28 
Arctic and Antarctic Exploration [part i 
vast swamps, and it was only on the downs and hill- 
ranges that there were gwents or open clearings. Still, 
the people raised wheat and other cereals, had domestic 
animals, iron tools and arms, wooden chariots with iron 
fittings, and ornaments of bronze and gold. Pytheas 
must have traversed the great forest of Anderida on his 
way to the tin mines, and he found the people hospitable. 
They did not use open threshing-floors owing to the rains, 
but threshed their corn in large barns. They stored 
the corn in pits under ground, and made fermented 
liquor from barley, which they used as wine. Their 
houses were of wood and thatch, and Pytheas mentions 
the war chariots, but adds that the chiefs were generally 
at peace with each other. 
When Pytheas returned to his ship in some haven of 
Caution he proceeded northwards. His next observa- 
tion gave 17 hours as the length of the longest day. 
This would be in latitude 54 0 2' N., somewhere in the 
neighbourhood of Flamborough Head. Still coasting to 
the north in his great voyage of discovery, Pytheas 
came to a point at the northern end of Britain which, 
by a similar method of finding the latitude, must have 
been Tarbat Ness in Ross-shire. As he advanced to- 
wards the Arctic Circle he found that the cultivated 
grains and fruits and almost all the domesticated animals 
gradually disappeared. The people in the far north were 
reduced to living maijily on herbs and roots. The 
intrepid explorer still pressed onwards to discover the 
northernmost point of the British Isles. Coasting along 
the shores of Caithness and the Orkney Islands he finally 
arrived, conjecturally, at Unst Island, the northernmost 
of the Shetland Isles. Pytheas gives the name of Orcas 
to this extreme point of the British Isles, a name which 
in later times was transferred to the Orkneys or Orcades. 
It was at Orcas that Pytheas received information 
of an Arctic land called Tkule 1 , at a distance of six days' 
sail, and near the frozen ocean. There was no night 
there in the summer solstice. During one season the 
night was continuous, and during another it was con- 
tinual day. Pytheas does not say that Tkule was an 
1 The word Thule, in its forms Thyle, Thull, Tell, means 'a limit' in 
ancient Saxon ; and we thus have Telemarken in Norway. 
