328 ORTHODOX GEOGRAPHY. 



meantime the expeditions to Africa became ex- 

 ceedingly unpopular. The priests declared that the 

 holy money was being scandalously wasted on the 

 dreams of a lonely madman. That castle on the 

 Atlantic shore, which will ever be revered as a, sacred 

 place in the annals of mankind, was then regarded 

 with abhorrence, and contempt. The common people 

 believed it to be the den of a magician, and 

 crossed themselves in terror when they met in their 

 walks a swarthy strong-featured man, with a round 

 barret cap on his head, wrapped in a large mantle, and 

 wearing black buskins with gilt spurs. Often they 

 saw him standing on the brink of the cliff, gazing 

 earnestly towards the sea, his eyes shaded by his 

 hand. It was said that on fair nights he might be 

 seen for hours and hours on the tower of Babel which 

 he had built, holding a strange weapon in his hands, 

 and turning it towards the different quarters of the 

 sky. There was an orthodox geography at that period 

 founded upon statements in the Jewish writings, and 

 in the Fathers of the Church. The earth was in the 

 centre of the universe ; the sun and the moon and the 

 stars humbly revolving round .it. Jerusalem was in 

 the precise centre of the earth. In Eastern India was 

 the Terrestrial Paradise, situated on high ground, and 

 surrounded by a wall of fire, reaching to the sky. 

 St Augustine, Lactantius, and Cosmas Indicopleustes 

 opposed the antipodes as being contrary to Scripture ; 

 and there could not be people on the other side of the 

 earth, for how would they be able to see the Son of God 

 descending in his glory ? It was also generally believed 

 that there was a torrid zone, an impassable belt on 

 both sides of the equator, which Providence had created 

 for the lower animals, and in which no man could live. 



