the East is placed at Paradise and the
West at the Pillars of Hercules. North and South are left to the
imagination.
And what of the famous map of Juan de la Cosa, once pilot to
Columbus, drawn in the fifteenth century, with St. Christopher carrying
the infant Christ across the water, supposed to be a portrait of
Christopher Columbus carrying the gospel to America? It is the first
map in which a dim outline appears of the New World.
The early maps of "Apphrica" are filled with camels and unicorns, lions
and tigers, veiled figures and the turrets and spires of strange
buildings--
"Geographers in Afric maps With savage pictures fill their gaps."
"Surely," says a modern writer,--"surely the old cartographer was less
concerned to fill his gaps than to express the poetry of geography."
And to-day, there are still gaps in the most modern maps of Africa,
where one-eleventh of the whole area remains unexplored. Further, in
Asia the problem of the Brahmaputra Falls is yet unsolved; there are
shores untrodden and rivers unsurveyed.
"God hath given us some things, and not all things, that our successors
also might have somewhat to do," wrote Barents in the sixteenth
century. There may not be much left, but with the words of Kipling's
Explorer we may fitly conclude--
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges--
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"
Thanks are due to Mr. S. G. Stubbs for valuable assistance in the
selection and preparation of the illustrations, which, with few
exceptions, have been executed under his directions.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE I. A LITTLE OLD WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 II.
EARLY MARINERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 III. IS THE
WORLD FLAT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 IV. HERODOTUS--THE
TRAVELLER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 V. ALEXANDER THE GREAT
EXPLORES INDIA . . . . . . . . . . . 35 VI. PYTHEAS FINDS THE
BRITISH ISLES . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 VII. JULIUS CAESAR AS
EXPLORER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 VIII. STRABO'S
GEOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 IX. THE ROMAN EMPIRE
AND PLINY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 X. PTOLEMY'S
MAPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 XI. PILGRIM
TRAVELLERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 XII. IRISH
EXPLORERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 XIII. AFTER
MOHAMMED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 XIV. THE VIKINGS
SAIL THE NORTHERN SEAS . . . . . . . . . . . 93 XV. ARAB
WAYFARERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 XVI. TRAVELLERS TO
THE EAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 XVII. MARCO
POLO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 XVIII. THE END OF
MEDIAEVAL EXPLORATION . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 XIX.
MEDIAEVAL MAPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 XX. PRINCE
HENRY OF PORTUGAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 XXI.
BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ REACHES THE STORMY CAPE . . . . . . . .
150 XXII. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
XXIII. A GREAT NEW WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 XXIV.
VASCO DA GAMA REACHES INDIA . . . .
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