ULTIMA THULE. 85 



by influences so gloomy. It was the belief of all early navi- 

 gators that a point would be found somewhere without the Pillars 

 of Hercules beyond which it would be impossible to penetrate. 

 While timid adventurers declared they had arrived at this point 

 hardly a week's sail from the Straits, and declared that an atmo- 

 sphere of mist, darkness, and gigantic sea-weed barred their 

 passage, Pytheas did not allow his imagination to be affected 

 or his courage to be shaken till he found himself in presence 

 of the sombre and formidable scenery of what, with true geo- 

 graphical propriety, he denominated "Thule and her utmost 

 isles." 



Leaving his animal atmosphere behind him, Pytheas returned 

 to Orcas and from thence to Cantium. Instead of following his 

 former track through the British Channel homeward, he turned 

 to the eastward, and arrived, in a few days' sail, at the mouth of 

 the Rhine. He found the country here inhabited by a race 

 of fierce barbarians. Upon the shores of a vast gulf, beyond, 

 dwelt the Teutons and the Guttones. In this gulf was an island 

 named Abalcia, upon whose shores the waves deposited, in spring, 

 immense quantities of yellow amber, which the inhabitants 

 burned instead of wood, or sold for fuel to their neighbors the 

 Teutons. Pytheas pursued his voyage as far as a river named 

 Tanais, now supposed to be either the Elbe or the Oder. He 

 considered this stream to be the eastern boundary of Celtica, 

 in which he included Germania. He now turned his face home- 

 ward, and, coasting along the shores of Celtica and Iberia, 

 arrived without accident or adventure at Massilia. He had 

 sailed one hundred and eighty-six thousand stadia, or eleven 

 thousand miles: the duration of the expedition was less than 

 a year. 



Geographers subsequent to Pytheas strove zealously to dis- 

 credit his assertions. One denied the voyage altogether ; another 

 questioned the veracity of the narrative. Strabo was particu- 

 larly hostile to Pytheas, whom he said he would prove "a 'liar 



