1 8 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



not impossible ; and that therefore Antipodeans might 

 after all be children of Adam, to be damned, or to be saved. 

 Men, he argues, can live in the Tropics ; and they can live 

 pleasantly in the Southern temperate zone, between 24 

 S. Lat. and 48 50 S. Lat., perhaps even more pleasantly 

 than we can. Dante took the hint of the scholars, and 

 combined it perhaps with some traveller's tale. From 

 the horrid circles of Hell he emerges to find himself in 

 the Antipodes, exactly opposite Jerusalem. Here is the 

 Mount of Purgatory ; on its summit is the Terrestrial 

 Paradise; and in full view are "four stars ne'er seen 

 before save by the ken of our first parents." 



An Italian By the fifteenth century we return to the point from 

 th^South wmc h we started a Utopia in the South devised by 

 an Italian scholar, who tells of its " towns, castles, and 

 empires." " These unknown nations are called the 

 Antipodes ; like us they have plants and animals, and 

 fight great battles." l 



Thus, by the end of the thirteenth century, scholars 

 were once more acquainted with the geographical know- 

 ledge of Greeks and Romans. 2 But they knew little or 

 The nothing more. And what they read they often misunder- 



beginningof t d Wh R Bacon, thoroughly up-to-date, in- 



exploration, 



1253. quisitive, daring, sat down in his Oxford study in 1267 



to write of the world of the South, his best authorities 

 were Aristotle and Pliny, " whom all saints and ages 

 have followed." From Aristotle he learnt that the Garden 

 of Eden was in Australia. From Pliny he learnt that 

 Patala, really at the mouth of the Indus, was " towards 

 the Tropic of Capricorn." And yet, as we read his book, 

 we are conscious of a new spirit which will soon make 

 his geographical statements absurdly out of date. He 

 tells us that he has not been content to read Pliny and 

 other ancient authors. He has also had recourse to modern 

 travellers, and especially to a certain Franciscan brother, 

 William de Rubruquis, whom the King of France had 



1 Rainaud's Le Continent Austral, p. 134. 



2 Cf. map of 1489 on p. 17, taken from Rainaud ; an illustration of 

 the reappearance of Mela's Alter Orbis. 



