84 VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 



The progress of discovery towards the North 

 has been extremely slow. The ancients possess- 

 ed no accurate knowledge of the countries north 

 tif the Rhine, though they made voyages a con- 

 siderable way beyond that barrier. The accounts 

 of the Hyperborei, as given by Pomponius Mela 

 and Pliny, two geographical writers of great repu- 

 tation, are perfectly fabulous, and afford an in- 

 controvertible proof of the total ignorance they 

 were in respecting the country they pretended to 

 describe. During the long period of the decline 

 and fall of the Roman empire, the desire of dis- 

 covering foreign countries, like other liberal pur- 

 suits, had totally subsided. In the fifteenth cen- 

 tury, however, men awakened from their lethargy, 

 and the voyages of Columbus and Vasco de Gama 

 constitute one of the most important epochs in 

 the history of the human race. The spirit of ad- 

 venture was aroused, and voyagers boldly ven- 

 tured into hitherto unexplored seas. The English 

 and Dutch navigators of the sixteenth century, en- 

 vying the glory and wealth acquired by the Portu- 

 guese in their voyages to India by the Cape of 

 Good Hope, were seized with the same spirit of 

 adventure, and were fired with the hopes of open- 

 ing a new route to those regions, by sailing round 

 the north of Europe and Asia. Though these ex- 



