26 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



It was, moreover, a religion that made no war on civilization, 

 either material or intellectual. " Controlling as they 

 did from the seventh century most of the centres of ancient 

 learning in Africa and Asia, the Arabs were able to take 

 advantage of older knowledge " ; and " no race has ever 

 shown a greater keenness for the acquisition of knowledge 

 or more favour to the growth of science." l While 

 Europe sat in darkness, Bagdad became the centre of 

 a splendid civilization. Mahomedans, and not Christians, 

 became heirs to Greek culture. Especially was this the 

 case in respect to geographic knowledge. Ptolemy re- 

 mained unread by Europeans till the fifteenth century. 

 But, already in the ninth century, his books were translated 

 into Arabic, and became the inspiration of a native Arabic 

 science, which in its turn, though not till the thirteenth 

 century, was accepted by Christian scholars like Roger 

 Bacon as their teacher and master. Already in the 

 ninth century, observatories were founded at Bagdad 

 and at Damascus, and the " first school of geographical 

 science since the Antonines " was formed. 2 Arabian 

 travellers co-operated with Arabian men of science, and 

 surveyed every sea from Spain to China, from Cairo, to 

 Madagascar, from Java to Canton. Arabian merchants 

 traded and colonized on the East coast of Africa, on the 



Arabians West coast of India, in Sumatra, in Java 3 and in China. 



traded in The Indian Ocean," writes Sir William Hunter, 



J dVd. 



" became an outlying domain of Islam." 4 Out of 

 Arabian travel-books Arabian writers spun the world- 

 romance of Sinbad the Sailor, " the Arabian Odyssey, '_' 

 " a true history in a romantic setting of Moslem travels 

 in the ninth and tenth centuries." 5 Sinbad's tracks 

 have been traced by the modern scholar, and have been 

 reduced to the prose of geography. His flight from the 

 island, tied to the leg of a gigantic bird called a rue, 

 to the valley of Diamonds, is the romantic way of describing 

 a voyage from Madagascar to India. It is claimed that 



1 Beazley, vol. i. p. 393. 2 Beazley, vol. i. p. 409. 



3 Beazley, vol. i. p. 428. * Hunter, vol. i. p. 47. 



5 Beazley, vol. i. pp. 439-446. 



