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HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



plays the ignorance which then prevailed in geographical science. 

 The sea, as in the age of Homer, is made to surround the world 

 as a river, the land being divided into three parts, Europe, Asia, 

 and Africa. Africa and Asia are joined together in the South, 

 and the Indian Ocean is an inland sea. Asia is as large as the 

 other two continents combined. On the east there is a small 

 spot indicated as the position of the Garden of Eden by the 

 words Hie est Paradisus. Europe and Africa are separated 

 from Asia by a long canal, which may be either the Nile or the 

 Hellespont. Africa is still considered the land of mystery and 

 fable : its northern part only is considered inhabitable, the south 

 being even unapproachable, on account of the torrents of flame 

 poured on it by the sun. The Frozen Ocean, the Baltic, the White 

 Sea, and the Caspian, are all united. The Northern regions are 

 represented as forming one single island. Scandinavia is made 

 the birthplace and residence of the Amazons, the famous women- 

 warriors to whom antiquity had given a home in the Caucasus. 



We shall, in due order, proceed to show that the indirect and 

 remote effect of the Crusades, and of the intercourse produced 

 by them between two totally separated regions, was to induce 

 the Discovery of America, the Doubling of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and the Passage of the Straits at the southern extremity 

 of Patagonia, — results due to Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and 

 Magellan, every one of whom were seeking, in the voyages 

 which have rendered them immortal, another passage to the 

 Indies than that held by the Italians — so far as they could 

 prosecute it in vessels upon the Mediterranean. But, before 

 we can proceed from the coasting enterprises of the Lombards 

 upon the land-locked waters of their inland sea, to the daring 

 ventures of the Portuguese and Spaniards upon the raging 

 billows of the Tropical and South Atlantic, we must turn for a 

 moment to the North of Europe, and inquire into the maritime 

 achievements of the Anglo-Saxons and the Northmen during 

 the Dark and Middle Ages, 



