greenland waters, and soon gave rise to a revival
+of these voyages for the discovery of the North Pole and a passage
+round the northern coast of America to the Pacific Ocean. For this
+coast was totally unknown at this time. Information was collected from
+casual travellers, whale-fishers, and others, with the result that
+England equipped two ships for a voyage of discovery to the disputed
+regions. These were the _Isabella_ (385 tons) and the _Alexander_ (252
+tons), Commander Ross being appointed to one and Lieutenant Parry to
+the other.
+
+Parry had served on the coast of North America, and had written a little
+treatise on the stars in the Northern Hemisphere. He was thinking of
+offering his services for African discovery when he caught sight of
+a paragraph in a paper about an expedition for the discovery of the
+North-West Passage. He wrote at once that "he was ready for hot or
+for cold--Africa or the Polar regions." And he was at once appointed
+to the latter. The object of the voyage was clearly set forth. The
+young explorers were to discover a passage from Davis Strait along
+the northern coast of America and through the Behring Strait into the
+Pacific Ocean. Besides this, charts and pictures were to be brought
+back, and a special artist was to accompany the expedition. Ross
+himself was an artist, and he has delightfully illustrated his own
+journals of the expedition. The ships were well supplied with books,
+and we find the journals of Mackenzie, Hearne, Vancouver, Cook, and
+other old travelling friends taken for reference--thirty Bibles and
+sixty Testaments were distributed among the crews. For making friends
+with the natives, we find a supply of twenty-four brass kettles, one
+hundred and fifty butchers' knives, three hundred and fifty yards of
+coloured flannel, one hundred pounds of snuff, one hundred and fifty
+pounds of soap, forty umbrellas, and much gin and brandy. The
+expedition left on 18th April 1818, and "I believe," says Ross, "there
+was not a man who did not indulge after the fashion of a sailor in
+feeling that its issue was placed in His hands whose power is most
+visible in the Great Deep."
+
+Before June had set in, the two ships were ploughing their way up the
+west coast of Greenland in heavy snowstorms. They sailed through Davis
+Strait, past the island of Disco into Baffin's undefined bay. Icebergs
+stood high out of the water on all sides, and navigation was very
+dangerous. Towards the end of July a bay to which Ross gave the name
+of Melville Bay, after the first Lord of the Admiralty, was passed.
+"Very high mountains of land and ice were seen to the north side of
+Melville's Bay, forming an impassable barrier, the precipices next
+the sea being from one thousand to two thousand feet high."
+
+The ships were sailing slowly past the desolate shores amid these high
+icebergs when suddenly several natives appeared on the ice. Now Ross
+had brought an Eskimo with him named Sacheuse.
+
+"Come on!" cried Sacheuse to the astonished natives.
+
+"No--no--go away!" they cried. "Go away; we can kill you!"
+
+"What great creatures are these?" they asked, pointing to the ships.
+"Do they come from the sun or the moon? Do they give us light by night
+or by day?"
+
+Pointing southwards, Sacheuse told them that the strangers had come
+from a distant country.
+
+"That cannot be; there is nothing but ice there," was the answer.
+
+Soon the Englishmen made friends with these people, whom they called
+Arctic Highlanders, giving the name of the Arctic Highlands to all
+the land in the north-east corner of Baffin's Bay. Passing Cape York,
+they followed the almost perpendicular coast, even as Baffin had done.
+They passed Wolstenholme Sound and Whale Sound; they saw Smith's Sound,
+and named the capes on either side Isabella and Alexander after their
+two ships. And then Ross gave up all further discovery for the time
+being in this direction. "Even if it be imagined that some narrow strait
+may exist through these mountains, it is evident that it must for ever
+be unnavigable," he says decidedly. "Being thus satisfied that there
+could be no further inducement to continue longer in this place, I
+shaped my course for the next opening which appeared in view to the
+westward." This was the Sound which was afterwards called "Jones
+Sound."
+
+"We ran nine miles among very heavy ice, until noon, when, a very thick
+fog coming on, we were obliged to take shelter under a large iceberg."
+Sailing south, but some way from land, a wide opening appeared which
+answered exactly to the Lancaster Sound of Baffin. Lieutenant Parry
+and many of his officers felt sure that this was a strait communicating
+with the open sea to westward, and were both astonished and dismayed
+when Ross, declaring that he was "perfectly satisfied that there was
+no passage in this direction," turned back. He brought his expedition
+back to England after a seven months' trip. But, though he was certain
+enough on the subject, his officers did not agree with him entirely,
+and the subject of the North-West Passage was still discussed in
+geographical circles.
+
+When young Lieutenant Parry, who had commanded the _Alexander_ in
+Ross' expedition, was consulted, he pressed for further exploration
+of the far north. And two expeditions were soon fitted out, one under
+Parry and one under Franklin, who had already served with Flinders
+in Australian exploration. Parry started off first with instructions
+to explore Lancaster's Sound; failing to find a passage, to explore
+Alderman Jones Sound, failing this again, Sir Thomas Smith's Sound.
+If he succeeded in getting through to the Behring Strait, he was to
+go to Kamtchatka and on to the Sandwich Islands. "You are to
+understand," ran the instructions, "that the finding of a passage from
+the Atlantic to the Pacific is the main object of this expedition."
+
+On board the _Hecla_, a ship of three hundred and seventy-five tons,
+with a hundred-and-eighty-ton brig, the _Griper_, accompanying, Parry
+sailed away early in May 1819. The first week in July found him crossing
+the Arctic Circle amid immense icebergs against which a heavy
+southerly swell was violently agitated, "dashing the loose ice with
+tremendous force, sometimes raising a white spray over them to the
+height of more than a hundred feet, accompanied with a loud noise
+exactly resembling the roar of distant thunder."
+
+The entrance to Lancaster Sound was reached on 31st July, and, says
+Parry: "It is more easy to imagine than to describe the almost
+breathless anxiety which was now visible in every countenance, while,
+as the breeze increased to a fresh gale, we ran quickly up the Sound."
+Officers and men crowded to the masthead as the ships ran on and on
+till they reached Barrow's Strait, so named by them after the Secretary
+of the Admiralty.
+
+"We now began to flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar
+Sea, and some of the most sanguine among us had even calculated the
+bearing and distance of Icy Cape as a matter of no very difficult
+accomplishment."
+
+Sailing westward, they found a large island, which they named Melville
+Island after the first Lord of the Admiralty, and a bay which still
+bears the name of Hecla and Griper Bay. "Here," says Parry, "the ensigns
+and pendants were hoisted, and it created in us no ordinary feelings
+of pleasure to see the British flag waving, for the first time, in
+those regions which had hitherto been considered beyond the limits
+of the habitable world."
+
+[Illustration: PARRY'S SHIPS, THE _HECLA_ AND _GRIPER_, IN WINTER
+HARBOUR, DECEMBER 1819. From a drawing in Parry's _Voyage for the
+North-West Passage_, 1821.]
+
+Winter was now quickly advancing, and it was with some difficulty that
+the ships were forced through the newly formed ice at the head of the
+Bay of the Hecla and Griper. Over two miles of ice, seven inches thick,
+had to be sawn through to make a canal for the ships. As soon as they
+were moored in "Winter Harbour" the men gave three loud and hearty
+cheers as a preparation for eight or nine months of long and dreary
+winter. By the end of September all was ready; plenty of grouse and
+deer remained as food through October, after which there were foxes
+and wolves. To amuse his men, Parry and his officers got up a play;
+_Miss in her Teens_ was performed on 5th November, the last day of
+sun for ninety-six days to come. He also started a paper, _The North
+Georgian Gazette and Winter Chronicle_, which was printed in England
+on their return. The New Year, 1819, found the winter growing gloomier.
+Scurvy had made its appearance, and Parry was using every device in
+his power to arrest it. Amongst other things he grew mustard and cress
+in boxes of earth near the stove pipe of his cabin to make fresh
+vegetable food for the afflicted men. Though the sun was beginning
+to appear again, February was the coldest part of the year, and no
+one could be long out in the open without being frostbitten. It was
+not till the middle of April that a slight thaw began, and the
+thermometer rose to freezing point. On 1st August the ships were able
+to sail out of Winter Harbour and to struggle westward again. But they
+could not get beyond Melville Island for the ice, and after the ships
+had been knocked about by it, Parry decided to return to Lancaster
+Sound once more. Hugging the western shores of Baffin's Bay, the two
+ships were turned homewards, arriving in the Thames early in November
+1820. "And," says Parry, "I had the happiness of seeing every officer
+and man on board both ships--ninety-three persons--return to their
+native country in as robust health as when they left it, after an
+absence of nearly eighteen months."
+
+[Illustration: THE SEARCH FOR A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE: THE CREWS OF
+PARRY'S SHIPS, THE _HECLA_ AND _GRIPER_, CUTTING THROUGH THE ICE FOR
+A WINTER HARBOUR, 1819. Drawn by William Westall, A.R.A., after a
+sketch by Lieut. Beechey, a member of the expedition.]
+
+Parry had done more than this. He not only showed the possibility of
+wintering in these icy regions in good health and good spirits, but
+he had certainly discovered straits communicating with the Polar sea.
+
+[Illustration: THE NORTH SHORE OF LANCASTER SOUND. From a drawing in
+Parry's _Voyage for the North-West Passage_, 1821.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+THE FROZEN NORTH
+
+
+Meanwhile Franklin and Parry started on another expedition in the same
+month and year. While Parry's orders were to proceed from east to west,
+Franklin was to go from west to east, with a chance--if remote--that
+they might meet. He was to go by Hudson's Bay to the mouth of the Copper
+Mine River and then make his way by sea eastward along the coast.
+Franklin had made himself a name by work done in the Spitzbergen waters;
+he was to succeed in the end where others had failed in finding the
+North-West Passage. The party selected for this work consisted of
+Captain Franklin, Dr. Richardson, a naval surgeon, two midshipmen,
+Back and Hood, one of whom was afterwards knighted, and an English
+sailor named John Hepburn.
+
+Just a fortnight after Parry's start these five English explorers
+sailed on board a ship belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, but it
+was the end of August before they arrived at the headquarters of the
+Company. They were cordially received by the Governor, and provided
+with a large boat well stored with food and arms. Amid a salute of
+many guns and much cheering the little party, with some Canadian rowers,
+started off for Cumberland House, one of the forts belonging to the
+Hudson Bay Company. Six weeks' hard travelling by rivers and lakes,
+now dragging the boats round rapids, now sleeping in "buffalo-robes"
+on the hard ground, brought the party to the first stage of their
+journey. Snow was now beginning to fall, and ice was thick on the rivers,
+when Franklin resolved to push on to Lake Athabasca that he might have
+more time to prepare for the coming voyage in the summer. Leaving
+Richardson and Hood at the fort, he started off with Back and the
+faithful Hepburn on 18th January 1820, in the very heart of the Arctic
+winter. Friends at the fort had provided him with Indian snowshoes
+turned up at the toes like the prow of a boat--with dog sledges, furs,
+leather trousers, drivers, and food for a fortnight. The snow was very
+deep, and the dogs found great difficulty in dragging their heavy
+burdens through the snow. But the record was good. A distance of eight
+hundred and fifty-seven miles was accomplished in sixty-eight days,
+with the thermometer at fifty degrees below zero. The hardships
+endured are very briefly recorded: "Provisions becoming scarce; dogs
+without food, except a little burnt leather; night miserably cold;
+tea froze in the tin pots before we could drink it."
+
+Lake Athabasca was reached on the 26th of March and preparations for
+the voyage were pushed forward. Four months later they were joined
+by Richardson and Hood. "This morning Mr. Back and I had the sincere
+gratification of welcoming our long-separated friends, Dr. Richardson
+and Mr. Hood, who arrived in perfect health with two canoes." This
+is the simple entry in Franklin's journal.
+
+Everything was now ready. Spring in these northern climates was
+enchanting. "The trees quickly put on their leaves after the long,
+hard winter months, and the whole vegetable world comes forth with
+a luxuriance no less astonishing than agreeable." At the same time
+clouds of mosquitoes and stinging sand-flies made the nights horrible.
+On 18th July the little party in high glee set forward in canoes rowed
+by Canadian boatmen, hoping to reach the Copper Mine River before
+winter set in. But the difficulties of the way were great, provisions
+were scarce, the boatmen grew discontented, ice appeared early, and
+Franklin had to satisfy himself with wintering at a point five hundred
+and fifty miles from Lake Athabasca, which he called Fort Enterprise.
+Here there was prospect of plenty, for large herds of reindeer were
+grazing along the shores of the lake, and from their flesh "pemmican"
+was made; but the winter was long and cheerless, and Franklin soon
+realised that there was not enough food to last through it. So he
+dispatched the midshipman Back to Lake Athabasca for help. Back's
+journey was truly splendid, and we cannot omit his simple summary:
+"On the 17th of March," he says, "at an early hour we arrived at Fort
+Enterprise, having travelled about eighteen miles a day. I had the
+pleasure of meeting my friends all in good health, after an absence
+of nearly five months, during which time I had travelled one thousand
+one hundred and four miles on snow-shoes and had no other covering
+at night than a blanket and deer skin, with the thermometer frequently
+at forty degrees below zero, and sometimes two or three days without
+tasting food." By his courage and endurance he saved the whole party
+at Fort Enterprise. By June the spring was sufficiently advanced to
+set out for the Copper Mine River, and on July they reached the mouth
+after a tedious journey of three hundred and thirty-four miles.
+
+[Illustration: A WINTER VIEW OF FORT ENTERPRISE. From a drawing, by
+Wm. Back, in Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, 1823.]
+
+The real work of exploration was now to begin, and the party embarked
+in two canoes to sail along the southern coast of the Polar sea, with
+the possibility always of meeting the Parry expedition. But the poor
+Canadian boatmen were terrified at the sight of the sea on which they
+had never yet sailed, and they were with difficulty persuaded to embark.
+Indeed, of the two crews, only the five Englishmen had ever been on
+the sea, and it has been well said that this voyage along the shores
+of the rock-bound coast of the Arctic sea must always take rank as
+one of the most daring and hazardous exploits that have ever been
+accomplished in the interest of geographical research. The two canoes
+hugged the icy coast as they made their way eastward, and Franklin
+named the bays, headlands, and islands for a distance of five hundred
+and fifty-five miles, where a point he called Cape Turnagain marks
+his farthest limit east. Here is George IV. Coronation Gulf studded
+with islands, Hood's River, Back's River, Bathurst's Inlet, named
+after the Secretary of State, and Parry Bay after "my friend, Captain
+Parry, now employed in the interesting research for a North-West
+Passage."
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION TO THE POLAR SEA ON THE ICE. From
+a drawing, by Wm. Back, in Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, 1823.]
+
+The short season for exploration was now over; rough weather and want
+of food turned them home, only half satisfied with their work. The
+worst part of their journey was yet to come. Perhaps never, even in
+the tragic history of Arctic exploration, had greater hardships been
+endured than Franklin and his handful of men were to endure on their
+homeward way. On 22nd August the party left Point Turnagain, hoping
+by means of their newly discovered Hood River to reach Fort Enterprise.
+The ground was already covered with snow, and their food was reduced
+to one meal a day when they left the shores of the Arctic sea for their
+long inland tramp. Needless to say, the journey had to be performed
+on foot, and the way was stony and barren. For the first few days nothing
+was to be found save lichen to eat, and the temperature was far below
+freezing-point. An uncooked cow after six days of lichen "infused
+spirit into our starving party," relates Franklin. But things grew
+no better, and as they proceeded sadly on their way, starvation stared
+them in the face. One day we hear of the pangs of hunger being stilled
+by "pieces of singed hide mixed with lichen"; another time the horns
+and bones of a dead deer were fried with some old shoes and the "putrid
+carcase of a deer that had died the previous spring was demolished
+by the starving men."
+
+At last things grew so bad that Franklin and the most vigorous of his
+party pushed on to Fort Enterprise to get and send back food if possible
+to Richardson and Hood, who were now almost too weak and ill to get
+along at all. Bitter disappointment awaited them.
+
+"At length," says Franklin, "we reached Fort Enterprise, and to our
+infinite disappointment and grief found it a perfectly desolate
+habitation. There were no provisions--no Indians. It would be
+impossible for me to describe our sensations after entering this
+miserable abode and discovering how we had been neglected; the whole
+party shed tears, not so much for our own fate as for that of our friends
+in the rear, whose lives depended entirely on our sending immediate
+relief from this place." A few old bones and skins of reindeer were
+collected for supper and the worn-out explorers sat round a fire made
+by pulling up the flooring of the rooms. It is hardly a matter of
+surprise to find the following entry in Franklin's journal: "When I
+arose the following morning my body and limbs were so swollen that
+I was unable to walk more than a few yards."
+
+Before November arrived another tragedy happened. Hood was murdered
+by one of the party almost mad with hunger and misery. One after another
+now dropped down and died, and death seemed to be claiming Franklin,
+Richardson, Back, and Hepburn when three Indians made their appearance
+with some dried deer and a few tongues. It was not a moment too soon.
+The Indians soon got game and fish for the starving men, until they
+were sufficiently restored to leave Fort Enterprise and make their
+way to Moose Deer Island, where, with the Hudson Bay officers, they
+spent the winter recovering their health and strength and spirits.
+
+When they returned to England in the summer of 1822 they had
+accomplished five thousand five hundred and fifty miles. They had also
+endured hardships unsurpassed in the history of exploration. When
+Parry returned to England the following summer and heard of Franklin's
+sufferings he cried like a child. He must have realised better than
+any one else what those sufferings really were, though he himself had
+fared better.
+
+While Franklin had been making his way to the Copper Mine River, Parry
+on board the _Fury_, accompanied by the _Hecla_, started for Hudson's
+Strait, by which he was to penetrate to the Pacific, if possible. Owing
+to bad weather, the expedition did not arrive amid the icebergs till
+the middle of June. Towering two hundred feet high, the explorers
+counted fifty-four at one time before they arrived at Resolution
+Island at the mouth of Hudson Strait. There were already plenty of
+well-known landmarks in the region of Hudson's Bay, and Parry soon
+made his way to Southampton Island and Frozen Strait (over which an
+angry discussion had taken place some hundred years before). He was
+rewarded by discovering "a magnificent bay," to which he gave the name
+of the "Duke of York's Bay." The discovery, however, was one of little
+importance as there was no passage. The winter was fast advancing,
+the navigable season was nearly over, and the explorers seemed to be
+only at the beginning of their work. The voyage had been dangerous,
+harassing, unproductive.
+
+They had advanced towards the Behring Strait; they had discovered two
+hundred leagues of North American coast, and they now prepared to spend
+the winter in these icebound regions. As usual Parry arranged both
+for the health and amusement of his men during the long Arctic
+months--even producing a "joint of English roast beef" for Christmas
+dinner, preserved "by rubbing the outside with salt and hanging it
+on deck covered with canvas." There were also Eskimos in the
+neighbourhood, who proved a never-ceasing source of interest.
+
+[Illustration: AN ESKIMO WATCHING A SEAL HOLE. From a drawing in
+Parry's _Second Voyage for a North-West Passage_, 1824.]
+
+One day in April--snow had been falling all night, news spread that
+the Eskimos "had killed something on the ice." "If the women," says
+Parry, "were cheerful before, they were now absolutely frantic. A
+general shout of joy re-echoed through the village; they ran into each
+others' huts to communicate the welcome intelligence, and actually
+hugged one another in an ecstasy of delight. When the first burst of
+joy had at last subsided the women crept one by one into the apartment
+where the sea-horses had been conveyed. Here they obtained blubber
+enough to set all their lamps alight, besides a few scraps of meat
+for their children and themselves. Fresh cargoes were continually
+arriving, the principal part being brought in by the dogs and the rest
+by the men, who tied a thong round their waist and dragged in a portion.
+Every lamp was now swimming with oil, the huts exhibited a blaze of
+light, and never was there a scene of more joyous festivity than while
+the cutting up of the walruses continued." For three solid hours the
+Eskimos appeared to be eating walrus flesh. "Indeed, the quantity they
+continued to get rid of is almost beyond belief."
+
+It was not till early in July that the ship could be moved out of their
+winter's dock to renew their efforts towards a passage. They were not
+a little helped by Eskimo charts, but old ice blocked the way, and
+it was the middle of August before Parry discovered the Strait he called
+after his two ships, "the Strait of the Fury and Hecla," between
+Melville Peninsula and Cockburn Island. Confident that the narrow
+channel led to the Polar seas, Parry pushed on till "our progress was
+once more opposed by a barrier of the same impenetrable and hopeless
+ice as before." He organised land expeditions, and reports, "The
+opening of the Strait into the Polar sea was now so decided that I
+considered the principal object of my journey accomplished."
+
+September had come, and once more the ships were established in their
+winter quarters. A second month in among the ice must have been a severe
+trial to this little band of English explorers, but cheerfully enough
+they built a wall of snow twelve feet high round the _Fury_ to keep
+out snowdrifts. The season was long and severe, and it was August before
+they could get free of ice. The prospect of a third winter in the ice
+could not be safely faced, and Parry resolved to get home. October
+found them at the Shetlands, all the bells of Lerwick being set ringing
+and the town illuminated with joy at the arrival of men who had been
+away from all civilisation for twenty-seven months. On 14th November
+1823 the expedition arrived home in England.
+
+Still the restless explorer was longing to be off again; he was still
+fascinated by the mysteries of the Arctic regions, but on his third
+voyage we need not follow him, for the results were of no great
+importance. The _Fury_ was wrecked amid the ice in Prince Regent's
+Inlet, and the whole party had to return on board the _Hecla_ in 1825.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+FRANKLIN'S LAND JOURNEY TO THE NORTH
+
+
+The northern shores of North America were not yet explored, and
+Franklin proposed another expedition to the mouth of the Mackenzie
+River, where the party was to divide, half of them going to the east
+and half to the west. Nothing daunted by his recent sufferings,
+Franklin accepted the supreme command, and amid the foremost
+volunteers for service were his old friends, Back and Richardson. The
+officers of the expedition left England in February 1825, and,
+travelling by way of New York and Canada, they reached Fort Cumberland
+the following June; a month later they were at Fort Chipewyan on the
+shores of Lake Athabasca, and soon they had made their way to the banks
+of the Great Bear Lake River, which flows out of that lake into the
+Mackenzie River, down which they were to descend to the sea. They
+decided to winter on the shores of the Bear Lake; but Franklin could
+never bear inaction, so he resolved to push on to the mouth of the
+Great River with a small party in order to prospect for the coming
+expedition.
+
+So correct had been Mackenzie's survey of this Great River, as it was
+called, that Franklin, "in justice to his memory," named it the
+Mackenzie River after its "eminent discoverer," which name it has
+borne ever since. In a little English boat, with a fair wind and a
+swift current, Franklin accomplished three hundred and twelve miles
+in about sixty hours. The saltness of the water, the sight of a
+boundless horizon, and the appearance of porpoises and whales were
+encouraging signs. They had reached the Polar sea at last--the "sea
+in all its majesty, entirely free from ice and without any visible
+obstruction to its navigation."
+
+On reaching the coast a silken Union Jack worked by Franklin's dying
+wife was unfurled. She had died a few days after he left England, but
+she had insisted on her husband's departure in the service of his
+country, only begging him not to unfurl her flag till he arrived at
+the Polar shores. As it fluttered in the breeze of these desolate shores,
+the little band of Englishmen cheered and drank to the health of the
+King.
+
+"You can imagine," says Franklin, "with what heartfelt emotion I first
+saw it unfurled; but in a short time I derived great pleasure in looking
+at it."
+
+It was too late to attempt navigation for this year, although the
+weather in August was "inconveniently warm," so on 5th September,
+Franklin returned to winter quarters on the Great Bear Lake. During
+his absence a comfortable little settlement had grown up to
+accommodate some fifty persons, including Canadian and Indian hunters
+with their wives and children. In honour of the commander it had been
+called Fort Franklin, and here the party of explorers settled down
+for the long months of winter.
+
+[Illustration: FORT FRANKLIN, ON THE GREAT BEAR LAKE, IN THE WINTER.
+From a drawing in Franklin's _Second Expedition to the Polar Sea_,
+1828.]
+
+"As the days shortened," says Franklin, "it was necessary to find
+employment during the long evenings for those resident at the house,
+and a school was established from seven to nine for their instruction
+in reading, writing, and arithmetic, attended by most of the British
+party. Sunday was a day of rest, and the whole party attended Divine
+Service morning and evening. If on other evenings the men felt the
+time tedious, the hall was at their service to play any game they might
+choose, at which they were joined by the officers. Thus the men became
+more attached to us, and the hearts and feelings of the whole party
+were united in one common desire to make the time pass as agreeably
+as possible to each other, until the return of spring should enable
+us to resume the great object of the expedition."
+
+April brought warmer weather, though the ground was still covered with
+snow, and much boat-building went on. In May swans had appeared on
+the lake, then came geese, then ducks, then gulls and singing birds.
+By June the boats were afloat, and on the 24th the whole party embarked
+for the Mackenzie River and were soon making their way to the mouth.
+Here the party divided. Franklin on board the _Lion_, with a crew of
+six, accompanied by Back on board the _Reliance_, started westwards,
+while Richardson's party was to go eastwards and survey the coast
+between the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the Copper Mine. On 7th
+July, Franklin reached the sea, and, with flags flying, the _Lion_
+and the _Reliance_ sailed forth on the unknown seas, only to ground
+a mile from shore. Suddenly some three hundred canoes full of Eskimos
+crowded towards them. These people had never seen a white man before,
+but when it was explained to them that the English had come to find
+a channel for large ships to come and trade with them, they "raised
+the most deafening shout of applause." They still crowded round the
+little English boats, till at last, like others of their race, they
+began to steal things from the boats. When detected they grew furious
+and brandished knives, they tore the buttons off the men's coats, and
+for a time matters looked serious till the English showed their
+firearms, when the canoes paddled away and the Eskimos hid themselves.
+
+With a fair wind the boats now sailed along the coast westward, till
+stopped by ice, which drove them from the shore. Dense fogs, stormy
+winds, and heavy rain made this Polar navigation very dangerous; but
+the explorers pushed on till, on 27th July, they reached the mouth
+of a broad river which, "being the most westerly river in the British
+dominions on this coast and near the line of demarcation between Great
+Britain and Russia, I named it the Clarence," says Franklin, "in honour
+of His Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral." A box containing a royal
+medal was deposited here, and the Union Jack was hoisted amid hearty
+cheers.
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION CROSSING BACK'S INLET. From a
+drawing, by Lieut. Back, in Franklin's _Second Expedition to the Polar
+Sea_, 1828.]
+
+Still fogs and storms continued; the farther west they advanced, the
+denser grew the fog, till by the middle of August, winter seemed to
+have set in. The men had suffered much from the hard work of pulling
+and dragging the heavy boats; they also endured torments from
+countless swarms of mosquitoes. They were now some three hundred and
+seventy-four miles from the mouth of the Mackenzie River and only
+half-way to Icy Cape; but Franklin, with all his courage and with all
+his enthusiasm, dared not risk the lives of his men farther. "Return
+Reef" marks his farthest point west, and it was not till long after
+that he learnt that Captain Beechey, who had been sent in the _Blossom_
+by way of Behring Strait, had doubled Icy Cape and was waiting for
+Franklin one hundred and sixty miles away.
+
+On 21st September, Fort Franklin was reached after three months'
+absence. Dr. Richardson had already returned after a successful coast
+voyage of some eight hundred miles.
+
+When he had left Franklin he had, on board the _Dolphin_, accompanied
+by the _Union_, sailed along the unknown coast eastward. Like
+Franklin's party, his expedition had also suffered from fogs, gales,
+and mosquitoes, but they had made their way on, naming inlets, capes,
+and islands as they passed. Thus we find Russell Inlet, Point Bathurst,
+Franklin's Bay, Cape Parry, the Union and Dolphin Straits, named after
+the two little ships, where the _Dolphin_ was nearly wrecked between
+two masses of ice. They had reached Fort Franklin in safety just before
+Franklin's party, and, being too late to think of getting home this
+year, they were all doomed to another winter at the Fort. They reached
+England on 26th September 1827, after an absence of two years and a
+half.
+
+Franklin had failed to find the North-West Passage, but he and
+Richardson had discovered a thousand miles of North American coast,
+for which he was knighted and received the Paris Geographical
+Society's medal for "the most important acquisition to geographical
+knowledge" made during the year. It was a curious coincidence that
+the two Arctic explorers, Franklin and Parry, both arrived in England
+the same month from their various expeditions, and appeared at the
+Admiralty within ten minutes of one another.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE
+
+
+Parry had left England the preceding April in an attempt to reach the
+North Pole by means of sledges over the ice. To this end he had sailed
+to Spitzbergen in his old ship the _Hecla_, many of his old shipmates
+sailing with him. They arrived off the coast of Spitzbergen about the
+middle of May 1827. Two boats had been specially built in England,
+covered with waterproof canvas and lined with felt. The _Enterprise_
+and _Endeavour_ had bamboo masts and paddles, and were constructed
+to go on sledges, drawn by reindeer, over the ice.
+
+"Nothing," says Parry, "can be more beautiful than the training of
+the Lapland reindeer. With a simple collar of skin round his neck,
+a single trace of the same material attached to the sledge and passing
+between his legs, and one rein fastened like a halter round his neck,
+this intelligent and docile animal is perfectly under the command of
+an experienced driver, and performs astonishing journeys over the
+softest snow. Shaking the rein over his back is the only whip that
+is required."
+
+Leaving the _Hecla_ in safe harbour on the Spitzbergen coast, Parry
+and James Ross, a nephew of John Ross, the explorer, with food for
+two months, started off in their two boat-sledges for the north. They
+made a good start; the weather was calm and clear, the sea smooth as
+a mirror--walruses lay in herds on the ice, and, steering due north,
+they made good progress.
+
+Next day, however, they were stopped by ice. Instead of finding a smooth,
+level plain over which the reindeer could draw their sledges with ease,
+they found broken, rugged, uneven ice, which nothing but the keen
+enthusiasm of the explorer could have faced. The reindeer were useless,
+and they had to be relinquished; it is always supposed that they were
+eaten, but history is silent on this point. The little party had to
+drag their own boats over the rough ice. They travelled by night to
+save snow-blindness, also that they could enjoy greater warmth during
+the hours of sleep by day.
+
+[Illustration: THE BOATS OF PARRY'S EXPEDITION HAULED UP ON THE ICE
+FOR THE NIGHT. From a drawing in Parry's _Attempt to Reach the North
+Pole_, 1828.]
+
+Parry describes the laborious journey: "Being 'rigged' for
+travelling," he says, "we breakfasted upon warm cocoa and biscuit,
+and after stowing the things in the boats we set off on our day's journey,
+and usually travelled about five and a half hours, then stopped an
+hour to dine, and again travelled five or six hours. After this we
+halted for the night as we called it, though it was usually early in
+the morning, selecting the largest surface of ice we happened to be
+near for hauling the boats on. The boats were placed close alongside
+each other, and the sails supported by bamboo masts placed over them
+as awnings. Every man then put on dry socks and fur boots and went
+to supper. Most of the officers and men then smoked their pipes, which
+served to dry the awnings. We then concluded our day with prayers and,
+having put on our fur dresses, lay down to sleep," alone in the great
+ice desert. Progress was slow and very tedious. One day it took them
+four hours to cover half a mile. On 1st July they were still labouring
+forward; a foot of soft snow on the ground made travelling very
+exhausting. Some of the hummocks of ice were as much as twenty-five
+feet above sea-level; nothing was to be seen but ice and sky, both
+often hidden by dense fog. Still the explorers pushed on, Parry and
+Ross leading the way and the men dragging the boat-sledges after. July
+12th was a brilliant day, with clear sky overhead--"an absolute
+luxury." For another fortnight they persevered, and on 23rd July they
+reached their farthest point north. It was a warm, pleasant day, with
+the thermometer at thirty-six in the shade; they were a hundred and
+seventy-two miles from Spitzbergen, where the _Hecla_ lay at anchor.
+
+"Our ensigns and pendants were displayed during the day, and severely
+as we regretted not having been able to hoist the British flag in the
+highest latitude to which we had aspired, we shall perhaps be excused
+in having felt some little pride in being the bearers of it to a parallel
+considerably beyond that mentioned in any other well-authenticated
+record." On 27th July they reluctantly turned to the south, and on
+21st August they arrived on board the _Hecla_ after an absence of
+sixty-one days, every one of the party being in good health. Soon after
+they sailed for England, and by a strange coincidence arrived in London
+at the same time as Franklin.
+
+Many an attempt was yet to be made to reach the North Pole, till at
+last it was discovered by Peary, an American, in 1909.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+THE SEARCH FOR TIMBUKTU
+
+
+It is a relief to turn from the icy north to the tropical climate of
+Central Africa, where Mungo Park had disappeared in 1805. The mystery
+of Timbuktu and the Niger remained unsolved, though more than one
+expedition had left the coast of Africa for the "mystic city" lying
+"deep in that lion-haunted inland." Notwithstanding disaster, death,
+and defeat, a new expedition set forth from Tripoli to cross the great
+Sahara Desert. It was under Major Denham, Lieutenant Clapperton, and
+Dr. Oudney. They left Tripoli in March 1822. "We were the first English
+travellers," says Denham, "who had determined to travel in our real
+character as Britons and Christians, and to wear our English dress:
+the buttons on our waistcoats and our watches caused the greatest
+astonishment." It was the end of November before they were ready to
+leave the frontier on their great desert journey. The long enforced
+stay in this unhealthy border town had undermined their health; fever
+had reduced Denham, Dr. Oudney was suffering from cough and pains in
+his chest, Clapperton was shivering with ague--a state of health
+"ill-calculated for undertaking a long and tedious journey." A long
+escort of men and camels accompanied them into the merciless desert,
+with its burning heat and drifting sands--"the Sea of Sahara" as the
+old cartographer calls it. December found them still slowly advancing
+over the billowy sand, deeply impressed and horrified at the number
+of slave skeletons that lay about the wind-swept desert. The new year
+brought little relief. "No wood, no water," occurs constantly in
+Denham's journal. "Desert as yesterday; high sandhills." Still they
+persevered, until, on 4th February 1823, they were rewarded by seeing
+a sheet of water, "the great Lake Tchad, glowing with the golden rays
+of the sun in its strength." Was this, after all, the source of the
+Niger? Its low shores were surrounded with reedy marshes and clumps
+of white water-lilies, there were flocks of wild ducks and geese, birds
+with beautiful plumage were feeding on the margin of the lake, pelicans,
+cranes, immense white spoonbills, yellow-legged plover--all were
+dwelling undisturbed in this peaceful spot. And this most remarkable
+lake lay eight hundred feet above the Atlantic, between the watersheds
+of Nile, Niger, and Congo.
+
+But Lake Tchad was not their goal; they must push on over new country
+where no European had been before. A fortnight later they reached
+Kukawa, the capital of Bornu, once a great Mohammedan empire. "We were
+about to become acquainted with a people who had never seen or scarcely
+heard of a European," says Denham, "and to tread on ground, the
+knowledge and true situation of which had hitherto been wholly unknown.
+We advanced towards the town of Kuka in a most interesting state of
+uncertainty, whether we should find its chief at the head of thousands,
+or be received by him under a tree, surrounded by a few naked slaves."
+
+Their doubts were soon set at rest by the sight of several thousand
+cavalry, drawn up in line. They were received by an Arab general, "a
+negro of noble aspect, dressed in a figured silk robe and mounted on
+a beautiful horse." They had passed from the region of hidden huts
+to one of great walled cities, from the naked pagan to the cultivated
+follower of Mohammed, from superstition to mosques and schools, from
+ignorance to knowledge. The Sheikh, who received the travellers in
+a small room with armed negroes on either side, asked the reason of
+their long and painful journey across the desert. "To see the country,"
+answered the Englishmen, "and to give an account of its inhabitants,
+produce, and appearance, as our sultan was desirous of knowing every
+part of the globe."
+
+[Illustration: MAJOR DENHAM AND HIS PARTY RECEIVED BY THE SHEIKH OF
+BORNU. From a drawing by Major Denham.]
+
+The Sheikh's hospitality was overwhelming; he had huts built for them,
+"which," says Denham, "were so crowded with visitors that we had not
+a moment's peace, and the heat was insufferable." He sent presents
+of bullocks, camel-loads of wheat and rice, leather skins of butter,
+jars, and honey. The market of Kuka was famous. It was attended by
+some fifteen thousand persons from all parts, and the produce sold
+there was astonishing. Here Clapperton and Dr. Oudney stayed all
+through the summer months, for both were ill, and Oudney was growing
+rapidly worse. Denham meanwhile went off on exploring expeditions in
+the neighbourhood.
+
+On 14th December, Clapperton and Oudney left the friendly Sheikh and
+made their way to Kano. But the rough travelling proved too much for
+Oudney; each day found him weaker, but he valiantly journeyed on. On
+12th January he ordered the camels to be loaded as usual, and he was
+dressed by Clapperton, but he was too ill to be lifted on to his camel,
+and a few hours later he died.
+
+Clapperton was now alone "amid a strange people" in a land "hitherto
+never trodden by European foot," and very ill himself. But he reached
+Kano, the famous trading centre of the Haussas, containing some forty
+thousand inhabitants. Here again the market impressed him deeply, so
+full was it of cosmopolitan articles from far-distant lands. After
+a month's stay at Kano, now the capital of the northern province of
+Nigeria of that name, he set out for Sokoto, though very ill and weak
+at the time. He was assured of kind treatment by the Sultan. He arrived
+on 16th March, and "to impress them with my official importance I
+arrayed myself in my lieutenant's coat trimmed with gold lace, white
+trousers, and silk stockings, and, to complete my finery, I wore
+Turkish slippers and a turban." Crowds collected on his arrival, and
+he was conducted to the Sultan, who questioned him closely about Europe.
+"I laid before him a present in the name of His Majesty the King of
+England, consisting of two new blunderbusses, an embroidered jacket,
+some scarlet breeches, cloves and cinnamon, gunpowder, razors,
+looking-glasses, snuff-boxes, and compasses."
+
+"Everything is wonderful!" exclaimed the Sultan; "but you are the
+greatest curiosity of all! What can I give that is acceptable to the
+King of England?"
+
+"Co-operate with His Majesty in putting a stop to the slave trade,"
+was Clapperton's answer.
+
+"What, have you no slaves in England?" The Englishman replied, "No!"
+to which the Sultan answered: "God is great; you are a beautiful
+people." But when Clapperton asked for leave in order to solve the
+mystery of the Niger, the Sultan refused, and he was obliged to return
+to Kuka, where he arrived on 8th July. A week later he was joined by
+Denham. "It was nearly eight months since we had separated," says
+Denham, "and I went immediately to the hut where he was lodged; but
+so satisfied was I that the sunburnt, sickly person that lay extended
+on the floor, rolled in a dark-blue shirt, was not my companion, that
+I was about to leave the place, when he convinced me of my error by
+calling me by my name. Our meeting was a melancholy one, for he had
+buried his companion. Notwithstanding the state of weakness in which
+I found Captain Clapperton, he yet spoke of returning to Sudan after
+the rains." But this was not to be, and a month later we find the two
+explorers turning homewards to Tripoli, where they arrived at the end
+of January.
+
+But, with all his long travelling in Africa, Clapperton had not seen
+the Niger, and, although the effects of his fever had not worn away,
+he spent but two months in England before he was off again. This time
+he sailed to the Gulf of Guinea, and from a place on the coast near
+the modern Lagos he started by a new and untried route to reach the
+interior of the great Dark Continent. It was September 1825 when he
+left the coast with his companions. Before the month was over, the
+other Europeans had died from the pestilential climate of Nigeria,
+and Clapperton, alone with his faithful servant, Richard Lander,
+pushed on. At last he saw the great Niger near the spot where Mungo
+Park and his companions had perished. At Bussa they made out the tragic
+story of his end. They had descended the river from Timbuktu to Bussa,
+when the boat struck upon some rocks. Natives from the banks shot at
+them with arrows; the white men then, seeing all was lost, jumped into
+the river and were drowned. The Niger claimed its explorer in the end,
+and the words of Mungo Park must have occurred to Clapperton as he
+stood and watched: "Though I myself were half-dead, I would still
+persevere; and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey,
+I would at least die on the Niger."
+
+From Bussa, Clapperton made his way to Kano and Sokoto; but on 13th
+April 1827, broken down by fever, he died in the arms of his faithful
+servant. With his master's papers and journal, Lander made his way
+home, thus establishing for the first time a direct connection between
+Benin and Tripoli, the west coast and the north.
+
+Still the mouth of the Niger had not been found. This discovery was
+reserved for this very Richard Lander and his brother John.
+
+Just a year after the death of Clapperton a young Frenchman, Rene Caille,
+tempted by the offer of ten thousand francs offered by the French
+Geographical Society for the first traveller who should reach that
+mysterious city, entered Timbuktu 20th April 1829, after a year's
+journey from Sierra Leone. And from his pen we get the first direct
+account of the once important city. "At length," he says, "we arrived
+safely at Timbuktu, just as the sun was touching the horizon. I now
+saw this capital of the Sudan, to reach which had so long been the
+object of my wishes. To God alone did I confide my joy. I looked around
+and found that the sight before me did not answer my expectations.
+I had formed a totally different idea of the grandeur and wealth of
+it. The city presented nothing but a mass of ill-looking houses, built
+of earth. Nothing was to be seen in all directions but immense plains
+of quicksand of a yellowish white colour. The sky was a pale red as
+far as the horizon, all nature wore a dreary aspect, and the most
+profound silence prevailed: not even the warbling of a bird was to
+be heard. The heat was oppressive; not a breath of air freshened the
+atmosphere. This mysterious city, which has been the object of
+curiosity for many ages, and of whose civilisation, population, and
+trade with the Sudan such exaggerated notions have prevailed, is
+situated in an immense plain of white sand, having no vegetation but
+stunted trees and shrubs, and has no other resources save its trade
+in salt."
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST EUROPEAN PICTURE OF TIMBUKTU. From a drawing
+in Caille's _Tomboctou_, 1829.]
+
+It is curious to note what a burst of interest was aroused in England
+at this time with regard to Timbuktu. Thackeray wrote in 1829--
+
+   "In Africa (a quarter of the world)
+    Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curl'd;
+    And somewhere there, unknown to public view,
+    A mighty city lies, called Timbuktu."
+
+while the same year Tennyson's poem on Timbuktu won for him the prize
+at Cambridge University for the best poem of the year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER DISCOVER THE MOUTH OF THE NIGER
+
+
+Lander, the "faithful attendant of the late Captain Clapperton," as
+he is called in his instructions, was burning to be off again to explore
+further the mysterious Niger. No pecuniary reward was to be his; he
+was a poor man, and just for the love of exploring the unknown he started
+off. He had inspired his brother with a desire to solve the great
+mystery; so on 22nd February 1830 the two brothers arrived at Cape
+Coast Castle and made their way to Bussa, which place they entered
+on 18th June. Sitting on a rock overlooking the spot where Mungo Park
+had perished, the brothers resolved to "set at rest for ever the great
+question of the course and termination of the great Niger."
+
+It was 20th September before preparations were completed for the
+eventful voyage from Bussa to the mouth of the Niger. For provisions
+they took three large bags of corn and one of beans, a couple of fowls,
+and two sheep to last a month, while the king added rice, honey, onions,
+and one hundred pounds of vegetable butter. Then in two native canoes
+the Landers embarked on the great river, the "Dark Water" as it was
+more often called, while the crowds who came down to the riverside
+to bid them farewell knelt with uplifted hands, imploring for the
+explorers the protection of Allah and their prophet. It was indeed
+a perilous undertaking; sunken reefs were an ever-present danger,
+while the swift current ran them dangerously near many jagged rocks.
+For nearly a month they paddled onward with their native guides in
+anxiety and suspense, never knowing what an hour might bring forth.
+On 7th October a curious scene took place when the King of the Dark
+Water came forth in all his pomp and glory to see the white strangers
+who were paddling down the great river. Waiting under the shade of
+a tree, for the morning was very hot, the Landers observed a large
+canoe paddled by twenty young black men singing as they rowed. In the
+centre of the boat a mat awning was erected: in the bows sat four little
+boys "clad with neatness and propriety," while in the stern sat
+musicians with drums and trumpets. Presently the king stepped forth.
+He was coal black, dressed in an Arab cloak, Haussa trousers, and a
+cap of red cloth, while two pretty little boys about ten years of age,
+acting as pages, followed him, each bearing a cow's tail in his hand
+to brush away flies and other insects. Six wives, jet black girls in
+neat country caps edged with red silk, accompanied him. To make some
+impression on this pompous king, Lander hoisted the "Union flag."
+"When unfurled and waving in the wind, it looked extremely pretty,
+and it made our hearts glow with pride and enthusiasm as we looked
+at the solitary little banner. I put on an old naval uniform coat,
+and my brother dressed himself in as grotesque and gaudy a manner as
+our resources would afford; our eight attendants also put on new white
+Mohammedan robes." Other canoes joined the royal procession and the
+little flotilla moved down the river. "Never did the British flag lead
+so extraordinary a squadron," remarks Lander. As the King of the Dark
+Water stepped on shore the Englishmen fired a salute, which frightened
+him not a little till the honour was explained. Having now exchanged
+their two canoes for one of a larger size, they continued their journey
+down the river.
+
+[Illustration: RICHARD AND JOHN LANDER PADDLING DOWN THE NIGER. From
+a drawing in the account of Lander's _Travels_, 1835.]
+
+On 25th October they found the waters of the Niger were joined by
+another large river known to-day as the Benue, the Mother of Waters,
+flowing in from the east. After this the banks of the river seemed
+to grow hilly, and villages were few and far between. "Our canoe passed
+smoothly along the Niger, and everything was silent and solitary; no
+sound could be distinguished save our own voices and the plashing of
+the paddles with their echoes; the song of birds was not heard, nor
+could any animal whatever be seen; the banks seemed to be entirely
+deserted, and the magnificent Niger to be slumbering in its own
+grandeur."
+
+"One can imagine the feelings," says a modern writer, "in such
+circumstances of the brothers, drifting they knew not whither, in
+intolerable silence and loneliness on the bosom of a river which had
+caused the death of so many men who had endeavoured to wrest from it
+its secret." Two days later a large village appeared, and suddenly
+a cry rang through the air: "Holloa, you Englishmen! You come here!"
+It came from a "little squinting fellow" dressed in an English
+soldier's jacket, a messenger from the Chief of Bonney on the coast,
+buying slaves for his master. He had picked up a smattering of English
+from the Liverpool trading ships which came to Bonney for palm-oil
+from the river. There was no longer any doubt that the mouth of the
+Niger was not far off, and that the many-mouthed delta was well known
+to Europeans under the name of the "Oil Rivers" flowing into the Bight
+of Benin.
+
+Lander pushed on till he had paddled down the Brass River, as one of
+the many branches was called, when he heard "the welcome sound of the
+surf on the beach."
+
+The mystery of the Niger, after a lapse of two thousand five hundred
+years since its existence had been recorded by Herodotus, was solved
+at last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+ROSS DISCOVERS THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE
+
+
+The first attempt to discover the North-West Passage by means of steam
+instead of sail was made by Captain Ross, who, since his expedition
+in 1819, had been burning to set off again for the Arctic regions.
+The reward of 20,000 pounds held out to the discoverer of a north-west
+passage had been repealed, but an old friend, Felix Booth, decided
+to finance Ross, the Government having refused. "After examining
+various steamships advertised for sale," says Ross, "I purchased the
+_Victory_, which had been once employed as a packet." With food and
+fuel for one thousand days, and accompanied by his nephew, James Ross,
+who had been with Parry on his recent Polar voyage, he left England
+the end of May 1829, not to return for many a long year. Disasters
+soon began. The _Victory_ began to leak, her engines were defective,
+and there was nothing for it but to heave up her paddles and trust
+to sail. Sailing to the northward, they found the sea smooth and the
+weather so warm that they could dine without a fire and with the
+skylights off. Entering Lancaster Sound, they sailed up Prince
+Regent's Inlet. They soon discovered the spot where the _Fury_ had
+been wrecked four years before and abandoned by Captain Parry with
+whom was James Ross, who now found the stores which had been safely
+hidden on that occasion. As they made their way up the inlet, strong
+currents and vast masses of ice hard and solid as granite more than
+once threatened them with destruction.
+
+"Imagine," says Captain Ross, "these mountains hurled through a narrow
+strait by a rapid tide, meeting with the noise of thunder, breaking
+from each other's precipices huge fragments, till, losing their former
+equilibrium, they fall over headlong, lifting the sea around in
+breakers and whirling it in eddies."
+
+Escaping these perils, Ross entered a fine harbour. Here he landed,
+hoisted the colours, and took possession of the new land he had found,
+and, drinking the King's health, called the land Boothia, after his
+patron. For the next two months, August and September, he carefully
+explored the coast of this newly discovered Boothia for some three
+hundred miles, naming points and capes and islands after friends at
+home and on board. Heavy squalls of snow and ever-thickening ice
+pointed out the necessity of winter quarters, and 1st October found
+the _Victory_ imprisoned by thick immovable ice. "The prison door was
+shut upon us for the first time," says Ross sadly. "Nothing was to
+be seen but one dazzling, monotonous extent of snow. It was indeed
+a dull prospect. Amid all its brilliancy, this land of ice and snow
+has ever been, and ever will be, a dull, dreary, heart-sinking,
+monotonous waste, under the influence of which the very mind is
+paralysed. Nothing moves and nothing changes, but all is for ever the
+same--cheerless, cold, and still."
+
+The explorers little thought that this was to be their home for the
+next three years. They spent a fairly cheerful Christmas with mince
+pies and "iced cherry brandy" taken from the stores of the _Fury_,
+and early in 1830 the monotony was broken by the appearance of Eskimos.
+These were tremendously dressed up in furs, a shapeless mass, and Ross
+describes one as resembling "the figure of a globe standing on two
+pins." They soon became friendly, taking the Englishmen to see their
+snow huts, drawing them charts of Boothia Gulf beyond Felix Harbour,
+while in exchange the explorers taught English to the little Eskimo
+children and ministered to their ailments, the ship's carpenter even
+making a wooden leg for one of the natives.
+
+[Illustration: ROSS'S WINTER QUARTERS IN FELIX HARBOUR.]
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST COMMUNICATION WITH ESKIMOS AT BOOTHIA FELIX,
+JANUARY 1830. SIR JOHN ROSS'S EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE,
+1829-1833. From drawings by Ross in his _Narrative of a Second Voyage
+in Search of a North-West Passage_.]
+
+So the long winter passed away. A few land journeys with sledges only
+ended in disappointment, but at last the vessel was free of ice and
+joyfully they hoisted her sails. But worse disappointment was in store.
+She had sailed for three miles when they met a ridge of ice, and a
+solid sea forbade any further advance. In vain did they try to saw
+through the ice. November found the poor _Victory_ hopelessly icebound
+and her crew doomed to another winter in the same region.
+
+It was not till May that a journey across the land of Boothia to the
+west coast was possible. Ross and his nephew had been calculating the
+position of the North Magnetic Pole all the long winter, and with signs
+of spring they set forth.
+
+"Our journey had a very new appearance. The mother of two Eskimos led
+the way with a staff in her hand, my sledge following with the dogs
+and one of the children, guided by one of the wives with a child on
+her back. After a native sledge came that of Commander Ross, followed
+by more Eskimos. Many halts were made, as our burdens were heavy, the
+snow deep, and the ice rough."
+
+After a fortnight's travelling past the chain of great lakes--the
+woman still guiding them--the Rosses, uncle and nephew, separated.
+James Ross now made for the spot where the Magnetic Pole was supposed
+to be. His own account shows with what enthusiasm he found it. "We
+were now within fourteen miles of the calculated position of the
+Magnetic Pole and now commenced a rapid march, and, persevering with
+all our might, we reached the calculated place at eight in the morning
+of the 1st of June. I must leave it to others to imagine the elation
+of mind with which we found ourselves now at length arrived at this
+great object of our ambition. It almost seemed as if we had accomplished
+everything that we had come so far to see and to do; as if our voyage
+and all its labours were at an end, and that nothing remained for us
+but to return home and be happy for the rest of our days. Amid mutual
+congratulation we fixed the British flag on the spot and took
+possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in
+the name of Great Britain and King William IV. We had plenty of
+materials for building, and we therefore erected a cairn of some
+magnitude under which we buried a canister containing a record of the
+interesting fact." Another fortnight found the successful explorers
+staggering back to the _Victory_ with their great news, after an
+absence of twenty-eight days.
+
+Science has shown that the Magnetic Pole revolves, and that Ross's
+cairn will not again mark its exact position for many a long year to
+come.
+
+[Illustration: THE ROSSES ON THEIR JOURNEY TO THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE.
+From a drawing in Ross's _Second Voyage for a North-West Passage_,
+1835.]
+
+By the end of August the ice had broken and the _Victory_ was once
+more in full sail, but gales of wind drove her into harbour, which
+she never left again. Despite their colossal efforts, it soon became
+apparent that yet another winter would have to be passed in the frozen
+seas. The entries in Ross's journal become shorter and more despondent
+day by day. "The sight of ice to us is a plague, a vexation, a torment,
+an evil, a matter of despair. Could we have skated, it would not have
+been an amusement; we had exercise enough and, worst of all, the ice
+which surrounds us obstructed us, imprisoned us, annoyed us in every
+possible manner, had become odious to our sight." By October there
+was no open water to be seen; "the hopeful did not hope more, and the
+despondent continued to despair."
+
+This was their third winter in the ice--food was growing scarce, the
+meat was so hard frozen that it had to be cut with a saw or thawed
+in warm cocoa. Snow-blindness afflicted many of the men badly. At last
+came the summer of 1833, but the _Victory_ was still fast in her winter
+quarters, and all attempts to release her had failed. They now decided
+to abandon her and to drag their boats over the ice to the wreck of
+the _Fury_, replenishing their stores and trusting to some whaler to
+take them home. We get a pathetic picture. "The colours were hoisted,"
+says Ross, "and nailed to the mast, we drank a parting glass to our
+poor old ship, and, having seen every man out, I took my own adieu
+of the _Victory_ in the evening. She had deserved a better fate. It
+was like parting with an old friend."
+
+On 23rd April the weary explorers began dragging their boats and the
+last month's provisions over the ice in the face of wind and snow.
+The journey was painful and distressing. They found Barrow's Strait
+full of impenetrable ice, and resolved to pass the winter on Fury beach,
+which seemed almost like home to the half-starved men. Erecting a house
+which they called "Somerset House," they prepared for a fourth winter.
+For severity it was unequalled, the crew developed scurvy, and all
+were suffering sorely when, in the following August, the unfortunate
+party was rescued by the whaler, "_Isabella_ of Hull, once commanded
+by Captain Ross." It was the ship in which Ross had made his first
+Arctic exploration. At first the mate refused to believe the story
+of these "bear-like" men. The explorers and Ross had been lost these
+two years. But, almost frantic with delight, the explorers climbed
+on board the _Isabella_ to be received with the heartiest of cheers
+when their identity was disclosed. "That we were a repulsive-looking
+people, none could doubt," says poor Ross, "unshaven since I know not
+when, dirty, dressed in rags of wild beasts, and starved to the very
+bones, our gaunt and grim looks, when contrasted with those of the
+well-dressed and well-fed men around us, made us all feel what we really
+were, as well as what we seemed to others." Then followed a wild scene
+of "washing, dressing, shaving, eating, all intermingled," while in
+the midst of all there were questions to be asked and the news from
+England to be heard. Long accustomed to a cold bed on the hard snow
+or the bare rock, few of them could sleep that night in the comfort
+of the new accommodation.
+
+They were soon safely back in England, large crowds collecting to get
+a glimpse of Captain Ross. His own words best end the account of his
+travels. "On my arrival in London," he says, "on the 20th of October
+1883, it became my first duty to repair to the royal palace at Windsor,
+with an account of my voyage, and to lay at the feet of His Majesty
+the British flag which had been hoisted on the Magnetic Pole."
+
+[Illustration: "SOMERSET HOUSE," ROSS'S WINTER QUARTERS ON FURY BEACH.
+From a drawing in Ross's _Second Voyage for a North-West Passage_,
+1835.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+FLINDERS NAMES AUSTRALIA
+
+
+We must now return to Australia, as yet so imperfectly explored, and
+take up the story of the young colony at Sydney.
+
+For seven years it thrived under the careful management of Governor
+Phillips, who was then replaced by one Hunter. With the new governor
+from England arrived two young men destined to distinguish themselves
+in the exploration of New South Wales. They were midshipman Matthew
+Flinders and surgeon George Bass. The reading of _Robinson Crusoe_
+had created in young Flinders a passion for sea-adventure, and no
+sooner had the _Reliance_ anchored in Sydney harbour than the two young
+friends resolved on an exploring expedition to the south. For there
+were rumours afloat that Van Diemen's Land did not join the main
+continent of New South Wales. Little enough help was forthcoming for
+the expedition, and the friends had to content themselves with a little
+boat eight feet long--the _Tom Thumb_--and only a boy to help them.
+But with all the eager enthusiasm of youth they sailed from Port Jackson
+on 25th March 1796. It is impossible to follow all their adventures
+as they attempted the survey of the coast. A storm on the 29th nearly
+swallowed up the little _Tom Thumb_ and her plucky sailors.
+
+"At ten o'clock," says Flinders, "the wind, which had been unsettled
+and driving electric clouds in all directions, burst out in a gale.
+In a few minutes the waves began to break, and the extreme danger to
+which this exposed our little bark was increased by the darkness of
+the night and the uncertainty of finding any place of shelter. Mr.
+Bass kept the sheet of the sail in his hand, drawing in a few inches
+occasionally, when he saw a particularly heavy sea following. I was
+steering with an oar. A single wrong movement or a moment's inattention
+would have sent us to the bottom. After running near an hour in this
+critical manner, some huge breakers were distinguished ahead; it was
+necessary to determine what was to be done at once, for our bark could
+not live ten minutes longer. On coming to what appeared to be the
+extremity of the breakers, the boat's head was brought to the wind,
+the mast and sail taken down, and the oars taken out. Pulling then
+towards the reef during the intervals of the heaviest seas, in three
+minutes we were in smooth water--a nearer approach showed us the beach
+of a well-sheltered cove in which we anchored for the rest of the night.
+We thought Providential Cove a well-adapted name for the place."
+
+[Illustration: MATTHEW FLINDERS.]
+
+Important local discoveries were made by the young explorers, and
+their skill and courage earned for them a better equipment for further
+exploration. A whale-boat provisioned for six weeks, and a crew of
+six, were placed at the disposal of Bass in order that he might discover
+whether Van Diemen's Land was joined to the mainland or whether there
+was a strait between. Cook had declared that there was no strait.
+Flinders now tells the story of his friend's triumphant success in
+finding the straits that now bear his name. He tells how Bass found
+the coast turning westward exposed to the billows of a great ocean,
+of the low sandy shore, of the spacious harbour which "from its relative
+position to the hitherto known parts of the coasts was called Port
+Western." His provisions were now at an end and, though he was keen
+to make a survey of his new discovery, he was obliged to return. This
+voyage of six hundred miles in an open boat on dangerous and unknown
+shores is one of the most remarkable on record. It added another three
+hundred miles of known coast-line, and showed that the shores of New
+Holland were divided from Van Diemen's Land. So highly did the
+colonists appreciate this voyage of discovery that the whale-boat in
+which Bass sailed was long preserved as a curiosity.
+
+A small boat of twenty-five tons, provisioned for twelve weeks, was
+now put at the disposal of the two friends, Flinders and Bass, to
+complete the survey of Van Diemen's Land, and in October 1798 they
+sailed for the south. With gales and strong winds blowing across the
+channel now known as Bass Strait, they made their way along the
+coast--the northern shores of Van Diemen's Land--till they found a
+wide inlet. Here they found a quantity of black swans, which they ate
+with joy, and also kangaroos, mussels, and oysters. This inlet they
+called Port Dalrymple, after the late hydrographer to the Admiralty
+in England. On 9th December, still coasting onward, they passed
+Three-Hummock Island and then a whole cluster of islands, to which,
+"in honour of His Excellency the Governor of New South Wales, I gave
+the title of Hunter's Isles." And now a long swell was noticed from
+the south-west. "It broke heavily upon a small reef and upon all the
+western shores, but, although it was likely to prove troublesome and
+perhaps dangerous, Mr. Bass and myself hailed it with joy and mutual
+congratulation, as announcing the completion of our long-wished-for
+discovery of a passage into the southern Indian Ocean."
+
+Calling the point where the island coast turned Cape Grime, they sailed
+along the western shores, their little boat exposed to the swell of
+the southern ocean. Sailing joyfully from point to point and naming
+them at will, the two explorers reached the extreme west, which they
+called South-West Cape. This had been already sighted by one of Cook's
+party in 1773. South Cape and Tasman's Head had been likewise charted
+as points at the extreme south of New South Wales. So the explorers
+sailed right round the island on which Tasman had landed one hundred
+and fifty-six years before, and after an absence of five months they
+reached Sydney with their important news. Bass now disappears from
+the annals of exploration, but his friend Flinders went off to England
+and found in our old friend Banks a powerful friend. He was given a
+stout north-country ship, H.M.S. _Investigator_ of three hundred and
+thirty-four tons, with orders to return to New Holland and make a
+complete survey of the coast, and was off again in July 1801 with young
+John Franklin, his nephew, aboard.
+
+The _Investigator_ arrived at Cape Leuwin in December and anchored
+in King George's Sound, discovered by Vancouver some ten years before.
+By the New Year he was ready to begin his great voyage round the Terra
+Australis, as the new country was still called. Indeed, it was Flinders
+who suggested the name of Australia for the tract of land hitherto
+called New Holland. His voyage can easily be traced on our maps to-day.
+Voyaging westward through the Recherches group of islands, Flinders
+passed the low, sandy shore to a cape he named Cape Pasley, after his
+late Admiral; high, bleak cliffs now rose to the height or some five
+hundred feet for a distance of four hundred and fifty miles--the great
+Australian Bight. Young Franklin's name was given to one island,
+Investigator to another, Cape Catastrophe commemorated a melancholy
+accident and the drowning of several of the crew. Kangaroo Island
+speaks for itself. Here they killed thirty-one dark-brown kangaroos.
+"The whole ship's company was employed this afternoon skinning and
+cleaning the kangaroos, and a delightful regale they afforded after
+four months' privation from almost any fresh provisions. Half a
+hundredweight of heads, forequarters, and tails were stewed down into
+soup for dinner, and as much steaks given to both officers and men
+as they could consume by day and night."
+
+[Illustration: CAPE CATASTROPHE. From Flinders' _Voyages_.]
+
+In April 1802 a strange encounter took place, when suddenly there
+appeared a "heavy-looking ship without any top-gallant masts up,"
+showing a French ensign. Flinders cleared his decks for action in case
+of attack, but the strangers turned out to be the French ship _Le
+Geographe_, which, in company with _Le Naturaliste_, had left France,
+1800, for exploration of the Australian coasts.
+
+Now it was well known that Napoleon had cast longing eyes upon the
+Terra Australis--indeed, it is said that he took with him to Egypt
+a copy of _Cook's Voyages_. Flinders, too, knew of this French
+expedition, but he was not specially pleased to find French explorers
+engaged on the same work as himself. The commanders met as friends,
+and Baudin, the French explorer, told how he had landed also near Cape
+Leuwin in May 1801, how he had given the names of his two ships to
+Cape Naturaliste and Geographe Bay, and was now making his way round
+the coast. Flinders little guessed at this time that the French were
+going to claim the south of New South Wales as French territory under
+the name of Terra Napoleon, though it was common knowledge that this
+discovery was made by Englishmen.
+
+"Ah, captain," said one of the French crew to Flinders, "if we had
+not been kept so long picking up shells and catching butterflies at
+Van Diemen's Land you would not have discovered this coast before us."
+
+When Baudin put in at Port Jackson a couple of months later, he inquired
+of the Governor the extent of British claims in the Pacific.
+
+"The whole of Tasmania and Australia are British territory," was the
+firm answer.
+
+After this encounter Flinders discovered and named Port Phillip, at
+the head of which stands the famous city of Melbourne to-day, and then
+made his way on to Port Jackson. He had managed his crews so well that
+the inhabitants of Port Jackson declared they were reminded of England
+by the fresh colour of the men amongst the _Investigator_ ship's
+company. The Frenchmen had not fared so well. One hundred and fifty
+out of one hundred and seventy were down with scurvy and had to be
+taken to the hospital at Sydney.
+
+Before the end of July, Flinders was off again, sailing northwards
+along the eastern coast of New South Wales. October found him passing
+the Great Barrier reefs, and on the 21st he had reached the northernmost
+point, Cape York. Three days of anxious steering took the
+_Investigator_ through Torres Strait, and Flinders was soon sailing
+into the great Gulf of Carpentaria. Still hugging the coast, he
+discovered a group of islands to the south of the gulf, which he named
+the Wellesley Islands, after General Wellesley, afterwards Duke of
+Wellington. Here he found a wealth of vegetation; cabbage palm was
+abundant, nutmegs plentiful, and a sort of sandal-wood was growing
+freely. He spent one hundred and five days exploring the gulf; then
+he continued his voyage round the west coast and back to Port Jackson
+by the south. He returned after a year's absence with a sickly crew
+and a rotten ship. Indeed, the _Investigator_ was incapable of further
+service, and Flinders decided to go back to England for another ship.
+As passenger on board the _Porpoise_, early in August 1802, he sailed
+from Sydney for the Torres Strait accompanied by two returning
+transports. All went well for the first four days, and they had reached
+a spot on the coast of Queensland, when a cry of "Breakers ahead!"
+fell on the evening air. In another moment the ship was carried amongst
+the breakers and struck upon a coral reef. So sudden was the disaster
+that there was no time to warn the other ships closely following. As
+the _Porpoise_ rolled over on her beam ends, huge seas swept over her
+and the white foam leapt high. Then the mast snapped, water rushed
+in, and soon the _Porpoise_ was a hopeless wreck. A few minutes later,
+one of the transports struck the coral reef: she fell on her side,
+her deck facing the sweeping rollers, and was completely wrecked. The
+other transport escaped, sailed right away from the scene of disaster,
+and was never seen again by the crew of the _Porpoise_. The dawn of
+day showed the shipwrecked crew a sandbank, to which some ninety-four
+men made their way and soon set sailcloth tents on the barren shore.
+They had saved enough food for three months. Flinders as usual was
+the moving spirit. A fortnight later in one of the ship's boats, with
+twelve rowers and food for three weeks, he left Wreck Reef amid ringing
+cheers to get help from Sydney for the eighty men left on the sandbank.
+
+"The reader," says the hero of this adventure, "has perhaps never gone
+two hundred and fifty leagues at sea in an open boat or along a strange
+coast inhabited by savages; but, if he recollect the eighty officers
+and men upon Wreck Reef, and how important was our arrival to their
+safety and to the saving of the charts, journals, and papers of the
+_Investigator's_ voyage, he may have some idea of the pleasure we felt,
+particularly myself, at entering our destined port."
+
+Half-starved, unshaven, deplorable indeed were the men when they
+staggered into Sydney, and "an involuntary tear started from the eye
+of friendship and compassion" when the Governor learnt how nearly
+Flinders and his friends had lost their lives.
+
+[Illustration: THE HUTS OF THE CREW OF THE _PORPOISE_ ON THE SANDBANK,
+WRECK REEF. From Flinders' _Voyages_.]
+
+A few days later Flinders left Sydney for the last time, in a little
+home-built ship of twenty-nine tons, the _Cumberland_. It was the
+first ship ever built in the colony, and the colonists were glad it
+should be of use to the man who had done so much for their country.
+With all his papers and his beloved journals, Flinders put to sea
+accompanied by a ship to rescue the men left on Wreck Reef. Three months
+later, owing to the leaky condition of the ship, he landed at Mauritius.
+Here he was taken prisoner and all his papers and journals were seized
+by the French. During his imprisonment a French_ Voyage of Discovery_
+was issued, Napoleon himself paying a sum of money to hasten
+publication. All the places discovered by Flinders, or "Monsieur
+Flinedore" as the French called him, were called by French names.
+Fortunately before reaching Mauritius, Flinders had sent duplicate
+copies of his charts home, and the whole fraud was exposed. Flinders
+did not reach home till 1810. A last tragedy awaited him. For he died
+in 1814, on the very day that his great book, _The Voyage to Terra
+Australis_, was published. Flinders was a true explorer, and as he
+lay dying he cried, "I know that in future days of exploration my spirit
+will rise from the dead and follow the exploring ship!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX
+
+STURT'S DISCOVERIES IN AUSTRALIA
+
+
+Since the days of Flinders, much discovery had been done in the great
+new island-continent of Australia. The Blue Mountains had been crossed,
+and the river Macquarie discovered and named after the governor of
+that name. But Sturt's famous discovery of the river Darling and his
+descent of the Murray River rank among the most noteworthy of a
+bewildering number of lesser expeditions.
+
+Captain Sturt landed with his regiment, the 39th, at Sydney in the
+year 1827, "to guard the convicts." His first impressions of Sydney
+are interesting. "Cornfield and orchard," he says, "have supplanted
+wild grass and brush; on the ruins of the forest stands a flourishing
+town; and the stillness of that once desert shore is now broken by
+the bugle and by the busy hum of commerce. It is not unusual to see
+from thirty to forty vessels from every quarter of the globe riding
+at anchor at one time."
+
+Sir Ralph Darling, Governor of New South Wales, soon formed a high
+opinion of Sturt's ability, and when an expedition was proposed into
+the interior for further exploration, he appointed him leader.
+
+There was a universal opinion in the colony that in the middle of the
+unknown continent lay a large inland sea. Oxley had made his way to
+a shallow ocean of reeds where the river Macquarie disappeared;
+natives spoke of "large waters" containing "great fish." To open up
+the country and to ascertain the truth of these rumours were the objects
+of this new expedition which left Sydney in November 1828. It consisted
+of Hamilton Hume, the first Australian-born explorer, two soldiers,
+eight convicts, fifteen horses, ten bullocks, and a small boat on a
+wheeled carriage. Across the roadless Blue Mountains they started,
+followed the traces of Oxley, who had died just a week before they
+started, and about Christmas time they passed his last camp and began
+to break new ground. Through thickets of reeds and marshy swamps they
+pushed on; the river Macquarie had entirely disappeared, but on 2nd
+February they suddenly found a large river some eighty yards broad
+enclosing an unbroken sheet of deep water. "Our surprise and delight,"
+says Sturt, "are better imagined than described. Our difficulties
+seemed at an end. The banks were too steep to allow of watering the
+cattle, but the men eagerly descended to quench a thirst increased
+by the powerful sun. Never shall I forget their cry of amazement, nor
+the terror and disappointment with which they called out that the water
+was too salt to drink!" Leaving his party, Sturt pushed on, but no
+fresh water was to be found, so he named the river the Darling, after
+the Governor, and returned, but not till he had discovered brine
+springs in the bed of the river, which accounted for its saltness.
+Sturt had found no inland sea, but in the Darling he had discovered
+a main channel of the western watershed.
+
+He now proposed to follow the line of the Murrumbidgee, "a river of
+considerable size and impetuous current," and to trace it if possible
+into the interior. Several of his old party again joined him, and once
+more he rode out of Sydney on this new quest.
+
+The journey to the banks of the Murrumbidgee lay through wild and
+romantic country, but as they journeyed farther, broad reed belts
+appeared by the river, which was soon lost in a vast expanse of reeds.
+For a moment or two Sturt was as one stunned; he could neither sleep
+nor rest till he had regained the river again. When at last he did
+so he found the water was deep, the current rapid, and the banks high.
+But he turned on all hands to build the whale-boat which he had designed
+at Sydney for the purpose. Early in January he writes home: "I was
+checked in my advance by high reeds spreading as far as the eye can
+reach. The Murrumbidgee is a magnificent stream. I do not yet know
+its fate, but I have taken to the boats. Where I shall wander to God
+only knows. I have little doubt, however, that I shall ultimately make
+the coast."
+
+By 6th January the boat was ready and Sturt started on his memorable
+voyage. After passing the junction of the Lachlan, the channel
+gradually narrowed; great trees had been swept down by the floods and
+navigation rendered very dangerous. Still narrower grew the stream,
+stronger the current. "On a sudden, the river took a general southern
+direction. We were carried at a fearful rate down its gloomy banks,
+and at such a moment of excitement had little time to pay attention
+to the country through which we were passing. At last we found we were
+approaching a junction, and within less than a minute we were hurried
+into a broad and noble river. It is impossible to describe the effect
+upon us of so instantaneous a change. We gazed in silent wonder on
+the large channel we had entered."
+
+The Murrumbidgee had joined the great Murray River as Sturt now called
+it, after Sir George Murray of the Colonial Department.
+
+To add to the unknown dangers of the way, numbers of natives now
+appeared in force on the banks of the river, threatening the white
+men with "dreadful yells and with the beating of spears and shields."
+
+Firearms alone saved the little crew, and the rage of the natives was
+turned to admiration as they watched the white men paddling on their
+great river while some seventy black men swam off to the boat like
+"a parcel of seals."
+
+The explorers now found a new and beautiful stream flowing into the
+Murray from the north, up which the boat was now turned, natives
+anxiously following along the grassy banks, till suddenly a net
+stretched across the stream checked their course. Sturt instinctively
+felt he was on the river Darling again. "I directed that the Union
+Jack should be hoisted, and we all stood up in the boat and gave three
+distinct cheers. The eye of every native was fixed upon that beautiful
+flag as it waved over us in the heart of a desert."
+
+While they were still watching, Sturt turned the head of the boat and
+pursued his way down the great Murray River. Stormy weather at the
+end of January set in; though they were yet one hundred and fifteen
+miles from the coast, the river increased in breadth, cliffs towered
+above them, and the water dashed like sea-waves at their base.
+
+On the 5th of February they were cheered by the appearance of sea-gulls
+and a heavy swell up the river, which they knew must be nearing the
+sea. On the twenty-third day of their voyage they entered a great lake.
+Crossing to the southern shore, they found to their bitter grief that
+shoals and sandbanks made it impossible for them to reach the sea.
+They found that the Murray flowed into Encounter Bay, but thither they
+could not pass. The thunder of the surf upon the shore brought no hope
+to the tired explorers. They had no alternative but to turn back and
+retrace their way. Terrible was the task that lay before them. On
+half-rations and with hostile natives to encounter they must fight
+their way against wind and stream. And they did it. They reached the
+camp on the Murrumbidgee just seventy-seven days after leaving it;
+but to their dismay it was deserted. The river, too, had risen in flood
+and "poured its turbid waters with great violence."
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN STURT AT THE JUNCTION OF THE RIVERS DARLING
+AND MURRAY. From the _Narrative of Sturt's Expedition_.]
+
+"For seventeen days," says Sturt, "we pulled against stream with
+determined perseverance, but in our short daily journeys we made but
+trifling way against it." The effects of severe toil were painfully
+evident. The men lost the muscular jerk with the oars. Their arms were
+nerveless, their faces haggard, their persons emaciated, their
+spirits wholly spent. From sheer weariness they fell asleep at the
+oar. No murmur, however, escaped them.
+
+"I must tell the captain to-morrow," said one, thinking that Sturt
+was asleep, "that I can pull no more." But when the morrow came he
+said no word, but pulled on with his remaining strength. One man went
+mad. The last ounce of flour was consumed when relief arrived, and
+the weary explorers at last reached Sydney with their great news.
+
+The result of this discovery was soon seen. In 1836 a shipload of
+English emigrants arrived off Kangaroo Island, and soon a flourishing
+colony was established at the mouth of the Murray River, the site of
+the new capital being called Adelaide, after the wife of William IV.
+
+After this Sturt tried to cross Australia from south to north; but
+though he opened up a good deal of new country, he failed to reach
+the coast. He was rewarded by the President of the Royal Geographical
+Society, who described him as "one of the most distinguished explorers
+and geographers of our age."
+
+The feat of crossing Australia from south to north, from shore to shore,
+was reserved for an Irishman called Burke in the year 1861. The story
+of his expedition, though it was successful, is one of the saddest
+in the history of discovery. The party left Melbourne in the highest
+spirits. No expense had been spared to give them a good outfit; camels
+had been imported from India, with native drivers, and food was
+provided for a year. The men of Melbourne turned out in their hundreds
+to see the start of Burke with his four companions, his camels, and
+his horses. Starting in August 1860, the expedition arrived at
+Cooper's Creek in November with half their journey done. But it was
+not till December that the party divided, and Burke with his companions,
+Wills, King, and Gray, six camels, and two horses, with food for three
+months, started off for the coast, leaving the rest at Cooper's Creek
+to await their return in about three months. After hard going they
+reached a channel with tidal waters flowing into the Gulf of
+Carpentaria on 28th March, but they could not get a view of the open
+ocean because of boggy ground.
+
+[Illustration: THE BURKE AND WILLS EXPEDITION LEAVING MELBOURNE, 1860.
+From a drawing by Wm. Strutt, an acquaintance of Burke.]
+
+They accomplished their task, but the return journey was disastrous.
+Short rations soon began to tell, for they had taken longer than they
+had calculated, and no food was to be found by the way. Gray was the
+first to fail and to die. Heavy rains made the ground impossibly heavy,
+and the camels sank to the ground exhausted. Finally they had to be
+killed and eaten. Then the horses went. At long last the three weary
+men and two utterly worn-out camels dragged themselves to Cooper's
+Creek, hoping to find their companions and the food they had left there
+four months ago. It was 21st April. Not a soul was to be seen!
+
+"King," cried Wills, in utter despair, "they are _gone_!"
+
+As the awful truth flashed on them Burke--their leader--threw himself
+on to the ground, realising their terrible situation. They looked
+round. On a tree they saw the word "Dig." In a bottle they found a
+letter: "We leave the camp to-day, 21st April 1861. We have left you
+some food. We take camels and horses."
+
+[Illustration: BURKE AND WILLS AT COOPER'S CREEK. From a woodcut in
+a contemporary Australian account of the expedition.]
+
+Only a few hours ago the party had left Cooper's Creek! And the
+explorers were too weak and tired to follow! They ate a welcome supper
+of oatmeal porridge and then, after resting a couple of days; they
+struggled on their way, three exhausted men and two tired camels. Their
+food was soon finished, and they had to subsist on a black seed like
+the natives called "nardoo." But they grew weaker and weaker, and the
+way was long. The camels died first. Then Wills grew too ill to walk,
+and there was nothing for it but to leave him and push on for help.
+The natives were kind to him, but he was too far gone, and he died
+before help could arrive. Burke and King sadly pushed on without him,
+but a few days later Burke died, and in the heart of Australia the
+one white man, King, was left alone. It was not till the following
+September that he was found "sitting in a hut that the blacks had made
+for him. He presented a melancholy appearance, wasted to a shadow and
+hardly to be distinguished as a civilised being except by the remnants
+of clothes on him."
+
+So out of that gay party of explorers who left Melbourne in the summer
+of 1860 only one man returned to tell the story of success and the
+sadder story of suffering and disaster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX
+
+ROSS MAKES DISCOVERIES IN THE ANTARCTIC SEAS
+
+
+Now, while explorers were busy opening up Australian inland, Ross was
+leaving the Australian waters for his voyage to the south. Four years
+after the return of the Ross polar expedition, Sir John Franklin had
+been made Governor of Van Diemen's Land, where he was visited by the
+ships sent out from England on the first Antarctic expedition under
+the command of Sir James Ross, who had returned to find himself famous
+for his discovery of the North Magnetic Pole.
+
+An expedition had been fitted out, consisting of the _Erebus_ and the
+_Terror_--ships which later on made history, for did they not carry
+Sir John Franklin to his doom in the Arctic regions some years later?
+The ships sailed in the autumn of 1839 by way of the Cape of Good Hope,
+and excited great interest at Hobart Town, where the commanders, Ross
+and Crozier, were warmly received by the Governor. In a bay, afterwards
+called Ross Cove, the ships were repaired after the long voyage, while
+an observatory was built by the convicts under the personal
+supervision of Sir John Franklin. Interesting news awaited the
+explorers, too, at Hobart Town. Exploration had taken place in the
+southern regions by a French expedition under D'Urville and an
+American, Lieutenant Wilkes--both of which had made considerable
+discoveries. Ross was somewhat surprised at this, for, as he said,
+"England had ever _led_ the way of discovery in the southern as well
+as in the northern regions," but he decided to take a more easterly
+course, and, if possible, to reach the South Magnetic Pole.
+
+On 5th November 1840 the ships were off again, shaping their course
+for Auckland Island, nine hundred miles from Hobart Town. The island
+had been discovered in 1806 by Captain Bristow. He had left some pigs,
+whose rapid increase filled the explorers with surprise. Christmas
+Day found them still sailing south, with strong gales, snow, and rain.
+The first iceberg was seen a few days later, and land on 11th January.
+
+"It was a beautifully clear evening," says Ross, "and we had a most
+enchanting view of the two magnificent ranges of mountains whose lofty
+peaks, perfectly covered with eternal snow, rose to elevations of ten
+thousand feet above the level of the ocean." These icy shores were
+inhospitable enough, and the heavy surf breaking along its edge
+forbade any landing. Indeed, a strong tide carried the ships rapidly
+and dangerously along the coast among huge masses of ice. "The ceremony
+of taking possession of these newly discovered lands in the name of
+our Most Gracious Sovereign Queen Victoria was proceeded with, and
+on planting the flag of our country amid the hearty cheers of our party,
+we drank to the health, long life, and happiness of Her Majesty and
+His Royal Highness Prince Albert."
+
+The end of the month found them farther south than any explorer had
+sailed before. Everything was new, and they were suddenly startled
+to find two volcanoes, one of which was active; steam and smoke rising
+to a height of two thousand feet above the crater and descending as
+mist and snow. Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, Ross called them, in
+memory of his two ships. They sailed on, but soon were stopped by a
+huge barrier of solid ice like a great white wall, one thousand feet
+thick and one hundred and eighty feet above sea-level. They knew now
+they could get no farther this season--they had reached a point one
+hundred and sixty miles from the Pole. Could they but have wintered
+here "in sight of the brilliant burning mountain and at so short a
+distance from the Magnetic Pole," they might easily have reached it
+the following spring,--so they thought,--but reluctantly Ross had to
+turn. "Few can understand the deep feelings of regret with which I
+felt myself compelled to abandon the perhaps too ambitious hope I had
+so long cherished of being permitted to plant the flag of my country
+on both Magnetic Poles of our globe."
+
+The whole of the great southern land they had discovered received the
+name of Queen Victoria, which name it keeps to-day. They had been south
+of the Antarctic Circle for sixty-three days, when they recrossed it
+on 4th March. A few days later they narrowly escaped shipwreck. An
+easterly wind drove them among some hundreds of icebergs. "For eight
+hours," says Ross, "we had been gradually drifting towards what to
+human eyes appeared inevitable destruction; the high waves and deep
+rolling of our ships rendered towing with boats impossible, and our
+situation was the more painful from our inability to make any effort
+to avoid the dreadful calamity that seemed to await us. The roar of
+the surf, which extended each way as far as we could see, and the dashing
+of the ice fell upon the ear with painful distinctness as we
+contemplated the awful destruction that threatened in one short hour
+to close the world and all its hopes and joys and sorrows upon us for
+ever. In this deep distress we called upon the Lord ... and our cry
+came before Him. A gentler air of wind filled our sails; hope again
+revived, and before dark we found ourselves far removed from every
+danger."
+
+[Illustration: PART OF THE GREAT SOUTHERN ICE BARRIER, 450 MILES LONG,
+180 FEET ABOVE SEA-LEVEL, AND 1000 FEET THICK. From Ross's _Voyage
+in Antarctic Regions_.]
+
+April found them back again in Van Diemen's land, and though Ross sailed
+again the following autumn into southern latitudes, he only reached
+a point some few miles farther than before--being again stopped by
+a great wall barrier of thick ice. After this he took his ship home
+by way of Cape Horn, and "the shores of Old England came into view
+on the 2nd of September 1843." After an absence of four years Ross
+was welcomed home, and honours were showered on him, including the
+award of the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Paris.
+
+   "Till then they had deemed that the Austral earth,
+    With a long, unbroken shore,
+    Ran on to the Pole Antarctic,
+    For such was the old sea lore."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+FRANKLIN DISCOVERS THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE
+
+
+The whole coast-line of North America had now been charted, but the
+famous North-West Passage, for which so many lives had been laid down,
+had yet to be found. Sir John Barrow, "the father of modern Arctic
+discovery," Secretary to the Admiralty, now decided to dispatch
+another expedition to forge this last link and to connect, if possible,
+the chain of all former discoveries.
+
+Many were the volunteers who came forward to serve in the new Arctic
+expedition. But Sir John Franklin claimed the command as his special
+right.
+
+"No service," he declared, "is nearer to my heart."
+
+He was reminded that rumour put his age at sixty, and that after a
+long life of hard work he had earned some rest.
+
+"No, no!" cried the explorer; "I am only fifty-nine!"
+
+This decided the point, and Franklin was appointed to the _Erebus_
+and _Terror_, recently returned from the Antarctic expedition of Sir
+James Ross. The ships were provisioned for three years, and with a
+crew of one hundred and twenty-nine men and several officers, Sir John
+Franklin left England for the last time on 19th May 1845. He was never
+seen again!
+
+All were in the highest spirits, determined to solve the mystery of
+the North-West Passage once and for all! So certain were they of success
+that one of the officers wrote to a friend: "Write to Panama and the
+Sandwich Islands every six months."
+
+On 4th July the ships anchored near the island of Disco on the west
+coast of Greenland. After which all is silence. The rest of the story,
+"one of the saddest ever told in connection with Arctic exploration,"
+is dovetailed together from the various scraps of information that
+have been collected by those who sailed in search of the lost expedition
+year by year.
+
+In 1848, Sir James Ross had sailed off in search of his missing friend,
+and had reached a spot within three hundred miles of the _Erebus_ and
+_Terror_ four months after they had been abandoned, but he returned
+with no news of Franklin.
+
+Then Sir John Richardson started off, but found no trace! Others
+followed. The Government offered 20,000 pounds, to which Lady Franklin
+added 3000 pounds, to any one who should bring news of Franklin. By
+the autumn of 1850 there were fifteen ships engaged in the search.
+A few traces were found. It was discovered that Sir John Franklin had
+spent his first winter (1845-46) at Beechey Island. Captain McClure
+sailed along the north coast of America and made his way from the
+Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean--thus showing the existence of a
+north-west passage, for which he and his men were highly rewarded,
+for at this time no one knew that Franklin had already found a passage
+though he had not lived to tell the story of triumph and success. But
+it was not till after years of silence that the story of the missing
+expedition was cleared up. Lady Franklin purchased and fitted out a
+little steam yacht, the _Fox_, of one hundred and seventy-seven tons.
+The command was given to Captain McClintock, known to be an able and
+enthusiastic Arctic navigator. He was to rescue any "possible survivor
+of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, and to try and recover any records of
+the lost expedition."
+
+[Illustration: ESKIMOS AT CAPE YORK WATCHING THE APPROACH OF THE _FOX_.
+From McClintock's _Voyage in Search of Franklin_.]
+
+The 12th August found the little _Fox_ in Melville Bay made fast to
+an iceberg, and a few days later she was frozen firmly into an ice-pack.
+For two hundred and forty-two days she was beset, drifting all through
+the long, bitter winter with the ice, till on 25th April 1858, after
+having been carried over a thousand miles, she was released.
+McClintock, undaunted by danger, turned northwards, and by May he had
+reached Melville Bay. Thence up Lancaster Sound, he reached Beechey
+Island in August and found there three lonely graves of three sailors
+from the _Erebus_ and _Terror_. Here the English commander erected
+a tablet sent out by Lady Franklin.
+
+[Illustration: THE THREE GRAVES ON BEECHEY ISLAND. From McClintock's
+_Voyage in Search of Franklin_.]
+
+On the morning of 16th August, McClintock sailed from Beechey Island,
+but the short summer was passing quickly and they had no fresh news
+of the Franklin expedition. Half-way through Bellot Strait the _Fox_
+was again icebound, and another long winter had to be faced. By the
+middle of February 1859 there was light enough to start some sledging
+along the west coast of Boothia Felix. Days passed and McClintock
+struggled on to the south, but no Eskimos appeared and no traces of
+the lost explorers were to be found. Suddenly they discovered four
+men walking after them.
+
+A naval button on one of the Eskimos attracted their attention.
+
+"It came," said the Eskimo, "from some white people who were starved
+upon an island where there are salmon, but none of them had seen the
+white men."
+
+Here was news at last--McClintock travelled on some ten miles to Cape
+Victoria, where the Eskimos built him a "commodious snow-hut in half
+an hour." Next morning the entire village of Eskimos arrived--some
+forty-five people--bringing relics of the white men. There were silver
+spoons, part of a gold chain, buttons, knives made of the iron and
+wood of the wrecked ships. But none of these people had seen the white
+men--one man said he had seen their bones upon the island where they
+died, but some were buried. They said a ship "having three masts had
+been crushed by the ice out in the sea to the west of King William's
+Island." One old man made a rough sketch of the coast-line with his
+spear upon the snow; he said it was eight journeys to where the ship
+sank.
+
+McClintock hastened back to the ship with his news--he had by his
+sleigh-journey added one hundred and twenty miles to the old charts
+and "completed the discovery of the coast-line of Continental
+America."
+
+[Illustration: EXPLORING PARTIES STARTING FROM THE _FOX_. From
+McClintock's _Voyage of the_ "Fox" _in Search of Franklin_.]
+
+On 2nd April more sledge-parties started out to reach King William's
+Island--the cold was still intense, the glare of the sun painful to
+their eyes. The faces and lips of the men were blistered and cracked;
+their fingers were constantly frostbitten. After nearly three weeks'
+travelling they found snow-huts and Eskimos at Cape Victoria. Here
+they found more traces of Franklin's party--preserved meat tins, brass
+knives, a mahogany board. In answer to their inquiries, they heard
+that two ships had been seen by the natives of King William's Island;
+one had been seen to sink in deep water, the other was forced on shore
+and broken up. "It was in the fall of the year (August or September),"
+they said, when the ships were destroyed, that all the white people
+went away to the large river, taking a boat with them, and that in
+the following winter their bones were found there.
+
+McClintock now made his way to the opposite coast of King William's
+Island. Here he found Eskimos with pieces of silver-plate bearing the
+crest and initials of Sir John Franklin and some of his officers. They
+said it was five days' journey to the wreck, of which little now
+remained. There had been many books, said the Eskimos, but they had
+been destroyed by the weather. One woman volunteered a statement.
+"Many of the white men," she said, "dropped by the way as they went
+to the Great River. Some were buried and some were not. Their bodies
+were discovered during the winter following." Moving onwards,
+McClintock reached the Great Fish River on the morning of 12th May.
+A furious gale was raging and the air was heavy with snow, but they
+encamped there to search for relics. With pickaxes and shovels they
+searched in vain. No Eskimos were to be found, and at last in despair
+the little party of explorers faced homewards. McClintock was slowly
+walking near the beach, when he suddenly came upon a human skeleton,
+lying face downwards, half buried in the snow. It wore a blue jacket
+with slashed sleeves and braided edging and a greatcoat of
+pilot-cloth.
+
+The old woman was right. "They fell down and died as they walked along."
+And now the reward of the explorers was at hand. On the north-west
+coast of King William's Island was found a cairn and a blue ship's
+paper, weatherworn and ragged, relating in simple language, written
+by one of the ship's officers, the fate of the Franklin expedition.
+The first entry was cheerful enough. In 1846 all was well. His Majesty's
+ships, _Erebus_ and _Terror_, wintered in the ice--at Beechey Island,
+after having ascended Wellington Channel and returned to the west side
+of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin was commanding the expedition.
+The results of their first year's labour was encouraging. In 1846 they
+had been within twelve miles of King William's Island, when winter
+stopped them. But a later entry, written in April 1848, states that
+the ships were deserted on 22nd April, having been beset in ice since
+September 1846--that Sir John Franklin had died on 11th June 1847,
+and that Captain Crozier was in command.
+
+Then came the last words, "And start to-morrow twenty-sixth for Back's
+Fish River." That was all.
+
+After a diligent search in the neighbourhood for journals or relics,
+McClintock led his party along the coast, till on 30th May they found
+another relic in the shape of a large boat, with a quantity of tattered
+clothing lying in her. She had been evidently equipped for the ascent
+of the Great Fish River. She had been built at Woolwich Dockyard; near
+her lay two human skeletons, a pair of worker slippers, some watches,
+guns, a _Vicar of Wakefield_, a small Bible, New Testament, and Prayer
+Book, seven or eight pairs of boots, some silk handkerchiefs, towels,
+soap, sponge, combs, twine, nails, shot, and cartridges, needle and
+thread cases, some tea and chocolate, and a little tobacco.
+
+Everything was carefully collected and brought back to the ship, which
+was reached on 19th June. Two months later the little _Fox_ was free
+from ice and McClintock reached London towards the end of September,
+to make known his great discovery.
+
+The rest of the story is well known. Most of us know the interesting
+collection of Franklin relics in the United Service Institution in
+London, and the monument in Waterloo Place to "the great navigator
+and his brave companions who sacrificed their lives in completing the
+discovery of the North-West Passage."
+
+It was acknowledged "that to Sir John Franklin is due the priority
+of discovery of the North-West Passage--that last link to forge which
+he sacrificed his life."
+
+And on the marble monument in Westminster Abbey, Tennyson, a nephew
+of Sir John Franklin, wrote his well-known lines--
+
+   "Not here, the white north hath thy bones, and thou,
+        Heroic Sailor Soul,
+    Art passing on thy happier voyage now
+        Towards no earthly pole."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+
+DAVID LIVINGSTONE
+
+
+"I shall open up a path to the interior or perish."
+
+Such were the words of one of the greatest explorers of Africa in the
+nineteenth century. Determination was the keynote of his character
+even as a young boy. At the age of ten he was at work in a cotton factory
+in Scotland: with his first week's wages he bought a Latin grammar.
+Fourteen hours of daily work left little time for reading, but he
+educated himself, till at nineteen he was resolved to be a medical
+missionary.
+
+"In the glow of love which Christianity inspires, I resolved to devote
+my life to the alleviation of human misery." He was accepted for service
+by the London Missionary Society, and in the year 1840 he sailed for
+South Africa. After a voyage of three months he arrived at Cape Town
+and made his way in a slow ox-waggon seven hundred miles to Kuruman,
+a small mission station in the heart of Bechuanaland where Dr. Moffat
+had laboured for twenty years. He did well, and two years later he
+was sent north to form another mission station at Mabotsa (Transvaal).
+Having married Moffat's daughter Mary, he worked in these parts till
+June 1849, when, with his wife and three children, he started with
+oxen and waggon for a journey northwards. Across the great Kalahari
+Desert moved the exploring family, till they came to the river called
+Zouga, which, said the natives, led to a large lake named Lake Ngami.
+In native canoes, Livingstone and his little family ascended this
+beautifully wooded river, "resembling the river Clyde above Glasgow,"
+till on 1st August 1849, Lake Ngami appeared, "and for the first time,"
+says Livingstone, "this fine sheet of water was beheld by Europeans."
+The lake was two thousand eight hundred feet above the sea, but the
+climate was terribly unhealthy. The children grew feverish, and
+mosquitoes made life a misery to them, while the tsetse fly made further
+exploration for the moment impossible. So the family journeyed back
+to headquarters for a time. But Livingstone was unsatisfied, and once
+more in 1851 we find him starting again with wife and children to seek
+the great river Zambesi, known to exist in central Africa, though the
+Portuguese maps represented it as rising far to the east of
+Livingstone's discovery.
+
+[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE, WITH HIS WIFE AND FAMILY, AT THE DISCOVERY
+OF LAKE NGAMI. From Livingstone's _Missionary Travels_.]
+
+"It was the end of June 1851," he tells us, "that we were rewarded
+by the discovery of the Zambesi in the centre of the continent. This
+was an important point, for that river was not previously known to
+exist there at all. As we were the very first white men the inhabitants
+had ever seen, we were visited by prodigious numbers of Makololo in
+garments of blue, green, and red baize." Livingstone wanted to know
+more of this unknown river, but he now decided that exploring with
+a wife and family was not only perilous, but difficult, so he returned
+to the coast, put them on a homeward-bound ship for England, and
+returned to central Africa to continue his work of exploration alone.
+
+It was 11th November 1853 when Livingstone left the town of Linyanti
+in the very heart of central Africa for his great journey to the west
+coast to trace the course of the Zambesi.
+
+   "The Zambesi. Nobody knows
+    Whence it comes and whither it goes."
+
+So ran an old canoe-song of the natives.
+
+With twenty-seven faithful black Makololos, with "only a few biscuits,
+a little tea and sugar, twenty pounds of coffee and three books," with
+a horse rug and sheepskin for bedding and a small gipsy tent and a
+tin canister, fifteen inches square, filled with a spare shirt,
+trousers, and shoes for civilised life, and a few scientific
+instruments, the English explorer started for a six months' journey.
+Soon his black guides had embarked in their canoes and were making
+their way up the Zambesi. "No rain has fallen here," he writes on 30th
+November, "so it is excessively hot. The atmosphere is oppressive both
+in cloud and sunshine." Livingstone suffered badly from fever during
+the entire journey. But the blacks took fatherly care of him. "As soon
+as we land," he says, "the men cut a little grass for my bed, while
+the poles of my little tent are planted. The bed is made and boxes
+ranged on each side of it, and then the tent pitched over all. Two
+Makololos occupy my right and left both in eating and sleeping as long
+as the journey lasts, but my head boatman makes his bed at the door
+of the tent as soon as I retire."
+
+As they advanced up the Barotse valley, rains had fallen and the woods
+had put on their gayest hue. Flowers of great beauty grew everywhere.
+"The ground begins to swarm with insect life, and in the cool, pleasant
+mornings the place rings with the singing of birds."
+
+On 6th January 1854 they left the river and rode oxen through the dense
+parts of the country through which they had now to pass. Through heavy
+rains and with very little food, they toiled on westward through miles
+and miles of swamp intersected by streams flowing southward to the
+Zambesi basin. One day Livingstone's ox, Sindbad, threw him, and he
+had to struggle wearily forward on foot. His strength was failing.
+His meagre fare varied by boiled zebra and dried elephant, frequent
+wettings and constant fever, were reducing him to a mere skeleton.
+At last on 26th March he arrived at the edge of the high land over
+which he had so long been travelling. "It is so steep," he tells us,
+"that I was obliged to dismount, and I was so weak that I had to be
+led by my companions to prevent my toppling over in walking down. Below
+us lay the valley of the Kwango in glorious sunlight." Another
+fortnight and they were in Portuguese territory. The sight of white
+men once more and a collection of traders' huts was a welcome sight
+to the weary traveller. The commandant at once took pity on Livingstone,
+but after a refreshing stay of ten days the English explorer started
+off westward to the coast. For another month he pursued his way. It
+was 31st May 1854. As the party neared the town of Loanda, the black
+Makololos began to grow nervous. "We have stood by each other hitherto
+and will do so to the last," Livingstone assured them, as they all
+staggered into the city by the seashore. Here they found one Englishman
+sent out for the suppression of the slave trade, who at once gave up
+his bed to the stricken and emaciated explorer. "Never shall I forget,"
+he says, "the luxury I enjoyed in feeling myself again on a good English
+bed after six months' sleeping on the ground."
+
+Nor were the Makololos forgotten. They were entertained on board an
+English man-of-war lying off the coast. Livingstone was offered a
+passage home, but he tells us: "I declined the tempting offers of my
+friends, and resolved to take back my Makololo companions to their
+Chief, with a view of making a path from here to the east coast by
+means of the great river Zambesi."
+
+With this object in view, he turned his back on home and comfort, and
+on 20th September 1854 he left Loanda and "the white man's sea," as
+the black guides called the Atlantic Ocean that washes the shores of
+West Africa. Their way lay through the Angola country, rich in wild
+coffee and cotton plantations. The weather was as usual still and
+oppressive, but slowly Livingstone made his way eastward. He suffered
+badly from fever as he had done on the outward journey. It had taken
+him six months to reach Loanda from central Africa; it took a year
+to complete the return journey, and it was September 1855 before
+Linyanti was again reached. Waggons and goods left there eighteen
+months before were safe, together with many welcome letters from home.
+The return of the travellers after so long an absence was a cause of
+great rejoicing. All the wonderful things the Makololos had seen and
+heard were rehearsed many times before appreciative audiences.
+Livingstone was more than ever a hero in their eyes, and his kindness
+to his men was not forgotten. He had no difficulty in getting recruits
+for the journey down the Zambesi to the sea, for which he was now making
+preparations.
+
+On 3rd November he was ready to resume his long march across Africa.
+He was much better equipped on this occasion; he rode a horse instead
+of an ox, and his guide, Sekwebu, knew the river well. The first night
+out they were unfortunately caught in a terrific thunderstorm
+accompanied by sheet-lightning, which lit up the whole country and
+flooded it with torrents of tropical rain.
+
+A few days' travelling brought the party to the famous Zambesi Falls,
+called by the natives "where smoke sounds," but renamed by Livingstone
+after the Queen of England, Victoria. The first account of these now
+famous Falls is very vivid. "Five columns of vapour, appropriately
+named smoke, bending in the direction of the wind, appeared to mingle
+with the clouds. The whole scene was extremely beautiful. It had never
+been seen before by European eyes. When about half a mile from the
+Falls, I left the canoe and embarked in a lighter one with men well
+acquainted with the rapids, who brought me to an island in the middle
+of the river and on the edge of the lip over which the water rolls.
+Creeping with care to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which
+had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambesi. In looking down
+into the fissure one sees nothing but a dense white cloud; from this
+cloud rushed up a great jet of vapour exactly like steam, and it mounted
+two or three hundred feet high."
+
+[Illustration: THE "SMOKE" OF THE ZAMBESI (VICTORIA) FALLS. After a
+drawing in Livingstone's _Missionary Travels_.]
+
+Livingstone now continued his perilous journey with his hundred men
+along the Zambesi, the country once densely populated, now desolate
+and still. The Bakota tribes, "the colour of coffee and milk," were
+friendly, and "great numbers came from all the surrounding villages
+and expressed great joy at the appearance of a white man and harbinger
+of peace." They brought in large supplies of food, and expressed great
+delight when Livingstone doctored their children, who were suffering
+from whooping-cough. As they neared the coast, they became aware of
+hostile forces. This was explained when they were met by a Portuguese
+half-caste "with jacket and hat on," who informed them that for the
+last two years they had been fighting the natives. Plunging thus
+unconsciously into the midst of a Kafir war rendered travelling
+unpleasant and dangerous. In addition, the party of explorers found
+their animals woefully bitten by the tsetse fly, rhinoceroses and
+elephants were too plentiful to be interesting, and the great white
+ant made itself tiresome.
+
+It was 3rd March before Livingstone reached Tete, two hundred and sixty
+miles from the coast. The last stages of the journey had been very
+beautiful. Many of the hills were of pure white marble, and pink marble
+formed the bed of more than one of the streams. Through this country
+the Zambesi rolled down toward the coast at the rate of four miles
+an hour, while flocks of water-fowl swarmed upon its banks or flew
+over its waters. Tete was the farthest outpost of the Portuguese.
+Livingstone was most kindly received by the governor, but fever again
+laid him low, and he had to remain here for three weeks before he was
+strong enough to start for the last stage of his journey to the coast.
+He left his Makololos here, promising to return some day to take them
+home again. They believed in him implicitly, and remained there three
+years, when he returned according to his word. Leaving Tete, he now
+embarked on the waters of the Zambesi, high with a fourth annual rise,
+which bore him to Sena in five days. So swift is the current at times
+that twenty-four hours is enough to take a boat from Tete to Sena,
+whereas the return journey may take twenty days.
+
+"I thought the state of Tete quite lamentable," says Livingstone, but
+that of Sena was ten times worse. "It is impossible to describe the
+miserable state of decay into which the Portuguese possessions here
+have sunk."
+
+Though suffering badly from fever, Livingstone pushed on; he passed
+the important tributary of the Zambesi, the Shire, which he afterwards
+explored, and finally reached Quilimane on the shores of the Indian
+Ocean. It was now 20th May 1856, just four years after he had left
+Cape Town on his great journey from west to east, since when he had
+travelled eleven thousand miles. After waiting six weeks on the "great
+mud bank, surrounded by extensive swamps and rice grounds," which form
+the site of Quilimane, Livingstone embarked on board a gunboat, the
+_Frolic_, for England. He had one Makololo with him--the faithful
+Sekwebu. The poor black man begged to be allowed to follow his master
+on the seas.
+
+"But," said Livingstone, "you will die if you go to such a cold country
+as mine."
+
+"Let me die at your feet," pleaded the black man.
+
+He had not been to Loanda, so he had never seen the sea before. Waves
+were breaking over the bar at Quilimane and dashing over the boat that
+carried Sekwebu out to the brig. He was terribly alarmed, but he lived
+to reach Mauritius, where he became insane, hurled himself into the
+sea, and was drowned!
+
+On 12th December 1856, Livingstone landed in England after an absence
+of sixteen years. He had left home as an obscure missionary; he returned
+to find himself famous. The Royal Geographical Society awarded him
+its gold medal; France and Scotland hastened to do him honour. Banquets
+and receptions were given for him, and finally this "plain,
+single-minded man, somewhat attenuated by years of toil, and with his
+face tinged by the sun of Africa," was received by the Queen at Windsor.
+The enthusiasm aroused by this longest expedition in the history of
+African travel was unrivalled, and the name of Livingstone was on every
+lip. But meanwhile others were at work in central Africa, and we must
+turn from the discoveries of Livingstone for the moment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+BURTON AND SPEKE IN CENTRAL AFRICA
+
+
+Livingstone had just left Loanda and was making his way across Africa
+from west to east, when an English expedition set forth to find the
+Great Lakes still lying solitary and undiscovered, although they were
+known to exist. If we turn to the oldest maps of Africa, we find, rudely
+drawn and incorrectly placed, large inland waters, that may
+nevertheless be recognised as these lakes just about to be revealed
+to a wondering world. Ptolemy knew of them, the Arabs spoke of them,
+Portuguese traders had passed them, and a German missionary had caught
+sight of the Mountains of the Moon and brought back strange stories
+of a great inland lake.
+
+The work of rediscovering the lakes was entrusted to a remarkable man
+named Richard Burton, a man whose love of adventure was well known.
+He had already shown his metal by entering Mecca disguised as a Persian,
+and disguised as an Arab he had entered Harar, a den of slave traders,
+the "Timbuktu of Eastern Africa." On his return he was attacked by
+the Somalis; one of his companions was killed, another, Speke, escaped
+with terrible spear-wounds, and he himself was badly wounded.
+
+Such were the men who in 1856 were dispatched by the Royal Geographical
+Society for the exploration of the mysterious lakes in the heart of
+central Africa. Speke gives us an idea of the ignorance prevailing
+on this subject only fifty-six years ago: "On the walls of the Society's
+rooms there hung a large diagram constructed by two missionaries
+carrying on their duties at Zanzibar. In this section map, swallowing
+up about half of the whole area of the ground included in it, there
+figured a lake of such portentous size and such unseemly shape,
+representing a gigantic slug, that everybody who looked at it
+incredulously laughed and shook his head--a single sheet of sweet
+water, upwards of eight hundred miles long by three hundred broad,
+equal in size to the great salt Caspian."
+
+It was April 1857 before Burton and Speke had collected an escort and
+guides at Zanzibar, the great slave market of East Africa, and were
+ready to start for the interior. "We could obtain no useful information
+from the European merchants of Zanzibar, who are mostly ignorant of
+everything beyond the island," Burke wrote home on 22nd April.
+
+At last on 27th June, with thirty-six men and thirty donkeys, the party
+set out for the great malarious coast-belt which had to be crossed
+before Kaze, some five hundred miles distant, could be reached. After
+three months' arduous travelling--both Burton and Speke were badly
+stricken with fever--they reached Kaze. Speke now spread open the map
+of the missionaries and inquired of the natives where the enormous
+lake was to be found. To their intense surprise they found the
+missionaries had run three lakes into one, and the three lakes were
+Lake Nyassa, Tanganyika, and Victoria Nyanza. They stayed over a month
+at Kaze, till Burton seemed at the point of death, and Speke had him
+carried out of the unhealthy town. It was January before they made
+a start and continued their journey westward to Ugyi.
+
+"It is a wonderful thing," says Drummond, "to start from the
+civilisation of Europe, pass up these mighty rivers, and work your
+way alone and on foot, mile after mile, month after month, among strange
+birds and beasts and plants and insects, meeting tribes which have
+no name, speaking tongues which no man can interpret, till you have
+reached its sacred heart and stood where white man has never trod
+before."
+
+[Illustration: BURTON IN A DUG-OUT ON LAKE TANGANYIKA. After a drawing
+by Burton.]
+
+As the two men tramped on, the streams began to drain to the west and
+the land grew more fertile, till one hundred and fifty miles from Kaze
+they began to ascend the slope of mountains overhanging the northern
+half of Lake Tanganyika. "This mountain mass," says Speke, "I consider
+to be the True Mountains of the Moon." From the top of the mountains
+the lovely Tanganyika Lake could be seen in all its glory by Burton.
+But to Speke it was a mere mist. The glare of the sun and oft-repeated
+fever had begun to tell on him, and a kind of inflammation had produced
+almost total blindness. But they had reached the lake and they felt
+sure they had found the source of the Nile. It was a great day when
+Speke crossed the lake in a long canoe hollowed out of the trunk of
+a tree and manned by twenty native savages under the command of a
+captain in a "goatskin uniform." On the far side they encamped on the
+opposite shore, Speke being the first white man to cross the lake.
+
+Having retired to his hut for the night, Speke proceeded to light a
+candle and arrange his baggage, when to his horror he found the whole
+interior swarming with black beetles. Tired of trying to brush them
+away, he put out his light and, though they crawled up his sleeves
+and down his back, he fell asleep. Suddenly he woke to find one crawling
+into his ear, and in spite of his frantic efforts it crept in farther
+and farther till it reached the drum, which caused the tired explorer
+intense agony. Inflammation ensued, his face became drawn, he could
+with difficulty swallow a little broth, and he was quite deaf. He
+returned across the lake to find his companion, Burton, still very
+ill and unfit for further exploration.
+
+So Speke, although still suffering from his ear, started off again,
+leaving Burton behind, to find the great northern lake spoken of as
+the sea of Ukerewe, where the Arabs traded largely in ivory. There
+was a great empire beyond the lake, they told him, called Uganda.
+
+But it was July 1858 when the caravan was ready to start from Kaze.
+Speke himself carried Burton's large elephant gun. "I commenced the
+journey," he says, "at 6 p.m., as soon as the two donkeys I took with
+me to ride were caught and saddled. It was a dreary beginning. The
+escort who accompanied me were sullen in their manner and walked with
+heavy gait and downcast countenance. The nature of the track increased
+the general gloom.
+
+"For several weeks the caravan moved forward, till on 3rd August it
+began to wind up a long but gradually inclined hill, until it reached
+its summit, when the vast expanse of the pale blue waters of the Nyanza
+burst suddenly upon my eyes! It was early morning. The distant sea-line
+of the north horizon was defined in the calm atmosphere, but I could
+get no idea of the breadth of the lake, as an archipelago of islands,
+each consisting of a single hill rising to a height of two or three
+hundred feet above the water, intersected the line of vision to the
+left. A sheet of water extended far away to the eastward. The view
+was one which even in a well-known country would have arrested the
+traveller by its peaceful beauty. But the pleasure of the mere view
+vanished in the presence of those more intense emotions called up by
+the geographical importance of the scene before me. I no longer felt
+any doubt that the lake at my feet gave birth to that interesting river
+(Nile), the source of which has been the subject of so much speculation
+and the object of so many explorers. This is a far more extensive lake
+than Tanganyika; it is so broad that you could not see across it, and
+so long that nobody knew its length. This magnificent sheet of water
+I have ventured to name Victoria after our gracious sovereign."
+
+[Illustration: BURTON AND HIS COMPANIONS ON THE MARCH TO THE VICTORIA
+NYANZA. From a humorous sketch by Burton.]
+
+Speke returned to Kaze after his six weeks' eventful journey, having
+tramped no less than four hundred and fifty-two miles. He received
+a warm welcome from Burton, who had been very uneasy about his safety,
+for rumours of civil war had reached him. "I laughed over the matter,"
+says Speke, "but expressed my regret that he did not accompany me,
+as I felt quite certain in my mind I had discovered the source of the
+Nile."
+
+Together the two explorers now made their way to the coast and crossed
+to Aden, where Burton, still weak and ill, decided to remain for a
+little, while Speke took passage in a passing ship for home.
+
+When he showed his map of Tanganyika and Victoria Nyanza to the
+President of the Royal Geographical Society in London, Sir Roderick
+Murchison was delighted.
+
+"Speke, we must send you there again," he said enthusiastically.
+
+And the expedition was regarded as "one of the most notable discoveries
+in the annals of African discovery."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+LIVINGSTONE TRACES LAKE SHIRWA AND NYASSA
+
+
+Burton and Speke had not yet returned from central Africa, when
+Livingstone left England on another expedition into the interior, with
+orders "to extend the knowledge already attained of the geography of
+eastern and central Africa and to encourage trade." Leaving England
+on 10th March 1858, he reached the east coast the following May as
+British Consul of Quilimane, the region which lies about the mouth
+of the Zambesi. Livingstone had brought out with him a small
+steam-launch called by the natives the _Ma-Robert_ after Mrs.
+Livingstone, the mother of Robert, their eldest child. In this little
+steam-launch he made his way up the Shire River, which flows into the
+Zambesi quite near its mouth. "The delight of threading out the
+meanderings of upwards of two hundred miles of a hitherto unexplored
+river must be felt to be appreciated," says Livingstone in his diary.
+At the end of this two hundred miles further progress became impossible
+because of rapids which no boat could pass. "These magnificent
+cataracts we called the Murchison Cataracts, after one whose name has
+already a world-wide fame," says Livingstone. Leaving their boat here,
+they started on foot for the Great Lake described by the natives. It
+took them a month of hard travelling to reach their goal. Their way
+lay over the native tracks which run as a network over this part of
+the world. "They are veritable footpaths, never over a foot in breadth,
+beaten as hard as adamant by centuries of native traffic. Like the
+roads of the old Romans, they run straight on over everything, ridge
+and mountain and valley."
+
+[Illustration: THE _MA-ROBERT_ ON THE ZAMBESI. After a drawing in
+Livingstone's _Expedition to the Zambesi_.]
+
+On 18th April, Lake Shirwa came into sight, "a considerable body of
+bitter water, containing leeches, fish, crocodiles, and hippopotami.
+The country around is very beautiful," adds Livingstone, "and clothed
+with rich vegetation, and the waves breaking and foaming over a rock,
+added to the beauty of the picture. Exceedingly lofty mountains stand
+near the eastern shore."
+
+No white man had gazed at the lake before. Though one of the smaller
+African lakes, Shirwa is probably larger than all the lakes of Great
+Britain put together. Returning to Tete, the explorer now prepared
+for his journey to the farther Lake Nyassa. This was to be no new
+discovery. The Portuguese knew the locality of Lake Shirwa, and at
+the beginning of the seventeenth century Nyassa was familiar to them
+under another name. Landing at the same spot on the Shire banks as
+before, Livingstone, with thirty-six Makololo porters and two native
+guides, ascended the beautiful Shire Highlands, some twelve hundred
+feet above sea-level, and crossed the range on which Zomba, the
+residence of the British Commissioner for Nyassaland, now stands. When
+within a day's march of their goal they were told that no lake had
+ever been heard of in the neighbourhood, but, said the natives, the
+river Shire stretched on, and it would take two months to reach the
+end, which came out of perpendicular rocks which towered almost to
+the skies.
+
+"Let us go back to the ship," said the followers; "it is no use trying
+to find the lake."
+
+But Livingstone persevered, and he was soon rewarded by finding a sheet
+of water, which was indeed the beginning of Lake Nyassa. It was 16th
+September 1859.
+
+"How far is it to the end of the lake?" he asked.
+
+"The other end of the lake? Who ever heard of such a thing? Why, if
+one started when a mere boy to walk to the other end of the lake, he
+would be an old grey-headed man before he got there," declared one
+of the natives. Livingstone knew that he had opened up a great waterway
+to the interior of Africa, but the slave trade in these parts was
+terrible, gangs being employed in carrying the ivory from countries
+to the north down to the east coast. The English explorer saw that
+if he could establish a steamer upon this Lake Nyassa and buy ivory
+from the natives with European goods he would at once strike a deadly
+blow at the slave trade. His letters home stirred several missionaries
+to come out and establish a settlement on the banks of the Shire River.
+Bishop Mackenzie and a little band of helpers arrived on the river
+Shire two years later, and in 1862 Mrs. Livingstone joined them,
+bringing out with her a little new steamer to launch on the Lake Nyassa.
+But the unhealthy season was at its height, and "the surrounding low
+land, rank with vegetation and reeking from the late rainy season,
+exhaled the malarious poison in enormous quantities." Mrs.
+Livingstone fell ill, and in a week she was dead. She was buried under
+a large baobab tree at Shapunga, where her grave is visited by many
+a traveller passing through this once solitary region first penetrated
+by her husband.
+
+The blow was a crushing one for Livingstone, and for a time he was
+quite bewildered. But when his old energy returned he superintended
+the launching of the little steamer, the _Lady Nyassa_. But
+disappointment and failure awaited him, and at last, just two years
+after the death of his wife, he took the _Lady Nyassa_ to Zanzibar
+by the Rovuma River and set forth to reach Bombay, where he hoped to
+sell her, for his funds were low.
+
+On the last day of April 1864 he started on his perilous journey. Though
+warned that the monsoon would shortly break, he would not be deterred.
+And after sailing two thousand five hundred miles in the little boat
+built only for river and lake, "a forest of masts one day loomed through
+the haze in Bombay harbour," and he was safe. After a brief stay here,
+Livingstone left his little launch and made his way to England on a
+mail-packet.
+
+But no one realised at this time the importance of his new discoveries.
+No one foresaw the value of "Nyassaland" now under British
+protectorate. Livingstone had brought to light a lake fifteen hundred
+and seventy feet above the sea, three hundred and fifty miles long
+and forty broad, up and down which British steamers make their way
+to-day, while the long range of mountains lining the eastern bank,
+known as the Livingstone range, testify to the fact that he had done
+much, even if he might have done more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+EXPEDITION TO VICTORIA NYANZA
+
+
+While Livingstone was discovering Lake Nyassa, Speke was busy
+preparing for a new expedition to find out more about the great sheet
+of water he had named Victoria Nyanza and to solve the vexed question:
+Was this the source of the Nile?
+
+In April 1860, accompanied by Captain Grant, an old friend and brother
+sportsman, he left England, and by way of the Cape reached Zanzibar
+some five months later. The two explorers started for their great
+inland journey early in October, with some hundred followers, bound
+for the great lake. But it was January 1861 before they had covered
+the five hundred miles between the coast and Kaze, the old
+halting-station of Burton and Speke. Through the agricultural plains
+known as Uzarana, the country of Rana, where many negro porters
+deserted, because they believed the white men were cannibals and
+intended to eat them when safe away from the haunts of men; through
+Usagara, the country of Gara, where Captain Grant was seized with
+fever; through Ugogo's great wilderness, where buffalo and rhinoceros
+abounded, where the country was flooded with tropical rains, on to
+the land of the Moon, three thousand feet above sea-level, till the
+slowly moving caravan reached Kaze. Here terrible accounts of famine
+and war reached them, and, instead of following Speke's route of 1858,
+they turned north-west and entered the Uzinza country, governed by
+two chieftains of Abyssinian descent. Here Speke was taken desperately
+ill. His cough gave him no rest day or night; his legs were "reduced
+to the appearance of pipe-sticks." But, emaciated as he was, he made
+his way onwards, till the explorers were rewarded by finding a
+"beautiful sheet of water lying snugly within the folds of the hills,"
+which they named the Little Windermere, because they thought it was
+so like "our own English lake of that name. To do royal honours to
+the king of this charming land, I ordered my men," says Speke, "to
+put down their loads and fire a volley."
+
+The king, whom they next visited, was a fine-looking man, who, with
+his brother, sat cross-legged on the ground, with huge pipes of black
+clay by their sides, while behind them, "squatting quiet as mice,"
+were the king's sons, six or seven lads, with little dream-charms under
+their chins! The king shook hands in true English fashion and was full
+of inquiries. Speke described the world, the proportions of land and
+water, and the large ships on the sea, and begged to be allowed to
+pass through his kingdom to Uganda. The explorers learnt much about
+the surrounding country, and spent Christmas Day with a good feast
+of roast beef. The start for Uganda was delayed by the serious illness
+of Grant, until at last Speke reluctantly decided to leave him with
+the friendly king, while he made his way alone to Uganda and the Lake
+Victoria Nyanza. It was the end of January 1861 when the English
+explorer entered the unknown kingdom of Uganda. Messengers from the
+king, M'tesa, came to him. "Now," they said, "you have really entered
+the kingdom of Uganda, for the future you must buy no more food. At
+every place that you stop for the day, the officer in charge will bring
+you plantains."
+
+[Illustration: M'TESA, KING OF UGANDA. From Speke's _Journey to
+Discover the Source of the Nile_.]
+
+The king's palace was ten days' march; the way lay along the western
+coast of the Lake Victoria Nyanza, the roads were "as broad as our
+coach roads cut through the long grass straight over the hills and
+down through the woods. The temperature was perfect. The whole land
+was a picture of quiescent beauty, with a boundless sea in the
+background."
+
+On 13th February, Speke found a large volume of water going to the
+north. "I took off my clothes," he says, "and jumped into the stream,
+which I found was twelve yards broad and deeper than my height. I was
+delighted beyond measure, for I had, to all appearance, found one of
+the branches of the Nile's exit from the Nyanza."
+
+But he had not reached the Nile yet. It was not till the end of July
+that he reached his goal.
+
+"Here at last," he says, "I stood on the brink of the Nile, most
+beautiful was the scene, nothing could surpass it--a magnificent
+stream from six hundred to seven hundred yards wide, dotted with islets
+and rocks, the former occupied by fishermen's huts, the latter by
+crocodiles basking in the sun. I told my men they ought to bathe in
+the holy river, the cradle of Moses."
+
+Marching onwards, they found the waterfall, which Speke named the
+Ripon Falls, "by far the most interesting sight I had seen in Africa."
+The arm of the water from which the Nile issued he named "Napoleon
+Channel," out of respect to the French Geographical Society for the
+honour they had done him just before leaving England in presenting
+their gold medal for the discovery of Victoria Nyanza.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIPON FALLS ON THE VICTORIA NYANZA. From Speke's
+_Journey to Discover the Source of the Nile_.]
+
+The English explorers had now spent six months in Uganda. The
+civilisation in this country of M'tesa's has passed into history.
+Every one was clothed, and even little boys held their skin-cloaks
+tightly round them lest their bare legs might by accident be seen!
+Everything was clean and orderly under the all-powerful ruler M'tesa.
+Grant, who arrived in the end of May, carried in a litter, found Speke
+had not yet obtained leave from the king to "open the country to the
+north, that an uninterrupted line of commerce might exist between
+England and Uganda by means of the Nile." But at last on 3rd July he
+writes with joy: "The moment of triumph has come at last and suddenly
+the road is granted."
+
+The explorers bid farewell to M'tesa. "We rose with an English bow,
+placing the hand on the heart, whilst saying adieu; and whatever we
+did M'tesa in an instant mimicked with the instinct of a monkey."
+
+In five boats of five planks each tied together and caulked with rags,
+Speke started with a small escort and crew to reach the palace of the
+neighbouring king, Kamrasi, "father of all the kings," in the province
+of Unyoro. After some fierce opposition they entered the palace of
+the king, a poor creature. Rumours had reached him that these two white
+men were cannibals and sorcerers. His palace was indeed a contrast
+to that of M'tesa. It was merely a dirty hut approached by a lane
+ankle-deep in mud and cow-manure. The king's sisters were not allowed
+to marry; their only occupation was to drink milk from morning to night,
+with the result that they grew so fat it took eight men to lift one
+of them, when walking became impossible. Superstition was rife, and
+the explorers were not sorry to leave Unyoro _en route_ for Cairo.
+Speke and Grant now believed that, except for a few cataracts, the
+waterway to England was unbroken. The Karuma Falls broke the monotony
+of the way, and here the party halted a while before plunging into
+the Kidi wilderness across which they intended to march to save a great
+bend of the river. Their path lay through swampy jungles and high grass,
+while great grassy plains, where buffaloes were seen and the roar of
+lions was heard, stretched away on every side.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAINS SPEKE AND GRANT.]
+
+Suddenly they reached a huge rock covered with huts, in front of which
+groups of black men were perched like monkeys, evidently awaiting the
+arrival of the white men. They were painted in the most brilliant
+colours, though without clothes, for the civilisation of Uganda had
+been left far behind. Pushing on, they reached the Madi country, where
+again civilisation awaited them in the shape of Turks. It was on 3rd
+December that they saw to their great surprise three large red flags
+carried in front of a military procession which marched out of camp
+with drums and fifes playing.
+
+"A very black man named Mohammed, in full Egyptian regimentals, with
+a curved sword, ordered his regiment to halt, and threw himself into
+my arms endeavouring to kiss me," says Speke. "Having reached his huts,
+he gave us two beds to sit upon, and ordered his wives to advance on
+their knees and give us coffee."
+
+"I have directions to take you to Gondokoro as soon as you come," said
+Mohammed.
+
+Yet they were detained till 11th January, when in sheer desperation
+they started off, and in two days reached the Nile. Having no boats,
+they continued their march overland till 15th February, when the masts
+of Nile boats came in sight, and soon after the two explorers walked
+into Gondokoro. Then a strange thing happened. "We saw hurrying on
+towards us the form of an Englishman, and the next moment my old friend
+Baker, famed for his sports in Ceylon, seized me by the hand. What
+joy this was I can hardly tell. We could not talk fast enough, so
+overwhelmed were we both to meet again. Of course we were his guests,
+and soon learned everything that could be told. I now first heard of
+the death of H.R.H. the Prince Consort. Baker said he had come up with
+three vessels fully equipped with armed men, camels, horses, donkeys,
+and everything necessary for a long journey, expressly to look after
+us. Three Dutch ladies also, with a view to assist us (God bless them!),
+had come here in a steamer, but were driven back to Khartum by sickness.
+Nobody had dreamt for a moment it was possible we could come through."
+
+Leaving Baker to continue his way to central Africa, Speke and Grant
+made their way home to England, where they arrived in safety after
+an absence of three years and fifty-one days, with their great news
+of the discovery of Uganda and their further exploration of Victoria
+Nyanza. When Speke reached Alexandria he had telegraphed home: "The
+Nile is settled." But he was wrong. The Nile was not settled, and many
+an expedition was yet to make its way to the great lakes before the
+problem was to be solved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI
+
+BAKER FINDS ALBERT NYANZA
+
+
+Baker had not been long at Gondokoro when the two English explorers
+arrived from the south.
+
+"In March 1861," he tells us, "I commenced an expedition to discover
+the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African
+expedition of Captains Speke and Grant that had been sent by the English
+Government from the south _via_ Zanzibar for that object. From my youth
+I had been innured to hardship and endurance in tropical climates,
+and when I gazed upon the map of Africa I had a wild hope that I might
+by perseverance reach the heart of Africa."
+
+These are the opening lines of the published travels of Samuel Baker,
+famous as an elephant-hunter in Ceylon and engineer of the first
+railway laid down in Turkey. Like Livingstone, in his early
+explorations, Baker took his wife with him. "It was in vain that I
+implored her to remain, and that I painted the difficulties and perils
+still blacker than I supposed they really would be; she was resolved
+to share all dangers and to follow me through each rough footstep of
+the wild life before me."
+
+On 15th April 1861, Baker and his wife left Cairo to make their way
+southward to join the quest for the source of the Nile. They reached
+Korosko in twenty-six days, and crossed the Nubian desert on camels,
+a "very wilderness of scorching sand, the simoon in full force and
+the thermometer in the shade standing at 114 degrees Fahr." By Abu
+Hamed and Berber they reached Atbara. It now occurred to Baker that
+without some knowledge of Arabic he could do little in the way of
+exploration, so for a whole year he stayed in northern Abyssinia, the
+country explored by Bruce nearly ninety years before.
+
+[Illustration: BAKER AND HIS WIFE CROSSING THE NUBIAN DESERT. From
+Baker's _Travels_.]
+
+It was therefore 18th December 1862 before he and Mrs. Baker left
+Khartum for their journey up the Nile through the slave-driven Sudan.
+It was a fifty days' voyage to Gondokoro. In the hope of finding Speke
+and Grant, he took an extra load of corn as well as twenty-two donkeys,
+four camels, and four horses. Gondokoro was reached just a fortnight
+before the two explorers returned from the south.
+
+Baker's account of the historical meeting between the white men in
+the heart of Africa is very interesting: "Heard guns firing in the
+distance--report that two white men had come from the sea. Could they
+be Speke and Grant? Off I ran and soon met them; hurrah for Old England.
+They had come from the Victoria Nyanza from which the Nile springs.
+The mystery of ages solved! With a heart beating with joy I took off
+my cap and gave a welcome hurrah as I ran towards them! For the moment
+they did not recognise me; ten years' growth of beard and moustache
+had worked a change, and my sudden appearance in the centre of Africa
+appeared to them incredible. As a good ship arrives in harbour battered
+and torn by a long and stormy voyage, so both these gallant travellers
+arrived in Gondokoro. Speke appeared to me the more worn of the two.
+He was excessively lean; he had walked the whole way from Zanzibar,
+never having ridden once during that wearying march. Grant was in rags,
+his bare knees projecting through the remnants of trousers."
+
+Baker was now inclined to think that his work was done, the source
+of the Nile discovered, but after looking at the map of their route,
+he saw that an important part of the Nile still remained undiscovered,
+and though there were dangers ahead he determined to go on his way
+into central Africa.
+
+"We took neither guide nor interpreter," he continues. "We commenced
+our desperate journey in darkness about an hour after sunset. I led
+the way, Mrs. Baker riding by my side and the British flag following
+close behind us as a guide for the caravan of heavily laden camels
+and donkeys. And thus we started on our march in central Africa on
+the 26th of March 1863."
+
+It would take too long to tell of their manifold misfortunes and
+difficulties before they reached the lake they were in search of on
+16th March 1864. How they passed through the uncivilised country so
+lately traversed by Speke and Grant, how in the Obbo country all their
+porters deserted just a few days before they reached the Karuma Falls,
+how Baker from this point tried to follow the Nile to the yet unknown
+lake, how fever seized both the explorer and his wife and they had
+to live on the common food of the natives and a little water, how
+suddenly Mrs. Baker fell down with a sunstroke and was carried for
+seven days quite unconscious through swamp and jungle, the rain
+descending in torrents all the time, till Baker, "weak as a reed,"
+worn out with anxiety, lay on the ground as one dead.
+
+It seemed as if both must die, when better times dawned and they
+recovered to find that they were close to the lake.
+
+Baker's diary is eloquent: "The day broke beautifully clear, and,
+having crossed a deep valley between the hills, we toiled up the
+opposite slope. I hurried to the summit. The glory of our prize burst
+suddenly upon me! There, like a sea of quicksilver, lay far beneath
+us the grand expanse of water, a boundless sea-horizon on the south
+and south-west, glittering in the noonday sun, while at sixty miles'
+distance, blue mountains rose from the lake to a height of about seven
+thousand feet above its level. It is impossible to describe the triumph
+of that moment; here was the reward for all our labour! England had
+won the sources of the Nile! I looked from the steep granite cliff
+upon those welcome waters, upon that vast reservoir which nourished
+Egypt, upon that great source so long hidden from mankind, and I
+determined to honour it with a great name. As an imperishable memorial
+of one loved and mourned by our gracious Queen, I called this great
+lake 'the Albert Nyanza.' The Victoria and the Albert Lakes are the
+two sources of the Nile."
+
+Weak and spent with fever, the Bakers descended tottering to the
+water's edge. "The waves were rolling upon a white pebbly beach. I
+rushed into the lake and, thirsty with heat and fatigue, I drank deeply
+from the sources of the Nile. My wife, who had followed me so devotedly,
+stood by my side pale and exhausted--a wreck upon the shores of the
+great Albert Lake that we had long striven to reach. No European foot
+had ever trod upon its sand, nor had the eyes of a white man ever scanned
+its vast expanse of water."
+
+[Illustration: BAKER'S BOAT IN A STORM ON LAKE ALBERT NYANZA. From
+Baker's _Albert Nyanza_.]
+
+After some long delay, the Bakers procured canoes, "merely single
+trees neatly hollowed out," and paddled along the shores of the newly
+found lake. The water was calm, the views most lovely. Hippopotami
+sported in the water; crocodiles were numerous. Day after day they
+paddled north, sometimes using a large Scotch plaid as sail. It was
+dangerous work. Once a great storm nearly swamped them. The little
+canoe shipped heavy seas; terrific bursts of thunder and vivid
+lightning broke over the lake, hiding everything from view. Then down
+came the rain in torrents, swept along by a terrific wind. They reached
+the shore in safety, but the discomforts of the voyage were great,
+and poor Mrs. Baker suffered severely. On the thirteenth day they found
+themselves at the end of the lake voyage, and carefully examined the
+exit of the Nile from the lake. They now followed the river in their
+canoe for some eighteen miles, when they suddenly heard a roar of water,
+and, rounding a corner, "a magnificent sight suddenly burst upon us.
+On either side of the river were beautifully wooded cliffs rising
+abruptly to a height of three hundred feet and rushing through a gap
+that cleft the rock. The river pent up in a narrow gorge roared
+furiously through the rock-bound pass, till it plunged in one leap
+of about one hundred and twenty feet into a dark abyss below. This
+was the greatest waterfall of the Nile, and in honour of the
+distinguished President of the Royal Geographical Society I named it
+the Murchison Falls." Further navigation was impossible, and with oxen
+and porters they proceeded by land. Mrs. Baker was still carried in
+a litter, while Baker walked by her side. Both were soon attacked again
+with fever, and when night came they threw themselves down in a wretched
+hut. A violent thunderstorm broke over them, and they lay there utterly
+helpless, and worn out till sunrise. Worse was to come. The natives
+now deserted them, and they were alone and helpless, with a wilderness
+of rank grass hemming them in on every side. Their meals consisted
+of a mess of black porridge of bitter mouldy flour "that no English
+pig would notice" and a dish of spinach. For nearly two months they
+existed here, until they became perfect skeletons.
+
+"We had given up all hope of Gondokoro," says Baker, "and I had told
+my headman to deliver my map and papers to the English Consul at
+Khartum."
+
+But they were not to die here. The king, Kamrasi, having heard of their
+wretched condition, sent for them, treated them kindly, and enabled
+them to reach Gondokoro, which they did on 23rd March 1865, after an
+absence of two years. They had long since been given up as lost, and
+it was an immense joy to reach Cairo at last and to find that, in the
+words of Baker, "the Royal Geographical Society had awarded me the
+Victoria Gold Medal at a time when they were unaware whether I was
+alive or dead and when the success of my expedition was unknown."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII
+
+LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNEY
+
+
+In the year 1865 "the greatest of all African travellers" started on
+his last journey to central Africa.
+
+"I hope," he said, "to ascend the Rovuma, and shall strive, by passing
+along the northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the southern end of
+Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa."
+
+Arrived at Zanzibar in January 1866, he reached the mouth of the Rovuma
+River some two months later, and, passing through dense thickets of
+trees, he started on his march along the northern bank. The expedition
+consisted of thirteen sepoys from Bombay, nine negroes from one of
+the missions, two men from the Zambesi, Susi, Amoda, and others
+originally slaves freed by Livingstone. As beasts of burden, they had
+six camels, three Indian buffaloes, two mules, four donkeys, while
+a poodle took charge of the whole line of march, running to see the
+first man in the line and then back to the last, and barking to hasten
+him up.
+
+"Now that I am on the point of starting on another trip into Africa,"
+wrote Livingstone from Rovuma Bay, "I feel quite exhilarated. The mere
+animal pleasure of travelling in a wild, unexplored country is very
+great. Brisk exercise imparts elasticity to the muscles, fresh and
+healthy blood circulates through the brain, the mind works well, the
+eye is clear, the step firm, and a day's exertion makes the evening's
+repose thoroughly enjoyable."
+
+But misfortunes soon began. As they marched along the banks of the
+Rovuma the buffaloes and camels were badly bitten by the tsetse fly,
+and one after another died. The cruelty of the followers to the animals
+was terrible. Indeed, they were thoroughly unsatisfactory.
+
+One day a party of them lagged behind, killed the last young buffalo,
+and ate it. They told Livingstone that it had died and tigers had come
+and devoured it.
+
+"Did you see the stripes of the tiger?" asked Livingstone.
+
+Yes; all declared that they had seen them distinctly--an obvious lie,
+as there are no striped tigers in Africa.
+
+On 11th August, Livingstone once more reached Lake Nyassa. "It was
+as if I had come back to an old home I never expected again to see,
+and pleasant it was to bathe in the delicious waters again. I feel
+quite exhilarated."
+
+Having sent word to the Arab chief of Kota-Kota on the opposite coast,
+and having received no reply to his request to be ferried across the
+lake, he started off and marched by land round the southern end,
+crossing the Shire River at its entrance. He continued his journey
+round the south-western gulf of Lake Nyassa, till rumours of Zulu raids
+frightened his men. They refused to go any farther, but just threw
+down their loads and walked away. He was now left with Susi and Chuma
+and a few boys with whom he crossed the end of a long range of mountains
+over four thousand feet in height, and, pursuing a zigzag track,
+reached the Loangwa River on 16th December 1866, while his unfaithful
+followers returned to the coast to spread the story that Livingstone
+had been killed by the Zulus!
+
+Meanwhile the explorer was plodding on towards Lake Tanganyika. The
+beauty of the way strikes the lonely explorer. The rainy season had
+come on in all its force, and the land was wonderful in its early green.
+"Many gay flowers peep out. Here and there the scarlet lily, red, yellow,
+and pure white orchids, and pale lobelias. As we ascended higher on
+the plateau, grasses which have pink and reddish brown seed-vessels
+were grateful to the eye."
+
+Two disasters clouded this month of travel. His poor poodle was drowned
+in a marsh and his medicine-chest was stolen. The land was famine-bound
+too; the people were living on mushrooms and leaves. "We get some
+elephants' meat, but it is very bitter, and the appetite in this country
+is always very keen and makes hunger worse to bear, the want of salt
+probably making the gnawing sensation worse."
+
+On 28th January, Livingstone crossed the Tshambezi, "which may almost
+be regarded as the upper waters of the Congo," says Johnstone, though
+the explorer of 1867 knew it not.
+
+"Northwards," says Livingstone, "through almost trackless forest and
+across oozing bogs"; and then he adds the significant words, "I am
+frightened at my own emaciation." March finds him worse. "I have been
+ill of fever; every step I take jars in my chest, and I am very weak;
+I can scarcely keep up the march." At last, on 1st April, "blue water
+loomed through the trees." It was Lake Tanganyika lying some two
+thousand feet below them. Its "surpassing loveliness" struck
+Livingstone. "It lies in a deep basin," he says, "whose sides are nearly
+perpendicular, but covered well with trees, at present all green; down
+some of these rocks come beautiful cascades, while buffaloes,
+elephants, and antelopes wander and graze on the more level spots,
+and lions roar by night. In the morning and evening huge crocodiles
+may be observed quietly making their way to their feeding-grounds,
+and hippopotami snort by night."
+
+Going westwards, Livingstone met a party of Arabs amongst whom he
+remained for over three months, till he could make his way on to Lake
+Meoro, reported to be only three days' journey. It took him sixteen
+days to reach it. "Lake Meoro seems of goodly size," he says, "and
+is flanked by ranges of mountains on the east and west. Its banks are
+of coarse sand and slope gradually down to the water. We slept in a
+fisherman's cottage on the north shore."
+
+After a stay of six weeks in the neighbourhood, Livingstone returned
+to the Arabs, until the spring of 1868, when he decided to explore
+the Lake Bangweolo. In spite of opposition and the desertion of more
+men, he started with five attendants and reached this--one of the
+largest of the central African lakes--in July. Modestly enough he
+asserts the fact. "On the 18th I saw the shores of the lake for the
+first time. The name Bangweolo is applied to the great mass of water,
+though I fear that our English folks will bogle at it or call it
+Bungyhollow. The water is of a deep sea-green colour. It was bitterly
+cold from the amount of moisture in the air."
+
+This moisture converted the surrounding country into one huge bog or
+sponge, twenty-nine of which Livingstone had to cross in thirty miles,
+each taking about half an hour to cross.
+
+[Illustration: THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE BANGWEOLO, 1868: LIVINGSTONE ON
+THE LAKE WITH HIS MEN. From Livingstone's _Last Journals_, by
+permission of Mr. John Murray.]
+
+The explorer was still greatly occupied on the problem of the Nile.
+"The discovery of the sources of the Nile," he says, "is somewhat akin
+in importance to the discovery of the North-West Passage." It seemed
+to him not impossible that the great river he found flowing through
+these two great lakes to the west of Tanganyika might prove to be the
+Upper Nile.
+
+It was December before he started for Tanganyika. The new year of 1868
+opened badly. Half-way, he became very ill. He was constantly wet
+through; he persistently crossed brooks and rivers, wading through
+cold water up to his waist. "Very ill all over," he enters in his diary;
+"cannot walk. Pneumonia of right lung, and I cough all day and all
+night. I am carried several hours a day on a frame. The sun is vertical,
+blistering any part of the skin exposed, and I try to shelter my face
+and head as well as I can with a bunch of leaves."
+
+On 14th February 1869 he arrived on the western shores of the lake,
+and after the usual delay he was put into it canoe for Ujiji. Though
+better, he was still very ill, and we get the pathetic entry, "Hope
+to hold out to Ujiji."
+
+At last he reached the Arab settlement on the eastern shores, where
+he found the goods sent to him overland from Zanzibar, and though much
+had been stolen, yet warm clothes, tea, and coffee soon revived him.
+After a stay of three months he grew better, and turned westwards for
+the land of the Manyuema and the great rivers reported to be flowing
+there.
+
+He was guided by Arabs whose trade-route extended to the great Lualaba
+River in the very heart of Africa some thousand miles west of Zanzibar.
+It was an unknown land, unvisited by Europeans when Livingstone
+arrived with his Arab escort at Bambarra in September 1869.
+
+"Being now well rested," he enters in his diary, "I resolved to go
+west to Lualaba and buy a canoe for its exploration. The Manyuema
+country is all surpassingly beautiful. Palms crown the highest heights
+of the mountains, and the forests about five miles broad are
+indescribable. Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among
+the gigantic trees, many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size
+of a child's head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere."
+
+With the Arab caravan he travelled almost incessantly zigzagging
+through the wonderful Manyuema country until, after a year's wandering,
+he finally reached the banks of the Lualaba (Congo) on 31st March 1871.
+
+It was a red-letter day in his life. "I went down," he says, "to take
+a good look at the Lualaba here. It is a mighty river at least three
+thousand yards broad and always deep. The banks are steep; the current
+is about two miles an hour away to the north." Livingstone was gazing
+at the second-largest river in the world--the Congo. But he thought
+it was the Nile, and confidently relates how it overflows all its banks
+annually as the Nile does.
+
+At Nyangwe, a Manyuema village, Livingstone stayed for four months.
+The natives were dreadful cannibals. He saw one day a man with ten
+human jaw-bones hung by a string over his shoulder, the owners of which
+he had killed and eaten. Another day a terrible massacre took place,
+arising from a squabble over a fowl, in which some four hundred perished.
+The Arabs too disgusted him with their slave-raiding, and he decided
+that he could no longer travel under their protection. So on 20th July
+1871 he started back for Ujiji, and after a journey of seven hundred
+miles, accomplished in three months, he arrived, reduced to a skeleton,
+only to find that the rascal who had charge of his stores had stolen
+the whole and made away.
+
+But when health and spirit were failing, help was at hand. The meeting
+of Stanley and Livingstone on the shores of the Lake Tanganyika is
+one of the most thrilling episodes in the annals of discovery. Let
+them tell their own story: "When my spirits were at their lowest ebb,"
+says Livingstone, "one morning Susi came running at the top of his
+speed and gasped out, 'An Englishman! I see him!' and off he darted
+to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan told of the
+nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, baths of tin, huge kettles,
+and cooking-pots made me think, 'This must be a luxurious traveller
+and not one at his wits' end, like me.'"
+
+It was Henry Morton Stanley, the travelling correspondent of the _New
+York Herald_, sent at an expense of more than 4000 pounds to obtain
+accurate information about Dr. Livingstone if living, and if dead to
+bring home his bones.
+
+[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE AT WORK ON HIS JOURNAL. From a sketch by
+H. M. Stanley.]
+
+And now Stanley takes up the story. He has entered Ujiji and heard
+from the faithful Susi that the explorer yet lives. Pushing back the
+crowds of natives, Stanley advanced down "a living avenue of people"
+till he came to where "the white man with the long grey beard was
+standing."
+
+"As I advanced slowly towards him," says Stanley, "I noticed he was
+pale, looked worried, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold band round
+it, had on a red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of grey tweed trousers.
+I walked deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said, 'Dr.
+Livingstone, I presume?'
+
+"'Yes,' said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly.
+
+"Then we both grasp hands and I say aloud, 'I thank God, Doctor, I
+have been permitted to see you.'
+
+"'You have brought me new life--new life,' murmured the tired
+explorer," and for the next few days it was enough for the two
+Englishmen to sit on the mud verandah of Livingstone's house, talking.
+Livingstone soon grew better, and November found the two explorers
+surveying the river flowing from the north of Tanganyika and deciding
+that it was not the Nile.
+
+Stanley now did his best to persuade Livingstone to return home with
+him to recruit his shattered health before finishing his work of
+exploration. But the explorer, tired and out of health though he was,
+utterly refused. He must complete the exploration of the sources of
+the Nile before he sought that peace and comfort at home for which
+he must have yearned.
+
+So the two men parted--Stanley to carry Livingstone's news of the
+discovery of the Congo back to Europe, Livingstone to end his days
+on the lonely shores of Lake Bangweolo, leaving the long-sought
+mystery of the Nile sources yet unsolved.
+
+On 25th August 1872 he started on his last journey. He had a
+well-equipped expedition sent up by Stanley from the coast, including
+sixty men, donkeys, and cows. He embarked on his fresh journey with
+all his old eagerness and enthusiasm, but a few days' travel showed
+him how utterly unfit he was for any more hardships. He suffered from
+intense and growing weakness, which increased day by day. He managed
+somehow to ride his donkey, but in November his donkey died and he
+struggled along on foot. Descending into marshy regions north of Lake
+Bangweolo, the journey became really terrible. The rainy season was
+at its height, the land was an endless swamp, and starvation threatened
+the expedition. To add to the misery of the party, there were swarms
+of mosquitoes, poisonous spiders, and stinging ants by the way. Still,
+amid all the misery and suffering, the explorer made his way on through
+the dreary autumn months. Christmas came and went; the new year of
+1873 dawned. He could not stop. April found him only just alive, carried
+by his faithful servants. Then comes the last entry in his diary, 27th
+April: "Knocked up quite. We are on the banks of R. Molilamo."
+
+[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE ENTERING THE HUT AT ILALA ON THE NIGHT THAT
+HE DIED. From Livingstone's _Last Journals_, by permission of Mr. John
+Murray.]
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST ENTRIES IN LIVINGSTONE'S DIARY.]
+
+They laid him at last in a native hut, and here one night he died alone.
+They found him in the early morning, just kneeling by the side of the
+rough bed, his body stretched forward, his head buried in his hands
+upon the pillow. The negroes buried his heart on the spot where he
+died in the village of Ilala on the shores of Lake Bangweolo under
+the shadow of a great tree in the still forest. Then they wrapped his
+body in a cylinder of bark wound round in a piece of old sailcloth,
+lashed it to a pole, and a little band of negroes, including Susi and
+Chuma, set out to carry their dead master to the coast. For hundreds
+of miles they tramped with their precious burden, till they reached
+the sea and could give it safely to his fellow-countrymen, who conveyed
+it to England to be laid with other great men in Westminster Abbey.
+
+   "He needs no epitaph to guard a name
+    Which men shall praise while worthy work is done.
+    He lived and died for good, be that his fame.
+    Let marble crumble: this is living-stone."
+
+[Illustration: SUSI, LIVINGSTONE'S SERVANT. From a sketch by H. M.
+Stanley.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII
+
+THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT
+
+
+The death of Livingstone, the faithfulness of his native servants in
+carrying his body and journals across hundreds of miles of wild country
+to the coast, his discovery of the great river in the heart of Africa,
+and the great service in Westminster Abbey roused public interest in
+the Dark Continent and the unfinished work of the great explorer.
+"Never had such an outburst of missionary zeal been known, never did
+the cause of geographical exploration receive such an impetus."
+
+The dramatic meeting between Livingstone and Stanley on the shores
+of Lake Tanganyika in 1871 had impressed the public in England and
+America, and an expedition was now planned by the proprietors of two
+great newspapers, the _London Daily Telegraph_ and the _New York
+Herald_. Stanley was chosen to command it. And perhaps there is hardly
+a better-known book of modern travels than _Through the Dark
+Continent_, in which he has related all his adventures and discoveries
+with regard to the Congo. Leaving England in August 1874 with three
+Englishmen and a large boat in eight sections, the _Lady Alice_, for
+the navigation of lake and river, the little exploring party reached
+Zanzibar a few weeks later and started on their great inland journey.
+The way to Victoria Nyanza lay through what is now known as German
+East Africa. They reached Ugogo safely and turned to the north-west,
+entering an immense and silent bush-field, where no food was
+obtainable. On the eighth day five people died of starvation and the
+rest of the expedition was only saved by the purchase of some grain
+from a distant village. But four more died and twenty-eight miles under
+a hot sun prostrated one of the white men, who died a few days later.
+Thus they entered Ituru, "a land of naked people, whose hills drained
+into a marsh, whence issue the southernmost waters of the Nile."
+
+Here they were surrounded by angry savages on whom they had to fire,
+and from whose country they were glad to escape.
+
+On 27th February 1875, after tramping for one hundred and three days,
+they arrived at their destination. One of the white men who was striding
+forward suddenly waved his hat, and with a beaming face shouted out,
+"I have seen the lake, sir; it is grand."
+
+Here, indeed, was the Victoria Nyanza, "which a dazzling sun
+transformed into silver," discovered by Speke sixteen years before,
+and supposed to be the source of the Nile. The men struck up a song
+of triumph--
+
+   "Sing, O friends, sing; the journey is ended.
+    Sing aloud, O friends; sing to the great Nyanza.
+    Sing all, sing loud, O friends, sing to the great sea;
+    Give your last look to the lands behind, and then turn to the sea.
+    Lift up your heads, O men, and gaze around.
+    Try if you can to see its end.
+    See, it stretches moons away,
+    This great, sweet, fresh-water sea."
+
+"I thought," says Stanley, "there could be no better way of settling,
+once and for ever, the vexed question, than by circumnavigating the
+lake."
+
+So the _Lady Alice_ was launched, and from the shores of Speke Gulf,
+as he named the southern end, the explorer set forth, leaving the two
+remaining Englishmen in charge of the camp.
+
+"The sky is gloomy," writes Stanley, "the rocks are bare and rugged,
+the land silent and lonely. The rowing of the people is that of men
+who think they are bound to certain death; their hearts are full of
+misgivings as slowly we move through the dull dead waters." The waters
+were not dead for long. A gale rose up and the lake became wild beyond
+description. "The waves hissed as we tore along, the crew collapsed
+and crouched into the bottom of the boat, expecting the end of the
+wild venture, but the _Lady Alice_ bounded forward like a wild courser
+and we floated into a bay, still as a pond."
+
+So they coasted along the shores of the lake. Their guide told them
+it would take years to sail round their sea, that on the shores dwelt
+people with long tails, who preferred to feed on human beings rather
+than cattle or goats. But, undaunted, the explorer sailed on, across
+the Napoleon Channel, through which flowed the superfluous waters of
+the lake rushing northward as the Victoria Nile. "On the western side
+of the Channel is Uganda, dominated by an Emperor who is supreme over
+about three millions of people. He soon heard of my presence on the
+lake and dispatched a flotilla to meet me. His mother had dreamed the
+night before that she had seen a boat sailing, sailing like a fish-eagle
+over the Nyanza. In the stern of the boat was a white man gazing
+wistfully towards Uganda."
+
+On reaching the port a crowd of soldiers, "arrayed in crimson and black
+and snowy white," were drawn up to receive him. "As we neared the beach,
+volleys of musketry burst out from the long lines. Numerous kettles
+and brass drums sounded a noisy welcome, flags and banners waved, and
+the people gave a great shout."
+
+[Illustration: STANLEY AND HIS MEN MARCHING THROUGH UNYORO. From a
+sketch, by Stanley, in _Through the Dark Continent_.]
+
+Such was Stanley's welcome to M'tesa's wonderful kingdom of Uganda,
+described by Speke sixteen years before. The twelve days spent at the
+court of this monarch impressed Stanley deeply. Specially was the king
+interested in Christianity, and the English explorer told the story
+of the Creation and the birth of the Messiah to this intelligent pagan
+and his courtiers. "Ten days after we left the genial court, I came
+upon the scene of a tragedy. We were coasting the eastern side of a
+large island, having been thirty-six hours without food, looking for
+a port where we could put in and purchase provisions. Natives followed
+our movements, poising their spears, stringing their bows, picking
+out the best rocks for their slings. We were thirteen souls, they
+between three and four hundred. Seeing the boat advance, they smiled,
+entered the water, and held out inviting hands. The crew shot the boat
+towards the natives; their hands closed on her firmly, they ran with
+her to the shore and dragged her high and dry about twenty yards from
+the lake. Then ensued a scene of rampant wildness and hideous ferocity
+of action beyond description. The boat was surrounded by a forest of
+spears and two hundred demons contended for the first blow. I sprang
+up to kill and be killed, a revolver in each hand, but as I rose to
+my feet the utter hopelessness of our situation was revealed to me."
+
+To make a long story short, the natives seized the oars, and, thinking
+the boat was now in their power, they retired to make their plans.
+Meanwhile Stanley commanded his crew to tear the bottom boards up for
+paddles, and, pushing the boat hastily into the water, they paddled
+away, their commander firing the while with his elephant rifle and
+explosive bullets. They were saved.
+
+On 6th May the circumnavigation was finished and the _Lady Alice_ was
+being dragged ashore in Speke Gulf with shouts of welcome and the waving
+of many flags. But sad news awaited him. He could see but one of his
+white companions.
+
+"Where is Barker?" he asked Frank Pocock.
+
+"He died twelve days ago," was the melancholy answer.
+
+Stanley now took his whole expedition to Uganda, and after spending
+some months with the King he passed on to Lake Tanganyika, crossing
+to Ujiji, where he arrived in May 1876. Here five years before he had
+found Livingstone.
+
+"We launched our boat on the lake and, circumnavigating it, discovered
+that there was only a periodical outlet to it. Thus, by the
+circumnavigation of the two lakes, two of the geographical problems
+I had undertaken to solve were settled. The Victoria Nyanza had no
+connection with the Tanganyika. There now remained the grandest task
+of all. Is the Lualaba, which Livingstone had traced along a course
+of nearly thirteen hundred miles, the Nile, the Niger, or the Congo?
+I crossed Lake Tanganyika with my expedition, lifted once more my
+gallant boat on our shoulders, and after a march of nearly two hundred
+and twenty miles arrived at the superb river. Where I first sighted
+it, the Lualaba was fourteen hundred yards wide, pale grey in colour,
+winding slowly from south and by east. We hailed its appearance with
+shouts of joy, and rested on the spot to enjoy the view. I likened
+it to the Mississippi as it appears before the impetuous, full-volumed
+Missouri pours its rusty brown water into it. A secret rapture filled
+my soul as I gazed upon the majestic stream. The great mystery that
+for all these centuries Nature had kept hidden away from the world
+of science was waiting to be solved. For two hundred and twenty miles
+I had followed the sources of the Livingstone River to the confluence,
+and now before me lay the superb river itself. My task was to follow
+it to the ocean."
+
+Pressing on along the river, they reached the Arab city of Nyangwe,
+having accomplished three hundred and thirty-eight miles in
+forty-three days. And now the famous Arab Tippu-Tib comes on the scene,
+a chief with whom Stanley was to be closely connected hereafter. He
+was a tall, black-bearded man with an intelligent face and gleaming
+white teeth. He wore clothes of spotless white, his fez was smart and
+new, his dagger resplendent with silver filigree. He had escorted
+Cameron across the river to the south, and he now confirmed Stanley
+in his idea that the greatest problem of African geography, "the
+discovery of the course of the Congo," was still untouched.
+
+"This was momentous and all-important news to the expedition. We had
+arrived at the critical point in our travels," remarks Stanley. "What
+kind of a country is it to the north along the river?" he asked.
+
+"Monstrous bad," was the reply. "There are large boa-constrictors in
+the forest suspended by their tails, waiting to gobble up travellers.
+You cannot travel without being covered by ants, and they sting like
+wasps. There are leopards in countless numbers. Gorillas haunt the
+woods. The people are man-eaters. A party of three hundred guns started
+for the forest and only sixty returned."
+
+Stanley and his last remaining white companion, Frank Pocock,
+discussed the somewhat alarming situation together. Should they go
+on and face the dwarfs who shot with poisoned arrows, the cannibals
+who regarded the stranger as so much meat, the cataracts and
+rocks--should they follow the "great river which flowed northward for
+ever and knew no end"?
+
+"This great river which Livingstone first saw, and which broke his
+heart to turn away from, is a noble field," argued Stanley. "After
+buying or building canoes and floating down the river day by day, either
+to the Nile or to some vast lake in the far north or to the Congo and
+the Atlantic Ocean."
+
+"Let us follow the river," replied the white man.
+
+So, accompanied by Tippu-Tib, with a hundred and forty guns and seventy
+spearmen, they started along the banks of the river which Stanley now
+named the Livingstone River.
+
+"On the 5th of November 1876," says Stanley, "a force of about seven
+hundred people, consisting of Tippu-Tib's slaves and my expedition
+departed from the town of Nyangwe and entered the dismal forest-land
+north. A straight line from this point to the Atlantic Ocean would
+measure one thousand and seventy miles; another to the Indian Ocean
+would measure only nine hundred and twenty miles; we had not reached
+the centre of the continent by seventy-five miles.
+
+"Outside the woods blazed a blinding sunshine; underneath that immense
+roof-foliage was a solemn twilight. The trees shed continual showers
+of tropic dew. As we struggled on through the mud, the perspiration
+exuded from every pore; our clothes were soon wet and heavy. Every
+man had to crawl and scramble as he best could. Sometimes prostrate
+forest-giants barred the road with a mountain of twigs and branches.
+For ten days we endured it; then the Arabs declared they could go no
+farther. I promised them five hundred pounds if they would escort us
+twenty marches only. On our way to the river we came to a village whose
+sole street was adorned with one hundred and eighty-six human skulls.
+Seventeen days from Nyangwe we saw again the great river and, viewing
+the stately breadth of the mighty stream, I resolved to launch my boat
+for the last time. Placing thirty-six of the people in the boat, we
+floated down the river close to the bank along which the land-party
+marched. Day after day passed on and we found the natives increasing
+in wild rancour and unreasoning hate of strangers. At every curve and
+bend they 'telephoned' along the river warning signals; their huge
+wooden drums sounded the muster for fierce resistance; reed arrows
+tipped with poison were shot at us from the jungle as we glided by.
+On the 18th of December our miseries culminated in a grand effort of
+the savages to annihilate us. The cannibals had manned the topmost
+branches of the trees above the village of Vinya Njara to shoot at
+us."
+
+A camp was hastily constructed by Stanley in defence, and for several
+days there was desperate fighting, at the end of which peace was made.
+But Tippu-Tib and his escort refused to go a step farther to what they
+felt was certain destruction. Stanley alone was determined to proceed.
+He bought thirty-three native canoes and, leading with the _Lady
+Alice_, he set his face towards the unknown country. His men were all
+sobbing. They leant forward, bowed with grief and heavy hearts at the
+prospect before them. Dense woods covered both banks and islands.
+Savages with gaily feathered heads and painted faces dashed out of
+the woods armed with shields and spears, shouting, "Meat! meat! Ha!
+ha! We shall have plenty of meat!"
+
+"Armies of parrots screamed overhead as they flew across the river;
+legions of monkeys and howling baboons alarmed the solitudes;
+crocodiles haunted the sandy points; hippopotami grunted at our
+approach; elephants stood by the margin of the river; there was
+unceasing vibration from millions of insects throughout the livelong
+day. The sun shone large and warm; the river was calm and broad and
+brown."
+
+[Illustration: "TOWARDS THE UNKNOWN": STANLEY'S CANOES STARTING FROM
+VINYA NJARA. From _Through the Dark Continent_.]
+
+By January 1877 the expedition reached the first cataract of what is
+now known as the Stanley Falls. From this point for some sixty miles
+the great volume of the Livingstone River rushed through narrow and
+lofty banks in a series of rapids. For twenty-two days he toiled along
+the banks, through jungle and forest, over cliffs and rocks exposed
+all the while to murderous attacks by cannibal savages, till the
+seventh cataract was passed and the boats were safely below the falls.
+"We hastened away down river in a hurry, to escape the noise of the
+cataracts which for many days and nights had almost stunned us with
+their deafening sound. We were once more afloat on a magnificent stream,
+nearly a mile wide, curving north-west. 'Ha! Is it the Niger or Congo?'
+I said."
+
+[Illustration: THE SEVENTH CATARACT, STANLEY FALLS. From _Through the
+Dark Continent_.]
+
+But day after day as they dropped down stream new enemies appeared,
+until at last, at the junction of the Aruwimi, a tributary as large
+as the main stream, a determined attack was made on them by some two
+thousand warriors in large canoes. A monster canoe led the way, with
+two rows of forty paddlers each, their bodies swaying to a barbarous
+chorus. In the bow were ten prime young warriors, their heads gay with
+the feathers of the parrot, crimson and grey: at the stern eight men
+with long paddles decorated with ivory balls guided the boat, while
+ten chiefs danced up and down from stem to stern. The crashing of large
+drums, a hundred blasts from ivory horns, and a song from two thousand
+voices did not tend to assure the little fleet under Stanley. The
+Englishman coolly anchored his boats in mid-stream and received the
+enemy with such well-directed volleys that the savages were utterly
+paralysed, and with great energy they retreated, pursued hotly by
+Stanley's party.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIGHT BELOW THE CONFLUENCE OF THE ARUWIMI AND THE
+LIVINGSTONE RIVERS. From a sketch, by Stanley, in _Through the Dark
+Continent_.]
+
+"Leaving them wondering and lamenting, I sought the mid-channel again
+and wandered on with the current. In the voiceless depths of the watery
+wilderness we encountered neither treachery nor guile, and we floated
+down, down, hundreds of miles. The river curved westward, then
+south-westward. Ah, straight for the mouth of the Congo. It widened
+daily. The channels became numerous."
+
+Through the country of the Bangala they now fought their way. These
+people were armed with guns brought up from the coast by native traders.
+It was indeed an anxious moment when, with war-drums beating,
+sixty-three "beautiful but cruel canoes" came skimming towards
+Stanley with some three hundred guns to his forty-four. For nearly
+five hours the two fleets fought until the victory rested with the
+American. "This," remarks Stanley, "was our thirty-first fight on the
+terrible river, and certainly the most determined conflict we had
+endured."
+
+They rowed on till the 11th of March; the river had grown narrower
+and steep, wooded hills rose on either side above them. Suddenly the
+river expanded, and the voyagers entered a wide basin or pool over
+thirty square yards. "Sandy islands rose in front of us like a seabeach,
+and on the right towered a long row of cliffs white and glistening,
+like the cliffs of Dover."
+
+"Why not call it Stanley Pool and those cliffs Dover Cliffs?" suggested
+Frank Pocock. And these names may be seen on our maps to-day. Passing
+out of the Pool, the roar of a great cataract burst upon their ears.
+It was the first of a long series of falls and rapids which continued
+for a distance of one hundred and fifty-five miles. To this great
+stretch of cataracts and rapids Stanley gave the name of the
+"Livingstone Falls." At the fifth cataract Stanley lost his favourite
+little native page-boy, Kalulu. The canoe in which he was rowing shot
+suddenly over the rapids, and in the furious whirl of rushing waters
+poor little Kalulu was drowned. He had been born a prince and given
+to Stanley on his first expedition into Africa. Stanley had taken him
+to Europe and America, and the boy had repaid his kindness by faithful
+and tender devotion till that fatal day, when he went to his death
+over the wild Livingstone Falls. Stanley named the rapid after him,
+Kalulu Falls.
+
+But a yet more heart-rending loss was in store for him. Progress was
+now very slow, for none of the cataracts or rapids could be navigated;
+canoes as well as stores had to be dragged over land from point to
+point. Frank Pocock had fallen lame and could not walk with the rest.
+Although accidents with the canoes were of daily occurrence, although
+he might have taken warning by the death of Kalulu, he insisted that
+his crew should try to shoot the great Massassa Falls instead of going
+round by land. Too late he realised his danger. The canoe was caught
+by the rushing tide, flung over the Falls, tossed from wave to wave,
+and finally dragged into the swirling whirlpool below. The "little
+master" as he was called was never seen again! Stanley's last white
+companion was gone! Gloom settled down on the now painfully reduced
+party.
+
+"We are all unnerved with the terrible accident of yesterday," says
+Stanley. "As I looked at the dejected woe-stricken servants, a choking
+sensation of unutterable grief filled me. This four months had we lived
+together, and true had been his service. The servant had long ago merged
+into the companion; the companion had become the friend."
+
+Still Stanley persevered in his desperate task, and in spite of danger
+from cataracts and danger from famine, on 31st July he reached the
+Isangila cataract. Thus far in 1816 two explorers had made their way
+from the ocean, and Stanley knew now for certain that he was on the
+mighty Congo. He saw no reason to follow it farther, or to toil through
+the last four cataracts. "I therefore announced to the gallant but
+wearied followers that we should abandon the river and strike overland
+for Boma, the nearest European settlement, some sixty miles across
+country."
+
+At sunset on 31st July they carried the _Lady Alice_ to the summit
+of some rocks above the Isangila Falls and abandoned her to her fate.
+
+"Farewell, brave boat!" cried Stanley; "seven thousand miles up and
+down broad Africa thou hast accompanied me. For over five thousand
+miles thou hast been my home. Lift her up tenderly, boys--so
+tenderly--and let her rest."
+
+Then, wayworn and feeble, half starved, diseased, and suffering, the
+little caravan of one hundred and fifteen men, women, and children
+started on their overland march to the coast.
+
+"Staggering, we arrived at Boma on 9th August 1877; a gathering of
+European merchants met me and, smiling a warm welcome, told me kindly
+that I had done right well. Three days later I gazed upon the Atlantic
+Ocean and saw the powerful river flowing into the bosom of that
+boundless, endless sea. But grateful as I felt to Him who had enabled
+me to pierce the Dark Continent from east to west, my heart was charged
+with grief and my eyes with tears at the thought of the many comrades
+and friends I had lost."
+
+The price paid had indeed been great; he had lost his three English
+companions and one hundred and seventy natives besides. But for years
+and years to come, in many a home at Zanzibar, whither Stanley now
+took his party by sea, the story of this great journey was told, and
+all the men were heroes and the refrain of the natives was chanted
+again and again--
+
+   "Then sing, O friends, sing: the journey is ended;
+    Sing aloud, O friends, sing to this great sea."
+
+Stanley had solved the problem of the Congo River at last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX
+
+NORDENSKIOLD ACCOMPLISHES THE NORTH-EAST PASSAGE
+
+
+The North-West Passage, for the accomplishment of which so many brave
+lives had been laid down, had been discovered. It now remained for
+some explorer to sail round the North-East Passage, which was known
+to exist, but which, up to this time, no man had done.
+
+Nordenskiold the Swede was to have this honour. Born in 1832 in Finland,
+he had taken part in an Arctic expedition in 1861, which attempted
+to reach the North Pole by means of dog-sledges from the north coast
+of Spitzbergen. Three years later he was appointed to lead an
+expedition to Spitzbergen, which succeeded in reaching the highest
+northern latitude which any ship had yet attained. In 1870 his famous
+journey to Greenland took place, and two years later he left Sweden
+on another Polar expedition; but misfortunes beset the expedition,
+and finally the ships were wrecked. The following year he commanded
+a reconnoitring expedition. He passed Nova Zembla and reached the
+mouth of the Yenisei. This was the first time that a ship had
+accomplished the voyage from the Atlantic Ocean. Thus Nordenskiold
+had gained considerable knowledge of the Northern Seas, and he was
+now in a position to lay a plan of his schemes before King Oscar, who
+had always interested himself in Arctic discovery. His suggestions
+to the King are of singular interest.
+
+"It is my intention," he says, "to leave Sweden in July 1878 in a steamer
+specially built for navigation among ice, which will be provisioned
+for two years at most. The course will be shaped for Nova Zembla, where
+a favourable opportunity will be awaited for the passage of the Kara
+Sea. The voyage will be continued to the mouth of the Yenisei, which
+I hope to reach in the first half of August. As soon as circumstances
+permit, the expedition will continue its voyage along the coast to
+Cape Chelyuskin, where the expedition will reach the only part of the
+proposed route which has not been traversed by some small vessel, and
+is rightly considered as that which it will be most difficult for a
+vessel to double during the whole North-East Passage; but our vessel,
+equipped with all modern appliances, ought not to find insuperable
+difficulties in doubling this point, and if that can be accomplished,
+we will probably have pretty open water towards Behring's Straits,
+which ought to be reached before the end of September. From Behring
+Strait the course will be shaped for some Asiatic port and then onwards
+round Asia to Suez."
+
+King Oscar and others offered to pay the expenses of the expedition,
+and preparations were urged forward. The _Vega_ of 300 tons, formerly
+used in walrus-hunting in northern waters, was purchased, and further
+strengthened to withstand ice. On 22nd June all was ready, and with
+the Swedish flag with a crowned O in the middle, the little _Vega_,
+which was to accomplish such great things, was "peacefully rocking
+on the swell of the Baltic as if impatient to begin her struggle against
+waves and ice." She carried food for thirty people for two years, which
+included over three thousand pounds of bacon, nine thousand pounds
+of coffee, nine thousand pounds of biscuits. There were pemmican from
+England, potatoes from the Mediterranean, cranberry juice from
+Finland. Fresh bread was made during the whole expedition. A few days
+later the _Vega_ reached Copenhagen and steamed north in the finest
+weather.
+
+"Where are you bound for?" signalled a passing ship.
+
+"To Behring Sea," was the return signal, and the Swedish crew waved
+their caps, shouting their joyful news.
+
+At Gothenburg they took on eight sledges, tents, and cooking utensils,
+also two Scotch sheep dogs and a little coal-black kitten, which lived
+in the captain's berth till it grew accustomed to the sea, when it
+slept in the forecastle by day and ran about stealing the food of the
+sleeping sailors by night.
+
+On 16th July they crossed the Polar Circle. "All on board feel they
+are entering upon a momentous period of their life," says the explorer.
+"Were we to be the fortunate ones to reach this goal, which navigators
+for centuries had striven to reach?"
+
+The south-west coast of Nova Zembla was reached on 28th July, but the
+weather being calm and the sea completely free of ice, Nordenskiold
+sailed onwards through the Kara Strait or Iron Gates, which during
+the winter was usually one sheet of ice, until they anchored outside
+the village of Khabarova. The "village" consisted of a few huts and
+tents of Russian and Samoyedes pasturing their reindeer on the Vaygets
+Island. On the bleak northern shores stood a little wooden church,
+which the explorers visited with much interest. It seemed strange to
+find here brass bas-reliefs representing the Christ, St. Nicholas,
+Elijah, St. George and the Dragon, and the Resurrection; in front of
+each hung a little oil lamp. The people were dressed entirely in
+reindeer skin from head to foot, and they had a great collection of
+walrus tusks and skins such as Othere had brought centuries before
+to King Alfred.
+
+Nordenskiold's account of a short drive in a reindeer sledge is amusing.
+"Four reindeer were put side by side to each sledge," he says. "Ivan,
+my driver, requested me to hold tight; he held the reins of all four
+reindeer in one hand, and away we went over the plain! His request
+to keep myself tight to the sledge was not unnecessary; at one moment
+the sledge jumped over a big tussock, the next it went down into a
+pit. It was anything but a comfortable drive, for the pace at which
+we went was very great."
+
+On 1st August the _Vega_ was off again, and soon she had entered the
+Kara Sea, known in the days of the Dutch explorers as the "ice-cellar."
+Then past White Island and the estuary of the great Obi River, past
+the mouth of the Yenisei to Dickson Island, lately discovered, she
+sailed. Here in this "best-known haven on the whole north coast of
+Asia they anchored and spent time in bear and reindeer hunting." "In
+consequence of the successful sport we lived very extravagantly during
+these days; our table groaned with joints of venison and bear-hams."
+
+They now sailed north close bound in fog, till on 20th August "we
+reached the great goal, which for centuries had been the object of
+unsuccessful struggles. For the first time a vessel lay at anchor off
+the northernmost cape of the Old World. With colours flying on every
+mast and saluting the venerable north point of the Old World with the
+Swedish salute of five guns, we came to an anchor!"
+
+[Illustration: NORDENSKIOLD'S SHIP, THE _VEGA_, SALUTING CAPE
+CHELYUSKIN, THE MOST NORTHERLY POINT OF THE OLD WORLD. From a drawing
+in Hovgaard's _Nordenskiold's Voyage_.]
+
+The fog lifting for a moment, they saw a white Polar bear standing
+"regarding the unexpected guests with surprise."
+
+When afterwards a member of the expedition was asked which moment was
+the proudest of the whole voyage, he answered, without hesitation:
+"Undoubtedly the moment when we anchored off Cape Chelyuskin."
+
+It had been named thus by the "Great Northern Expedition" in 1742 after
+Lieutenant Chelyuskin, one of the Russian explorers under Laptieff,
+who had reached this northern point by a land journey which had entailed
+terrible hardships and suffering.
+
+"Next morning," relates Nordenskiold, "we erected a cairn on the shore,
+and in the middle of it laid a tin box with the following document
+written in Swedish: 'The Swedish Arctic Expedition arrived here
+yesterday, the 19th of August, and proceeds in a few hours eastward.
+The sea has been tolerably free from ice. Sufficient supply of coals.
+All well on board.
+
+                                        "'A. E. NORDENSKIOLD.'
+
+
+And below in English and Russian were the words, 'Please forward this
+document as soon as possible to His Majesty the King of Sweden.'"
+
+Nordenskiold now attempted to steam eastwards towards the New Siberian
+Islands, but the fog was thick, and they fell in with large ice-floes
+which soon gave place to ice-fields. Violent snowstorms soon set in
+and "aloft everything was covered with a crust of ice, and the position
+in the crow's nest was anything but pleasant." They reached Khatanga
+Bay, however, and on 27th August the _Vega_ was at the mouth of the
+Lena.
+
+"We were now in hopes that we should be in Japan in a couple of months;
+we had accomplished two-thirds of our way through the Polar sea, and
+the remaining third had been often navigated at different distances."
+
+So the _Vega_ sailed on eastwards with an ice-free sea to the New
+Siberian Islands, where lie embedded "enormous masses of the bones
+and tusks of the mammoth mixed with the horns and skulls of some kind
+of ox and with the horns of rhinoceros."
+
+All was still clear of snow, and the New Siberian Islands lying long
+and low in the Polar seas were safely passed. It was not till 1st
+September that the first snows fell; the decks of the _Vega_ were white
+with snow when the Bear Islands were reached. Fog now hindered the
+expedition once more, and ice was sighted.
+
+"Ice right ahead!" suddenly shouted the watch on the forecastle, and
+only by a hair's-breadth was the _Vega_ saved. On 3rd September a thick
+snowstorm came on, the Bear Islands were covered with newly fallen
+snow, and though the ice was growing more closely packed than any yet
+encountered they could still make their way along a narrow ice-free
+channel near the coast. Snowstorms, fog, and drifting ice compelled
+careful navigation, but a pleasant change occurred early in September
+by a visit from the natives. We have already heard of the Chukches
+from Behring--the Chukches whom no man had yet vanquished, for when
+Siberia was conquered by a Kossack chief in 1579, the Chukches in this
+outlying north-eastern corner of the Old World, savage, courageous,
+resolute, kept the conquerors at bay. For the last six weeks the
+explorers had not seen a human being on that wild and desolate stretch
+of coast, so they were glad enough to see the little Chukches with
+their coal-black hair and eyes, their large mouths and flat noses.
+"Although it was only five o'clock in the morning, we all jumped out
+of our berths and hurried on deck to see these people of whom so little
+was known. The boats were of skin, fully laden with laughing and
+chattering natives, men, women, and children, who indicated by cries
+and gesticulations that they wished to come on board. The engine was
+stopped, the boats lay to, and a large number of skin-clad, bare-headed
+beings climbed up over the gunwale and a lively talk began. Great
+gladness prevailed when tobacco and Dutch clay pipes were distributed
+among them. None of them could speak a word of Russian; they had come
+in closer contact with American whalers than with Russian traders."
+The Chukches were all very short and dressed in reindeer skins with
+tight-fitting trousers of seal-skin, shoes of reindeer-skin with
+seal-skin boots and walrus-skin soles. In very cold weather they wore
+hoods of wolf fur with the head of the wolf at the back.
+
+[Illustration: MENKA, CHIEF OF THE CHUKCHES.]
+
+But Nordenskiold could not wait long. Amid snow and ice and fog he
+pushed on, hoping against hope to get through to the Pacific before
+the sea was completely frozen over. But the ice was beginning to close.
+Large blocks were constantly hurled against the ship with great
+violence, and she had many a narrow escape of destruction.
+
+At last, it was 28th September, the little _Vega_ was finally and
+hopelessly frozen into the ice, and they made her fast to a large
+ice-block. Sadly we find the entry: "Only one hundred and twenty miles
+distant from our goal, which we had been approaching during the last
+two months, and after having accomplished two thousand four hundred
+miles. It took some time before we could accustom ourselves to the
+thought that we were so near and yet so far from our destination."
+
+Fortunately they were near the shore and the little settlement of
+Pitlekai, where in eight tents dwelt a party of Chukches. These little
+people helped them to pass the long monotonous winter, and many an
+expedition inland was made in Chukche sledges drawn by eight or ten
+wolf-like dogs. Snowstorms soon burst upon the little party of Swedish
+explorers who had made the _Vega_ their winter home. "During November
+we have scarcely had any daylight," writes Nordenskiold; "the storm
+was generally howling in our rigging, which was now enshrouded in a
+thick coat of snow, the deck was full of large snowdrifts, and snow
+penetrated into every corner of the ship where it was possible for
+the wind to find an opening. If we put our heads outside the door we
+were blinded by the drifting snow."
+
+Christmas came and was celebrated by a Christmas tree made of willows
+tied to a flagstaff, and the traditional rice porridge.
+
+By April large flocks of geese, eider-ducks, gulls, and little
+song-birds began to arrive, the latter perching on the rigging of the
+_Vega_, but May and June found her still icebound in her winter
+quarters.
+
+[Illustration: THE _VEGA_ FROZEN IN FOR THE WINTER. From a drawing
+in Hovgaard's _Nordenskiold's Voyage_.]
+
+It was not till 18th July 1879 that "the hour of deliverance came at
+last, and we cast loose from our faithful ice-block, which for two
+hundred and ninety-four days had protected us so well against the
+pressure of the ice and stood westwards in the open channel, now about
+a mile wide. On the shore stood our old friends, probably on the point
+of crying, which they had often told us they would do when the ship
+left them."
+
+For long the Chukches stood on the shore--men, women, and
+children--watching till the "fire-dog," as they called the _Vega_,
+was out of sight, carrying their white friends for ever away from their
+bleak, inhospitable shores.
+
+"Passing through closely packed ice, the _Vega_ now rounded the East
+Cape, of which we now and then caught a glimpse through the fog. As
+soon as we came out of the ice south of the East Cape, we noticed the
+heavy swell of the Pacific Ocean. The completion of the North-East
+Passage was celebrated the same day with a grand dinner, and the _Vega_
+greeted the Old and New Worlds by a display of flags and the firing
+of a Swedish salute. Now for the first time after the lapse of three
+hundred and thirty-six years was the North-East Passage at last
+achieved."
+
+Sailing through the Behring Strait, they anchored near Behring Island
+on 14th August. As they came to anchor, a boat shot alongside and a
+voice cried out in Swedish, "Is it Nordenskiold?" A Finland carpenter
+soon stood in their midst, and they eagerly questioned him about the
+news from the civilised world!
+
+There is no time to tell how the _Vega_ sailed on to Japan, where
+Nordenskiold was presented to the Mikado, and an Imperial medal was
+struck commemorating the voyage of the _Vega_, how she sailed right
+round Asia, through the Suez Canal, and reached Sweden in safety. It
+was on 24th April 1880 that the little weather-beaten _Vega_,
+accompanied by flag-decked steamers literally laden with friends,
+sailed into the Stockholm harbour while the hiss of fireworks and the
+roar of cannon mingled with the shouts of thousands. The Royal Palace
+was ablaze with light when King Oscar received and honoured the
+successful explorer Nordenskiold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX
+
+THE EXPLORATION OF TIBET
+
+
+Perhaps no land in the world has in modern times exercised a greater
+influence over the imagination of men than the mysterious country of
+Tibet. From the days of Herodotus to those of Younghusband, travellers
+of all times and nations have tried to explore this unknown country,
+so jealously guarded from Europeans. Surrounded by a "great wilderness
+of stony and inhospitable altitudes" lay the capital, Lhasa, the seat
+of the gods, the home of the Grand Lama, founded in 639 A.D., mysterious,
+secluded, sacred. Kublai Khan, of Marco Polo fame, had annexed Tibet
+to his vast Empire, and in 1720 the mysterious land was finally
+conquered by the Chinese. The history of the exploration of Tibet and
+the adjoining country, and of the various attempts to penetrate to
+Lhasa, is one of the most thrilling in the annals of discovery.
+
+We remember that Benjamin of Tudela in the twelfth century, Carpini
+and William de Rubruquis in the thirteenth, all assert that they passed
+through Tibet, but we have no certain records till several Italian
+Capuchin friars succeeded in reaching Lhasa. There they lived and
+taught for some thirty-eight years, when they were withdrawn. And the
+little "Tibetan Mission," as it was called, came to an end.
+
+It was yet early in the eighteenth century. England was taking up her
+great position in India, and Warren Hastings was anxious to open up
+friendly relations with Tibet beyond the great Himalaya ranges. To
+this end he sent an Englishman, George Bogle, with these instructions:
+"I desire you will proceed to Lhasa. The design of your mission is
+to open a mutual and equal communication of trade between the
+inhabitants of Tibet and Bengal. You will take with you samples, for
+a trial of such articles of commerce as may be sent from this country.
+And you will diligently inform yourself of the manufactures,
+productions, and goods which are to be procured in Tibet. The following
+will also be proper subjects for your inquiry, the nature of the roads
+between the borders of Bengal and Lhasa and the neighbouring countries.
+I wish you to remain a sufficient time to obtain a complete knowledge
+of the country. The period of your stay must be left to your
+discretion."
+
+Bogle was young; he knew nothing of the country, but in May 1774 his
+little expedition set off from Calcutta to do the bidding of Warren
+Hastings. By way of Bhutan, planting potatoes at intervals according
+to his orders, Bogle proceeded across the eastern Himalayas toward
+the Tibetan frontier, reaching Phari, the first town in Tibet, at the
+end of October. Thence they reached Gyangtse, a great trade centre
+now open to foreigners, crossed the Brahmaputra, which they found was
+"about the size of the Thames at Putney," and reached the residence
+of the Tashi Lama, the second great potentate of Tibet. This great
+dignitary and the young Englishman made great friends.
+
+"On a carved and gilt throne amid cushions sat the Lama, cross-legged.
+He was dressed in a mitre-shaped cap of yellow broadcloth with long
+bars lined with red satin, a yellow cloth jacket without sleeves, and
+a satin mantle of the same colour thrown over his shoulders. On one
+side of him stood his physician with a bundle of perfumed sandal-wood
+rods burning in his hand; on the other stood his cup-bearer."
+
+Such was this remarkable man as first seen by the English, "venerated
+as God's vice-regent through all the eastern countries of Asia." He
+had heard much of the power of the "Firinghis," as he called the English.
+"As my business is to pray to God," he said to Bogle, "I was afraid
+to admit any Firinghis into the country. But I have since learned that
+they are a fair and just people."
+
+[Illustration: THE POTALA AT LHASA: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY VIEW. From
+Kircher's _China Illustrata_. The only good representation of the
+Potala until photographs were obtainable in the twentieth century.]
+
+Bogle would have proceeded to Lhasa, the home of the Grand Lama, but
+this permission was refused, and he had to return to India with the
+information he had collected.
+
+The next Englishman to enter Tibet was Thomas Manning, the first to
+reach the sacred city of Lhasa. He was a private adventurer, who had
+lived in China and learnt the language. Attended by a Chinese servant,
+and wearing a flowing beard of singular length, he left Calcutta,
+crossed into Bhutan, and arrived at the Tibetan border in October 1811.
+Then he crossed the Brahmaputra in a large ferry-boat, and arrived
+within seven miles of Lhasa. On 9th December the first European entered
+the sacred city since the expulsion of the Capuchin friars. The view
+of the famous Potala, the lofty towering palace, filled him with
+admiration, but the city of which Europe, knowing nothing, had exalted
+into a magnificent place, was very disappointing.
+
+"We passed under a large gateway," says Manning, "whose gilded
+ornaments were so ill-fixed that some leaned one way and some another.
+The road as it winds round the palace is royally broad; it swarmed
+with monks, and beggars were basking in the sun. There is nothing
+striking in its appearance; the habitations are begrimed with smut
+and dirt. The avenues are full of dogs--in short, everything seems
+mean and gloomy. Having provided himself with a proper hat, Manning
+went to the Potala to salute the Grand Lama, taking with him a pair
+of brass candlesticks with two wax candles, some 'genuine Smith's
+lavender water, and a good store of Nankin tea, which is a rare delicacy
+at Lhasa. Ushered into the presence of the Grand Lama, a child of seven,
+he touched his head three times on the floor, after the custom of the
+country, and, taking off his hat, knelt to be blessed by the little
+monarch.' He had the simple and unaffected manners of a well-educated
+princely child. His face was affectingly beautiful--his beautiful
+mouth was perpetually unbending into a graceful smile, which
+illuminated his whole countenance."
+
+Here Manning spent four months, at the end of which time he was recalled
+from Pekin, and reluctantly he was obliged to return the way he came.
+
+The next man to reach the forbidden city was a Jesuit missionary, the
+Abbe Huc, who reached Lhasa in 1846 from China. He had adopted the
+dress of the Tibetan Lama--the yellow cap and gown--and he piloted
+his little caravan across the wide steppes on horseback, while his
+fellow-missionary, Gabet, rode a camel and their one Tartar retainer
+rode a black mule. It took them a year and a half to reach the sacred
+city of Lhasa, for many and great were the difficulties of the way.
+Their first difficulty lay in crossing the Yellow River, which was
+in flood.
+
+"It is quite impossible to cross the Yellow River," they were told.
+"Eight days ago the river overflowed its banks and the plains are
+completely flooded."
+
+"The Tartars only told us the truth," remarked Huc sadly. "The Yellow
+River had become a vast sea, the limits of which were scarcely visible:
+houses and villages looked as though they were floating upon the waves.
+What were we to do? To turn back was out of the question. We had vowed
+that, God willing, we would go to Lhasa whatever obstacles impeded."
+
+And so they did. The camels were soon up to their knees in a thick
+slimy compost of mud and water, over which the poor animals slid on
+their painful way. Their courage was rewarded, native ferry-boats came
+to their rescue, and they reached the other side in safety. They were
+now on the main caravan route to the Tibetan frontier and the Koko-Nor.
+Immense caravans were met, with strings of camels extending for miles
+in length. Three times between the Yellow River and the Koko-Nor Lake
+did they pass the Great Wall built in 214 A.D. After over four months
+of travel Huc arrived at the monastery of Kunkum on the borderland
+of Tibet. This was the home of four thousand Lamas all clothed in red
+dresses and yellow mitres, and thither resorted the worshippers of
+Buddha from all parts of Tartary and Tibet.
+
+"The site is one of enchanting beauty," says Huc. "Imagine in a
+mountain-side a deep, broad ravine adorned with fine trees and alive
+with the cawing of rooks and yellow-beaked crows and the amusing
+chatter of magpies. On the two sides of the ravine and on the slopes
+of the mountain rise the white dwellings of the Lamas. Amid the dazzling
+whiteness of these modest habitations rise numerous Buddhist temples
+with gilt roofs, sparkling with a thousand brilliant colours. Here
+the travellers stayed for three months, after which they made their
+way on to the Koko-Nor Lake.
+
+"As we advanced," says Huc, "the country became more fertile, until
+we reached the vast and magnificent pasturage of Koko-Nor. Here
+vegetation is so vigorous that the grass rose up to the stomachs of
+our camels. Soon we discovered far before us what seemed a broad silver
+riband. Our leader informed us that this was the Blue Sea. We urged
+on our animals, and the sun had not set when we planted our tent within
+a hundred paces of the waters of the great Blue Lake. This immense
+reservoir of water seems to merit the title of sea rather than merely
+that of lake. To say nothing of its vast extent, its waters are bitter
+and salt, like those of the ocean."
+
+After a month spent on the shores of the Blue Lake, an opportunity
+offered for the advance. Towards the end of October they found that
+an embassy from Lhasa to Pekin was returning in great force. This would
+afford Huc and his companion safe travelling from the hordes of
+brigands that infested the route through Tibet. The caravan was
+immense. There were fifteen hundred oxen, twelve hundred horses, and
+as many camels, and about two thousand men. The ambassador was carried
+in a litter. Such was the multitude which now started for the thousand
+miles across Tibet to Lhasa.
+
+After crossing the great Burkhan Buddha range, the caravan came to
+the Shuga Pass, about seventeen thousand feet high, and here their
+troubles began.
+
+"When the huge caravan first set itself in motion," says Huc, "the
+sky was clear, and a brilliant moon lit up the great carpet of snow
+with which the whole country was covered. We were able to attain the
+summit by sunrise. Then the sky became thickly overcast with clouds
+and the wind began to blow with a violence which became more and more
+intense."
+
+Snow fell heavily and several animals perished. They marched in the
+teeth of an icy wind which almost choked them, whirlwinds of snow
+blinded them, and when they reached the foot of the mountain at last,
+M. Gabet found that his nose and ears were frostbitten. As they
+proceeded, the cold became more intense. "The demons of snow, wind,
+and cold were set loose on the caravan with a fury which seemed to
+increase from day to day."
+
+"One cannot imagine a more terrible country," says poor Huc.
+
+Not only were the animals dying from cold and exposure, but men were
+beginning to drop out and die. Forty of the party died before the
+plateau of Tangla had been crossed, a proceeding which lasted twelve
+days. The track, some sixteen thousand feet above the sea, was bordered
+by the skeletons of mules and camels, and monstrous eagles followed
+the caravan. The scenery was magnificent, line upon line of snow-white
+pinnacles stretched southward and westward under a bright sun. The
+descent was "long, brusque, and rapid, like the descent of a gigantic
+ladder." At the lower altitude snow and ice disappeared. It was the
+end of January 1846, when at last our two travellers found themselves
+approaching the longed-for city of Lhasa.
+
+"The sun was nearly setting," says Huc, "when we found ourselves in
+a vast plain and saw on our right Lhasa, the famous metropolis of the
+Buddhist world. After eighteen months' struggle with sufferings and
+obstacles of infinite number and variety, we were at length arrived
+at the termination of our journey, though not at the close of our
+miseries."
+
+Huc's account of the city agrees well with that of Manning: "The palace
+of the Dalai Lama," he says, "merits the celebrity which it enjoys
+throughout the world. Upon a rugged mountain, the mountain of Buddha,
+the adorers of the Lama have raised the magnificent palace wherein
+their Living Divinity resides in the flesh. This place is made up of
+various temples; that which occupies the centre is four storeys high;
+it terminates in a dome entirely covered with plates of gold. It is
+here the Dalai Lama has set up his abode. From the summit of his lofty
+sanctuary he can contemplate his innumerable adorers prostrate at the
+foot of the divine mountain. But in the town all was different--all
+are engaged in the grand business of buying and selling, all is noise,
+pushing, excitement, confusion."
+
+Here Huc and his companion resided for two and a half months, opening
+an oratory in their house and even making a few Christian converts.
+But soon they were ordered to leave, and reluctantly they travelled
+back to China, though by a somewhat different route.
+
+After this the Tibetans guarded their capital more zealously than
+before. Przhevalsky, "that grand explorer of Russian nationality,"
+spent years in exploring Tibet, but when within a hundred and sixty
+miles of Lhasa he was stopped, and never reached the forbidden city.
+
+Others followed. Prince Henri of Orleans got to within one hundred
+miles of Lhasa, Littledale and his wife to within fifty miles. Sven
+Hedin, the "Prince of Swedish explorers," who had made so many famous
+journeys around and about Tibet, was making a dash for the capital
+disguised as a Mongolian pilgrim when he, too, was stopped.
+
+"A long black line of Tibetan horsemen rode towards us at full gallop,"
+he relates. "It was not raining just at that moment, so there was
+nothing to prevent us from witnessing what was in truth a very
+magnificent spectacle. It was as though a living avalanche were
+sweeping down upon us. A moment more and we should be annihilated!
+We held our weapons ready. On came the Tibetans in one long line
+stretching across the plain. We counted close upon seventy in all.
+In the middle rode the chief on a big handsome mule, his staff of
+officers all dressed in their finest holiday attire. The wings
+consisted of soldiers armed to the teeth with gun, sword, and lance.
+The great man, Kamba Bombo, pulled up in front of our tent." After
+removing a red Spanish cloak and hood he "stood forth arrayed in a
+suit of yellow silk with wide arms and a little blue Chinese skull-cap.
+His feet were encased in Mongolian boots of green velvet. He was
+magnificent."
+
+"You will not go another step towards Lhasa," he said. "If you do you
+will lose your heads. It doesn't the least matter who you are or where
+you come from. You must go back to your headquarters."
+
+So an escort was provided and sorrowfully Sven Hedin turned his back
+on the jealously guarded town he had striven so hard to reach.
+
+The expedition, or rather mission, under Colonel Younghusband in 1904
+brings to an end our history of the exploration of Tibet. He made his
+way to Lhasa from India; he stood in the sacred city, and "except for
+the Potala" he found it a "sorry affair." He succeeded in getting a
+trade Treaty signed, and he rode hastily back to India and travelled
+thence to England. The importance of the mission was accentuated by
+the fact that the flag, a Union Jack bearing the motto, "Heaven's Light
+our Guide," carried by the expedition and placed on the table when
+the Treaty was signed in Lhasa, hangs to-day in the Central Hall at
+Windsor over the statue of Queen Victoria.
+
+The veil so long drawn over the capital of Tibet had been at last torn
+aside, and the naked city had been revealed in all its "weird
+barbarity." Plans of the "scattered and ill-regulated" city are now
+familiar, the Potala has been photographed, the Grand Lama has been
+drawn, and if, with the departure of Younghusband, the gates of Lhasa
+were once more closed, voices from beyond the snowy Himalayas must
+be heard again ere long.
+
+[Illustration: THE WORLD'S MOST MYSTERIOUS CITY UNVEILED: LHASA AND
+THE POTALA. From a photograph by a member of Younghusband's expedition
+to Tibet and Lhasa, 1909(?).]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI
+
+NANSEN REACHES FARTHEST NORTH
+
+
+No names are better known in the history of Arctic exploration than
+those of Nansen and the _Fram_, and although others have done work
+just as fine, the name of Nansen cannot be omitted from our _Book of
+Discovery_.
+
+Sven Hedin had not long returned from his great travels through eastern
+Turkestan and Tibet when Nansen was preparing for his great journey
+northwards.
+
+He had already crossed Greenland from east to west, a brilliant
+achievement only excelled by Peary, who a few years later, crossed
+it at a higher latitude and proved it to be an island.
+
+Now the movement of ice drift in the Arctic seas was occupying the
+attention of explorers at this time. A ship, the _Jeannette_, had been
+wrecked in 1881 off the coast of Siberia, and three years later the
+debris from the wreck had been washed up on the south-west coast of
+Greenland. So it occurred to Nansen that a current must flow across
+the North Pole from Behring Sea on one side to the Atlantic Ocean on
+the other. His idea was therefore to build a ship as strong as possible
+to enable it to withstand the pressure of the ice, to allow it to become
+frozen in, and then to drift as the articles from the _Jeannette_ had
+drifted. He reckoned that it would take three years for the drift of
+ice to carry him to the North Pole.
+
+Foolhardy and impossible as the scheme seemed to some, King Oscar came
+forward with 1000 pounds toward expenses. The _Fram_ was then designed.
+The whole success of the expedition lay in her strength to withstand
+the pressure of the ice. At last she was ready, even fitted with
+electric light. A library, scientifically prepared food, and
+instruments of the most modern type were on board. The members of the
+expedition numbered thirteen, and on Midsummer Day, 1893, "in calm
+summer weather, while the setting sun shed his beams over the land,
+the _Fram_ stood out towards the blue sea to get its first roll in
+the long, heaving swell." Along the coast of Norway, past Bergen, past
+Trondhjem, past Tromso, they steamed, until in a north-westerly gale
+and driving snow they lost sight of land. It was 25th July when they
+sighted Nova Zembla plunged in a world of fog. They landed at Khabarova
+and visited the little old church seen fifteen years before by
+Nordenskiold, anxiously inquiring about the state of the ice in the
+Kara Sea. Here, amid the greatest noise and confusion, some
+thirty-four dogs were brought on board for the sledges. On 5th August
+the explorer successfully passed through the Yugor Strait into the
+Kara Sea, which was fairly free from ice, and five weeks later sailed
+past Cape Chelyuskin, the northernmost point of the Old World.
+
+"The land was low and desolate," says Nansen. "The sun had long since
+gone down behind the sea; only one star was to be seen. It stood straight
+above Cape Chelyuskin, shining clearly and sadly in the pale sky.
+Exactly at four o'clock our flags were hoisted and our last three
+cartridges sent out a thundering salute over the sea."
+
+The _Fram_ was then turned north to the west of the New Siberian Islands.
+"It was a strange thing to be sailing away north," says Nansen, "to
+unknown lands, over an open rolling sea where no ship had been before.
+On to the north, steadily north with a good wind, as fast as steam
+and sail can take us through unknown regions."
+
+They had almost reached 78 degrees north when they saw ice shining
+through the fog, and a few days later the _Fram_ was frozen in. "Autumn
+was well advanced, the long night of winter was approaching, there
+was nothing to be done except prepare ourselves for it, and we converted
+our ship as well as we could into comfortable winter quarters."
+
+By October the ice was pressing round the _Fram_ with a noise like
+thunder. "It is piling itself up into long walls and heaps high enough
+to reach a good way up the _Fram's_ rigging: in fact, it is trying
+its very utmost to grind the _Fram_ into powder."
+
+Christmas came and went. The New Year of 1894 dawned with the
+thermometer 36 degrees below zero. By February the _Fram_ had drifted
+to the 80th degree of latitude. "High festival in honour of the 80th
+degree," writes Nansen. "Hurrah! Well sailed! The wind is whistling
+among the hummocks, the snow flies rustling through the air, ice and
+sky are melted into one, but we are going north at full speed, and
+are in the wildest of gay spirits. If we go on at this rate we shall
+be at the Pole in fifty months."
+
+On 17th May the 81st degree of latitude was reached. Five months passed
+away. By 31st October they had drifted to the 82nd. "A grand banquet
+to-day," says Nansen, "to celebrate the 82nd degree of latitude. We
+are progressing merrily towards our goal; we are already half-way
+between the New Siberian Islands and Franz Josef Land, and there is
+not a soul on board who doubts that we shall accomplish what we came
+out to do; so long live merriment."
+
+Now Nansen planned the great sledge journey, which has been called
+"the most daring ever undertaken." The winter was passed in peaceful
+preparation for a start in the spring. When the New Year of 1895 dawned
+the _Fram_ had been firmly frozen in for fifteen months. A few days
+later, the ship was nearly crushed by a fresh ice pressure and all
+prepared to abandon her if necessary, but after an anxious day of ice
+roaring and crackling--"an ice pressure with a vengeance, as if
+Doomsday had come," remarked Nansen--it quieted down. They had now
+beaten all records, for they had reached 83 degrees latitude.
+
+And now preparations for the great sledge journey were complete. They
+had built kayaks or light boats to sail in open water, and these were
+placed on the sledges and drawn by dogs. Nansen decided only to take
+one companion, Johansen, and to leave the others with the _Fram_.
+
+"At last the great day has arrived. The chief aim of the expedition
+is to push through the unknown Polar sea from the region around the
+New Siberian Islands, north of Franz Josef Land and onward to the
+Atlantic Ocean near Spitzbergen or Greenland." Farewells were said,
+and then the two men bravely started off over the unknown desert sea
+with their sledges and twenty-eight dogs. For the first week they
+travelled well and soon reached 85 degrees latitude. "The only
+disagreeable thing to face now is the cold," says Nansen. "Our clothes
+are transformed more and more into complete suits of ice armour. The
+sleeve of my coat actually rubbed deep sores in my wrists, one of which
+got frostbitten; the wound grew deeper and deeper and nearly reached
+the bone. At night we packed ourselves into our sleeping-bags and lay
+with our teeth chattering for an hour before we became aware of a little
+warmth in our bodies."
+
+[Illustration: DR. NANSEN. After a photograph.]
+
+Steadily, with faces to the north, they pressed on over the blocks
+of rough ice, stretching as far as the horizon, till on 8th April
+further progress became impossible. Nansen strode on ahead and mounted
+one of the highest hummocks to look around. He saw "a veritable chaos
+of ice-blocks, ridge after ridge, and nothing but rubble to travel
+over." He therefore determined to turn and make for Franz Josef Land
+some four hundred and fifty miles distant. They had already reached
+86 degrees of latitude, farther north than any expedition had reached
+before.
+
+As they travelled south, they rejoiced in the warmth of the sun, but
+their food was growing scarce, and they had to kill a dog every other
+day to feed the others, till by May they had only thirteen dogs left.
+June found them having experienced tremendous snowstorms with only
+seven dogs left. Although they were in the latitude of Franz Josef
+Land, no welcome shores appeared. It was now three months since they
+had left the _Fram_; the food for the dogs was quite finished and the
+poor creatures were beginning to eat their harness of sailcloth.
+Mercifully before the month ended they managed to shoot a seal which
+provided them with food for a month. "It is a pleasing change," says
+Nansen, "to be able to eat as much and as often as we like. Blubber
+is excellent, both raw and fried. For dinner I fried a highly successful
+steak, for supper I made blood-pancakes fried in blubber with sugar,
+unsurpassed in flavour. And here we lie up in the far north, two grim,
+black, soot-stained barbarians, stirring a mess of soup in a kettle,
+surrounded on all sides by ice--ice covered with impassable snow."
+
+A bear and two cubs were shot and the explorers stayed on at "Longing
+Camp" as they named this dreary spot, unable to go on, but amply fed.
+
+On 24th July we get the first cheerful entry for many a long day: "Land!
+land! after nearly two years we again see something rising above that
+never-ending white line on the horizon yonder--a new life is beginning
+for us!"
+
+Only two dogs were now left to drag the sledges, so the two explorers
+were obliged to help with the dragging. For thirteen days they
+proceeded in the direction of land, dragging and pushing their burdens
+over the ridges of ice with thawing snow. At last on 7th August they
+stood at the edge of the ice. Behind lay their troubles; before was
+the waterway home. Then they launched their little kayaks, which
+danced over the open waters, the little waves splashing against their
+sides. When the mist cleared they found themselves on the west coast
+of Franz Josef Land, discovered by an Austro-Hungarian expedition in
+1874.
+
+They were full of hope, when a cruel disappointment damped their joy.
+They had landed and were camping on the shore, when a great storm arose
+and the wind blew the drift ice down till it lay packed along the coast.
+The little ships were frozen in, and there was no hope of reaching
+home that winter. Here they were doomed to stay. Fortunately there
+were bears and walrus, so they could not starve, and with magnificent
+pluck they set to work to prepare for the winter. For many a long day
+they toiled at the necessary task of skinning and cutting up walrus
+till they were saturated with blubber, oil, and blood, but soon they
+had two great heaps of blubber and meat on shore well covered over
+with walrus hides.
+
+[Illustration: THE SHIP THAT WENT FARTHEST NORTH: THE _FRAM_. From
+a photograph.]
+
+September was occupied in building a hut amid the frost and snow with
+walrus hides and tusks, warmed inside with train-oil lamps. Here under
+bear skins they slept and passed the long months of winter. In October
+the sun disappeared, the days grew darker. Life grew very monotonous,
+for it was the third Polar winter the explorers had been called on
+to spend. They celebrated Christmas Day, Nansen by washing himself
+in a "quarter of a cup of warm water," Johansen by turning his shirt.
+The weather outside was stormy and almost took their breath away with
+its icy coldness. They longed for a book, but they wiled away the hours
+by trying to calculate how far the _Fram_ could have drifted and when
+she was likely to reach home. They were distressed at the dirt of their
+clothes, and longed to be able to throw away the heavy oily rags that
+seemed glued to their bodies. They had no soap, and water had no effect
+on the horrible grease. It was May before the weather allowed them
+to leave the hut at last. Hopefully they dragged their kayaks over
+the snow, the sledge runners fastened on to their feet, and so made
+their way southwards down Franz Josef Land.
+
+Once Nansen was very nearly drowned. The explorers had reached the
+south of the Islands, and, having moored their little boats together,
+they ascended a hummock close by, when to their horror they saw the
+kayaks were adrift. Nansen rushed down, threw off some clothes, and
+sprang into the water after them. He was none too soon, for already
+the boats were drifting rapidly away. The water was icy cold, but it
+was a case of life or death. Without the boats they were lost men.
+"All we possessed was on board," says Nansen, "so I exerted myself
+to the utmost. I redoubled my exertions though I felt my limbs gradually
+stiffening; at last I was able to stretch out my hand to the edge of
+the kayak. I tried to pull myself up, but the whole of my body was
+stiff with cold. After a time I managed to swing one leg up on to the
+edge and to tumble up. Nor was it easy to paddle in the double vessel;
+the gusts of wind seemed to go right through me as I stood there in
+my wet woollen shirt. I shivered, my teeth chattered, and I was numb
+all over. At last I managed to reach the edge of the ice. I shook and
+trembled all over, while Johansen pulled off the wet things and packed
+me into the sleeping-bag. The critical situation was saved."
+
+And now came one of those rare historic days in the history of
+exploration. It was 17th June 1896. Nansen was surveying the lonely
+line of coast, when suddenly the barking of a dog fell on his ear,
+and soon in front he saw the fresh tracks of some animal. "It was with
+a strange mixture of feelings," he says, "that I made my way among
+the numerous hummocks towards land. Suddenly I thought I heard a human
+voice--the first for three years. How my heart beat and the blood rushed
+to my brain as I halloed with all the strength of my lungs. Soon I
+heard another shout and saw a dark form moving among the hummocks.
+It was a man. We approached one another quickly. I waved my hat; he
+did the same. As I drew nearer I thought I recognised Mr. Jackson,
+whom I remembered once to have seen. I raised my hat; we extended a
+hand to one another with a hearty 'How do you do?' Above us a roof
+of mist, beneath our feet the rugged packed drift ice."
+
+"Ar'n't you Nansen?" he said.
+
+"Yes, I am," was the answer.
+
+And, seizing the grimy hand of the Arctic explorer, he shook it warmly,
+congratulating him on his successful trip. Jackson and his companions
+had wintered at Cape Flora, the southern point of Franz Josef Land,
+and they were expecting a ship, the _Windward_, to take them home.
+On 26th July the _Windward_ steamed slowly in, and by 13th August she
+reached Norway, and the news of Nansen's safe arrival was made known
+to the whole world. A week later the little _Fram_, "strong and broad
+and weather-beaten," also returned in safety. And on 9th September
+1896, Nansen and his brave companions on board the _Fram_ sailed up
+Christiania Fjiord in triumph.
+
+He had reached a point farthest North, and been nearer to the North
+Pole than had any explorer before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII
+
+PEARY REACHES THE NORTH POLE
+
+
+The 6th April 1909 is a marked day in the annals of exploration, for
+on that day Peary succeeded in reaching the North Pole, which for
+centuries had defied the efforts of man; on that day he attained the
+goal for which the greatest nations of the world had struggled for
+over four hundred years. Indeed, he had spent twenty-three years of
+his own life labouring toward this end.
+
+He was mainly inspired by reading Nordenskiold's _Exploration of
+Greenland_, when a lieutenant in the United States Navy. In 1886 he
+got leave to join an expedition to Greenland, and returned with the
+Arctic fever in his veins and a scheme for crossing that continent
+as far north as possible. This after many hardships he accomplished,
+being the first explorer to discover that Greenland was an island.
+Peary was now stamped as a successful Arctic explorer. The idea of
+reaching the North Pole began to take shape, and in order to raise
+funds the enthusiastic explorer delivered no less than one hundred
+and sixty-eight lectures in ninety-six days. With the proceeds he
+chartered the _Falcon_ and left the shores of Philadelphia in June
+1893 for Greenland. His wife, who accompanied him before, accompanied
+him again, and with sledges and dogs on board they made their way up
+the western coast of Greenland. Arrived at Melville Bay, Peary built
+a little hut; here a little daughter was born who was soon "bundled
+in soft warm Arctic furs and wrapped in the Stars and Stripes." No
+European child had ever been born so far north as this; the Eskimos
+travelled from long distances to satisfy themselves she was not made
+of snow, and for the first six months of her life the baby lived in
+continuous lamplight.
+
+But we cannot follow Peary through his many Polar expeditions; his
+toes had been frozen off in one, his leg broken in another, but he
+was enthusiastic enough when all preparations were complete for the
+last and greatest expedition of all.
+
+The _Roosevelt_, named after the President of the United States, had
+carried him safely to the north of Greenland in his last expedition,
+so she was again chosen, and in July 1908, Peary hoisted the Stars
+and Stripes and steamed from New York.
+
+"As the ship backed out into the river, a cheer went up from the
+thousands who had gathered on the piers to see us off. It was an
+interesting coincidence that the day on which we started for the
+coldest spot on earth was about the hottest which New York had known
+for years. As we steamed up the river, the din grew louder and louder;
+we passed President Roosevelt's naval yacht, the _Mayflower_, and her
+small gun roared out a parting salute--surely no ship ever started
+for the ends of the earth with more heart-stirring farewells."
+
+President Roosevelt had himself inspected the ship and shaken hands
+with each member of the expedition.
+
+"I believe in you, Peary," he had said, "and I believe in your success,
+if it is within the possibility of man." So the little _Roosevelt_
+steamed away; on 26th July the Arctic Circle was crossed by Peary for
+the twentieth time, and on 1st August, Cape York, the most northerly
+home of human beings in the world, was reached. This was the dividing
+line between the civilised world on one hand and the Arctic world on
+the other. Picking up several Eskimo families and about two hundred
+and fifty dogs, they steamed on northwards.
+
+"Imagine," says Peary--"imagine about three hundred and fifty miles
+of almost solid ice, ice of all shapes and sizes, mountainous ice,
+flat ice, ragged and tortured ice; then imagine a little black ship,
+solid, sturdy, compact, strong, and resistant, and on this little ship
+are sixty-nine human beings, who have gone out into the crazy,
+ice-tortured channel between Baffin Bay and the Polar sea--gone out
+to prove the reality of a dream in the pursuit of which men have frozen
+and starved and died."
+
+The usual course was taken, across Smith's Sound and past the desolate
+wind-swept rocks of Cape Sabine, where, in 1884, Greely's ill-fated
+party slowly starved to death, only seven surviving out of
+twenty-four.
+
+Fog and ice now beset the ship, and on 5th September they were compelled
+to seek winter quarters, for which they chose Cape Sheridan, where
+Peary had wintered before in 1905. Here they unloaded the _Roosevelt_,
+and two hundred and forty-six Eskimo dogs were at once let loose to
+run about in the snow. A little village soon grew up, and the Eskimos,
+both men and women, went hunting as of yore. Peary had decided to start
+as before from Cape Columbia, some ninety miles away, the most
+northerly point of Grant Land, for his dash to the Pole.
+
+On 12th October the sun disappeared and they entered cheerfully into
+the "Great Dark."
+
+"Imagine us in our winter home," says Peary, "four hundred and fifty
+miles from the North Pole, the ship held tight in her icy berth one
+hundred and fifty yards from the shore, ship and the surrounding world
+covered with snow, the wind creaking in the rigging, whistling and
+shrieking around the corners of the deck houses, the temperature
+ranging from zero to sixty below, the icepack in the channel outside
+us groaning and complaining with the movement of the tides."
+
+Christmas passed with its usual festivities. There were races for the
+Eskimos, one for the children, one for the men, and one for the Eskimo
+mothers, who carried babies in their fur hoods. These last, looking
+like "animated walruses," took their race at a walking pace.
+
+At last, on 15th February 1909, the first sledge-party left the ship
+for Cape Columbia, and a week later Peary himself left the _Roosevelt_
+with the last loads. The party assembled at Cape Columbia for the great
+journey north, which consisted of seven men of Peary's party,
+fifty-nine Eskimos, one hundred and forty dogs, and twenty-eight
+sledges. Each sledge was complete in itself; each had its cooking
+utensils, its four men, its dogs and provisions for fifty or sixty
+days. The weather was "clear, calm, and cold."
+
+On 1st March the cavalcade started off from Cape Columbia in a freezing
+east wind, and soon men and dogs became invisible amid drifting snow.
+Day by day they went forward, undaunted by the difficulties and
+hardships of the way, now sending back small parties to the depot at
+Cape Columbia, now dispatching to the home camp some reluctant
+explorer with a frostbitten heel or foot, now delayed by open water,
+but on, on, till they had broken all records, passed all tracks even
+of the Polar bear, passed the 87th parallel into the region of perpetual
+daylight for half the year. It was here, apparently within reach of
+his goal, that Peary had to turn back three years before for want of
+food.
+
+Thus they marched for a month; party after party had been sent back,
+till the last supporting party had gone and Peary was left with his
+black servant, Henson, and four Eskimos. He had five sledges, forty
+picked dogs, and supplies for forty days when he started off alone
+to dash the last hundred and thirty-three miles to the Pole itself.
+Every event in the next week is of thrilling interest. After a few
+hours of sleep the little party started off shortly after midnight
+on 2nd April 1909. Peary was leading.
+
+"I felt the keenest exhilaration as I climbed over the ridge and
+breasted the keen air sweeping over the mighty ice, pure and straight
+from the Pole itself."
+
+They might yet be stopped by open water from reaching the goal. On
+they went, twenty-five miles in ten hours, then a little sleep, and
+so on again, then a few hours' rest and another twenty miles till they
+had reached latitude 89 degrees.
+
+Still breathlessly they hurried forward, till on the 5th they were
+but thirty-five miles from the Pole.
+
+"The sky overhead was a colourless pall, gradually deepening to almost
+black at the horizon, and the ice was a ghastly and chalky white."
+
+On 6th April the Pole was reached.
+
+"The Pole at last!" writes Peary in his diary. "The prize of three
+centuries! My dream and goal for twenty years. Mine at last! I cannot
+bring myself to realise it. It all seems so simple and commonplace."
+
+Flags were at once hoisted on ice lances, and the successful explorer
+watched them proudly waving in the bright Arctic sunlight at the Pole.
+Through all his perilous expeditions to the Arctic regions, Peary had
+worn a silken flag, worked by his wife, wrapped round his body. He
+now flew it on this historic spot, "which knows no North, nor West,
+nor East."
+
+[Illustration: PEARY'S FLAG FLYING AT THE NORTH POLE, APRIL 1909. By
+the courteous permission of Admiral Peary, from his book _The North
+Pole_, published by Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton.]
+
+Not a vestige of land was to be seen; nothing but ice lay all around.
+They could not stay long, for provisions would run short, and the ice
+might melt before their return journey was accomplished.
+
+So after a brief rest they started off for Cape Columbia, which they
+reached after a wild rush of sixteen days. It had taken them
+thirty-seven days to cover the four hundred and seventy-five miles
+from Cape Columbia to the Pole, from which they had returned at the
+rate of thirty miles a day.
+
+The whole party then started for the _Roosevelt_, and on 18th July
+she was taken from her winter quarters and turned towards home. Then
+came the day when wireless telegraphy flashed the news through the
+whole of the civilised world: "Stars and Stripes nailed to the North
+Pole."
+
+The record of four hundred years of splendid self-sacrifice and
+heroism unrivalled in the history of exploration had been crowned at
+last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII
+
+THE QUEST FOR THE SOUTH POLE
+
+
+An American had placed the Stars and Stripes on the North Pole in 1909.
+It was a Norwegian who succeeded in reaching the South Pole in 1911.
+But the spade-work which contributed so largely to the final success
+had been done so enthusiastically by two Englishmen that the
+expeditions of Scott and Shackleton must find a place here before we
+conclude this _Book of Discovery_ with Amundsen's final and brilliant
+dash.
+
+The crossing of the Antarctic Circle by the famous _Challenger_
+expedition in 1874 revived interest in the far South. The practical
+outcome of much discussion was the design of the _Discovery_, a ship
+built expressly for scientific exploration, and the appointment of
+Captain Scott to command an Antarctic expedition.
+
+In August 1901, Scott left the shores of England, and by way of New
+Zealand crossed the Antarctic Circle on 3rd January 1902. Three weeks
+later he reached the Great Ice Barrier which had stopped Ross in 1840.
+For a week Scott steamed along the Barrier. Mounts Erebus and Terror
+were plainly visible, and though he could nowhere discover Parry
+Mountains, yet he found distant land rising high above the sea, which
+he named King Edward VII.'s Land. Scott had brought with him a captive
+balloon in which he now rose to a height of eight hundred feet, from
+which he saw an unbroken glacier stream of vast extent stretching to
+the south. It was now time to seek for winter quarters, and Scott,
+returning to McMurdo Bay named by Ross, found that it was not a bay
+at all, but a strait leading southward. Here they landed their stores,
+set up their hut, and spent the winter, till on 2nd November 1902 all
+was ready for a sledge-journey to the south. For fifty-nine days Scott
+led his little land-party of three, with four sledges and nineteen
+dogs, south. But the heavy snow was too much for the dogs, and one
+by one died, until not one was left and the men had to drag and push
+the sledges themselves. Failing provisions at last compelled them to
+stop. Great mountain summits were seen beyond the farthest point
+reached.
+
+"We have decided at last we have found something which is fitting to
+bear the name of him whom we most delight to honour," says Scott, "and
+Mount Markham it shall be called in memory of the father of the
+expedition."
+
+It was 30th December when a tremendous blizzard stayed their last
+advance. "Chill and hungry," they lay all day in their sleeping-bags,
+miserable at the thought of turning back, too weak and ill to go on.
+With only provisions for a fortnight, they at last reluctantly turned
+home, staggering as far as their depot in thirteen days. Shackleton
+was smitten with scurvy; he was growing worse every day, and it was
+a relief when on 2nd February they all reached the ship alive, "as
+near spent as three persons can well be." But they had done well: they
+had made the first long land journey ever made in the Antarctic; they
+had reached a point which was farthest south; they had tested new
+methods of travel; they had covered nine hundred and sixty miles in
+ninety-three days. Shackleton was now invalided home, but it was not
+till 1904 that the _Discovery_ escaped from the frozen harbour to make
+her way home.
+
+Shackleton had returned to England in 1903, but the mysterious South
+Pole amid its wastes of ice and snow still called him back, and in
+command of the _Nimrod_ he started forth in August 1907 on the next
+British Antarctic expedition, carrying a Union Jack, presented by the
+Queen, to plant on the spot farthest south. He actually placed it within
+ninety-seven miles of the Pole itself!
+
+With a petrol motor-car on board, Eskimo dogs, and Manchurian ponies,
+he left New Zealand on 1st January 1908, watched and cheered by some
+thirty thousand of his fellow-countrymen. Three weeks later they were
+in sight of the Great Ice Barrier, and a few days later the huge
+mountains of Erebus and Terror came into sight. Shackleton had hoped
+to reach King Edward VII.'s Land for winter quarters, but a formidable
+ice-pack prevented this, and they selected a place some twenty miles
+north of the _Discovery's_ old winter quarters. Getting the wild
+little Manchurian ponies ashore was no light job; the poor little
+creatures were stiff after a month's constant buffeting, for the
+_Nimrod's_ passage had been stormy. One after another they were now
+led out of their stalls into a horse-box and slung over the ice. Once
+on _terra firma_ they seemed more at home, for they immediately began
+pawing the snow as they were wont to do in their far-away Manchurian
+home.
+
+[Illustration: SHACKLETON'S SHIP, THE _NIMROD_, AMONG THE ICE IN
+McMURDO SOUND, THE WINTER LAND QUARTERS OF THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC
+EXPEDITION. _By Sir Ernest Shackleton's permission from his book "The
+Heart of the Antarctic," published by Mr. Heinemann_.]
+
+The spacious hut, brought out by Shackleton, was soon erected. Never
+was such a luxurious house set up on the bleak shores of the Polar
+seas. There was a dark room for developing, acetylene gas for lighting,
+a good stove for warming, and comfortable cubicles decorated with
+pictures. The dark room was excellent, and never was a book of travels
+more beautifully illustrated than Shackleton's _Heart of the
+Antarctic_.
+
+True, during some of the winter storms and blizzards the hut shook
+and trembled so that every moment its occupants thought it would be
+carried bodily away, but it stood its ground all right. The long winter
+was spent as usual in preparing for the spring expedition to the south,
+but it was 29th October 1908 before the weather made it possible to
+make a start. The party consisted of Shackleton, Adams, Marshall, and
+Wild, each leading a pony which dragged a sledge with food for
+ninety-one days.
+
+"A glorious day for our start," wrote Shackleton in his diary,
+"brilliant sunshine and a cloudless sky. As we left the hut where we
+had spent so many months in comfort we had a feeling of real regret
+that never again would we all be together there. A clasp of the hands
+means more than many words, and as we turned to acknowledge the men's
+cheer, and saw them standing on the ice by the familiar cliffs, I felt
+we must try to do well for the sake of every one concerned in the
+expedition."
+
+New land in the shape of ice-clad mountains greeted the explorers on
+22nd November. "It is a wonderful place we are in, all new to the world,"
+says Shackleton; "there is an impression of limitless solitude about
+it that makes us feel so small as we trudge along, a few dark specks
+on the snowy plain."
+
+They now had to quit the Barrier in order to travel south. Fortunately
+they found a gap, called the Southern Gateway, which afforded a direct
+line to the Pole. But their ponies had suffered badly during the march;
+they had already been obliged to shoot three of them, and on 7th
+December the last pony fell down a crevasse and was killed. They had
+now reached a great plateau some seven thousand feet above the sea;
+it rose steadily toward the south, and Christmas Day found them "lying
+in a little tent, isolated high on the roof of the world, far from
+the ways trodden by man." With forty-eight degrees of frost, drifting
+snow, and a biting wind, they spent the next few days hauling their
+sledges up a steep incline. They had now only a month's food left.
+Pressing on with reduced rations, in the face of freezing winds, they
+reached a height of ten thousand and fifty feet.
+
+It was the 6th of January, and they were in latitude 88 degrees, when
+a "blinding, shrieking blizzard" made all further advance impossible.
+For sixty hours the four hungry explorers lay in their sleeping-bags,
+nearly perished with cold. "The most trying day we have yet spent,"
+writes Shackleton, "our fingers and faces being continually
+frostbitten. To-morrow we will rush south with the flag. It is our
+last outward march."
+
+The gale breaking, they marched on till 9th January, when they stopped
+within ninety-seven miles of the Pole, where they hoisted the Union
+Jack, and took possession of the great plateau in the King's name.
+
+"We could see nothing but the dead-white snow plain. There was no break
+in the plateau as it extended towards the Pole. I am confident that
+the Pole lies on the great plateau we have discovered miles and miles
+from any outstanding land."
+
+And so the four men turned homewards. "Whatever our regret may be,
+we have done our best," said the leader somewhat sadly. Blinding
+blizzards followed them as they made their way slowly back. On 28th
+January they reached the Great Ice Barrier. Their food was well-nigh
+spent; their daily rations consisted of six biscuits and some
+horse-meat in the shape of the Manchurian ponies they had shot and
+left the November before. But it disagreed with most of them, and it
+was four very weak and ailing men who staggered back to the _Nimrod_
+toward the end of February 1909.
+
+Shackleton reached England in the autumn of 1909 to find that another
+Antarctic expedition was to leave our shores in the following summer
+under the command of Scott, in the _Terra Nova_. It was one of the
+best-equipped expeditions that ever started; motor-sledges had been
+specially constructed to go over the deep snow, which was fatal to
+the motor-car carried by Shackleton. There were fifteen ponies and
+thirty dogs. Leaving England in July 1910, Scott was established in
+winter quarters in McMurdo Sound by 26th January 1911. It was November
+before he could start on the southern expedition.
+
+"We left Hut Point on the evening of 2nd November. For sixty miles
+we followed the track of the motors (sent on five days before). The
+ponies are going very steadily. We found the motor party awaiting us
+in latitude 80-1/2 degrees south. The motors had proved entirely
+satisfactory, and the machines dragged heavy loads over the worst part
+of the Barrier surface, crossing several crevasses. The sole cause
+of abandonment was the overheating of the air-cooled engines. We are
+building snow cairns at intervals of four miles to guide homeward
+parties and leaving a week's provisions at every degree of latitude.
+As we proceeded the weather grew worse, and snowstorms were frequent.
+The sky was continually overcast, and the land was rarely visible.
+The ponies, however, continued to pull splendidly."
+
+As they proceeded south they encountered terrific storms of wind and
+snow, out of which they had constantly to dig the ponies. Christmas
+passed and the New Year of 1912 dawned. On 3rd January when one hundred
+and fifty miles from the Pole, "I am going forward," says Scott, "with
+a party of five men with a month's provisions, and the prospect of
+success seems good, provided that the weather holds and no unforeseen
+obstacles arise."
+
+Scott and his companions successfully attained the object of their
+journey. They reached the South Pole on 17th January only to find that
+they had been forestalled by others! And it is remarkable to note that
+so correct were their observations, the two parties located the Pole
+within half a mile of one another.
+
+Scott's return journey ended disastrously. Blinding blizzards
+prevented rapid progress; food and fuel ran short; still the weakened
+men struggled bravely forward till, within a few miles of a depot of
+supplies, death overtook them.
+
+Scott's last message can never be forgotten. "I do not regret this
+journey which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardship, help one
+another, and meet death with as great fortitude as ever in the past....
+Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood,
+endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the
+heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must
+tell the tale; but surely, surely, a great, rich country like ours
+will see that those who are dependent upon us are properly provided
+for."
+
+It was on 14th December 1911 that Captain Amundsen had reached the
+Pole. A Norwegian, fired by the example of his fellow-countryman,
+Nansen, Amundsen had long been interested in both Arctic and Antarctic
+exploration. In a ship of only forty-eight tons, he had, with six others,
+made a survey of the North Magnetic Pole, sailed through the Behring
+Strait, and accomplished the North-West Passage, for which he was
+awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. On his
+return he planned an expedition to the North Pole. He had made known
+his scheme, and, duly equipped for North Polar expedition in Nansen's
+little _Fram_, Amundsen started. Suddenly the world rang with the news
+that Peary had discovered the North Pole, and that Amundsen had turned
+his prow southwards and was determined to make a dash for the South
+Pole. Landing in Whales Bay some four hundred miles to the east of
+Scott's winter quarters, his first visitors were the Englishmen on
+board the _Terra Nova_, who were taking their ship to New Zealand for
+the winter.
+
+Making a hut on the shore, Amundsen had actually started on his journey
+to the Pole before Scott heard of his arrival.
+
+"I am fully alive to the complication in the situation arising out
+of Amundsen's presence in the Antarctic," wrote the English explorer,
+"but as any attempt at a race might have been fatal to our chance of
+getting to the Pole at all, I decided to do exactly as I should have
+done had not Amundsen been here. If he gets to the Pole he will be
+bound to do it rapidly with dogs, and one foresees that success will
+justify him."
+
+Although the Norwegian explorer left his winter quarters on 8th
+September for his dash to the Pole, he started too early; three of
+his party had their feet frostbitten, and the dogs suffered severely,
+so he turned back, and it was not till 20th October, just a week before
+Scott's start, that he began in real earnest his historic journey.
+He was well off for food, for whales were plentiful on the shores of
+the Bay, and seals, penguins, and gulls abounded. The expedition was
+well equipped, with eight explorers, four sledges, and thirteen dogs
+attached to each.
+
+"Amundsen is a splendid leader, supreme in organisation, and the
+essential in Antarctic travel is to think out the difficulties before
+they arise." So said those who worked with him on his most successful
+journey.
+
+Through dense fog and blinding blizzards the Norwegians now made their
+way south, their Norwegian skis and sledges proving a substantial help.
+The crevasses in the ice were very bad; one dog dropped in and had
+to be abandoned; another day the dogs got across, but the sledge fell
+in, and it was necessary to climb down the crevasse, unpack the sledge,
+and pull up piece by piece till it was possible to raise the empty
+sledge. So intense was the cold that the very brandy froze in the bottle
+and was served out in lumps.
+
+"It did not taste much like brandy then," said the men, "but it burnt
+our throats as we sucked it."
+
+The dogs travelled well. Each man was responsible for his own team;
+he fed them and made them fond of him. Thus all through November the
+Norwegians travelled south, till they reached the vast plateau
+described by Shackleton. One tremendous peak, fifteen thousand feet
+high, they named "Frithjof Nansen."
+
+On 14th December they reached their goal; the weather was beautiful,
+the ground perfect for sledging.
+
+"At 3 p.m. we made halt," says Amundsen. "According to our reckoning,
+we had reached our destination. All of us gathered round the colours--a
+beautiful silken flag; all hands took hold of it, and, planting it
+on the spot, we gave the vast plateau on which the Pole is situate
+the name of 'The King Haakon VII.' It was a vast plain, alike in all
+directions, mile after mile."
+
+Here in brilliant sunshine the little party camped, taking
+observations till 17th December, when, fastening to the ground a
+little tent with the Norwegian flag and the _Fram_ pennant, they gave
+it the name "Polheim" and started for home.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN ROALD AMUNDSEN TAKING SIGHTS AT THE SOUTH POLE.
+From a photograph, by permission of Mr. John Murray and the
+_Illustrated London News_.]
+
+So the North and South Poles yielded up their well-hoarded secrets
+after centuries of waiting, within two and a half years of one another.
+
+They had claimed more lives than any exploration had done before, or
+is ever likely to do again.
+
+And so ends the last of these great earth-stories--stories which have
+made the world what it is to-day--and we may well say with one of the
+most successful explorers of our times, "The future may give us
+thrilling stories of the conquest of the air, but the spirit of man
+has mastered the earth."
+
+
+
+
+DATES OF CHIEF EVENTS
+
+
+PAGE                                                             DATE
+  4  The oldest known Ships  . . . . . . . . . . . . . B.C. 6000-5000
+  7  Expedition to Punt  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  "        1600
+ 11  Phoenician Expeditions  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  "         700
+ 19  Neco's Fleet built  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  "         613
+ 23  Anaximander, the Greek, invents Maps  . . . . . .  "         580
+ 25  Hecataeus writes the First Geography  . . . . . .  "         500
+ 27  Herodotus describes Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . .  "         446
+ 30  Hanno sails down West Coast of Africa . . . . . .  "         450
+ 32  Xenophon crosses Asia Minor . . . . . . . . . . .  "         401
+ 38  Alexander the Great finds India . . . . . . . . .  "         327
+ 41  Nearchus navigates the Indian Ocean . . . . . . .  "         326
+ 45  The Geography of Eratosthenes . . . . . . . . . .  "     240-196
+ 48  Pytheas discovers the British Isles and Thule . .  "         333
+ 55  Julius Caesar explores France, Britain, Germany .  "       60-54
+ 61  Strabo's Geography  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.D.        18
+ 68  Agricola discovers the Highlands  . . . . . . . .  "          83
+ 71  Pliny's Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  "         170
+ 74  Ptolemy's Geography and Maps  . . . . . . . . . .  "         159
+ 78  The First Guide for Travellers  . . . . . . . . . Fourth century
+ 83  St. Patrick explores Ireland  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432-93
+ 85  St. Columba reaches the Orkney Isles  . . . . . . . . . . .  563
+ 85  St. Brandon crosses the Atlantic  . . . . . . . .  Sixth century
+ 90  Willibald travels from Britain to Jerusalem . . . . . . . .  721
+ 92  The Christian Topography of Cosmas  . . . . . . .  Sixth century
+ 94  Naddod the Viking discovers Iceland . . . . . . . . . . . .  861
+ 95  Erik the Red discovers Greenland  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  985
+ 95  Lief discovers Newfoundland and North American Coast  . . . 1000
+ 97  Othere navigates the Baltic Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  890
+ 99  Mohammedan Travellers to China  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  831
+103  Edrisi's Geography  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1154
+108  Benjamin of Tudela visits India and China . . . . . . . . . 1160
+110  Carpini visits the Great Khan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1246
+112  William de Rubruquis also visits the Great Khan . . . . . . 1255
+115  Maffio and Niccolo Polo reach China . . . . . . . . . .  1260-71
+117  Marco Polo's Travels  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1271-95
+126  Ibn Batuta's Travels through Asia . . . . . . . . . . .  1324-48
+126  Sir John Mandeville's Travels published . . . . . . . . . . 1372
+134  Hereford Mappa Mundi appeared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1280
+137  Anglo-Saxon Map of the World  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  990
+138  Prince Henry of Portugal encourages Exploration . . . . . . 1418
+140  Zarco and Vaz reach Porto Santo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1419
+140  Zarco discovers Madeira . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1420
+142  Nuno Tristam discovers Cape Blanco  . . . . . . . . . . . . 1441
+143  Gonsalves discovers Cape Verde Islands  . . . . . . . . . . 1442
+144  Cadamosto reaches the Senegal River and Cape Verde  . . . . 1455
+145  Diego Gomez reaches the Gambia River  . . . . . . . . . . . 1458
+148  Death of Prince Henry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1460
+149  Fra Mauro's Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1457
+150  Diego Cam discovers the Congo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1484
+152  Bartholomew Diaz rounds the Cape of Good Hope . . . . . . . 1486
+153  Martin Behaim makes his Globe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1492
+160  Christopher Columbus discovers West Indies  . . . . . . . . 1492
+166  Columbus finds Jamaica and other Islands  . . . . . . . . . 1493
+167  Columbus finds Trinidad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1498
+169  Death of Columbus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1504
+170  Amerigo Vespucci finds Trinidad and Venezuela . . . . . . . 1499
+175  First Map of the New World by Juan de la Cosa . . . . . . . 1500
+177  Vasco da Gama reaches India by the Cape . . . . . . . . . . 1497
+181  Pedro Cabral discovers Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1500
+188  Francisco Serrano reaches the Spice Islands . . . . . . . . 1511
+192  Balboa sees the Pacific Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1513
+203  The First Circumnavigation of the World . . . . . . . .  1519-22
+206  Cordova discovers Yucatan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1517
+206  Juan Grijalva discovers Mexico  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1518
+209  Cortes conquers Mexico  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1519
+217  Pizarro conquers Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1531
+221  Orellana discovers the Amazon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1541
+225  Cabot sails to Newfoundland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1497
+228  Jacques Cartier discovers the Gulf of St. Lawrence  . . . . 1534
+236  Sir Hugh Willoughby finds Nova Zembla . . . . . . . . . . . 1553
+238  Richard Chancellor reaches Moscow _via_ Archangel . . . . . 1554
+240  Anthony Jenkinson crosses Russia to Bokhara . . . . . . . . 1558
+244  Pinto claims the discovery of Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . 1542
+245  Martin Frobisher discovers his Bay  . . . . . . . . . . . . 1576
+249  Drake sails round the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1577-80
+260  Davis finds his Strait  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1586
+269  Barents discovers Spitzbergen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1596
+275  Hudson sails into his Bay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1610
+281  Baffin discovers his Bay  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1616
+285  Sir Walter Raleigh explores Guiana  . . . . . . . . . . . . 1595
+290  Champlain discovers Lake Ontario  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1615
+298  Torres sails through his Strait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1605
+299  Le Maire rounds Cape Horn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1617
+302  Tasman finds Tasmania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1642
+306  Dampier discovers his Strait  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1698
+312  Behring finds his Strait  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1741
+322  Cook discovers New Zealand  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1769
+326  Cook anchors in Botany Bay, Australia . . . . . . . . . . . 1770
+333  Cook discovers the Sandwich Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . 1777
+338  La Perouse makes discoveries in China Seas  . . . . . . . 1785-8
+347  Bruce discovers the source of the Blue Nile . . . . . . . . 1770
+353  Mungo Park reaches the Niger  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1796
+359  Vancouver explores his Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1792
+362  Mackenzie discovers his River and British Columbia  . .  1789-93
+366  Ross discovers Melville Bay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1818
+368  Parry discovers Lancaster Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1819
+372  Franklin reaches the Polar Sea by Land  . . . . . . . .  1819-22
+378  Parry's discoveries on North American Coast . . . . . . . . 1822
+382  Franklin names the Mackenzie River  . . . . . . . . . . . . 1825
+386  Beechey doubles Icy Cape  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1826
+388  Parry attempts the North Pole by Spitzbergen  . . . . . . . 1827
+392  Denham and Clapperton discover Lake Tchad . . . . . . . . . 1822
+396  Clapperton reaches the Niger  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1826
+397  Rene Caille enters Timbuktu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1829
+402  Richard and John Lander find the Mouth of the Niger . . . . 1830
+404  Ross discovers Boothia Felix  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1829
+405  James Ross finds the North Magnetic Pole  . . . . . . . . . 1830
+411  Bass discovers his Strait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1797
+413  Flinders and Bass sail round Tasmania . . . . . . . . . . . 1798
+416  Flinders surveys South Coast of Australia . . . . . . . . 1801-4
+421  Sturt traces the Darling and Murray Rivers  . . . . . .  1828-31
+424  Burke and Wills cross Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1861
+429  Ross discovers Victoria Land in the Antarctic . . . . . . . 1840
+432  Franklin discovers the North-West Passage . . . . . . . . . 1847
+440  Livingstone crosses Africa from West to East  . . . . .  1849-56
+452  Burton and Speke discover Lake Tanganyika . . . . . . . . . 1857
+454  Speke sees Victoria Nyanza  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1858
+457  Livingstone finds Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa . . . . . . .  1858-64
+461  Speke and Grant enter Uganda  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1861
+468  Baker meets Speke and Grant at Gondokoro  . . . . . . . . . 1861
+470  Baker discovers Albert Nyanza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1864
+477  Livingstone finds Lakes Meoro and Bangweolo . . . . . . . . 1868
+482  Stanley finds Livingstone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1871
+484  Livingstone dies at Ilala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1873
+499  Stanley finds the Mouth of the Congo  . . . . . . . . . . . 1877
+509  Nordenskiold solves the North-East Passage  . . . . . . . . 1879
+519  Younghusband enters Lhasa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1904
+524  Nansen reaches Farthest North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1895
+534  Peary reaches the North Pole  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1909
+544  Amundsen reaches the South Pole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1911
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abram, 4.
+
+Abyssinia, 344-7.
+
+Afghanistan, 36.
+
+Africa, 20-2, 72, 103, 127, 339.
+
+   "    Central, 349-56, 391-402, 442-500.
+
+   "    South, 152, 173-6, 440.
+
+   "    West Coast, 22, 30, 139, 143-51, 349.
+
+Agricola, 68.
+
+Alaska, 317, 334, 338.
+
+Albert Nyanza, 470.
+
+Albuquerque, Alphonso d', 184-8.
+
+Alexander the Great, 35-43.
+
+Alexandria, 45, 74.
+
+Alfred the Great, 96.
+
+Almagro, Diego de, 220.
+
+Almeida, Francisco, 184-6.
+
+   "     Lorenzo, 185-6.
+
+Alvarado, Pedro de, 206, 208.
+
+Amazon, 221.
+
+America (Central), 168, 170, 191, 205.
+
+   "    (North), 95, 228, 255, 275, 316, 358.
+
+   "    (South), 167, 170, 180, 196, 215, 252.
+
+Amundsen, R., 542-4.
+
+_Anabasis_ (of Xenophon), 34.
+
+Anaximander, 23.
+
+Andes, 217, 220.
+
+Antarctic regions, 331, 428-31, 536-44.
+
+Arab explorers, 98-107, 126.
+
+_Arabian Nights, The_, 101.
+
+Arctic regions, 53, 238, 259-84, 312-8, 365-90, 403-9, 501-10, 521-35.
+
+Arculf, 88-90.
+
+Argonauts, 13-6.
+
+Auckland, 429.
+
+Australia, 296-301, 307-11, 326-38, 410-27.
+
+
+Babylonia, 3-4, 32.
+
+Back, Sir George, 372-4, 382.
+
+Baffin, William, 280-3.
+
+Baffin's Bay, 282-3.
+
+Bagdad, 109.
+
+Bahamas, 160.
+
+Baker, Sir Samuel, 465-73.
+
+Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, 190-3.
+
+Balbus, 72.
+
+Bangweolo, Lake, 477.
+
+Banks, Sir Joseph, 320, 336, 349, 413.
+
+Barents, William, 265-72.
+
+Bass, George, 410-3.
+
+Baudin, Nicholas, 414.
+
+Behring, Vitus, 312-8.
+
+Behring's Strait, 312-8, 334.
+
+Benjamin of Tudela, 108.
+
+Black Sea, 14.
+
+Bogle, George, 512.
+
+_Book of the Tartars_, 97.
+
+Boothia, 404.
+
+Borneo, 102.
+
+Botany Bay, 326, 336.
+
+Brandon's Isle, 86-7.
+
+Brazil, 181, 196.
+
+British Columbia, 358, 362.
+
+   "    Isles, 48, 50-2, 57-60, 66-9, 74.
+
+Bruce, James, 339-48.
+
+Burke, R. O'Hara, 424.
+
+Burton, Sir Richard, 450-5.
+
+Button, Sir Thomas, 280.
+
+
+Cabot, John and Sebastian, 224-7.
+
+Cabral, Pedro, 180-2.
+
+Cadamosto, Luigi, 143-5.
+
+Caille, Rene, 396.
+
+Calicut, 129, 177-8, 181-3, 186.
+
+California, 255.
+
+Cam, Diego, 150-1.
+
+Canada, 228-34.
+
+Cano, Juan del, 204.
+
+Carpentaria, 300, 416.
+
+Carpini, Johannes, 110.
+
+Cartier, Jacques, 228-34.
+
+Caspian Sea, 36, 240.
+
+Cassiterides, _see_ "Tin Islands."
+
+Cathay, _see_ China.
+
+Ceylon, 91, 105, 124, 185-6.
+
+Champlain, Samuel, 290-5.
+
+Chancellor, Richard, 235-9.
+
+Chatham Island, 358.
+
+Chelyuskin, Cape, 504, 522.
+
+Chili, 220, 254.
+
+China, 75, 92, 99-101, 110-24, 130-1.
+
+Chitral, 38.
+
+_Christian Topography_, 92, 133.
+
+Christmas Island, 333.
+
+Chukches, 315, 507.
+
+Circumnavigation of Africa, 19-22.
+
+       "         "  the World, 196-204, 249-57, 308.
+
+Clapperton, Lieut. Hugh, 391-6.
+
+Cochin, 184-5.
+
+Columbus, Christopher, 155-70.
+
+Cook, James, 319-35.
+
+Congo River, 150-1, 480, 491-500.
+
+Cordova, Francisco Hernando de, 205.
+
+Cortes, Hernando, 207-14.
+
+Cosmas, 90-2, 132.
+
+Cuba, 161, 166.
+
+
+Dampier, William, 306-11.
+
+Darien, 168, 191-2.
+
+Davis, John, 259-64.
+
+Davis Strait, 260, 281.
+
+Delphi, 24.
+
+Denham, Major, 391-5.
+
+Diaz, Bartholomew, 151-4, 180-1.
+
+Drake, Sir Francis, 249-58.
+
+Drusus (Germanicus), 69-71.
+
+
+Edrisi, 108.
+
+Egypt, 4-8, 26.
+
+"El Dorado," 222, 285.
+
+Eratosthenes, 45-7.
+
+Erik, 94.
+
+Eskimos, 246, 262, 281, 367, 379, 385, 405, 435.
+
+
+Flinders, Matthew, 410-8.
+
+Floki, 94.
+
+Florida, 205.
+
+France, _see_ Gaul.
+
+Franklin, Sir John, 368, 372-8, 382-7, 482-9.
+
+Franz Joseph Land, 526-8.
+
+"Friar John," _see_ Carpini.
+
+Frobisher, Martin, 245-8, 296.
+
+
+Gama, Vasco da, 171-9, 182-3.
+
+Gambia River, 30, 145, 349, 355.
+
+Gardar, 94.
+
+Gaul, 53-8.
+
+Germany, 55-7, 69-71.
+
+Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 259.
+
+Gobi Desert, 75, 118.
+
+Gomez, Diego, 145-8.
+
+Good Hope, Cape of, 21, 152-4, 174, 181, 257.
+
+Grant, Captain J. A., 460-6.
+
+Greenland, 95, 246, 260-3, 274, 282, 501, 521.
+
+Grijalva, Juan, 206.
+
+Guiana, 287-8.
+
+
+Hanno, 29-32.
+
+Hawaii, 333, 335.
+
+Hawkins, Sir John, 250.
+
+Hayti, 161, 168, 191.
+
+Hecataeus, 25.
+
+Hedin, Sven, 518.
+
+Helena, 77-8.
+
+Henry of Portugal, Prince, 138-49.
+
+Herodotus, 19-22, 26-9.
+
+Himilco, 49.
+
+Holland, 51.
+
+Homer, 16-8.
+
+Honduras, 213-4.
+
+Horn, Cape, 253, 300.
+
+Houghton, Major, 350-1.
+
+Huc, Abbe, 514-8.
+
+Hudson, Henry, 273-9.
+
+Hudson River, 276.
+
+  "    Strait, 248, 277, 281.
+
+Hudson's Bay, 246, 372.
+
+Huron Lake, 294.
+
+
+Ibn Batuta, 126-32.
+
+Iceland, 94, 277.
+
+India, 38-43, 66, 128, 177-86.
+
+Ireland, 59, 63, 66, 69, 83-6.
+
+Ithobal, 20-3.
+
+_Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem_, 78-9.
+
+
+Jamaica, 166.
+
+Japan, 123, 241, 282.
+
+Java, 124, 328.
+
+Jenkinson, Anthony, 240-1.
+
+Jerusalem, 24, 77-9, 89.
+
+Julius Caesar, 54-60.
+
+
+Kamtchatka, 313-8.
+
+Kara Sea, 504, 522.
+
+ "   Strait, 503.
+
+King Edward VII.'s Land, 536.
+
+Kin Sai, 120.
+
+Kublai Khan, 115-25.
+
+Kyber Pass, 38.
+
+
+Labrador, 96, 228, 262-4.
+
+Ladrones Islands, 202.
+
+Lander, John and Richard, 396, 399-402.
+
+La Perouse, Comte de, 338.
+
+Lapland, 238.
+
+Le Maire, Isaac, 299.
+
+Lhasa, 511-20.
+
+Libya, 20, 27-9.
+
+Lief, 95.
+
+Livingstone, David, 440-9, 456-9, 474-85.
+
+
+Machin, Robert, 141.
+
+McClintock, Sir Leopold, 433-9.
+
+McClure, Sir R. J. Le M., 433.
+
+Mackenzie, Alexander, 362-4, 382.
+
+Madagascar, 103.
+
+Madeira, 86, 140.
+
+Magellan, Ferdinand, 190, 193-202, 296.
+
+Magellan's Strait, 198-9, 253.
+
+Magnetic Poles, 405, 430.
+
+Malabar, 182-3.
+
+Malacca, 187-8.
+
+Malay Archipelago, 188-9.
+
+Mandeville, Sir John, 126.
+
+Manilla, 298.
+
+Manning, Thomas, 513.
+
+Maoris, 303, 322.
+
+Maps (ancient), 24, 46, 62, 75, 92, 108, 133-7, 149, 305.
+
+Massoudy, 107.
+
+_Meadows of Gold_, 107.
+
+Mesopotamia, 2-4.
+
+Mexico, 206-14.
+
+Mongolia, _see_ China.
+
+Montreal, 232, 292, 295.
+
+Mota, Antonio de, 241.
+
+Mozambique, 176.
+
+Mumbo Jumbo, 350.
+
+Murchison Falls, 472.
+
+Murray River, 421.
+
+Murrumbidgee River, 420-4.
+
+
+Naddod, 94.
+
+Nansen, Fridtjof, 521-9.
+
+Natal, 175.
+
+Nearchus, 41-5.
+
+Neco, 19-20.
+
+New Albion, 255, 333, 358.
+
+Newfoundland, 96, 225-7, 275.
+
+New Guinea, 298, 303-5, 310.
+
+New Holland, _see_ Australia.
+
+New South Wales, 328, 410, 415.
+
+New Zealand, 303, 322-6.
+
+Niger River, 72, 348, 353-6, 396, 399-402.
+
+Nigeria, 394-402.
+
+Nile, The, 4-9, 27, 339-42, 345-7, 454-62, 468, 470.
+
+Nordenskiold, Baron, 501-10.
+
+North-East Passage, 235-40, 315, 501-10.
+
+North-West Passage, 245-64, 290, 332, 366, 403, 433.
+
+North Pole, 531-5.
+
+Nova Scotia, 229.
+
+Nova Zembla, 237, 265-72, 503.
+
+Nyassaland (and lake), 458-9, 475.
+
+
+Ontario, 294.
+
+Orellana, Francisco de, 220-2.
+
+Orinoco, 167, 285-8.
+
+Otaheite, 320-2.
+
+Othere, 96.
+
+Oudney, Dr., 391-4.
+
+Oxus, 37, 117, 241.
+
+
+Pacific Ocean, 130, 192, 199-203, 250, 253.
+
+Panama, 191, 250, 306.
+
+Park, Mungo, 348-56, 396.
+
+Parry, Sir W. E., 365-71, 378-81, 388-90.
+
+Patagonia, 196-9, 252.
+
+Paula, 80.
+
+Peary, R. E., 530-5.
+
+Pekin, 115, 119.
+
+Pelsart, Captain, 300, 309.
+
+_Periplus_ (of Hanno), 29.
+
+Persia, 32-3, 117.
+
+Peru, 216-20.
+
+Philippine Islands, 202, 256.
+
+Phillip, Captain, 336.
+
+Phoenicians, 10-3, 19-23, 29-32.
+
+Pilgrims, 77-92.
+
+Pinto, Mendex, 241-2.
+
+Pizarro, Francisco, 215-23.
+
+Pliny, 66, 71-3.
+
+Polo, Niccolo, Maffio, and Marco 115-25.
+
+Prester John, 111, 126, 176.
+
+Prickett, Abacuk, 277, 280.
+
+Przhevalsky, N. M., 518.
+
+Ptolemy, 74-6.
+
+Punjab, 39.
+
+Punt, 5-8.
+
+Pytheas, 48-53.
+
+
+Quebec, 290.
+
+Quilimane River, 175.
+
+Quiros, Pedro Fernandez De, 298.
+
+
+Raleigh, Sir Walter, 285-9.
+
+Red Sea, 5-7, 20-1, 343.
+
+Richardson, Sir John, 372-87.
+
+Ripon Falls, 463.
+
+Ross, Sir James, 388, 403-9, 428-31, 433.
+
+Ross, Sir John, 365-8, 403-9.
+
+Rubruquis, William de, 112-4.
+
+Russia, 238-40, 313.
+
+
+Sahara, 391.
+
+St. Brandon, 85-7.
+
+St. Columba, 84-5.
+
+St. Lawrence River, 228, 230, 290.
+
+St. Louis River, 292.
+
+St. Patrick, 83-4.
+
+St. Paul's Island, 200.
+
+Sandwich Islands, 333, 335.
+
+San Francisco, 255.
+
+Sargasso Sea, 50.
+
+Scandinavia, 72, 93, 97.
+
+Schouten, Cornelius, 299.
+
+Scotland, 68, 84-5.
+
+Scott, Captain R. F., 536-42.
+
+Senegal River, 30, 144, 351.
+
+Sequira, Diogo Lopes de, 186.
+
+Serrano, Francisco, 188, 194.
+
+Shackleton, Sir E. H., 536-40.
+
+Shirwa, Lake, 457.
+
+Siberia, 313-8.
+
+Sierra Leone, 29-30, 143.
+
+"Sindbad the Sailor," 101-6.
+
+Society Islands, 322.
+
+Socotra, 184.
+
+Solis, Juan Diaz de, 196.
+
+Somaliland, _see_ Punt.
+
+South Pole, 536-44.
+
+Spain, 49, 64.
+
+Speke, J. H., 450-5, 460-6.
+
+Spice Islands, 188-90, 203, 256.
+
+Spitzbergen, 269, 274, 388, 501.
+
+Staaten Land, 299, 303, 324.
+
+Stanley, Sir H. M., 480-2, 486-500.
+
+Stanley Falls, 494.
+
+Strabo, 52, 61-7.
+
+Sturt, Captain, 418-24.
+
+Sudan, The, 468.
+
+Sumatra, 104, 124, 130, 187.
+
+Sydney, 337.
+
+Sylvia of Aquitaine, 80-2.
+
+
+Tacitus, 69-71.
+
+Tanganyika, 452, 476, 491.
+
+Tartary, 110.
+
+Tasman, Abel Jansen, 302-5.
+
+Tasmania, 302-5, 413.
+
+Tchad, Lake, 392.
+
+Thule, 51-3, 97.
+
+Tibet, 123, 511-20.
+
+Tierra del Fuego, 199, 254.
+
+Timbuktu, 391-8.
+
+"Tin Islands," The, 10, 12, 48-50.
+
+Tippu Tib, 492.
+
+Torres, Luiz Vaez de, 298.
+
+Torres Strait, 298.
+
+Trinidad, 167.
+
+Tsana, Lake, 345.
+
+Tyre, 29.
+
+
+Uganda, 461, 488.
+
+Ulysses, 16-8.
+
+
+Vancouver, 255, 357-61.
+
+Vancouver, Captain, 357-61.
+
+Van Diemen's Land, 302, 410-2.
+
+Vasco da Gama, _see_ Gama.
+
+Vera Cruz, 208-9.
+
+Vespucci, Amerigo, 169-70.
+
+Victoria Falls, 445.
+
+   "     Nyanza, 454, 462, 487.
+
+Vikings, 93-6.
+
+
+West Indies, 160-1, 164-8.
+
+White Sea, 238.
+
+Willibald, 90.
+
+Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 235-8.
+
+Wills, W. J., 424-6.
+
+
+Xenophon, 22-4, 33-4.
+
+
+Younghusband, Sir F. E., 519.
+
+
+Zambesi River, 442-8.
+
+
+
+
+PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
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