Part 1 (2/2)

”A Passage Perilous ators knew little of the art of navigation

Pytheas, who discovered the British Isles, was ”a great o, was ”a knight of the King's household” Sir Hugh Willoughby, ”a reat estiood parts of wit in hientleh, an Elizabethan courtier, and so forth

It has been obviously i to the history of exploration Most of these explorers have been chosen for soraphical knowledge, or soreat feat of endurance which may serve to brace us to fresh effort as a nation faators have been afforded the lion's share in the book, partly because they took the lion's share in exploring, partly because translations of foreign travel are difficult to transcribe Most of these stories have been taken froinal sources, and most of the explorers have been allowed to tell part of their own story in their oords

Perhaps the raphic of all explorations is that written by a native of West Australia, who accolish lad named Smith, who had been starved to death

”Away, away, away, ae reach the water of Djunjup; we shoot gah a forest ae see no water Through a forest away, along our tracks away; hills ascending, then pleasantly away, away, through a forest away We see a water--along the river away--a short distance we go, then away, away, away through a forest away Then along another river away, across the river away Still we go onwards, along the sea away, through the bush away, then along the sea away We sleep near the sea I see Mr S his footsteps

I see Mr Sreatly did I weep, andhim, we scraped away the earth The sun had inclined to the ard as we laid hiround”

The book is illustrated with reproductions from oldin the Garden of Eden, with Pillars of Hercules guarding the Straits of Gibraltar, with Paradise in the east, a realistic Jerusalem in the centre, the island of Thule in the north, and St Brandon's Isles of the Blest in the west

Beautifully coloured were the old and ver banners, with old” The seas are full of shi+ps--”brave beflagged vessels with swelling sails” The land is ablaze with kings and potentates on golden thrones under canopies of angels While over all presides the Madonna in her golden chair

The Hereford Mappa Mundi, drawn in the thirteenth century on a fine sheet of vellu of the old letters and scarlet towns, its green seas and its blue rivers The Red Sea is still red, but the Mediterranean is chocolate brown, and all the green has disappeared The ht-hand corner is probably the author, Richard de Haldinghament, belohich is Paradise as a circular island, with the four rivers and the figures of Adam and Eve In the centre is Jerusalem The world is divided into three--Asia, ”Affrica,” and Europe Around this earth-island flows the ocean America is, of course, absent; the East is placed at Paradise and the West at the Pillars of Hercules North and South are left to the iination

And what of the famous map of Juan de la Cosa, once pilot to Columbus, drawn in the fifteenth century, with St Christopher carrying the infant Christ across the water, supposed to be a portrait of Christopher Coluospel to America? It is the first map in which a dim outline appears of the New World

The early maps of ”Apphrica” are filled with caures and the turrets and spires of strange buildings--

”Geographers in Afric aps”

”Surely,” says a rapher was less concerned to fill his gaps than to express the poetry of geography”

And to-day, there are still gaps in the most modern maps of Africa, where one-eleventh of the whole area remains unexplored Further, in Asia the problem of the Brahmaputra Falls is yet unsolved; there are shores untrodden and rivers unsurveyed

”God hath given us soht have somewhat to do,” wrote Barents in the sixteenth century

There 's _Explorer_ wehidden Go and find it Go and look behind the Ranges-- So for you Go!”

Thanks are due to Mr S G Stubbs for valuable assistance in the selection and preparation of the illustrations, which, with few exceptions, have been executed under his directions

CHAPTER I

A LITTLE OLD WORLD

No story is co But where is the beginning? Where is the dawn of geography--the knowledge of our earth? What was it like before the first explorers made their way into distant lands? Every day that passes we are gaining fresh knowledge of the di in the old heaps that were once the sites of busy cities, and, as a result of their unwearying toil, they are revealing to us the life-stories of those elt therein; they are disclosing secrets writ on weather-worn stones and tablets, bricks and cylinders, never before even guessed at

Thus we read the wondrous story of ancient days, and breathlessly wonder what marvellous discovery will thrill us next

For the earliest account of the old world--a world made up apparently of a little land and a little water--we turn to an old papyrus, the oldest in existence, which tells us in familiar words, unsurpassed for their exquisite poetry and wondrous sireat dateless time so full of mystery and awe