662 



TRAVELS AND VOYAGES. 



or entirely lost. We know but little of their dis- 

 coveries out of the Mediterranean seu. They dis- 

 covered the island Cerne (Arguin), on the western 

 coast of Africa, the Red sea, Madeira, and the Tin 

 islands (England); they imported amber (probably 

 obtained in their dealings with the Jutes). Their 

 caravans to Asia and Africa gave them a knowledge 

 nl ivrtaiu countries, beyond what we now possess. 

 The Tyrian colony, the powerful Carthage, under- 

 took still more extensive expeditions of discovery; 

 but they are forgotten, and their results have 

 [I'rifln'd with the state itself. 



2. The travels of the Greeks and the military 

 \|'. ditions of the Romans, from 500 B. C. to 400 

 A. D. The Greeks made journeys to enlarge the 

 territory of science. Besides the earlier travels of 

 Herodotus, who has given faithfully the results of 

 experience, and besides the almost contemporary 

 voyages of the Carthaginians, Hanno and Himilco, 

 we are acquainted with the voyage of Scylax of 



nda, who lived about the time of the Pelo- 

 ponnesian war. About 300 B. C., Pytheas of 

 Marseilles first instituted astronomical observations, 

 to determine more exactly the situation of places: 

 he undertook two expeditions to the north ; but 

 we unhappily possess only fragments of the accounts 

 of them. He proceeded even to Thule (Thual, in 

 Irish, signifies the north'), probably Iceland, where 

 the floating ice filled him with surprise, and north- 

 easterly as far as the Dwina, which he believed to 

 be the Tanais, connecting, like a canal, the North 

 sea with the Black sea. Instructed by the ac- 

 counts of Alexander's expeditions, and by the sight 

 of the subjects which this king sent him, Aristotle 

 enlarged the territory of geographical science. 

 Soon after Alexander's death, the materials that 

 had been collecting since Herodotus were employed 

 by Eratosthenes, whom we know only from Strabo, 

 who, 300 years after (A. D. 10), produced a new 

 edition, as it were, of the works of Eratosthenes, 

 in seventeen books. Since Alexander's wars, Asia, 

 as far as the Indus and Ganges, had become better 

 known, and the Greek Macedonian empires, that 

 sprang up there, still farther extended the know- 

 ledge of it. The armies of Rome supplied, in this 

 period, many materials for the knowledge of coun- 

 tries. Asia was directly known to them of India; 

 they obtained a knowledge from Egypt by means 

 of the commercial intercourse between the two 

 countries ; the northern part of Africa was opened 

 to them from Egypt to the Niger ; and in Europe 

 they became acquainted with the peninsula of the 

 Pyrenees, Gaul, South Britain, Germany as far as 

 the Elbe, Dacia and Pannonia. 



3. The expeditions of the Germans and Normans 

 till 900 A. D. The migrations of the nations in 

 the fifth and sixth centuries brought with them 

 information respecting countries which had been 

 unknown or merely the theatre of wild fictions. 

 The Byzantines came in contact with many new 

 tribes, respecting which its writers have left us 

 much valuable information. The Arabians have 

 done much for the more accurate knowledge of 

 the earth by their campaigns, their commerce and 

 their scientific investigations. The sword opened 

 to them a portion of North-eastern, Central and 

 Western Asia, Northern Africa and Spain ; and 

 their commercial expeditions, by sea and land, ex- 

 tended, as far as the Indian islands, China, and the 

 interior of Africa ; but they have done less for the 

 scientific improvement of geography than for the 

 knowledge of different nations. What the Arabs 



contributed by their conquests to tliis knowledge 

 in the eastern part of the known world, tin- Geiinun 

 tribes effected in the west, by coming in close con- 

 tact with the more cultivated nations of the AVr*t- 

 ern Roman empire. Farther to the north, the 

 Normans did more than the Germans ; for we are 

 indebted to them for new, though but accidental, 

 discoveries. In their voyages, they discovered the 

 Faroes, Iceland in the year 8G1, Greenland in !N-J, 

 the western coast of which was immediately occu- 

 pied by Norman settlers; and, twenty years later, 

 the Norman Bjiirn, being driven to the south-\\t>t 

 by a storm, discovered Winlar.d ( Wineland, so called 

 from the wild grapes found there), probably the 

 eastern coast of Labrador, with which the whole 

 description agrees. The great Anglo-Saxon king 

 Alfred, who died in 901, set on foot, about that 

 time, two voyages of discovery under two Normans, 

 viz. Other, who proceeded from Norway round the 

 North cape into the White sea to Biarmen (Permia), 

 and Wulstan, who went from Sleswick to the gulf 

 of Finland. 



4. Besides the commercial and military voyages 

 of the Arabs and Mongols, the travels of the Chris- 

 tian missionaries and some Europeans, down to 

 1400, furnish much valuable information. Pilgrims 

 undertook long journeys ; the crusaders diffused a 

 more correct knowledge of Sclavonian Germany 

 and of Asia; and the popes even sent envoys to the 

 Asiatic sultans, and subsequently to the khans of 

 the Tartars, to avert the further advances of these 

 hordes. Boniface did much for the better know- 

 ledge of Germany by his travels as a missionary in 

 775, St Otho for Northern Sclavonia in 1124, and 

 Ansgarius, who died in 865, for Denmark and 

 Sweden. There were also individual secular tra- 

 vellers, such as John Mandeville of England, in 

 1327; John Schildberger, a German soldier, who 

 was taken prisoner at Nicopolis, in 1396, by the 

 Turks, and afterwards by the Mongols, and thus 

 had an opportunity to become better acquainted 

 with those nations. A hundred years before, about 

 1270, the Venetian Marco Polo travelled through 

 all Asia as far as Cathay (China) ; and at the same 

 time with Schildberger, the brothers Zeno, two Ve- 

 netian nobles, undertook a journey to the north. 



5. The fifth period (from the year 1418) now 

 begins with Henry the Navigator, and Columbus ; 

 and we now first meet with voyages of discovery, 

 properly so called. The invention of the mariner's 

 compass, between 1250 and 1320, by the aid which 

 it furnished to navigation, led to extensive voy- 

 ages. The Italians, especially Venice and Genoa, 

 first set the example ; but their commercial jea- 

 lousy has deprived us of much of the benefits of their 

 acquisitions. Their commercial gains excited other 

 nations to similar enterprises. The Portuguese 

 wars with the Mohammedans made them acquainted 

 with Africa, and the eagerness for further discovery 

 was encouraged and guided by the Infant Henry 

 the Navigator, who pointed out the path to be 

 pursued. Porto Santo, Madeira, the Azores, were 

 discovered between 1418 and 1450; in the latter 

 year, Senegal also, and, soon after, Arguin (the 

 Cerne of the ancients). In 1462, Guinea was 

 reached ; and, in 1486, Barthol. Diaz doubled the 

 southernmost promontory of Africa, which he named 

 the cape of Storms, but which his king, John II. 

 called the cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese 

 Vasco da Gama, discovered the passage to the In- 

 dies around Africa in 1498 ; but Genoa continued 

 to conduct it? commerce through the ancient ch;;n- 



