284 GEOGRAPHICAL SCIEXCE. 



valuable notes about the geography of the countries which he inhabited for 

 such a lon'g time. Upon his return to his country in 1298, he dictated an 

 account of his journeys to a romance-writer, one Rustician of Pisa, who took 

 them down in French eight years before Marco Polo had them written in 

 Italian. This account, valuable and truthful notwithstanding the great 

 credulity of the author, contained the fullest and best description which then 

 existed of Tartary, Mongolia, Cathay or China, and other parts of Central 

 Asia, and was, so to speak, the first effort of picturesque geography. Marco 

 Polo found many imitators, but none of them equalled him. Travellers in 

 Asia up to the fifteenth century consisted almost entirely of Franciscan or 

 Dominican monks, amongst whom may be mentioned Pucoldi of Monte 

 Croce, John of Monte Corvino, Oderic of Frioul, and John of Marignola ; but 

 the most famous of all was an Englishman, John de Mandeville, who, from 

 1322 to 1356, explored nearly the whole of the known world for the mere 

 pleasure of travelling, and who, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land 

 (Fig. 203), explored 'part of Africa and nearly the whole of Asia. The 

 story of his travels, written in English, teems with stories which do not 

 say much for his judgment or powers of discrimination. Several travellers, 

 who had seen fewer countries, displayed better powers of observation and 

 more knowledge of geography, amongst them being Bertrandon de la 

 Brocquiere, a Burgundian gentleman, who was one of the last to start with 

 the pilgrim's staff for Jerusalem. 



The caravan travellers seem to have stimulated the energies of travellers 

 by sea, and hydrography took its place beside geography. The first navi- 

 gators who explored the western coasts of Africa were Portuguese. In the 

 beginning of the fourteenth century (in 1315), Alonzo Gonzales Balduya 

 advanced as far as Cape Bojador, almost within sight of the Canary Islands. 

 The island of Madeira, which an Englishman, Masham, caught sight of in 

 1344, was not positively discovered till 1417 by Gonzales Zarco, who took 

 possession of it on behalf of his master, John I., King of Portugal. That 

 king's son, Prince Henry, surnamed the Navigator, was passionately fond of 

 maritime exploration, and devoted forty-eight years of his life to it. The 

 object of his expeditions was not merely to discover new countries rich in 

 gold, and offering fresh opportunities for commerce ; but, in trying to reach 

 the equator, this enlightened prince had mainly in view the increase of 

 geographical knowledge. The Canary Islands were already known, and the 



