Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

The Phoenicians are the earliest Mediterranean people in the
consecutive chain of geographical discovery which joins pre-historic
time with the present. From Sidon, and later from its more famous
rival Tyre, the merchant adventurers of Phoenicia explored and
colonized the coasts of the Mediterranean and fared forth into the
ocean beyond. They traded also on the Red sea, and opened up regular
traffic with India as well as with the ports of the south and west, so
that it was natural for Solomon to employ the merchant navies of Tyre
in his oversea trade. The western emporium known in the scriptures as
Tarshish was probably situated in the south of Spain, possibly at
Cadiz, although some writers contend that it was Carthage in North
Africa. Still more diversity of opinion prevails as to the southern
gold-exporting port of Ophir, which some scholars place in Arabia,
others at one or another point on the east coast of Africa. Whether
associated with the exploitation of Ophir (q.v.) or not the first
great voyage of African discovery appears to have been accomplished by
the Phoenicians sailing the Red Sea. Herodotus (himself a notable
traveller in the 5th century B.C.) relates that the Egyptian king
Necho of the XXVIth Dynasty (c. 600 B.C.) built a fleet on the Red
Sea, and confided it to Phoenician sailors with the orders to sail
southward and return to Egypt by the Pillars of Hercules and the
Mediterranean sea. According to the tradition, which Herodotus quotes
sceptically, this was accomplished; but the story is too vague to be
accepted as more than a possibility.

The great Phoenician colony of Carthage, founded before 800 B.C.,
perpetuated the commercial enterprise of the parent state, and
extended the sphere of practical trade to the ocean shores of Africa
and Europe. The most celebrated voyage of antiquity undertaken for the
express purpose of discovery was that fitted out by the senate of
Carthage under the command of Hanno, with the intention of founding
new colonies along the west coast of Africa. According to Pliny, the
only authority on this point, the period of the voyage was that of the
greatest prosperity of Carthage, which may be taken as somewhere
between 570 and 480 B.C. The extent of this voyage is doubtful, but it
seems probable that the farthest point reached was on the east-running
coast which bounds the Gulf of Guinea on the north. Himilco, a
contemporary of Hanno, was charged with an expedition along the west
coast of Iberia northward, and as far as the uncertain references to
this voyage can be understood, he seems to have passed the Bay of
Biscay and possibly sighted the coast of England.

The Greeks.

The sea power of the Greek communities on the coast of Asia Minor and
in the Archipelago began to be a formidable rival to the Phoenician
soon after the time of Hanno and Himilco, and peculiar interest
attaches to the first recorded Greek voyage beyond the Pillars of
Hercules. Pytheas, a navigator of the Phocean colony of Massilia
(Marseilles), determined the latitude of that port with considerable
precision by the somewhat clumsy method of ascertaining the length of
the longest day, and when, about 330 B.C., he set out on exploration
to the northward in search of the lands whence came gold, tin and
amber, he followed this system of ascertaining his position from time
to time. If on each occasion he himself made the observations his
voyage must have extended over six years; but it is not impossible
that he ascertained the approximate length of the longest day in some
cases by questioning the natives. Pytheas, whose own narrative is not
preserved, coasted the Bay of Biscay, sailed up the English Channel
and followed the coast of Britain to its most northerly point. Beyond
this he spoke of a land called _Thule_, which, if his estimate of the
length of the longest day is correct, may have been Shetland, but was
possibly Iceland; and from some confused statements as to a sea which
could not be sailed through, it has been assumed that Pytheas was the
first of the Greeks to obtain direct knowledge of the Arctic regions.
During this or a second voyage Pytheas entered the Baltic, discovered
the coasts where amber is obtained and returned to the Mediterranean.
It does not seem that any maritime trade followed these discoveries,
and indeed it is doubtful whether his contemporaries accepted the
truth of Pytheas's narrative; Strabo four hundred years later
certainly did not, but the critical studies of modern scholars have
rehabilitated the Massilian explorer.

Alexander the Great.

The Greco-Persian wars had made the remoter parts of Asia Minor more
than a name to the Greek geographers before the time of Alexander the
Great, but the campaigns of that conqueror from 329 to 325 B.C. opened
up the greater Asia to the knowledge of Europe. His armies crossed the
plains beyond the Caspian, penetrated the wild mountain passes
north-west of India, and did not turn back until they had entered on
the Indo-Gangetic plain. This was one of the few great epochs of
geographical discovery.

The world was henceforth viewed as a very large place stretching far
on every side beyond the Midland or Mediterranean Sea, and the land
journey of Alexander resulted in a voyage of discovery in the outer
ocean from the mouth of the Indus to that of the Tigris, thus opening
direct intercourse between Grecian and Hindu civilization. The Greeks
who accompanied Alexander described with care the towns and villages,
the products and the aspect of the country. The conqueror also
intended to open up trade by sea between Europe and India, and the
narrative of his general Nearchus records this famous voyage of
discovery, the detailed accounts of the chief pilot Onesicritus being
lost. At the beginning of October 326 B.C. Nearchus left the Indus
with his fleet, and the anchorages sought for each night are carefully
recorded. He entered the Persian Gulf, and rejoined Alexander at Susa,
when he was ordered to prepare another expedition for the
circumnavigation of Arabia. Alexander died at Babylon in 323 B.C., and
the fleet was dispersed without making the voyage.

The dynasties founded by Alexander's generals, Seleucus, Antiochus and
Ptolemy, encouraged the same spirit of enterprise which their master
had fostered, and extended geographical knowledge in several
directions. Seleucus Nicator established the Greco-Bactrian empire and
continued the intercourse with India. Authentic information respecting
the great valley of the Ganges was supplied by Megasthenes, an
ambassador sent by Seleucus, who reached the remote city of
Patali-putra, the modern Patna.

The Ptolemies.

The Ptolemies in Egypt showed equal anxiety to extend the bounds of
geographical knowledge. Ptolemy Euergetes (247-222 B.C.) rendered the
greatest service to geography by the protection and encouragement of
Eratosthenes, whose labours gave the first approximate knowledge of
the true size of the spherical earth. The second Euergetes and his
successor Ptolemy Lathyrus (118-115 B.C.) furnished Eudoxus with a
fleet to explore the Arabian sea. After two successful voyages,
Eudoxus, impressed with the idea that Africa was surrounded by ocean
on the south, left the Egyptian service, and proceeded to Cadiz and
other Mediterranean centres of trade seeking a patron who would
finance an expedition for the purpose of African discovery; and we
learn from Strabo that the veteran explorer made at least two voyages
southward along the coast of Africa. The Ptolemies continued to send
fleets annually from their Red Sea ports of Berenice and Myos Hormus
to Arabia, as well as to ports on the coasts of Africa and India.

The Romans.

The Romans did not encourage navigation and commerce with the same
ardour as their predecessors; still the luxury of Rome, which gave
rise to demands for the varied products of all the countries of the
known world, led to an active trade both by ships and caravans. But it
was the military genius of Rome, and the ambition for universal
empire, which led, not only to the discovery, but also to the survey
of nearly all Europe, and of large tracts in Asia and Africa. Every
new war produced a new survey and itinerary of the countries which
were conquered, and added one more to the imperishable roads that led
from every quarter of the known world to Rome. In the height of their
power the Romans had surveyed and explored all the coasts of the
Mediterranean, Italy, Greece, the Balkan Peninsula, Spain, Gaul,
western Germany and southern Britain. In Africa their empire included
Egypt, Carthage, Numidia and Mauritania. In Asia they held Asia Minor
and Syria, had sent expeditions into Arabia, and were acquainted with
the more distant countries formerly invaded by Alexander, including
Persia, Scythia, Bactria and India. Roman intercourse with India
especially led to the extension of geographical knowledge.

Before the Roman legions were sent into a new region to extend the
limits of the empire, it was usual to send out exploring expeditions
to report as to the nature of the country. It is narrated by Pliny and
Seneca that the emperor Nero sent out two centurions on such a mission
towards the source of the Nile (probably about A.D. 60), and that the
travellers pushed southwards until they reached vast marshes through
which they could not make their way either on foot or in boats. This
seems to indicate that they had penetrated to about 9 deg. N. Shortly
before A.D. 79 Hippalus took advantage of the regular alternation of
the monsoons to make the voyage from the Red Sea to India across the
open ocean out of sight of land. Even though this sea-route was known,
the author of the _Periplus of the Erythraean Sea_, published after
the time of Pliny, recites the old itinerary around the coast of the
Arabian Gulf. It was, however, in the reigns of Severus and his
immediate successors that Roman intercourse with India was at its
height, and from the writings of Pausanias (c. 174) it appears that
direct communication between Rome and China had already taken place.

After the division of the Roman empire, Constantinople became the last
refuge of learning, arts and taste; while Alexandria continued to be
the emporium whence were imported the commodities of the East. The
emperor Justinian (483-565), in whose reign the greatness of the
Eastern empire culminated, sent two Nestorian monks to China, who
returned with eggs of the silkworm concealed in a hollow cane, and
thus silk manufactures were established in the Peloponnesus and the
Greek islands. It was also in the reign of Justinian that Cosmas
Indicopleustes, an Egyptian merchant, made several voyages, and
afterwards composed his [Greek: Christianike topographia] (Christian
Topography), containing, in addition to his absurd cosmogony, a
tolerable description of India.

The Arabs.

The great outburst of Mahommedan conquest in the 7th century was
followed by the Arab civilization, having its centres at Bagdad and
Cordova, in connexion with which geography again received a share of
attention. The works of the ancient Greek geographers were translated
into Arabic, and starting with a sound basis of theoretical knowledge,
exploration once more made progress. From the 9th to the 13th century
intelligent Arab travellers wrote accounts of what they had seen and
heard in distant lands. The earliest Arabian traveller whose
observations have come down to us is the merchant Sulaiman, who
embarked in the Persian Gulf and made several voyages to India and
China, in the middle of the 9th century. Abu Zaid also wrote on India,
and his work is the most important that we possess before the
epoch-making discoveries of Marco Polo. Masudi, a great traveller who
knew from personal experience all the countries between Spain and
China, described the plains, mountains and seas, the dynasties and
peoples, in his _Meadows of Gold_, an abstract made by himself of his
larger work _News of the Time_. He died in 956, and was known, from
the comprehensiveness of his survey, as the Pliny of the East. Amongst
his contemporaries were Istakhri, who travelled through all the
Mahommedan countries and wrote his _Book of Climates_ in 950, and Ibn
Haukal, whose _Book of Roads and Kingdoms_, based on the work of
Istakhri, was written in 976. Idrisi, the best known of the Arabian
geographical authors, after travelling far and wide in the first half
of the 12th century, settled in Sicily, where he wrote a treatise
descriptive of an armillary sphere which he had constructed for Roger
II., the Norman king, and in this work he incorporated all accessible
results of contemporary travel.

The Northmen.

The Northmen of Denmark and Norway, whose piratical adventures were
the terror of all the coasts of Europe, and who established themselves
in Great Britain and Ireland, in France and Sicily, were also
geographical explorers in their rough but practical way during the
darkest period of the middle ages. All Northmen were not bent on
rapine and plunder; many were peaceful merchants. Alfred the Great,
king of the Saxons in England, not only educated his people in the
learning of the past ages; he inserted in the geographical works he
translated many narratives of the travel of his own time. Thus he
placed on record the voyages of the merchant Ulfsten in the Baltic,
including particulars of the geography of Germany. And in particular
he told of the remarkable voyage of Other, a Norwegian of Helgeland,
who was the first authentic Arctic explorer, the first to tell of the
rounding of the North Cape and the sight of the midnight sun. This
voyage of the middle of the 9th century deserves to be held in happy
memory, for it unites the first Norwegian polar explorer with the
first English collector of travels. Scandinavian merchants brought the
products of India to England and Ireland. From the 8th to the 11th
century a commercial route from India passed through Novgorod to the
Baltic, and Arabian coins found in Sweden, and particularly in the
island of Gotland, prove how closely the enterprise of the Northmen
and of the Arabs intertwined. Five-sixths of these coins preserved at
Stockholm were from the mints of the Samanian dynasty, which reigned
in Khorasan and Transoxiana from about A.D. 900 to 1000. It was the
trade with the East that originally gave importance to the city of
Visby in Gotland.

In the end of the 9th century Iceland was colonized from Norway; and
about 985 the intrepid viking, Eric the Red, discovered Greenland, and
induced some of his Icelandic countrymen to settle on its inhospitable
shores. His son, Leif Ericsson, and others of his followers were
concerned in the discovery of the North American coast (see VINLAND),
which, but for the isolation of Iceland from the centres of European
awakening, would have had momentous consequences. As things were, the
importance of this discovery passed unrecognized. The story of two
Venetians, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, who gave a vague account of
voyages in the northern seas in the end of the 13th century, is no
longer to be accepted as history.

Close of the dark ages.

At length the long period of barbarism which accompanied and followed
the fall of the Roman empire drew to a close in Europe. The Crusades
had a favourable influence on the intellectual state of the Western
nations. Interesting regions, known only by the scant reports of
pilgrims, were made the objects of attention and study; while
religious zeal, and the hope of gain, combined with motives of mere
curiosity, induced several persons to travel by land into remote
regions of the East, far beyond the countries to which the operations
of the crusaders extended. Among these was Benjamin of Tudela, who set
out from Spain in 1160, travelled by land to Constantinople, and
having visited India and some of the eastern islands, returned to
Europe by way of Egypt after an absence of thirteen years.

Asiatic journeys.

Joannes de Plano Carpini, a Franciscan monk, was the head of one of
the missions despatched by Pope Innocent to call the chief and people
of the Tatars to a better mind. He reached the headquarters of Batu,
on the Volga, in February 1246; and, after some stay, went on to the
camp of the great khan near Karakorum in central Asia, and returned
safely in the autumn of 1247. A few years afterwards, a Fleming named
Rubruquis was sent on a similar mission, and had the merit of being
the first traveller of this era who gave a correct account of the
Caspian Sea. He ascertained that it had no outlet. At nearly the same
time Hayton, king of Armenia, made a journey to Karakorum in 1254, by
a route far to the north of that followed by Carpini and Rubruquis. He
was treated with honour and hospitality, and returned by way of
Samarkand and Tabriz, to his own territory. The curious narrative of
King Hayton was translated by Klaproth.

While the republics of Italy, and above all the state of Venice, were
engaged in distributing the rich products of India and the Far East
over the Western world, it was impossible that motives of curiosity,
as well as a desire of commercial advantage, should not be awakened to
such a degree as to impel some of the merchants to visit those remote
lands. Among these were the brothers Polo, who traded with the East
and themselves visited Tatary. The recital of their travels fired the
youthful imagination of young Marco Polo, son of Nicolo, and he set
out for the court of Kublai Khan, with his father and uncle, in 1265.
Marco remained for seventeen years in the service of the Great Khan,
and was employed on many important missions. Besides what he learnt
from his own observation, he collected much information from others
concerning countries which he did not visit. He returned to Europe
possessed of a vast store of knowledge respecting the eastern parts of
the world, and, being afterwards made a prisoner by the Genoese, he
dictated the narrative of his travels during his captivity. The work
of Marco Polo is the most valuable narrative of travels that appeared
during the middle ages, and despite a cold reception and many denials
of the accuracy of the record, its substantial truthfulness has been
abundantly proved.

Missionaries continued to do useful geographical work. Among them were
John of Monte Corvino, a Franciscan monk, Andrew of Perugia, John
Marignioli and Friar Jordanus, who visited the west coast of India,
and above all Friar Odoric of Pordenone. Odoric set out on his travels
about 1318, and his journeys embraced parts of India, the Malay
Archipelago, China and even Tibet, where he was the first European to
enter Lhasa, not yet a forbidden city.

Ibn Batuta, the great Arab traveller, is separated by a wide space of
time from his countrymen already mentioned, and he finds his proper
place in a chronological notice after the days of Marco Polo, for he
did not begin his wanderings until 1325, his career thus coinciding in
time with the fabled journeyings of Sir John Mandeville. While Arab
learning flourished during the darkest ages of European ignorance, the
last of the Arab geographers lived to see the dawn of the great period
of the European awakening. Ibn Batuta went by land from Tangier to
Cairo, then visited Syria, and performed the pilgrimages to Medina and
Mecca. After exploring Persia, and again residing for some time at
Mecca, he made a voyage down the Red sea to Yemen, and travelled
through that country to Aden. Thence he visited the African coast,
touching at Mombasa and Quiloa, and then sailed across to Ormuz and
the Persian Gulf. He crossed Arabia from Bahrein to Jidda, traversed
the Red sea and the desert to Syene, and descended the Nile to Cairo.
After this he revisited Syria and Asia Minor, and crossed the Black
sea, the desert from Astrakhan to Bokhara, and the Hindu Kush. He was
in the service of Muhammad Tughluk, ruler of Delhi, about eight years,
and was sent on an embassy to China, in the course of which the
ambassadors sailed down the west coast of India to Calicut, and then
visited the Maldive Islands and Ceylon. Ibn Batuta made the voyage
through the Malay Archipelago to China, and on his return he proceeded
from Malabar to Bagdad and Damascus, ultimately reaching Fez, the
capital of his native country, in November 1349. After a journey into
Spain he set out once more for Central Africa in 1352, and reached
Timbuktu and the Niger, returning to Fez in 1353. His narrative was
committed to writing from his dictation.

Spanish exploration.

The European country which had come the most completely under the
influence of Arab culture now began to send forth explorers to distant
lands, though the impulse came not from the Moors but from Italian
merchant navigators in Spanish service. The peaceful reign of Henry
III. of Castile is famous for the attempts of that prince to extend
the diplomatic relations of Spain to the remotest parts of the earth.
He sent embassies to all the princes of Christendom and to the Moors.
In 1403 the Spanish king sent a knight of Madrid, Ruy Gonzalez de
Clavijo, to the distant court of Timur, at Samarkand. He returned in
1406, and wrote a valuable narrative of his travels.

Italians continued to make important journeys in the East during the
15th century. Among them was Nicolo Conti, who passed through Persia,
sailed along the coast of Malabar, visited Sumatra, Java and the south
of China, returned by the Red sea, and got home to Venice in 1444
after an absence of twenty-five years. He related his adventures to
Poggio Bracciolini, secretary to Pope Eugenius IV.; and the narrative
contains much interesting information. One of the most remarkable of
the Italian travellers was Ludovico di Varthema, who left his native
land in 1502. He went to Egypt and Syria, and for the sake of visiting
the holy cities became a Mahommedan. He was the first European who
gave an account of the interior of Yemen. He afterwards visited and
described many places in Persia, India and the Malay Archipelago,
returning to Europe in a Portuguese ship after an absence of five
years.

Portuguese exploration--Prince Henry the Navigator.

In the 15th century the time was approaching when the discovery of the
Cape of Good Hope was to widen the scope of geographical enterprise.
This great event was preceded by the general utilization in Europe of
the polarity of the magnetic needle in the construction of the
mariner's compass. Portugal took the lead along this new path, and
foremost among her pioneers stands Prince Henry the Navigator
(1394-1460), who was a patron both of exploration and of the study of
geographical theory. The great westward projection of the coast of
Africa, and the islands to the north-west of that continent, were the
principal scene of the work of the mariners sent out at his expense;
but his object was to push onward and reach India from the Atlantic.
The progress of discovery received a check on his death, but only for
a time. In 1462 Pedro de Cintra extended Portuguese exploration along
the African coast and discovered Sierra Leone. Fernan Gomez followed
in 1469, and opened trade with the Gold Coast; and in 1484 Diogo Cao
discovered the mouth of the Congo. The king of Portugal next
despatched Bartolomeu Diaz in 1486 to continue discoveries southwards;
while, in the following year, he sent Pedro de Covilhao and Affonso de
Payva to discover the country of Prester John. Diaz succeeded in
rounding the southern point of Africa, which he named Cabo
Tormentoso--the Cape of Storms--but King Joao II., foreseeing the
realization of the long-sought passage to India, gave it the
stimulating and enduring name of the Cape of Good Hope. Payva died at
Cairo; but Covilhao, having heard that a Christian ruler reigned in
the mountains of Ethiopia, penetrated into Abyssinia in 1490. He
delivered the letter which Joao II. had addressed to Prester John to
the Negus Alexander of Abyssinia, but he was detained by that prince
and never allowed to leave the country.

Columbus.

The Portuguese, following the lead of Prince Henry, continued to look
for the road to India by the Cape of Good Hope. The same end was
sought by Christopher Columbus, following the suggestion of
Toscanelli, and under-estimating the diameter of the globe, by sailing
due west. The voyages of Columbus (1492-1498) resulted in the
discovery of the West Indies and North America which barred the way to
the Far East. In 1493 the pope, Alexander VI., issued a bull
instituting the famous "line of demarcation" running from N. to S. 100
leagues W. of the Azores, to the west of which the Spaniards were
authorized to explore and to the east of which the Portuguese received
the monopoly of discovery. The direct line of Portuguese exploration
resulted in the discovery of the Cape route to India by Vasco da Gama
(1498), and in 1500 to the independent discovery of South America by
Pedro Alvarez Cabral. The voyages of Columbus and of Vasco da Gama
were so important that it is unnecessary to detail their results in
this place. See COLUMBUS, CHRISTOPHER; GAMA, VASCO DA.

Vasco da Gama.

The three voyages of Vasco da Gama (who died on the scene of his
labours, at Cochin, in 1524) revolutionized the commerce of the East.
Until then the Venetians held the carrying trade of India, which was
brought by the Persian Gulf and Red sea into Syria and Egypt, the
Venetians receiving the products of the East at Alexandria and Beirut
and distributing them over Europe. This commerce was a great source of
wealth to Venice; but after the discovery of the new passage round the
Cape, and the conquests of the Portuguese, the trade of the East
passed into other hands.

Spaniards in America.

The discoveries of Columbus awakened a spirit of enterprise in Spain
which continued in full force for a century; adventurers flocked
eagerly across the Atlantic, and discovery followed discovery in rapid
succession. Many of the companions of Columbus continued his work.
Vicente Yanez Pinzon in 1500 reached the mouth of the Amazon. In the
same year Alonso de Ojeda, accompanied by Juan de la Cosa, from whose
maps we learn much of the discoveries of the 16th century navigators,
and by a Florentine named Amerigo Vespucci, touched the coast of South
America somewhere near Surinam, following the shore as far as the Gulf
of Maracaibo. Vespucci afterwards made three voyages to the Brazilian
coast; and in 1504 he wrote an account of his four voyages, which was
widely circulated, and became the means of procuring for its author at
the hands of the cartographer Waldseemuller in 1507 the
disproportionate distinction of giving his name to the whole
continent. In 1508 Alonso de Ojeda obtained the government of the
coast of South America from Cabo de la Vela to the Gulf of Darien;
Ojeda landed at Cartagena in 1510, and sustained a defeat from the
natives, in which his lieutenant, Juan de la Cosa, was killed. After
another reverse on the east side of the Gulf of Darien Ojeda returned
to Hispaniola and died there. The Spaniards in the Gulf of Darien were
left by Ojeda under the command of Francisco Pizarro, the future
conqueror of Peru. After suffering much from famine and disease,
Pizarro resolved to leave, and embarked the survivors in small
vessels, but outside the harbour they met a ship which proved to be
that of Martin Fernandez Enciso, Ojeda's partner, coming with
provisions and reinforcements. One of the crew of Enciso's ship, Vasco
Nunez de Balboa, the future discoverer of the Pacific Ocean, induced
his commander to form a settlement on the other side of the Gulf of
Darien. The soldiers became discontented and deposed Enciso, who was a
man of learning and an accomplished cosmographer. His work _Suma de
Geografia_, which was printed in 1519, is the first Spanish book which
gives an account of America. Vasco Nunez, the new commander, entered
upon a career of conquest in the neighbourhood of Darien, which ended
in the discovery of the Pacific Ocean on the 25th of September 1513.
Vasco Nunez was beheaded in 1517 by Pedrarias de Avila, who was sent
out to supersede him. This was one of the greatest calamities that
could have happened to South America; for the discoverer of the South
sea was on the point of sailing with a little fleet into his unknown
ocean, and a humane and judicious man would probably have been the
conqueror of Peru, instead of the cruel and ignorant Pizarro. In the
year 1519 Panama was founded by Pedrarias; and the conquest of Peru by
Pizarro followed a few years afterwards. Hernan Cortes overran and
conquered Mexico from 1518 to 1521, and the discovery and conquest of
Guatemala by Alvarado, the invasion of Florida by De Soto, and of
Nueva Granada by Quesada, followed in rapid succession. The first
detailed account of the west coast of South America was written by a
keenly observant old soldier, Pedro de Cieza de Leon, who was
travelling in South America from 1533 to 1550, and published his story
at Seville in 1553.

Pacific Ocean.

The great desire of the Spanish government at that time was to find a
westward route to the Moluccas. For this purpose Juan Diaz de Solis
was despatched in October 1515, and in January 1516 he discovered the
mouth of the Rio de la Plata. He was, however, killed by the natives,
and his ships returned. In the following year the Portuguese
Ferdinando Magalhaes, familiarly known as Magellan, laid before
Charles V., at Valladolid, a scheme for reaching the Spice Islands by
sailing westward. He started on the 21st of September 1519, entered
the strait which now bears his name in October 1520, worked his way
through between Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, and entered on the
vast Pacific which he crossed without sighting any of its innumerable
island groups. This was unquestionably the greatest of the voyages
which followed from the impulse of Prince Henry, and it was rendered
possible only by the magnificent courage of the commander in spite of
rebellion, mutiny and starvation. It was the 6th of March 1521 when he
reached the Ladrone Islands. Thence Magellan proceeded to the
Philippines, and there his career ended in an unimportant encounter
with hostile natives. Eventually a Biscayan named Sebastian del Cano,
sailing home by way of the Cape of Good Hope, reached San Lucar in
command of the "Victoria" on the 6th of September 1522, with eighteen
survivors; this one ship of the squadron which sailed on the quest
succeeded in accomplishing the first circumnavigation of the globe.
Del Cano was received with great distinction by the emperor, who
granted him a globe for his crest, and the motto _Primus circumdedisti
me_.

Portuguese in Africa and the East.

While the Spaniards were circumnavigating the world and completing
their knowledge of the coasts of Central and South America, the
Portuguese were actively engaged on similar work as regards Africa and
the East Indies.

With Abyssinia the mission of Covilhao led to further intercourse. In
April 1520 Vasco da Gama, as viceroy of the Indies, took a fleet into
the Red sea, and landed an embassy consisting of Dom Rodriguez de Lima
and Father Francisco Alvarez, a priest whose detailed narrative is the
earliest and not the least interesting account we possess of
Abyssinia. It was not until 1526 that the embassy was dismissed; and
not many years afterwards the negus entreated the help of the
Portuguese against Mahommedan invaders, and the viceroy sent an
expeditionary force, commanded by his brother Cristoforo da Gama, with
450 musketeers. Da Gama was taken prisoner and killed, but his
followers enabled the Christians of Abyssinia to regain their power,
and a Jesuit mission remained in the country. The Portuguese also
established a close connexion with the kingdom of Congo on the west
side of Africa, and obtained much information respecting the interior
of the continent. Duarte Lopez, a Portuguese settled in the country,
was sent on a mission to Rome by the king of Congo, and Pope Sixtus V.
caused him to recount to his chamberlain, Felipe Pigafetta, all he had
learned during the nine years he had been in Africa, from 1578 to
1587. This narrative, under the title of _Description of the Kingdom
of Congo_, was published at Rome by Pigafetta in 1591. A map was
attached on which several great equatorial lakes are shown, and the
empire of Monomwezi or Unyamwezi is laid down. The most valuable work
on Africa about this time is, however, that written by the Moor Leo
Africanus in the early part of the 16th century. Leo travelled
extensively in the north and west of Africa, and was eventually taken
by pirates and sold to a master who presented him to Pope Leo X. At
the pope's desire he translated his work on Africa into Italian.

In Further India and the Malay Archipelago the Portuguese acquired
predominating influence at sea, establishing factories on the Malabar
coast, in the Persian Gulf, at Malacca, and in the Spice Islands, and
extending their commercial enterprises from the Red sea to China.
Their missionaries were received at the court of Akbar, and Benedict
Goes, a native of the Azores, was despatched on a journey overland
from Agra to China. He started in 1603, and, after traversing the
least-known parts of Central Asia, he reached the confines of China.
He appears to have ascended from Kabul to the plateau of the Pamir,
and thence onwards by Yarkand, Khotan and Aksu. He died on the journey
in March 1607; and thus, as one of the brethren pronounced his
epitaph, "seeking Cathay he found heaven."

English, Dutch and French.

The activity and love of adventure, which became a passion for two or
three generations in Spain and Portugal, spread to other countries. It
was the spirit of the age; and England, Holland and France were fired
by it. English enterprise was first aroused by John and Sebastian
Cabot, father and son, who came from Venice and settled at Bristol in
the time of Henry VII. The Cabots received a patent in 1496,
empowering them to seek unknown lands; and John Cabot discovered
Newfoundland and part of the coast of America. Sebastian afterwards
made a voyage to Rio de la Plata in the service of Spain, but he
returned to England in 1548 and received a pension from Edward VI. At
his suggestion a voyage was undertaken for the discovery of a
north-east passage to Cathay, with Sir Hugh Willoughby as
captain-general of the fleet and Richard Chancellor as pilot-major.
They sailed in May 1553, but Willoughby and all his crew perished on
the Lapland coast. Chancellor, however, was more fortunate. He reached
the White Sea, performed the journey overland to Moscow, where he was
well received, and may be said to have been the founder of the trade
between Russia and England. He returned to Archangel and brought his
ship back in safety to England. On a second voyage, in 1556,
Chancellor was drowned; and three subsequent voyages, led by Stephen
Burrough, Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman, in small craft of 50 tons
and under, carried on an examination of the straits which lead into
the Kara sea.

The French followed closely on the track of John Cabot, and Norman and
Breton fishermen frequented the banks of Newfoundland at the beginning
of the 16th century. In 1524 Francis I. sent Giovanni da Verazzano of
Florence on an expedition of discovery to the coast of North America;
and the details of his voyage were embodied in a letter addressed by
him to the king of France from Dieppe, in July 1524. In 1534 Jacques
Cartier set out to continue the discoveries of Verazzano, and visited
Newfoundland and the Gulf of St Lawrence. In the following year he
made another voyage, discovered the island of Anticosti, and ascended
the St Lawrence to Hochelaga, now Montreal. He returned, after passing
two winters in Canada; and on another occasion he also failed to
establish a colony. Admiral de Coligny made several unsuccessful
endeavours to form a colony in Florida under Jean Ribault of Dieppe,
Rene de Laudonniere and others, but the settlers were furiously
assailed by the Spaniards and the attempt was abandoned.

The Elizabethan era.

The reign of Elizabeth is famous for the gallant enterprises that were
undertaken by sea and land to discover and bring to light the unknown
parts of the earth. The great promoter of geographical discovery in
the Elizabethan period was Richard Hakluyt (1553-1616), who was active
in the formation of the two companies for colonizing Virginia in 1606;
and devoted his life to encouraging and recording similar
undertakings. He published much, and left many valuable papers at his
death, most of which, together with many other narratives, were
published in 1622 in the great work of the Rev. Samuel Purchas,
entitled _Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes_.

It is from these works that our knowledge of the gallant deeds of the
English and other explorers of the Elizabethan age is mainly derived.
The great and splendidly illustrated collections of voyages and
travels of Theodorus de Bry and Hulsius served a similar useful
purpose on the continent of Europe. One important object of English
maritime adventurers of those days was to discover a route to Cathay
by the north-west, a second was to settle Virginia, and a third was to
raid the Spanish settlements in the West Indies. Nor was the trade to
Muscovy and Turkey neglected; while latterly a resolute and successful
attempt was made to establish direct commercial relations with India.

The conception of the north-western route to Cathay now leads the
story of exploration, for the first time as far as important and
sustained efforts are concerned, towards the Arctic seas. This part of
the story is fully told under the heading of POLAR REGIONS, and only
the names of Martin Frobisher (1576), John Davis (1585), Henry Hudson
(1607) and William Baffin (1616) need be mentioned here in order to
preserve the complete conspectus of the history of discovery. The
Dutch emulated the British in the Arctic seas during this period,
directing their efforts mainly towards the discovery of a north-east
passage round the northern end of Novaya Zemlya; and William Barents
or Barendsz (1594-1597) is the most famous name in this connexion, his
boat voyage along the coast of Novaya Zemlya after losing his ship and
wintering in a high latitude, being one of the most remarkable
achievements in polar annals.

Many English voyages were also made to Guinea and the West Indies, and
twice English vessels followed in the track of Magellan, and
circumnavigated the globe. In 1577 Francis Drake, who had previously
served with Hawkins in the West Indies, undertook his celebrated
voyage round the world. Reaching the Pacific through the Strait of
Magellan, Drake proceeded northward along the west coast of America,
resolved to attempt the discovery of a northern passage from the
Pacific to the Atlantic. The coast from the southern extremity of the
Californian peninsula to Cape Mendocino had been discovered by Juan
Rodriguez Cabrillo and Francisco de Ulloa in 1539. Drake's discoveries
extended from Cape Mendocino to 48 deg. N., in which latitude he gave
up his quest, sailed across the Pacific and reached the Philippine
Islands, returning home round the Cape of Good Hope in 1580.

Thomas Cavendish, emulous of Drake's example, fitted out three vessels
for an expedition to the South sea in 1586. He took the same route as
Drake along the west coast of America. From Cape San Lucas Cavendish
steered across the Pacific, seeing no land until he reached the
Ladrone Islands. He returned to England in 1588. The third English
voyage into the Pacific was not so fortunate. Sir Richard Hawkins
(1593) on reaching the bay of Atacames, in 1 deg.N. in 1594, was
attacked by a Spanish fleet, and, after a desperate naval engagement,
was forced to surrender. Hawkins declared his object to be discovery
and the survey of unknown lands, and his voyage, though terminating in
disaster, bore good fruit. _The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins in
his Voyage into the South Sea_, published in 1622, are very valuable.
It was long before another British ship entered the Pacific Ocean. Sir
John Narborough took two ships through the Strait of Magellan in 1670
and touched on the coast of Chile, but it was not until 1685 that
Dampier sailed over the part of the Pacific where Hawkins met his
defeat.

The exploring enterprise of the Spanish nation did not wane after the
conquest of Peru and Mexico, and the acquisition of the vast empire of
the Indies. It was spurred into renewed activity by the audacity of
Sir John Hawkins in the West Indies, and by the appearance of Drake,
Cavendish and Richard Hawkins in the Pacific.

In the interior of South America the Spanish conquerors had explored
the region of the Andes from the isthmus of Panama to Chile. Pedro de
Valdivia in 1540 made an expedition into the country of the Araucanian
Indians of Chile, and was the first to explore the eastern base of
the Andes in what is now Argentine Patagonia. In 1541 Francisco de
Orellana discovered the whole course of the Amazon from its source in
the Andes to the Atlantic. A second voyage on the Amazon was made in
1561 by the mad pirate Lope de Aguirre; but it was not until 1639 that
a full account was written of the great river by Father Cristoval de
Acuna, who ascended it from its mouth and reached the city of Quito.

Spaniards in the Pacific.

The voyage of Drake across the Pacific was preceded by that of Alvaro
de Mendana, who was despatched from Peru in 1567 to discover the great
Antarctic continent which was believed to extend far northward into
the South sea, the search for which now became one of the leading
motives of exploration. After a voyage of eighty days across the
Pacific, Mendana discovered the Solomon Islands; and the expedition
returned in safety to Callao. The appearance of Drake on the Peruvian
coast led to an expedition being fitted out at Callao, to go in chase
of him, under the command of Pedro Sarmiento. He sailed from Callao in
October 1579, and made a careful survey of the Strait of Magellan,
with the object of fortifying that entrance to the South sea. The
colony which he afterwards took out from Spain was a complete failure,
and is only remembered now from the name of "Port Famine," which
Cavendish gave to the site at which he found the starving remnant of
Sarmiento's settlers. In June 1595 Mendana sailed from the coast of
Peru in command of a second expedition to colonize the Solomon
Islands. After discovering the Marquesas, he reached the island of
Santa Cruz of evil memory, where he and many of the settlers died. His
young widow took command of the survivors and brought them safely to
Manila. The viceroys of Peru still persevered in their attempts to
plant a colony in the hypothetical southern continent. Pedro Fernandez
de Quiros, who was pilot under Mendana and Luis Vaez de Torres, were
sent in command of two ships to continue the work of exploration. They
sailed from Callao in December 1605, and discovered several islands of
the New Hebrides group. They anchored in a bay of a large island which
Quiros named "Australia del Espiritu Santo." From this place Quiros
returned to America, but Torres continued the voyage, passed through
the strait between Australia and New Guinea which bears his name, and
explored and mapped the southern and eastern coasts of New Guinea.

The Portuguese, in the early part of the 17th century (1578-1640),
were under the dominion of Spain, and their enterprise was to some
extent damped; but their missionaries extended geographical knowledge
in Africa. Father Francisco Paez acquired great influence in
Abyssinia, and explored its highlands from 1600 to 1622. Fathers
Mendez and Lobo traversed the deserts between the coast of the Red sea
and the mountains, became acquainted with Lake Tsana, and discovered
the sources of the Blue Nile in 1624-1633.

Rivalry in the East.

But the attention of the Portuguese was mainly devoted to vain
attempts to maintain their monopoly of the trade of India against the
powerful rivalry of the English and Dutch. The English enterprises
were persevering, continuous and successful. James Lancaster made a
voyage to the Indian Ocean from 1591 to 1594; and in 1599 the
merchants and adventurers of London resolved to form a company, with
the object of establishing a trade with the East Indies. On the 31st
of December 1599 Queen Elizabeth granted the charter of incorporation
to the East India Company, and Sir James Lancaster, one of the
directors, was appointed general of their first fleet. He was
accompanied by John Davis, the great Arctic navigator, as pilot-major.
This voyage was eminently successful. The ships touched at Achin in
Sumatra and at Java, returning with full ladings of pepper in 1603.
The second voyage was commanded by Sir Henry Middleton; but it was in
the third voyage, under Keelinge and Hawkins, that the mainland of
India was first reached in 1607. Captain Hawkins landed at Surat and
travelled overland to Agra, passing some time at the court of the
Great Mogul. In the voyage of Sir Edward Michelborne in 1605, John
Davis lost his life in a fight with a Japanese junk. The eighth
voyage, led by Captain Saris, extended the operations of the company
to Japan; and in 1613 the Japanese government granted privileges to
the company; but the British retired in 1623, giving up their factory.
The chief result of this early intercourse between Great Britain and
Japan was the interesting series of letters written by William Adams
from 1611 to 1617. From the tenth voyage of the East India Company,
commanded by Captain Best, who left England in 1612, dates the
establishment of permanent British factories on the coast of India. It
was Captain Best who secured a regular _firman_ for trade from the
Great Mogul. From that time a fleet was despatched every year, and the
company's operations greatly increased geographical knowledge of India
and the Eastern Archipelago. British visits to Eastern countries, at
this time, were not confined to the voyages of the company. Journeys
were also made by land, and, among others, the entertaining author of
the _Crudities_, Thomas Coryate, of Odcombe in Somersetshire, wandered
on foot from France to India, and died (1617) in the company's factory
at Surat. In 1561 Anthony Jenkinson arrived in Persia with a letter
from Queen Elizabeth to the shah. He travelled through Russia to
Bokhara, and returned by the Caspian and Volga. In 1579 Christopher
Burroughs built a ship at Nizhniy Novgorod and traded across the
Caspian to Baku; and in 1598 Sir Anthony and Robert Shirley arrived in
Persia, and Robert was afterwards sent by the shah to Europe as his
ambassador. He was followed by a Spanish mission under Garcia de
Silva, who wrote an interesting account of his travels; and to Sir
Dormer Cotton's mission, in 1628, we are indebted for Sir Thomas
Herbert's charming narrative. In like manner Sir Thomas Roe's mission
to India resulted not only in a large collection of valuable reports
and letters of his own, but also in the detailed account of his
chaplain Terry. But the most learned and intelligent traveller in the
East, during the 17th century, was the German, Engelbrecht Kaempfer,
who accompanied an embassy to Persia, in 1684, and was afterwards a
surgeon in the service of the Dutch East India Company. He was in the
Persian Gulf, India and Java, and resided for more than two years in
Japan, of which he wrote a history.

Dutch exploration, 16th-17th centuries.

The Dutch nation, as soon as it was emancipated from Spanish tyranny,
displayed an amount of enterprise, which, for a long time, was fully
equal to that of the British. The Arctic voyages of Barents were
quickly followed by the establishment of a Dutch East India Company;
and the Dutch, ousting the Portuguese, not only established factories
on the mainland of India and in Japan, but acquired a preponderating
influence throughout the Malay Archipelago. In 1583 Jan Hugen van
Linschoten made a voyage to India with a Portuguese fleet, and his
full and graphic descriptions of India, Africa, China and the Malay
Archipelago must have been of no small use to his countrymen in their
distant voyages. The first of the Dutch Indian voyages was performed
by ships which sailed in April 1595, and rounded the Cape of Good
Hope. A second large Dutch fleet sailed in 1598; and, so eager was the
republic to extend her commerce over the world that another fleet,
consisting of five ships of Rotterdam, was sent in the same year by
way of Magellan's Strait, under Jacob Mahu as admiral, with William
Adams as pilot. Mahu died on the passage out, and was succeeded by
Simon de Cordes, who was killed on the coast of Chile. In September
1599 the fleet had entered the Pacific. The ships were then steered
direct for Japan, and anchored off Bungo in April 1600. In the same
year, 1598, a third expedition was despatched under Oliver van Noort,
a native of Utrecht, but the voyage contributed nothing to geography.
The Dutch Company in 1614 again resolved to send a fleet to the
Moluccas by the westward route, and Joris Spilbergen was appointed to
the command as admiral, with a commission from the States-General. He
was furnished with four ships of Amsterdam, two of Rotterdam and one
from Zeeland. On the 6th of May 1615 Spilbergen entered the Pacific
Ocean, and touched at several places on the coast of Chile and Peru,
defeating the Spanish fleet in a naval engagement off Chilca. After
plundering Payta and making requisitions at Acapulco, the Dutch fleet
crossed the Pacific and reached the Moluccas in March 1616.

The Dutch now resolved to discover a passage into the Pacific to the
south of Tierra del Fuego, the insular nature of which had been
ascertained by Sir Francis Drake. The vessels fitted out for this
purpose were the "Eendracht," of 360 tons, commanded by Jacob Lemaire,
and the "Hoorn," of 110 tons, under Willem Schouten. They sailed from
the Texel on the 14th of June 1615, and by the 20th of January 1616
they were south of the entrance of Magellan's Strait. Passing through
the strait of Lemaire they came to the southern extremity of Tierra
del Fuego, which was named Cape Horn, in honour of the town of Hoorn
in West Friesland, of which Schouten was a native. They passed the
cape on the 31st of January, encountering the usual westerly winds.
The great merit of this discovery of a second passage into the South
sea lies in the fact that it was not accidental or unforeseen, but was
due to the sagacity of those who designed the voyage. On the 1st of
March the Dutch fleet sighted the island of Juan Fernandez; and,
having crossed the Pacific, the explorers sailed along the north coast
of New Guinea and arrived at the Moluccas on the 17th of September
1616.

There were several early indications of the existence of the great
Australian continent, and the Dutch endeavoured to obtain further
knowledge concerning the country and its extent; but only its northern
and western coasts had been visited before the time of Governor van
Diemen. Dirk Hartog had been on the west coast in latitude 26 deg. 30'
S. in 1616. Pelsert struck on a reef called "Houtman's Abrolhos" on
the 4th of June 1629. In 1697 the Dutch captain Vlamingh landed on the
west coast of Australia, then called New Holland, in 31 deg. 43' S.,
and named the Swan river from the black swans he discovered there. In
1642 the governor and council of Batavia fitted out two ships to
prosecute the discovery of the south land, then believed to be part of
a vast Antarctic continent, and entrusted the command to Captain Abel
Jansen Tasman. This voyage proved to be the most important to
geography that had been undertaken since the first circumnavigation of
the globe. Tasman sailed from Batavia in 1642, and on the 24th of
November sighted high land in 42 deg. 30' S., which was named van
Diemen's Land, and after landing there proceeded to the discovery of
the western coast of New Zealand; at first called Staten Land, and
supposed to be connected with the Antarctic continent from which this
voyage proved New Holland to be separated. He then reached Tongatabu,
one of the Friendly Islands of Cook; and returned by the north coast
of New Guinea to Batavia. In 1644 Tasman made a second voyage to
effect a fuller discovery of New Guinea.

French in North America.

The French directed their enterprise more in the direction of North
America than of the Indies. One of their most distinguished explorers
was Samuel Champlain, a captain in the navy, who, after a remarkable
journey through Mexico and the West Indies from 1599 to 1602,
established his historic connexion with Canada, to the geographical
knowledge of which he made a very large addition.

Missionaries in the East.