FEBRUARY 7, 1907 | 
INCE AM OW SIS 
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across it; one would have thought that this could 
have been avoided. 
Of English contributors to earth-knowledge at this 
time there were very few. The wonderful Oxford 
philosopher, Roger Bacon (to whom Alma Mater 
ought to put up a statue) certainly knew more about 
the world than most of us are accustomed to think 
was known in his time, and was remarkably up to 
date in his information (pp. 500-507), but there were 
no others like him, nor were any of our sailors or 
chapmen discoverers like the men of Genoa or 
Venice. They were pirates who could gain victories 
over “* Espagnols-sur-mer,’’? but no more. Maunde- 
ville, alas, is now well known to be a fraud. He 
never existed but in the perverse brain of a Liégois 
clerk, John a-Beard, who concocted his tales of 
** Anthropophagi, and men with heads beneath their 
shoulders,’’ from the .true stories of contemporary 
travellers and many an antick tale drest up anew. 
The supposed English ‘ discovery ’’ of Madeira about 
1370 by Machin is probably a myth (p. 441). Edward 
I.’s embassy to the Ilkkhan Arghun of Persia in 1291-3 
under Geottrey of Langley (Galfridus de Langele) is 
interesting, but the ambassador went under Genoese 
guidance, and the English were out of their element 
in those parts. A century later an English constable 
of Guisnes and his secretary took a jaunt to Egypt 
and the Holy Places, and were no doubt grievously 
fleeced by the ‘‘magnus”’ and the ‘‘alius druge- 
mannus,’’ and the usual crowd of guides, donkey- 
boys, and camel-drivers and other demanders of 
bakhshish, much as their descendants might now be. 
But they saw a giraffe, and no doubt that was worth 
the money. The trip cost each pilgrim about 25ol. 
in modern value. Such tours were not uncommon at 
the time: Mr. Beazley mentions some Germans; an 
active knight who ran out to Jerusalem and back in 
less than the space of one year, and another, William 
of Boldensel, who travelled in great state, and was 
so mighty and great that none dared trouble him 
for impost or dues of any kind wherever he went. 
There was also that amusing pedant the Rector of 
Sudheim, who consorted with none but kings and 
nobles the whole time he was away, and when he got 
back no doubt bored the good folls of his Westphalian 
village to death with them for the rest of his life. 
Another German, Schiltberger, was no Boldensel 
or Ludolf; he consorted with kings, it is true, but 
as their slave. Captured at Niccp lis, he was the 
bondman of Bajazet the Turk, and was by the fortune 
of battle transferred to the servitude of Timur the 
Tartar. Only after many years of slavery did he 
escape to his native Germany again. His account of 
the lands in which he lived so many years, from 
Egypt to Siberia, is naturally of the greatest value; 
we wish only that he had told us more. He was but 
an unlettered warrior. 
Of the rule of the second Tartar Empire we have 
further knowledge from an unexpected source. Of 
Catalan mercantile activity we have already spoken. 
The Castillian rivals of Aragon were no traders, and 
their first contribution to geographical knowledge was 
due to an embassy to the East like that of the English- 
man Langley, but more than a century after his time. 
In 1403 King Henry of Castille dispatched the noble 
hidalgo Don Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo as his envoy 
to Timur the Tartar, Tamerlane the Great himself, 
and Mr. Beazley tells us of the terrible journey of 
the Spanish envoys, across the uninhabited wastes 
which the terrible tyrant had made, to his court at 
Samarkand, of what they saw when at last they got 
there, and how they left on their return shortly before 
the conqueror set out on his endeavour to rival 
NO. 1945, VOL. 75 | 
Genghis and conquer China, only to die a few stages 
out of his capital (1405). 
In Spain at this time the Moslem kingdom of 
Granada still existed, shorn of its ancient glory both 
in war and in science. But Moslems still contributed 
to the increase of geographical knowledge, and one, 
from the neighbouring Morocco, was second to none 
as a traveller and recorder of his travels. This was 
the wonderful Shékh Ibn Batdita of Fez, who in the 
fourteenth century traversed the greater part of the 
known world, from Peking to Timbuktu, and wrote 
an account of his travels which, as might indeed 
have been expected, shows far greater intelligence 
than most Frankish records of his time. We wish 
that Mr. Beazley had written more about the Moslem 
geographers. Yakut is dismissed in three lines (p. 
534); Edrisi, in spite of his relations with the Franks 
of Sicily, has but two pages. It is not enough. 
Space forbids further account of the interesting 
things in Mr. Beazley’s last volume. In it there are 
singularly few misprints, and the author has evidently 
submitted his Oriental names to the scrutiny of 
someone familiar with Arabic and Syriac. We have 
no more ‘‘ Jesus Jabuses’’ or ‘‘ Mar Jabalabas’’ in 
this volume, though ‘‘ Nujmuddin’”’ for the name of 
an Egyptian sultan is hardly pretty; let us give this 
“Star of the Faith ’’ his hard Egyptian gim, and call 
him Nigm-ud-din. 
The long-needed index has appeared in the last 
volume, and with its completion let us cordially con- 
gratulate Mr. Beazley on the achievement of his 
work, which is a credit both to him and to his 
University. 
Sinke  WCVEUIBIE, INOVSINTIR, IR OnI3}a, Tae eS- 
IFTY years ago the science of physiology, as now 
understood, was scarcely recognised. It began in 
England when the early anatomists added an account 
of the uses or actions of the several muscles, glands, 
and viscera to the account of their form and structure. 
So in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries each ana- 
tomical description was followed by the word Usus. 
True, experiments were practised from the time of 
Vesalius downward, by Harvey himself, by Redi, and 
by the Rev. Stephen Hales, and often with brilliant 
success. The problems of the circulation, of spon- 
taneous generation, and of blood-pressure in the 
arteries were solved by these admirable experimenters ; 
but their efforts were isolated. Fifty years ago we had 
in England excellent observers with the microscope, 
particularly Sharpey and Bowman; but there was no 
systematic study of the working of the human machine 
by masters like Johannes Miller, Ludwig and Claude 
Bernard, and ‘‘ practical physiology ”’ consisted in little 
more than examining the tissues under the microscupe 
and exhibiting a few chemical reactions of animal 
fluids. Z 
The first attempt to teach the new physiology in 
England is due to Dr. Gamgee, who translated the 
fifth edition of Hermann’s famous text-book. About 
the same time a scientific physician in London gave 
up practice for the sake of investigating healthy 
and morbid functions of plants and animals, as well 
as man; and a few vears later a young country 
surgeon who had already given hostages to fortune 
by a wife and two children persuaded his father to 
let him leave Huntingdon and adopt the fortunes of 
a teacher of physiology. Dr Burdon-Sanderson from 
Edinburgh, and Dr. Michael Foster from Hunting- 
don, taught, the one pathology (human, animal and 
vegetable), the other histology and “‘ the use of the 
microscope.’’ Both were tall in stature and striking 
