The whole of Gaul, from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, seemed now subdued. Cæsar had conquered as he explored, and the skill of his well-disciplined army triumphed everywhere over the untrained courage of the barbarian tribes.
Still, the German tribes were giving trouble about the country of the Rhine, and in the words of the famous Commentaries, "Cæsar was determined to cross the Rhine, but he hardly thought it safe to cross in boats. Therefore, although the construction of a bridge presented great difficulties on account of the breadth, swiftness, and depth of the stream, he nevertheless thought it best to make the attempt or else not cross at all." Indeed, he wanted to impress the wild German people on the other side with a sense of the vast power of the Roman Empire. The barbarian tribes beyond must, indeed, have been impressed with the skill of the Roman soldier. For in ten days the bridge was completed: timber had been hewn from the forest, brought to the banks of the Rhine, worked into shape, piles driven into the bed of the river, beams laid across. And Cæsar led his army in triumph to the other side. They stood for the first time in the land of the Germans, near the modern town of Coblenz, and after eighteen days on the farther side, they returned to Gaul, destroying the bridge behind them.
Cæsar had now a fresh adventure in view. He was going to make his way to Britain. The summer of 55 B.C. was passing, and "in these parts, the whole of Gaul having a northerly trend, winter sets in early," wrote Cæsar afterwards. There would be no time to conquer, but he could visit the island, find out for himself what the people were like, learn about harbours and landing-places, "for of all this the Greeks knew practically nothing. No one, indeed, readily undertakes the voyage to Britain except traders, and even they know nothing of it except the coast."
Cæsar summoned all the traders he could collect and inquired the size of the island, what tribes dwelt there, their names, their customs, and the shortest sea passage. Then he sent for the ships which had vanquished the fleet of Brittany the previous year; he also assembled some eighty merchant ships on the northern coast of Gaul, probably not very far from Calais.
It was near the end of August, when soon after midnight the wind served and he set sail. A vision of the great Roman—determined, resolute—rises before us as, standing on the deck of the galley, he looks out on to the dark waters of the unknown sea bound for the coast of England. After a slow passage the little fleet arrived under the steep white cliffs of the southern coast about nine o'clock next morning. Armed forces of barbarians stood on the heights above Dover, and, finding it impossible to land, Cæsar gave orders to sail some seven miles farther along the coast, where they ran the ships aground not far from Deal.
But the visit of the Romans to Britain on this occasion lasted but three days, for a violent storm scattered the ships with the horses on board.
"The same night," says Cæsar, "it happened to be full moon, which generally causes very high tides in the ocean, a fact of which our men were not aware."
Indeed, we may well believe that a night of full moon and an unusually high tide would be a mystery to those children of the Mediterranean. Their ships had been beached and were lying high and dry when the rapidly rising tide overwhelmed them. Cables were broken, anchors lost, panic ensued.
But Cæsar's glory lay in overcoming obstacles, and it is well known how he got his troops and ships safely back across the Channel, and how preparations were hurried on in Gaul for a second invasion of Britain. This is not the place for the story of his campaign. He was the first to raise the curtain on the mysterious islands discovered by Pytheas.
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"Far to the west, in the ocean wide, Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies, Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old." |
Cæsar's remarks on this new-found land are interesting for us to-day. He tells us of "a river called the Thames, about eight miles from the sea." "The interior of Britain," he says, "is inhabited by a people who, according to tradition, are aboriginal. The population is immense; homesteads closely resembling those of the Gauls are met with at every turn, and cattle are very numerous. Gold coins are in use, or iron bars of fixed weight. Hares, fowls, and geese they think it wrong to taste; but they keep them for pastime or amusement. The climate is more equable than in Gaul, the cold being less severe. The island is triangular in shape, one side being opposite Gaul. One corner of this side, by Kent—the landing-place for almost all ships from Gaul—has an easterly, and the lower one a westerly, aspect. The extent of this side is about five hundred miles. The second trends off towards Spain. Off the coast here is Ireland, which is considered only half as large as Britain. Halfway across is an island called 'Man,' and several smaller islands also are believed to be situated opposite this coast, in which there is continuous night for thirty days. The length of this side is eight hundred miles. Thus the whole island is two thousand miles in circumference. The people of the interior do not, for the most part, cultivate grain, but live on milk and flesh-meat, and clothe themselves with skins. All Britons, without exception, stain themselves with woad, which produces a bluish tint. They wear their hair long."
Cæsar crossed the Thames. "The river can only be forded at one spot," he tells us, "and there with difficulty." Farther he did not go. And so this is all that was known of Britain for many a long year to come.
Strabo wrote his famous geography near the beginning of the Christian era, but he knew nothing of the north of England, Scotland, or Wales. He insisted on placing Ireland to the north, and scoffed at Pytheas' account of Thule.
And yet he boasted a wider range than any other writer on geography, "for that those who had penetrated farther towards the West had not gone so far to the East, and those on the contrary who had seen more of the East had seen less of the West."
Like Herodotus, Strabo had travelled himself from Armenia and western Italy, from the Black Sea to Egypt and up the Nile to Philæ. But his seventeen volumes—vastly important to his contemporaries—read like a romance to us to-day, and a glance at the map laid down according to his descriptions is like a vague and distorted caricature of the real thing. And yet, according to the men of his times, he "surpasses all the geographical writings of antiquity, both in grandeur of plan and in abundance and variety of its materials."
Strabo has summed up for us the knowledge of the ancient world as it was in the days of the Emperor Cæsar Augustus of the great Roman Empire, as it was when in far-off Syria the Christ was born and the greater part of the known earth was under the sway of Rome.
A wall-map had already been designed by order of Augustus to hang in a public place in Rome—the heart of the Empire—so that the young Romans might realise the size of their inheritance, while a list of the chief places on the roads, which, radiating from Rome, formed a network over the Empire, was inscribed on the Golden Milestone in the Forum.
| A PORTION OF AN OLD ROMAN MAP OF THE WORLD |
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A PORTION OF AN OLD ROMAN MAP OF THE WORLD, SHOWING
THE ROADS THROUGH THE EMPIRE, RIVERS, MOUNTAINS, AND THE SURROUNDING SEAS. This is a portion—a few inches—taken from the famous Peutinger Table, a long strip map on parchment, of the fourth century, derived from Augustan maps according to the measurements of Cæsar Augustus Agrippa. It will be noticed how the roads, beginning with the Twelve Ways, which start from Rome in the centre, go in straight lines over all obstacles to the towns of the Empire. Distances are marked in stadia (about 1/9 mile). |
We may well imagine with what keen interest the schoolmen of Alexandria would watch the extension of the Roman Empire. Here Strabo had studied, here or at Rome he probably wrote his great work toward the close of a long life. He has read his Homer and inclines to take every word he says as true. Herodotus he will have none of.
"Herodotus and other writers trifle very much," he asserts, "when they introduce into their histories the marvellous like an interlude of some melody."
In like manner he disbelieves poor Pytheas and his accounts of the land of Ultima Thule and his marvellous walks through Britain, while he clings to the writings of Eratosthenes.
But in common with them all Strabo believes the world to be one vast island, surrounded on all sides by ocean into which the rivers flow, and the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf are but inlets. So is also the Mediterranean or "Our Sea," as he prefers to call it. This earth-island reaches north to south, from Ireland, "barely habitable on account of the cold," to the cinnamon country (Somaliland), "the most southerly point of the habitable earth." From west to east it stretches from the Pillars of Hercules right "through the middle of Our Sea" to the shores of Asia Minor, then across Asia by an imaginary chain of mountains to an imaginary spot where the Ganges, lately discovered, emptied its waters into the world-surrounding ocean stream.
| THE WORLD-ISLAND ACCORDING TO STRABO, 18 A.D. |
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THE WORLD-ISLAND ACCORDING TO STRABO, 18 A.D. The blank space within the circle is one vast sea surrounding the world. |
The breadth of the habitable earth is three thousand miles, the length about seven thousand—a little world, indeed, with the greater world lying all around it, still undreamt of by the old student of geography and the traveller after truth.
He begins his book with a detailed account of southern Spain. He tells of her two hundred towns. "Those best known are situated on the rivers, estuaries, and seas; but the two which have acquired the greatest name and importance are Cordova and Cadiz. After these Seville is the most noted.... A vast number of people dwell along the Guadalquivir, and you may sail up it almost a hundred and twenty miles from the sea to Cordova and the places a little higher up. The banks and little inlets of this river are cultivated with the greatest diligence. The eye is also delighted with groves and gardens, which in this district are met with in the highest perfection. For fifty miles the river is navigable for ships of considerable size, but for the cities higher up smaller vessels are employed, and thence to Cordova river-boats. These are now constructed of planks joined together, but they were formerly made out of a single trunk. A chain of mountains, rich in metal, runs parallel to the Guadalquivir, approaching the river, sometimes more, sometimes less, toward the north."
He grows enthusiastic over the richness of this part of southern Spain, famous from ancient days under the name of Tartessus for its wealth. "Large quantities of corn and wine are exported, besides much oil, which is of the first quality, also wax, honey, and pitch ... the country furnishes the timber for their shipbuilding. They have likewise mineral salt and not a few salt streams. A considerable quantity of salted fish is exported, not only from hence, but also from the remainder of the coast beyond the Pillars. Formerly they exported large quantities of garments, but they now send the unmanufactured wool remarkable for its beauty. The stuffs manufactured are of incomparable texture. There is a superabundance of cattle and a great variety of game, while on the other hand there are certain little hares which burrow in the ground (rabbits). These creatures destroy both seeds and trees by gnawing their roots. They are met with throughout almost the whole of Spain. It is said that formerly the inhabitants of Majorca and Minorca sent a deputation to the Romans requesting that a new land might be given them, as they were quite driven out of their country by these animals, being no longer able to stand against their vast multitudes." The seacoast on the Atlantic side abounds in fish, says Strabo. "The congers are quite monstrous, far surpassing in size those of Our Sea. Shoals of rich fat tunny fish are driven hither from the seacoast beyond. They feed on the fruit of stunted oak, which grows at the bottom of the sea and produces very large acorns. So great is the quantity of fruit, that at the season when they are ripe the whole coast on either side of the Pillars is covered with acorns thrown up by the tides. The tunny fish become gradually thinner, owing to the failure of their food as they approach the Pillars from the outer sea."
He describes, too, the metals of this wondrous land—gold, silver, copper, and iron. It is astonishing to think that in the days of Strabo the silver mines employed forty thousand workmen, and produced something like £900 a day in our modern money!
But we cannot follow Strabo over the world in all his detail. He tells us of a people living north of the Tagus, who slept on the ground, fed on acorn-bread, and wore black cloaks by day and night. He does not think Britain is worth conquering—Ireland lies to the north, not west, of Britain; it is a barren land full of cannibals and wrapped in eternal snows—the Pyrenees run parallel to the Rhine—the Danube rises near the Alps—even Italy herself runs east and west instead of north and south. His remarks on India are interesting.
"The reader," he says, "must receive the accounts of this country with indulgence. Few persons of our nation have seen it; the greater part of what they relate is from report. Very few of the merchants who now sail from Egypt by the Nile and the Arabian Gulf to India have proceeded as far as the Ganges."
He is determined not to be led astray by the fables of the great size of India. Some had told him it was a third of the whole habitable world, some that it took four months to walk through the plain only. "Ceylon is said to be an island lying out at sea seven days' sail from the most southerly parts of India. Its length is about eight hundred miles. It produces elephants."
Strabo died about the year 21 A.D., and half a century passed before Pliny wrote An Account of Countries, Nations, Seas, Towns, Havens, Mountains, Rivers, Distances, and Peoples who now Exist or Formerly Existed. Strange to say, he never refers in the most distant way to his famous predecessor Strabo. He has but little to add to the earth-knowledge of Strabo. But he gives us a fuller account of Great Britain, based on the fresh discoveries of Roman generals.
In the year 43 A.D. the Emperor Claudius resolved to send an expedition to the British coast, lying amid the mists and fog of the Northern Ocean.
A gigantic army landed near the spot where Cæsar had landed just a hundred years before. The discovery and conquest of Britain now began in real earnest. The Isle of Wight was overrun by Romans; the south coast was explored. Roman soldiers lost their lives in the bogs and swamps of Gloucestershire. The eastern counties, after fierce opposition, submitted at the last. The spirit of Caractacus and Boadicea spread from tribe to tribe and the Romans were constantly assailed. But gradually they swept the island. They reached the banks of the river Tyne; they crossed the Tweed and explored as far as the Firths of Clyde and Forth. From the coast of Galloway the Romans beheld for the first time the dim outline of the Irish coast. In the year 83 A.D. Agricola, a new Roman commander, made his way beyond the Firth of Forth.
"Now is the time to penetrate into the heart of Caledonia and to discover the utmost limits of Britain," cried the Romans, as they began their advance to the Highlands of Scotland. While a Roman fleet surveyed the coasts and harbours, Agricola led his men up the valley of the Tay to the edge of the Highlands, but he could not follow the savage Caledonians into their rugged and inaccessible mountains. To the north of Scotland they never penetrated, and no part of Ireland ever came under Roman sway, in that air "the Roman eagle never fluttered." The Roman account of Britain at this time is interesting. "Britain," says Tacitus, "the largest of all the islands which have come within the knowledge of the Romans, stretches on the east towards Germany, on the west towards Spain, and on the south it is even within sight of France.... The Roman fleet, at this period first sailing round this remotest coast, gave certain proof that Britain was an island, and at the same time discovered and subdued the Orkney Islands, till then unknown. Thule was also distinctly seen, which winter and eternal snow had hitherto concealed.... The sky in this country is deformed by clouds and frequent rains; but the cold is never extremely rigorous. The earth yields gold and silver and other metals—the ocean produces pearls."
The account of Ireland is only from hearsay. "This island," continues Tacitus, "is less than Britain, but larger than those of Our Sea. Situated between Britain and Spain and lying commodiously to the Bay of Biscay, it would have formed a very beneficial connection between the most powerful parts of the Empire. Its soil, climate, and the manners and dispositions of its inhabitants are little different from those of Britain. Its ports and harbours are better known from the concourse of merchants for the purposes of commerce."
Not only the British Isles, but a good deal of the wild North Sea and the low-lying coast on the opposite side were explored by Roman ships and Roman soldiers. Cæsar had crossed the Rhine; he had heard of a great forest which took a man four months to cross, and in 16 A.D. a Roman general, Drusus, penetrated into the interior of Germany. Drusus crossed the Rhine near the coast, made his way across the river Weser, and reached the banks of the Elbe. But the fame of Drusus rests mainly on his navigation of the German Ocean or North Sea in a Roman fleet. Near the mouth of the Rhine a thousand ships were quickly built by expert Romans. "Some were short, with narrow stern and prow and broad in the middle, the easier to endure the shock of the waves; some had flat bottoms that without damage they might run aground; many were fitted for carrying horses and provisions, convenient for sails and swift with oars."
The Roman troops were in high spirits as they launched their splendid fleet on the Northern Ocean and sailed prosperously to the mouth of the Elbe, startling the Frisians into submission. But no friendliness greeted them on the farther side of the river. The Germans were ready to defend their land, and further advance was impossible. Returning along the northern coast, the Romans got a taste of the storms of this northern ocean, of which they were in such complete ignorance.
"The sea, at first calm," says Tacitus, "resounded with the oars of a thousand ships; but presently a shower of hail poured down from a black mass of clouds, at the same time storms raging on all sides in every variety, the billows rolling now here, now there, obstructed the view and made it impossible to manage the ships. The whole expanse of air and sea was swept by a south-west wind, which, deriving strength from the mountainous regions of Germany, its deep rivers and boundless tract of clouded atmosphere, and rendered still harsher by the rigour of the neighbouring north, tore away the ships, scattered and drove them into the open ocean or upon islands dangerous from precipitous rocks or hidden sandbanks. Having got a little clear of these, but with great difficulty, the tide turning and flowing in the same direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride at anchor or bale out the water that broke in upon them; horses, beasts of burthen, baggage, even arms were thrown overboard to lighten the holds of the ships, which took in water at their sides, and from the waves, too, running over them. Around were either shores inhabited by enemies, or a sea so vast and unfathomable as to be supposed the limit of the world and unbounded by lands. Part of the fleet was swallowed up; many were driven upon remote islands, where the men perished through famine. The galley of Drusus or, as he was hereafter called, Germanicus, alone reached the mouth of the Weser. Both day and night, amid the rocks and prominences of the shore, he reproached himself as the author of such overwhelming destruction, and was hardly restrained by his friends from destroying himself in the same sea. At last, with the returning tide and a favouring gale, the shattered ships returned, almost all destitute or with garments spread for sails."
| HULL OF A ROMAN MERCHANT-SHIP |
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HULL OF A ROMAN MERCHANT-SHIP. From a Roman model in marble at Greenwich. |
The wreck of the Roman fleet in the North Sea made a deep impression on the Roman capital, and many a garbled story of the "extreme parts of the world" was circulated throughout the Empire.
Here was new land outside the boundaries of the Empire—country great with possibilities. Pliny, writer of the Natural History, now arises and endeavours to clear the minds of his countrymen by some account of these northern regions. Strabo had been dead some fifty years, and the Empire had grown since his days. But Pliny has news of land beyond the Elbe. He can tell us of Scandinavia, "an island of unknown extent," of Norway, another island, "the inhabitants of which sailed as far as Thule," of the Seamen or Swedes who lived in the "northern half of the world."
"It is madness to harass the mind with attempts to measure the world," he asserts, but he proceeds to tell us the size of the world as accepted by him. "Our part of the earth, floating as it were in the ocean, which surrounds it, stretching out to the greatest extent from India to the Pillars at Cadiz, is eight thousand five hundred and sixty-eight miles ... the breadth from south to north is commonly supposed to be half its length."
But how little was known of the north of Europe at this time is shown by a startling statement that "certain Indians sailing from India for the purposes of commerce had been driven by tempests into Germany."
"Thus it appears," concludes Pliny, "that the seas flow completely round the globe and divide it into two parts."
How Balbus discovered and claimed for the Empire some of the African desert is related by Pliny. He tells us, too, how another Roman general left the west coast of Africa, marched for ten days, reached Mt. Atlas, and "in a desert of dark-coloured sand met a river which he supposed to be the Niger."
The home of the Ethiopians in Africa likewise interested Pliny.
"There can be no doubt that the Ethiopians are scorched by their vicinity to the sun's heat, and that they are born like persons who have been burned, with beard and hair frizzled, while in the opposite and frozen parts of the earth there are nations with white skins and long light hair."
Pliny's geography was the basis of much mediæval writing, and his knowledge of the course of the Niger remained unchallenged, till Mungo Park re-discovered it many centuries after.
| A ROMAN GALLEY, ABOUT 110 A.D. |
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A ROMAN GALLEY, ABOUT 110 A.D. From Trajan's Column at Rome. |
And so we reach the days of Ptolemy—the last geographer of the Pagan World. This famous Greek was born in Egypt, and the great Roman Empire was already showing signs of decay, while Ptolemy was searching the great Alexandrian library for materials for his book. Alexandria was now the first commercial city of the world, second only to Rome. She supplied the great population in the heart of the Empire with Egyptian corn. Ships sailed from Alexandria to every part of the known world. It was, therefore, a suitable place for Ptolemy to listen to the yarns of the merchants, to read the works of Homer, Herodotus, Eratosthenes, Strabo, Pliny, and others, to study and observe, and finally to write.
He begins his great geography with the north-west extremities of the world—the British Isles, Iverna, and Albion as he calls Ireland and England. But he places Ireland much too far north, and the shape of Scotland has little resemblance to the original.2 He realised that there were lands to the south of Africa, to the east of Africa, and to the north of Europe, all stretching far away beyond his ken. He agrees with Pliny about the four islands in the neighbourhood of Scandinavia, and draws the Volga correctly, He realises, too, that the Caspian is an inland sea, and unconnected with the surrounding ocean.
2 If Ptolemy's longitudes are adjusted, he becomes extraordinarily correct.
| THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO PTOLEMY AND THE ROMANS |
| "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"—II. THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO PTOLEMY AND THE ROMANS. |
Perhaps the most remarkable part of Ptolemy's geography is that which tells us of the lands beyond the Ganges. He knows something of the "Golden Chersonese" or Malay Peninsula, something of China, where "far away towards the north, and bordering on the eastern ocean, there is a land containing a great city from which silk is exported, both raw and spun and woven into textures."
The wonder is that Ptolemy did not know more of China, for that land had one of the oldest civilisations in the world, as wondrous as those of Assyria and Egypt. But China had had little or no direct intercourse with the West till after the death of Ptolemy. Merchants had passed between China and India for long centuries, and "the Indians had made journeys in the golden deserts in troops of one or two thousand, and it is said that they do not return from these journeys till the third or fourth year." This was the Desert of Gobi, called golden because it opened the way to wealth.
But perhaps the most interesting part of this great geography, which was to inform the world for centuries yet to come, was the construction of a series of twenty-six maps and a general map of the known world.
This was one of the most important maps ever constructed, and forms our frontispiece from mediæval copies of the original. The twelve heads blowing sundry winds on to the world's surface are characteristic of the age. The twenty-six maps are in sections. They are the first maps to be drawn with lines of latitude and longitude. The measurements are very vague. The lines are never ruled; they are drawn uncertainly in red; they are neither straight nor regular, though the spaces between the lines indicate degrees of fifty miles. The maps are crowded with towns, each carefully walled in by little red squares and drawn by hand. The water is all coloured a sombre, greeny blue, and the land is washed in a rich yellow brown. A copy can be seen at the British Museum.
It is only by looking back that we can realise the progress made in earth-knowledge. Ptolemy wrote just a thousand years after Homer, when the little world round the Mediterranean had become a great Empire stretching from the British Isles to China.
Already the barbaric hordes which haunted the frontiers of the Roman Empire were breaking across the ill-defended boundaries, desolating streams were bursting over the civilised world, until at last the storm broke, the unity of the Empire was ended, commerce broken up, and the darkness of ignorance spread over the earth.
During this time little in the way of progress was made, and for the next few centuries our only interest lies in filling up some of the shadowy places of the earth, without extending its known bounds.
Meanwhile a new inspiration had been given to the world, which affected travelling to no small extent.
In far-off Roman province of Syria, the Christ had lived, the Christ had died. And His words were ringing through the land: "Go ye and make disciples of all the nations, preach the gospel to every creature." Here at once was a new incentive to travel, a definite reason for men to venture forth into the unknown, to brave dangers, to endure hardship. They must carry their Master's words "unto the ends of the world." The Roman Empire had brought men under one rule; they must now be brought to serve one God. So men passed out of Syria; they landed on the islands in the Mediterranean, they made their way to Asia Minor and across to Greece, until in the year 60 A.D. we get the graphic account of Paul the traveller, one of the first and most famous of the missionaries of the first century.
Jerusalem now became, indeed, the world centre. A very stream of pilgrim travellers tramped to the Holy City from far-away lands to see for themselves the land where the Christ had lived and died.
| THE FIRST STAGES OF A MEDIAEVAL PILGRIMAGE: LONDON TO DOVER |
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THE FIRST STAGES OF A MEDIÆVAL PILGRIMAGE: LONDON TO DOVER. From Matthew of Paris's Itinerary, thirteenth century. |
The pilgrim age begins with the journey of a woman—the beautiful and learned daughter of the King of Britain, Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. She was a student of divinity and a devoted Christian. In the year 326 she undertook the difficult journey to Jerusalem, where she is reported to have discovered the "true cross," which had been buried, with Pilate's inscription in "Hebrew and Greek and Latin." When the news of her discovery was noised abroad a very rush of pilgrims took place from every part of the world. Indeed, one pilgrim—his name is unknown—thought it worth while to write a guide-book for the benefit of his fellow-travellers. His Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem is very interesting, being the first Christian guide-book and one of the earliest travel-documents ever written for the use of travellers. This ancient "Bradshaw" has been translated into English and throws light on fourth-century travelling. Enthusiastic indeed must these early pilgrims have been to undertake the long and toilsome journey.
The guide-book takes them, save for crossing the Bosphorus, entirely by land. It leads them from the "city of Bordeaux, where is the river Garonne in which the ocean ebbs and flows for one hundred leagues more or less," to Arles, with thirty changes and eleven halts in three hundred and seventy-two miles. There were milestones along the Roman roads to guide them, and houses at regular intervals where horses were kept for posting. From Arles the pilgrim goes north to Avignon, crosses the Alps, and halts at the Italian frontier. Skirting the north of Italy by Turin, Milan, and Padua, he reaches the Danube at Belgrade, passes through Servia and Bulgaria and so reaches Constantinople—the great new city of Constantine. "Grand total from Bordeaux to Constantinople, two thousand two hundred and twenty-one miles, with two hundred and thirty changes and one hundred and twelve halts."
"From Constantinople," continues the guide-book, "you cross the strait and walk on through Asia Minor, passing the spot where lies King Hannibal, once King of the Africans." Thus onward through the long dreary miles to Tarsus, where "was born the Apostle Paul," till Syria is reached at last.
Then the "Bradshaw" becomes a "Baedeker." Long and detailed accounts are given of the country through which the pilgrim has to pass. From Cæsarea he is led to Jezreel by the spot "where David slew Goliath," by "Job's country house" to Sichem, "where Joseph is laid," and thence to Jerusalem. Full accounts follow of the Holy City and Mount Sion, "the little hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified," the Mount of Olives, Jericho, Jordan, Bethlehem, and Hebron. "Here is a monument of square form built of stone of wondrous beauty," in which lie Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sara, Rebecca, and Leah.
"From Constantinople to Jerusalem is one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine miles, with sixty-nine changes and fifty-eight halts."
Here the guide-book ends abruptly with a brief summary of distances. Thither then flocked the pilgrims, some by land and some by sea, men and women from all parts of the world.
"Even the Briton, separated from our world, leaves the setting sun and seeks a place known to him only by fame and the narrative of the Scriptures."
One of the earliest was Paula of Rome—a weak, fragile woman accustomed to a life of luxury and ease, but, fired with the enthusiasm of her religion, she resolved to brave the dangers and hardships of a journey to the East. Her travels were written by St. Jerome.
"When the winter was spent and the sea was open," he writes, "she longed and prayed to sail.... She went down to the harbour, accompanied by her brother, her relatives, her connections and, more than these, by her children, who strove to surpass the affection of the kindest of mothers. Soon the sails were swelling in the breeze, and the ship, guided by the oars, gained the open sea. Little Lexotinus piteously stretched forth his hands from the shore. Rufina, a grown-up girl, by her tears silently besought her mother to stay until she was married. Yet she herself, without a tear, turned her eyes heavenward, overcoming her love for her children by her love for God.... Meanwhile the ship was ploughing the sea—the winds were sluggish and all speed slow." But the ship passed between Scylla and Charybdis and reached Antioch in safety. From this spot she followed the guide-book directions until she arrived at Jerusalem. How Paula and one of her young daughters walked over the rough ground, endured the hardships of desert-life, and finally lived twenty years at Bethlehem, would take too long to tell. And she was but one of many.
| JERUSALEM AND THE EAST |
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JERUSALEM AND THE EAST. From Matthew of Paris's Itinerary, thirteenth century. |
Sylvia of Aquitaine, travelling at the same time, wrote a strangely interesting account of her travels. The early part of her manuscript is lost, and we find her first in Arabia. All was new and strange.
"Meanwhile as we walked we arrived at a certain place, where the mountains between which we were passing opened themselves out and formed a great valley, very flat and extremely beautiful; and beyond the valley appeared Sinai, the holy mount of God.... This is the same great and flat valley in which the children of Israel waited during the days when holy Moses went up into the Mount of God.... It was late on the Sabbath when we came to the mountain, and, arriving at a certain monastery, the kindly monks who lived there entertained us, showing us all kindliness." Sylvia had to ascend the mountain on foot "because the ascent could not be made in a chair," but the view over "Egypt and Palestine and the Red Sea and the Mediterranean which leads to Alexandria, also the boundless territory of the Saracens, we saw below us, hard though it is to believe, all of which things these holy men pointed out to us."
But we must not follow her to Jerusalem, or to Mesopotamia, where she saw "the great river Euphrates, rushing down in a torrent like the Rhine, but greater." She reached Constantinople by the guide-book route, having spent four years in travel, and walked two thousand miles to the very "limit of the Roman Empire." Her boundless energy is not exhausted yet. "Ladies, my beloved ones," she writes, "whilst I prepare this account for your pious zeal, it is already my purpose to go to Asia."
But we must turn away for a moment from the stream of pilgrim travellers wending their weary way from Britain, France, Spain, and the east to Jerusalem, to follow the travels of St. Patrick through the wilds of Ireland.
Patrick had been a pilgrim to Rome from the banks of the Clyde, where he lived, and, having seen the Pope, he had returned to Ireland by sea, landing on the Wicklow coast in the year 432. Hungry and tired after the long voyage, he tried to get some fish from the fishermen, but they replied by throwing stones at him, and he put out to sea again and headed north. Past Bray Head, past the Bay of Malahide he sailed, but he could get neither fish nor food till he reached a spot between the Liffey and the Boyne, where he built his first Christian church.
Now in the fifth century, when light first breaks over Ireland, it breaks over a land torn by perpetual tribal strife, a land in the chaos of wild heathendom. It was reserved for St. Patrick to save her from increasing gloom.
Patrick and his companions now sailed on past Louth, by the low-lying shore with long stretches of sandy flats, on under the shadow of great peaks frowning over the sea. He landed near Downpatrick, founded another church, and spent the winter in these parts, for the autumn was far advanced. Spring found him sailing back to the Boyne and attacking the fierce heathen king at Tara, the capital of Ireland. From Tara five great roads led to different parts of the island. St. Patrick now made his way through Meath to the very heart of the country, building churches as he went. Thence he crossed the Shannon, entered the great plain of Roscommon, passed by Mayo, and at length reached the western sea. He had now been eight years in Ireland, eight laborious years, climbing hills, wading through waters, camping out by night, building, organising, preaching. He loved the land on the western sea, little known as yet.
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"I would choose To remain here on a little land, After faring around churches and waters. Since I am weary, I wish not to go further." |
St. Patrick climbed the great peak, afterwards called Croaghpatrick, and on the summit, exposed to wind and rain, he spent the forty days of Lent. From here he could look down on to one of the most beautiful bays in Ireland, down on to the hundred little islands in the glancing waters below, while away to the north and south stretched the rugged coast-line. And he tells us how the great white birds came and sang to him there. It would take too long to tell how he returned to Tara and started again with a train of thirteen chariots by the great north-western road to the spot afterwards known as Downpatrick Head; he passed along the broken coast to the extreme north where the great ocean surf breaks on the rugged shore, returning again to the Irish capital. He travelled over a great part of Ireland, founded three hundred and fifty churches, converted heathen tribes to Christianity and civilisation, and finally died at Armagh in 493. His work was carried on by St. Columba, a native of Ireland, who, "deciding to go abroad for Christ," sailed away with twelve disciples to a low rocky island off the west coast of Scotland, where he founded the famous monastery of Iona, about 563. Thence he journeyed away to the Highlands, making his way through rugged and mountainous country that had stayed the warlike Romans long years before. He even sailed across the stormy northern sea to the Orkney Islands.
Let us picture the Scotland of the sixth century in order to realise those long lonely tramps of St. Columba and his disciples across the rough mountains, through the dense forests, across bleak moors and wet bogs, till after dreary wanderings they reached the coast, and in frail ships boldly faced the wild seas that raged round the northern islands.
"We can see Columba and his disciples journeying on foot, as poor and as barely provided as were Christ and His disciples, with neither silver nor gold nor brass in their purses, and over a wilder country and among a wilder people."