100 



THE POPULAK EDUCATOR. 



are unlearned. 12. He is not unlearned. 13. Thou art very learned. 

 14 Why art thou bad ? 15. I am not bad. 16. We are good. 17. He 

 is unlearned. 18. Why art thou unlearned ? 19. I am not unlearned. 

 20. We are safe. 21. Safe are we. 22. Thou art learned and safe. 



EXERCISE 14. ENGLISH-LATIN. 



1. Doctus sum. 2. Non sum doctus. 3. Doctus est. 4. Docti 

 aunt. 5. Mali estis. 6. Non estis mali. 7. Bonus es. 8. Boni sunt. 

 9. Non sunt boni. 10. Cur boni non sunt ? or, Cur non sunt boni ? 

 11. Ceecus est. 12. Non est ceecus. 13. Cur est ceecus ? 14. Non es 

 iudoctus. 15. CBBCUS es et non salvus, or, Csecus et non salvus es. 

 16. Cteci sunt. 17. Boni et salvi estis. 18. Valde indoctus est. 



LESSONS IN GEOGRAPHY. IV. 



ARABIAN NOTIONS EUROPEAN TRAVELS DISCOVERY OF 

 AMERICA. 



FROM the time of Ptolemy down to the tenth century of the 

 Christian era, no geographical work appeared, either to supply 

 the place of his, or to add to the knowledge which it conveyed. 

 The invasion of the Roman empire by the northern hordes, the 

 general anarchy which followed, and the seclusion into which 

 literature was driven, produced a retrogression of all the arts 

 and sciences, and especially of geography. A proper judgment 

 may be formed of the ignorance which prevailed in this science 

 immediately anterior to the time of the crusades, by inspecting 

 a map of the world published at that period. The sea, as in 

 the age of Homer, is made to surround the world, which is 

 divided into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Asia is as 

 large as the other two parts ; Africa is joined to Asia on the 

 south, and the Indian Ocean is made an inland sea. On the 

 east, there is a small place indicating the position of the garden 



i of Eden, by the words Hie est paradisus. Europe and Asia 



j are separated from Africa by a very long canal, which some 

 believed to be the Nile, others the Hellespont, and others again 

 the Indian Ocean. Africa is considered the country of fable 

 and mystery ; its northern part only is seen, the rest is unap- 

 proachable on account of the torrents of flame poured on it by 

 the sun. After the discovery of the Canary Isles and Cape 

 Bojador, geographers represented in one of these islands the 

 figures of colossal statues brandishing formidable clubs to warn 

 navigators that they must not go beyond this point. 



A fantastic dream, filled with chimeras and ridiculous sights, 

 hovered over the world during the middle ages. The cosmo- 

 logical theories then rife, were inferior to the happy notions 

 which prevailed in pagan antiquity. Light, however, had begun 

 to dawn. At the commencement of the eighth century, pious 

 monks had retired into Ireland and the Faroe Isles. In A.D. 

 795 Christian missionaries had visited Iceland, which was 

 considered as the ancient Thule of Pytheas. In A.D. 855 the 

 Norwegians landed on this island; proceeding farther west, 

 they reached Greenland, and enlarged the boundary of geogra- 

 phical knowledge. Certain writers have advanced the opinion 

 that the problem of a communication between the Atlantic 

 Ocean and the great ocean, now called the Pacific, was really 

 current among the maritime people of that period. It is never- 

 theless an historical fact that America had been discovered by 

 the Scandinavians at this remote period. Yet the discovery of 

 Greenland detracts nothing from the glory of Columbus. The 

 hardy adventurers of Norway were the first who penetrated into 

 the midst of the mountains of ice which bristle round the con- 

 fines of the polar countries. We are equally struck with 

 wonder and admiration at their daring 1 courage, in reading the 

 history of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, when we find 

 that all the known seas were during this period covered with 

 the vessels of the Scandinavians. The conquests of these 

 pirates in Europe are well known. Their voyages in the icy 

 regions are almost unknown to the general reader. 



The expeditions we have now referred to were turned to some 

 advantage by the geographers of the period, but all the light 

 they were calculated to give was not rendered available. The 

 learned writers of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries 

 still believed the Frozen Ocean, the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, 



. and the Caspian Sea to be united. They believed that all the 

 northern regions formed only one island. Then the Amazons, 



' those famous warriors, whose country antiquity had placed to 

 the north of the Caucasus, were now removed to the countries 

 newly discovered in the north of Europe. Scandinavia became 



their birthplace and their residence. " The fiction of the A:r.c- 

 zons," says M. Humboldt, " has travelled over all the zones j if 

 belongs to a complete circle, which proceeds from the reveries 

 and ideas in which the poetic or religious imagination of all 

 races of men, and of all periods, instinctively performs its evo- 

 lutions." 



The Arabians, by a series of brilliant conquests under the 

 successors of one of the greatest impostors the world ever saw, 

 had reached a state of comparative ease and power, and had 

 devoted themselves during the dark ages of Christianity to the 

 study of the exact sciences, in as far as they had escaped the 

 ravages of one of their own princes, who destroyed the library 

 of Alexandria, which contained the treasures of the remotest 

 ages. Geography, in connection with astronomy, was one ot 

 the most interesting subjects of their investigation. But their 

 cosmological system was scarcely less absurd than that of the 

 ancients. They divided the world into seven climates, and each 

 climate into a certain number of regions. Although some of 

 the Arabs had made long voyages, and one of their geographers 

 had actually explored Africa as far as the Niger, or Joliba, and 

 the region in which is situated the famous Timbuctoo, still 

 their knowledge of this continent was very incomplete. They 

 always made the Indian Ocean an inland sea; and although 

 they were familiar with the use of the astrolabe (an instrument 

 similar to a quadrant) and the mariner's compass, they were 

 afraid to navigate the open seas, a fact which contributed to 

 their continued ignorance. One of the most learned Arabian 

 geographers of the twelfth century, Edrisi by name, the same. 

 who constructed for Koger, king of Sicily, the famous silver 

 planisphere which weighed 800 marca (about 4001b.) 5 had the 

 most singular ideas of the terrestrial globe. He fancied that all 

 the people of the world lived in the northern regions ; that the 

 southern regions were desert on account of the sun's heat ; that 

 the latter were situated in its lower part; and that, conse- 

 quently, all the waters were dried up, and that no living being 

 could exist in those regions. He asserted that the ocean 

 entirely enveloped the globe like a circular zone, so that only 

 one part appeared like an egg partly immersed in water in a 

 vessel. He placed Africa in the first climate, which commenced 

 at the western sea, called the Sea of Darkness ; and beyond this 

 all existence became impossible. He speaks of the two islands 

 called the Fortunate Islands (the Canaries), from which, as the 

 first meridian, Ptolemy reckoned his longitudes. Such was the 

 state of geographical knowledge among the most learned of tho 

 Arabians. 



The call to arms against the infidels, in the various crusades 

 or holy wars which extended over the greater part of the 

 thirteenth century, drew the attention of Europe to the East. 

 This was the epoch of the travels of Carpini, of Eubruquis, and 

 of Ascelin in Tartary. These adventurers, after they had 

 travelled along the shores of the Caspian Sea to its northern 

 extremity, reached Karakorum, the capital of the empire of 

 Cathay (China), situate on the Orchou, a tributary of the 

 Selinga. The narratives of Ascelin and Carpini reveal the 

 existence of numerous tribes in a part of the world hitherto 

 believed by geographers to be occupied by the ocean. " Eous," 

 says a modern historian, " that fabulous sea of antiquity, the, 

 bed of Aurora, disappeared for ever, and hordes of savages, as 

 well as nations of powerful and warlike people, emerged at once 

 from its imaginary waters." 



The celebrated travels of Marco Polo took place towards the 

 end of the thirteenth century, from 1271 to 1297. Theymr.de 

 known the centre and the eastern extremity of Asia, Japan, 

 part of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, and of the con 

 tinent of Africa, and the large island of Madagascar. Among 1 

 the descriptions of the illustrious Venetian, that of China was 

 the most curious and important ; it was a complete disclosure 

 of that empire, which had been hitherto almost an enigma to 

 Europe. After long and continued suspicions of exaggeration 

 in his narrative, the assertions of Marco Polo have been, after 

 careful examination, acknowledged to be correct and agreeable 

 to fact. It is with justice, therefore, that this traveller has 

 been styled the founder of the modern geography of Asia. A 

 very considerable time elapsed before any addition was made to 

 the brilliant discoveries of the Venetian ; but the testimony of 

 other travellers was not long wanting to confirm his original 

 statements. Oderic, of Portenau, visited India and China from 

 1320 to 1330 ; Schtltberger, of .Munich, accompanied Tamerlane 



