PROGRESS OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY Although geographical discovery must have started from every isolated centre of ancient civilization it is only possible to deal here with the stream of exploration which, starting 3.00o years ago in the eastern Mediterranean where a wedge of Asia unites Africa with Europe, has spread down the ages until to-day it has reached almost to every part of the Earth's surface on land and sea. This sketch touches only the main outlines of the progress of discovery, its object being to indicate the changes which have occurred through the centuries in the motives and the methods as well as in the objectives of exploration.
The maritime trade of the Greek City States and their colonies became more important than that of the Phoenicians soon after the fifth century B.C. Greek ships sailed beyond the Mediter ranean, opening up the Black Sea on the east and the borders of the Atlantic on the west. Massilia (on the site of the modern Marseille) was a colony of Greeks from Phocaea and thence a voyage of great importance was made by Pytheas about 33o B.C. His own narrative is lost and the facts have to be gathered from references by Strabo 30o years later to criticisms of the voyage in lost books of the Greek geographers. Pytheas was probably the first navigator to fix the position of the lands he reached by crude astronomical observations and he seems to have been a keen observer of places and people. He coasted the Bay of Biscay, and the east of Britain as far as Orkney where he heard a report of Thule, a more northern land, and a confused hint of the Arctic regions. On a later voyage he coasted the east side of the North Sea and probably entered the Baltic. During the same years the conquests of Alexander the Great opened to the Greek world a knowledge of the continent of Asia as far as the northern plain of India, and his general Nearchus conducted a fleet from the mouth of the Indus to the Persian Gulf, the first voyage in the Indian Ocean to be described in a manner comparable with the record of the land journey of Xenophon a century earlier when after the death of Cyrus he led the 10,000 from Mesopo tamia across the plateau of Armenia to the Black sea. In the following centuries the Ptolemies, Greek kings of Egypt, en couraged exploration and about 115 B.C. Eudoxus under their auspices explored the Arabian sea, and planned to circumnavigate Africa, but could not get support for so daring a project.
The rise and extension of the Roman Empire involved scouting expeditions before and surveys after the conquest of each prov ince of the lands bordering on the Mediterranean in Europe, Asia and Africa. Conquering generals described the tribes they subdued and the regions they occupied and Julius Caesar won renown as a writer no less than as a fighter. Each province of the empire was bound to Rome by the imperishable causeways which still form the skeleton of the road map of Europe. Pliny and Seneca say that Nero (about A.D. 6o) sent two centurions to follow up the Nile from Egypt, and they were stopped by great marshes, probably those of the Sudan about 19° N. The prac tical advantages of discovery appealed to the Roman mentality more powerfully than the abstract theories which fascinated the Greeks and Hippalus who about A.D. i9, learning from the Arabs of the regular seasonal changes of the monsoons, made these winds serve him as the means of establishing a trade route between the Red Sea and India across the open ocean instead of hugging the coast as of yore. This trade continued to develop and a century later Pausanias makes it appear that direct communication had even been opened up with China. In the time of Justinian 565) two Nestorian monks made the journey from Constantinople overland to China and succeeded in introducing the first silk worms into the Mediterranean lands.
Af ter the fall of the Roman Empire and the incursion of bar barians from the north a wave of Arab domination surged over the Asiatic and African provinces and swept far into the southern peninsulas of Europe. The geographical learning of the Greeks and Romans enshrined in the writings of Ptolemy of Alexandria (A.D. 15o) passed to the Arabs and was forgotten in Christian Europe where the conception of the globe degenerated to that of a flat disc with Jerusalem at the centre. The Arabs trading with India, China and the east coast of Africa acquired a sound know ledge of the Indian Ocean and a fair idea of the interior of Africa before the year woo. Among the well-known geographical writers of this period were Abu Zaid, Masudi, Istakhri and Idrisi.
Meanwhile the Northmen from the fjords of Scandinavia were harrying the coasts of northern Europe and even making their way into the Mediterranean. Most of the vikings pushed southwards for plunder and conquest, but some turned northward to hunt the fur and ivory yielding animals of the northern seas. Othar of Helgeland discovered the North Cape and rounding it proceeded as far as the White Sea in the middle of the 9th century. Later he visited the court of Alfred the Great and it was the English king who first reduced to writing the discoveries of the earliest Polar explorer and introduced to literature the midnight sun of the Arctic summer. The commerce of the Arabs and of the less warlike of the Northmen interlaced at several points and their trade routes ran overland between the Black Sea and the Baltic. Late in the 9th century Iceland was colonized from Norway and in 985 Eric the Red, sailing westward, discovered Greenland and soon afterwards his son Leif Ericsson sailing thence to the south west came on a new land which he named Vinland, and was thus the first European to reach America. If news of this event perco lated southwards the distracted Europe of the Middle Ages had other things to think of and only vague legends or the scribbling of fanciful islands on the vacant Atlantic margins of the mediaeval maps justify the suggestion that it did. A horror of the unknown territories, still more of unknown oceans, settled on the mind of mediaeval Europe. The church, not yet roused to missionary effort, was keen in the encouragement of the Crusaders who were recruited from every country of Europe to drive the Infidels from the Holy City. In this way the culture and graceful luxury of the caliphs became known to the rough courts of the western kings, and the attention of the merchants of the growing Italian city states, Genoa and Venice in particular, was concentrated on the Far East as the source of all wealth.
The domination of Central Asia from the Caspian to the Pacific by the Mongol emperors made very long overland journeys prac ticable at the close of the middle ages and Venetian merchants had thus established contact with China before Marco Polo set out in 1265 for Peking, the capital of Kubla Khan. The story of his seventeen years' sojourn in the Far East and of his journeyings by land and sea in central Asia, China, the Malay Archipelago, and India was the greatest work of travel of the middle ages and for the first time it made the venerable civilization and the rich products of the Orient familiar to the people of Europe. Many of his statements were derided by contemporaries but his sub stantial veracity and remarkable powers of observation have been vindicated by modern travellers and students. Missionaries, whose activity increased as that of the crusaders diminished, pushed far afield in 'sia and their records contain some grains of geographical value amongst a vast quantity of superstitious and ignorant chaff. One only need be mentioned here; Friar Oderic of Pordonone who, early in the i4th century, visited India, the Malay Archi pelago, China and Tibet where he was the first European to enter Lhasa, not yet a forbidden city. A Moslem contemporary Ibn Batuta was the greatest of the Arabian travellers who left accounts of their journeys. Between 1325 and 1353 he explored Arabia and Persia and spent eight years in the service of the Mogul ruler of Delhi, going on to China and the Malay Archipelago. He also visited the east African coast as far south as Mombasa and Kilwa and crossed the desert from the Red sea to Syene on the Nile; finally he explored west Africa by land reaching Timbuktu and the Niger.
Many travellers in the early part of the 15th century made notable journeys throughout the mainland of Asia and the Eastern archipelago impelled by the growing demand for the silks, spices and other valuable products of the tropics. From Spain Ruy Gon zalez de Clavijo journeyed to the court of Timur at Samarkand; from Italy Nicolo Conti later in the century spent 25 years in the Far East reaching China, Java and Sumatra.
The Azores, Boo miles out in the open Atlantic, had been vaguely known before, but were rediscovered and settled in while successive expeditions stimulated by the Prince crept by degrees along the Sahara coast to the fertile lands beyond; in 1462, after his death, they reached Sierra Leone and a few years later explored the whole Guinea coast. Then discovery became rapid. In 1481 the equator was crossed, in 1484 Diago Cam passed the mouth of the Congo and in 1486 Bartholomew Diaz (q.v.) by a splendid effort fetched a wide sweep far out of sight of land and reached Mossel Bay. In returning he saw the southern point of Africa and named the Cape of Storms. This was the greatest landmark in the history of exploration. The King of Portugal seeing the wealth of the Indies within his grasp changed the name to Cape of Good Hope and Vasco da Gama (q.v.) realized the hope in 1498 by sailing round the Cape to the Arab port of Mom basa whence with the aid of local pilots he reached India and fulfilled the dream of ages. Camoens, who himself made the voyage 7o years later, celebrated the achievement in his great poem the Lusiad.
Toscanelli as early as 1474 had pointed out from Ptolemy's maps that the east coast of Asia might be reached more easily by sailing due west than by going south and then east and north. Christopher Columbus (q.v.), a native of Genoa who had much experience of navigating the Atlantic and had sailed to Iceland, became possessed with the idea of making this voyage. He spent many years in the endeavour to find a patron, and in 1492 had almost persuaded the King of England and the King of Spain to embark on the enterprise ; the King of England hesitated the longer and Columbus with Spanish ships made an easy passage from the Azores to the islands which he named the West Indies. Following a suggestion of the Pope a meridian line running down the middle of the Atlantic was fixed by treaty between Spain and Portugal, the former country agreeing to restrict exploration to the western hemisphere so marked out and the latter country to the eastern hemisphere. Columbus after other voyages to the West Indies died in 15o6 in the belief that he had reached the islands off the coast of Asia. The merchants of Bristol had often sent out their ships some week's sail to the westward into the Atlantic in search of legendary islands and in 1497 John Cabot, no doubt inspired by the success of Columbus, persevered until he found the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland, thus repeating the old Norse discovery of North America and, though the quest was not then pursued, pegging out a claim to England's oldest colony. The companions of Columbus continued to cruise among the West Indies and quickly traced out the shores of the Spanish Main to the south, and the limits of the Caribbean Sea to west and north. In 1513 Balboa caught the first glimpse of an in accessible ocean to the west from "a peak in Darien" and recog nized that Asia was still far off. In 1500 Vicente Pinzon (q.v.) sent from Spain to explore the coast southward from the Orinoco, first sighted land near Pernambuco and following it northward round Cape San Roque discovered the mouth of the Amazon. His shipmate, Amerigo Vespucci (q.v.), a clever man who took part in several voyages of discovery, described this voyage and by a curious chance his Christian name in its latinized form was attached for ever to the continents of America. By making a westward sweep in a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, Cabral lit on the coast of Brazil in the same year and this accounts for the presence of the Portuguese-speaking Brazilians in the midst of the Spanish-speaking republics of South America. The Span iards realizing that America was a solid obstacle between Europe and Asia pushed forward to discover a passage by the south. In 1515 de Solis reached the River Plate which seemed to offer a way through. Ferdinand Magellan (q.v.) five years later showed that it was only an estuary and, proceeding southward he found and passed through the tortuous strait which bears his name, so piercing the barrier of America. Persevering in face of every difficulty which could befall an explorer he pushed on across the awful and incredible breadth of the Pacific. Although he met his death in the Philippine Islands in 1521, his ship the "Victoria" under Sebastian del Cano with a handful of survivors returned to Spain in 1522 by the Cape of Good Hope after the greatest voyage that ever was, for it accomplished the first circum navigation. Amongst his rewards Del Cano received the world as his crest with the proud motto Primus circuzndedisti me. The Spanish and Portuguese between them soon completed the rough outlines of Africa and the two Americas; but the sixteenth cen tury saw their maritime power challenged by the enterprise of France and the Protestant Powers of England and Holland whose sailors disregarded alike Papal Bulls and the private agreements between Spain and Portugal.
The northern peoples claimed their share in the new world and in the sea routes to the east. French fishermen following in the track of Cabot early began to frequent the Grand Banks of New foundland and the king of France in 1524 sent out Verazzano, a Florentine, who explored the coast of North America between the lands discovered by Cabot in the north and by the Spaniards in the South. He found no way through, and ten years later a French expedition under Jacques Cartier set out to search the Gulf of St. Lawrence for a way to the Far East. In a second voyage in 1535 he ascended the St. Lawrence to the present site of Montreal and, although only the name of Lachine Rapids re mains of this attempt to reach China that way, he spent two years in the effort to start the French colony of Canada.
Queen Elizabeth saw a wave of enthusiasm for discovery sweep over England, rousing sailors, soldiers, merchants, parsons, phil osophers, poets and politicians to vie with each other in promoting expeditions overseas for the glory of their country and their own fame and profit. The gallants of the court were ever ready to command the expeditions for which the shrewd city merchants found the means, while quiet scholars like Richard Hakluyt pro moted the work by recording the great deeds of earlier as well as contemporary adventurers. His Principall Navigations first pub lished in 1589 are to this day delightful reading and, supplemented by Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchase his Pilgrimes published in 1625, form the only record of many great expeditions. On the continent similar compilations such as those of the Italian Ra musio (1583-1613) and the splendidly illustrated Dutch volumes of De Bry (159o-1634) played a similar stimulating part. In England as elsewhere at first the object was to find a westward route to the Far East. Richard Chancellor tried for a North East Passage and though he got no farther than the White Sea he went on by land to Moscow and opened up direct trade with Russia, leading to the formation of the Muscovy Company, the first of many chartered companies for exploration and trade. In 1576 Martin Frobisher (q.v.) made a spirited attempt to find a North West Passage to China and reached the coast of Labrador at its northern extremity. John Davis (q.v.) one of the greatest Arctic explorers who ever lived, took up the quest in 1585, and in successive years he navigated the broad strait which bears his name to 72° N. finding open sea to the northward and hope of an ultimate passage westward. Francis Drake, setting out to trace a route from the other side, made the second circumnavigation of the world in 1577-80. He went by Magellan's Strait, after passing which he was blown southward to 56° S., and satisfied himself that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans met south of Tierra del Fuego. Drake proceeded northward and explored the Pacific coast of North America to 48° in vain search of a passage to the east. Eventually he returned by the Philippines and the Cape of Good Hope. Cavendish repeated this voyage in 1586-88, adding to the confidence with which long voyages were undertaken and John Hawkins, though less fortunate, again showed the flag in the Pacific before the end of the century.
Walter Raleigh, Humphrey Gilbert and many more took part in exploring the North American Atlantic coast and in 1599 Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to the East India Company which initiated direct trade with India and prepared the way for the British Empire in the east. Spanish exploration from the Pacific ports of their American possessions was renewed, partly no doubt in order to anticipate English' discoveries. In 1577 Alvarez de Mendana sailing from Callao crossed the Pacific and discovered the Solomon islands. Pedro Sarmiento in 1579 went south from Callao and surveyed the Strait of Magellan with a view to fortify ing it and so holding for the Spaniards what they then supposed to be the only entry to the Pacific. The Dutch made many at tempts to find a northern passage to China in the last decade of the sixteenth century. Willem Barents, after discovering Spits bergen, was wrecked on the north coast of Novaya Zemlya and after wintering there made a heroic journey by boat along the coast, on which he died, but his crew returned safely in 1596.
In the 17th century the search for a northern passage to the Far East still went on. The work of Davis was followed by that of Henry Hudson who in 1607 reached a latitude of 81° N. in the Spitzbergen region and in 1610 he discovered the inland sea now known as Hudson Bay. Baffin came later reaching 78° N. in 1616, and naming Smith Sound to the north of the great bay called after him at the end of Davis Strait. A charter for the Hudson's Bay company was granted in 1670.