CELEBRATED TRAVELLERS FROM THE FIRST TO THE NINTH CENTURY.
PAUSANIAS, 174; FA-HIAN, 399; COSMOS INDICOPLEUSTES, 500; ARCULPHE,
700; WILLIBALD, 725; SOLEYMAN, 851.
Pliny, Hippalus, Arian, and Ptolemy--Pausanias visits Attica,
Corinth, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, Achaia, Arcadia, Boeotia, and
Phocis--Fa-Hian explores Kan-tcheou, Tartary, Northern India, the
Punjaub, Ceylon, and Java--Cosmos Indicopleustes, and the Christian
Topography of the Universe--Arculphe describes Jerusalem, the valley
of Jehoshaphat, the Mount of Olives, Bethlehem, Jericho, the river
Jordan, Libanus, the Dead Sea, Capernaum, Nazareth, Mount Tabor,
Damascus, Tyre, Alexandria, and Constantinople--Willibald and the
Holy Land--Soleyman travels through Ceylon, and Sumatra, and crosses
the Gulf of Siam and the China Sea.
In the first two centuries of the Christian era, the study of
geography received a great stimulus from the advance of other
branches of science, but travellers, or rather explorers of new
countries were very few in number. Pliny in the year A.D. 23,
devoted the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth books of his Natural
History to geography, and in A.D. 50, Hippalus, a clever navigator,
discovered the laws governing the monsoon in the Indian Ocean, and
taught sailors how they might deviate from their usual course, so as
to make these winds subservient to their being able to go to and
return from India in one year. Arian, a Greek historian, born A.D.
105, wrote an account of the navigation of the Euxine or Black Sea,
and pointed out as nearly as possible, the countries that had been
discovered by explorers who had lived before his time; and Ptolemy
the Egyptian, about A.D. 175, making use of the writings of his
predecessors, published a celebrated geography, in which, for the
first time, places and cities were marked in their relative latitude
and longitude on a mathematical plan.
The first traveller of the Christian era, whose name has been handed
down to us, was Pausanias, a Greek writer, living in Rome in the
second century, and whose account of his travels bears the date of
A.D. 175. Pausanias did for ancient Greece what Joanne, the
industrious and clever Frenchman did for the other countries of
Europe, in compiling the "Traveller's Guide." His account, a most
reliable one on all points, and most exact even in details, was one
upon which travellers of the second century might safely depend in
their journeys through the different parts of Greece.
Pausanias gives a minute description of Attica, and especially of
Athens and its monuments, tombs, temples, citadel, academy, columns,
and of the Areopagus.
From Attica Pausanias went to Corinth, and then explored the Islands
of AEgina and Methana, Sparta, the Island of Cerigo, Messene, Achaia,
Arcadia, Boeotia, and Phocis. The roads in the provinces and even
the streets in the towns, are mentioned in his narrative, as well as
the general character of the country through which he passed;
although we can scarcely say that he added any fresh discoveries to
those already made, he was one of those careful travellers whose
object was more to obtain exact information, than to make new
discoveries. His narrative has been of the greatest use to all
geographers and writers upon Greece and the Peloponnesus, and an
author of the sixteenth century has truly said that this book is "a
most ancient and rare specimen of erudition."
[Illustration: World as known to the Ancients.]
It was about a hundred and thirty years after the Greek historian,
in the fourth century, that a Chinese monk undertook the exploration
of the countries lying to the west of China. The account of his
travels is still extant, and we may well agree with M. Charton when
he says that "this is a most valuable work, carrying us beyond our
ordinarily narrow view of western civilization."
Fa-Hian, the traveller, was accompanied by several monks; wishing to
leave China by the west, they crossed more than one chain of
mountains, and reached the country now called Kan-tcheou, which is
not far from the great wall. They crossed the river Cha-ho, and a
desert that Marco Polo was to explore eight hundred years later.
After seventeen days' march they reached the Lake of Lobnor in
Turkestan. From this point all the countries that the monks visited
were alike as to manners and customs, the languages alone differing.
Being dissatisfied with the reception that they met with in the
country of the Ourgas, who are not a hospitable people, they took a
south-easterly course towards a desert country, where they had great
difficulty in crossing the rivers; and, after a thirty-five days'
march, the little caravan reached Tartary in the kingdom of Khotan,
which contained, according to Fa-Hian, "Many times ten thousand holy
men." Here they met with a cordial welcome, and after a residence of
three months were allowed to assist at the "Procession of the
Images," a great feast, in which both Brahmins and Buddhists join,
when all the idols are placed upon magnificently decorated cars, and
paraded through streets strewn with flowers, amid clouds of incense.
The feast over, the monks left Khotan for Koukonyar, and after
resting there fifteen days, we find them further south in the
Balistan country of the present day, a cold and mountainous district,
where wheat was the only grain cultivated, and where Fa-Hian found
in use the curious cylinders on which prayers are written, and which
are turned by the faithful with the most extraordinary rapidity.
Thence they went to the eastern part of Afghanistan; it took them
four weeks to cross the mountains, in the midst of which, and the
never-melting snow they are said to have found venomous dragons.
On the further side of this rocky chain the travellers found
themselves in Northern India, where the country is watered by the
streams which, further on, form the Sinde or Indus. After traversing
the kingdoms of On-tchang, Su-ho-to, and Kian-tho-wei, they arrived
at Fo-loo-cha, which must be the town of Peshawur, standing between
Cabul and the Indus, and twenty-four leagues farther west, they came
to the town of Hilo, built on the banks of a tributary of the river
Kabout. In these towns Fa-Hian specially notices the feasts and
religious ceremonies practised in the worship of Fo or Buddha.
[Illustration: One of Fa-Hian's companions falls.]
When the monks left Kito, they were obliged to cross the
Hindoo-Koosh mountains, lying between Turkestan and the Gandhara,
the cold being so intense that one of their party sank under it.
After enduring great hardships they reached Banoo, a town that is
still standing, and then, after again crossing the Indus, they
entered the Punjaub. Thence, descending towards the south-east, with
a view of crossing the northern part of the Indian Peninsula, they
reached Mathura, a town in the province of Agra, and crossing the
great salt desert which lies to the east of the Indus, travelled
through a country that Fa-Hian calls "a happy kingdom, where the
inhabitants are good and honest, needing neither laws nor
magistrates, and indebted to none for their support; without markets
or wine merchants, and living happily, with plenty of all that they
required, where the temperature was neither hot nor cold." This
happy kingdom was India. Fa-Hian followed a south-easterly route,
and came to Feroukh-abad, where Buddha is said to have alighted as
he came down from heaven, the Chinese traveller dwelling much upon
the Buddhist Creed. Thence he visited the town of Kanoji, standing
on the right bank of the Ganges, that he calls Heng, and this is the
very centre of Buddhism. Wherever Buddha is supposed to have rested,
his followers have erected high towers in his honour. The travellers
visited the temple of Tchihouan, where for twenty-five years Fo
practised the most severe mortifications, and where he is said to
have given sight to five hundred blind men. They are said to have
been much moved by the sight of this temple.
They set out again, passing Kapila and Goruckpoor, on the frontier
of Nepaul, all made famous by Fo's miracles, and then reached the
celebrated town of Palian-foo, in the delta of the Ganges, in the
kingdom of Magadha. This was a fertile tract of country inhabited by
a civilized, upright people, who loved all philosophic researches.
After climbing the peak of Vautour, which stands at the source of
the Dyardanes and Banourah rivers, Fa-Hian descended the Ganges,
visited the temple of Issi-paten that was frequented by magicians
and astrologers, reached Benares, "the kingdom of splendours," and a
little lower down, the town of Tomo-li-ti, situated at the mouth of
the river, a short distance from the site of Calcutta in the present
day.
Fa-Hian found a party of merchants just preparing to put to sea with
the intention of going to Ceylon; he sailed with them, and in
fourteen days landed on the shores of the ancient Taprobana, of
which the Greek merchant, Jamboulos, had given a curious account
some centuries previously. Here the Chinese monk found all the
traditions and legends regarding the god Fo, and passed two years in
searching ancient manuscripts. He left Ceylon for Java, where he
landed after a very rough voyage, in the course of which, when the
sky was overclouded, he says, "we saw nothing but great waves
dashing one against another, lightning, crocodiles, tortoises, and
monsters of the deep."
He spent five months in Java, and then set sail for Canton; but the
winds were again unfavourable, and after undergoing great hardships
he landed at the town of Chantoung of the present day; then having
spent some time at Nankin he returned to Fi-an-foo, his native town,
after an absence of eighteen months. Such is the account of
Fa-Hian's travels, which have been well translated by M. Abel de
Remusat, and which give very interesting details of Indian and
Tartar customs, especially those relating to their religious
ceremonies.
The next traveller to the Chinese monk, in chronological order, is
an Egyptian called Cosmos Indicopleustes, a name that M. Charton
renders as "Cosmographic traveller in India." He lived in the sixth
century, and was a merchant of Alexandria, who, on his return from
visiting Ethiopia and part of Asia, entered a monastery.
His narrative is called the "Christian Topography of the Universe."
It gives no details of its author's voyages, but begins with
cosmographic discussions, to prove that the world is square, and
enclosed in a great oblong coffer with all the other planets. This
is followed by some dissertations on the function of the angels, and
a description of the dress of the Jewish Priests. Cosmos also gives
the natural history of the animals of India and Ceylon, and notices
the rhinoceros and buffalo, which can be made of use for domestic
purposes, the giraffe, the wild ox, the musk that is hunted for its
"perfumed blood," the unicorn, which he considers a real animal and
not a myth, the wild boar, the hippopotamus, the phoca, the dolphin,
and the tortoise. Afterwards, Cosmos describes the pepper-plant, as
a frail and delicate shrub, like the smallest tendrils of the vine,
and the cocoa-tree, whose fruit has a fragrance "equal to that of a
nut."
From the earliest times of the Christian era there has been a great
love for visiting the Holy Land, the cradle of the new religion.
These pilgrimages became more and more frequent, and we have many
names left to us of those who visited Palestine during the first
centuries of Christianity.
One of these pilgrims, the French Bishop Arculphe, who lived towards
the end of the seventh century, has left us an account of his
travels.
He sets out by giving a topographical description of the site of
Jerusalem, and describes the wall that surrounds the holy city, then
the circular church built over the Holy Sepulchre, the tomb of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and the stone that closed it, the church
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the church built upon Calvary, and the
basilica of Constantine on the site of the place where the real
cross was found. These various churches are united in one building,
which also encloses the Tomb of Christ, and Calvary, where our Lord
was crucified.
Arculphe then descended into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which is
situated to the east of the city, and contains the church that
covers the tomb of the Virgin; he also saw that of Absalom, which he
calls the Tower of Jehoshaphat. He describes the Mount of Olives
that faces the city beyond the valley, and he prayed in the cave
where Jesus prayed. He also went to Mount Zion, which stands outside
the town on the south side; he notices the gigantic fig-tree, on
which, according to tradition, Judas Iscariot hanged himself, and he
visited the church of the guest-chamber, now destroyed.
[Illustration: Absalom's Tomb.]
After making the tour of the city by the Valley of Siloam, and
ascending by the brook Cedron, the bishop returned to the Mount of
Olives, which was covered with waving wheat and barley, grass and
wild flowers, and he describes the place where Christ ascended from
the summit of the mountain. On this spot a large church has been
built, with three arched porticoes that are not roofed over or
covered in any way, but are open to the sky. "They have not roofed
in this church," says the bishop, "because it was the place whence
our Saviour ascended upon a cloud, and the space open to heaven
allows the prayers of the faithful to ascend thither. For when they
paved this church they could not lay the pavement over the place
where our Lord's feet had rested, as, when the stones were laid upon
that spot, the earth, as though impatient of anything not divine
resting upon it, threw them up again before the workmen. Beyond this,
the dust bears the impress of the divine feet, and though, day by
day, the faithful who visit the spot efface the marks, they
immediately reappear and may be seen perpetually."
After having explored the neighbourhood of Bethany in the midst of
the grove of olives, where the grave of Lazarus is said to be, and
where the church, standing on the right hand is supposed to mark the
spot where our Lord usually conversed with His disciples, Arculphe
went to Bethlehem, which is a short distance from the holy city. He
describes the birthplace of our Lord, a natural cave, hollowed out
of the rock at the eastern end of the village, the church, built by
St. Helena, the tombs of the three shepherds, upon whom the heavenly
light shone at the birth of our Saviour, the burial-places of the
patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that of Rachel, and he
visited the oak of Mamre, under which Abraham received the visit of
the angels. Thence, Arculphe went to Jericho, or rather the place
where the town once stood, whose walls fell at the sound of Joshua's
trumpets. He explored the place where the children of Israel first
rested in the land of Canaan after crossing the river Jordan, and he
speaks of the church of Galgala, where the twelve stones are placed,
which the children of Israel took from the river when they entered
the promised land. He followed the course of the Jordan, and found
near one of the bends of the river on the right bank, and among the
most beautiful scenery, about an hour's walk from the Dead Sea, the
place where our Lord was baptized by St. John the Baptist. A cross
is placed to mark the spot, but when the river is swollen, it is
covered by the water.
After examining the banks of the Dead Sea and tasting its brackish
water, he viewed the source of the Jordan, at the foot of Libanus,
and explored the greater part of the Lake of Tiberias, visiting the
well where the woman of Samaria gave our Lord the water He so much
needed, seeing the fountain in the desert of which St. John the
Baptist drank, and the great plain of Gaza, where our Lord blessed
the five loaves and two fishes, and fed the multitude. Next he went
down to Capernaum, of which there are now no remains; then visited
Nazareth, where our Lord spent His childhood, and ended his journey
at Mount Tabor in Galilee.
The bishop's narrative contains both geographical and historical
accounts of other places, beyond those immediately connected with
our Lord's life on earth. He visited the royal city of Damascus,
which is watered by four large rivers. Also Tyre, the chief town of
Phoenicia, which, though once separated from the mainland, was
joined to it again by the jetty or pier made by the orders of
Nabuchodonosor. He speaks of Alexandria, once the capital of Egypt,
which he reached forty days after leaving Jaffa, and lastly, of
Constantinople, where he often visited the large church in which
"the wood of the cross is preserved, upon which the Saviour suffered
for the salvation of the human race."
The account of this journey was written by the Abbe de St. Columban
at the dictation of the bishop, and not many years afterwards the
same journey was undertaken by an English pilgrim, and accomplished
in much the same way. The name of this pilgrim was Willibald, a
member of a rich family living at Southampton, who, on his recovery
from a long illness, dedicated him to God's service. All his early
life was spent in holy exercises in the monastery of Woltheim; when
he was grown up he had the most intense wish to see St. Peter's at
Rome, and was so set upon this, that it induced his father, brother,
and young sister to wish to go there also; they embarked at
Southampton in the spring of 721, and making their way up the Seine,
they landed at Rouen. We have but few details of the journey to Rome,
but Willibald mentions that after passing through Cortona and Lucca,
at which latter place his father sank under the fatigue of the
journey and died, he reached Rome in safety with his brother and
sister, and passed the winter there, but they were all in turn
attacked with fever. When Willibald regained his health, he
determined to continue his journey to the Holy Land. He sent his
brother and sister back to England, while he joined some monks who
were going in the same direction as himself. They went by Terracina
and Gaeta to Naples, and set sail for Reggio in Calabria, and
Catania and Syracuse in Sicily, whence they again embarked, and,
after touching at Cos and Samos, landed at Ephesus in Asia Minor,
where they visited the tombs of St. John the Evangelist, of Mary
Magdalene, and of the seven sleepers of Ephesus, that is, seven
Christians martyred in the time of the Emperor Decius.
They made some stay at Patara and at Mitylene, and then went to
Cyprus and Paphos; we next find the party, seven in number, at
Edessa, visiting the tomb of St. Thomas the Apostle. Here they were
arrested as spies, and thrown into prison by the Saracens, but the
king, on the petition of a Spaniard, set them at liberty. As soon as
they were set free they left the town in great haste, and from that
time their route is almost the same as that of the Bishop Arculphe;
they visited Damascus, Nazareth, Cana, where they saw a wonderful
amphora on Mount Tabor, where our Lord was transfigured, and the
Lake of Tiberias, where St. Peter walked upon the water; Magdala,
where Lazarus and his sister dwelt; Capernaum, where our Lord raised
to life the son of the nobleman; Bethsaida in Galilee, the native
place of St. Peter and St. Andrew; Chorazin, where our Lord cured
those possessed with devils; Caesarea, and the spot where our Lord
was baptized, as well as Jericho and Jerusalem.
They also went to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Mount of Olives,
and to Bethlehem, the scene of the murder of the Innocents by Herod,
and Gaza. While they were at Gaza, Willibald tells us that he
suddenly became blind, while he was in the church of St. Matthias,
and only recovered his sight two months afterwards, as he entered
the church of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem. He went through the
valley of Diospolis or Lydda, ten miles from Jerusalem, and then
went to Tyre and Sidon, and thence, by Libanus, Damascus, Caesarea,
and Emmaus, back to Jerusalem, where the travellers spent the winter.
This was not to be the limit of their exploration, for we hear of
them at Ptolemais, Emesa, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Samaria, where St.
John the Baptist is said to have been buried, and at Tyre, where it
must be confessed that Willibald defrauded the revenue of that time
by smuggling some balsam that was very celebrated, and on which a
duty was levied. On quitting Tyre they went to Constantinople and
lived there for two years before returning by Sicily, Calabria,
Naples, and Capua. The English pilgrim reached the monastery of
Monte Cassino, just ten years after his first setting out on his
travels; but his time of rest had not yet come, as he was appointed
to a bishopric in Franconia by Pope Gregory III. He was forty-one
years of age when he was made bishop, and he lived forty years
afterwards. In 938 he was canonized by Leo VII.
We will conclude the list of celebrated travellers living between
the first and ninth centuries, by giving a short account of Soleyman,
a merchant of Bassorah, who, starting from the Persian Gulf, arrived
eventually on the shores of China. This narrative is in two distinct
parts, one written in 851, by Soleyman himself, who was the
traveller, and the other in 878 by a geographer named Abou-Zeyd
Hassan with the view of completing the first. Renaud, the
orientalist, is of opinion that this narrative "has thrown quite a
new light on the commercial transactions that existed in the ninth
century between Egypt, Arabia, and the countries bordering on the
Persian Gulf on one side, and the vast provinces of India and China
on the other."
Soleyman, as we have said, started from the Persian Gulf after
having taken in a good supply of fresh water at Muscat, and visited
first, the second sea, or that of Oman. He noticed a fish of
enormous size, probably a spermaceti whale, which the seamen
endeavoured to frighten away by ringing a bell, then a shark, in
whose stomach they found a smaller shark, enclosing in its turn one
still smaller, "both alive," says the traveller, which is manifestly
an exaggeration; then, after describing the remora, the dactyloptera,
and the porpoise, he speaks of the sea near the Maldive Islands in
which he counted an enormous number of islands, among them he
mentions Ceylon by its Arabian name, with its pearl fisheries;
Sumatra, inhabited by cannibals, and rich in gold-mines; Nicobar,
and the Andaman Islands, where cannibalism still exists even at the
present day. "This sea," he says, "is subject to fearful
water-spouts which wreck the ships, and throw on its shores an
immense number of dead fish and sometimes even large stones. When
these tempests are at their height the sea seethes and boils."
Soleyman imagined it to be infested by a sort of monster who preyed
upon human beings; this is thought to have been a kind of dog-fish.
[Illustration: Soleyman noticed a shark in whose stomach they found
a smaller shark.]
Arrived at Nicobar, Soleyman traded with the inhabitants, bartering
some iron for cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, bananas, &c.; he then crossed
the sea, and seems to have made for Singapore, and northwards by the
Gulf of Siam. Soleyman put into a harbour, near Cape Varella, to
revictual his ships, and thence he went by the China Sea to
Jehan-fou the port of the present town of Tche-kiang. The remainder
of the account of Soleyman's travels, written by Abou-Zeyd Hassan,
contains a detailed account of the manners and customs of the
Indians and Chinese; but it is not the traveller himself who is
speaking, and we shall find the same subjects spoken of in a more
interesting manner by later authors.
We must add, in reviewing the discoveries made by travellers sixteen
centuries before, and nine centuries after, the Christian era, that
from Norway to the extreme boundaries of China, taking a line
through the Atlantic ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the
Indian Ocean, and the Sea of China, the immense extent of coast
bordering these seas had been in a great measure visited. Some
explorations had been attempted in the interior of these countries;
for instance, in Egypt as far as Ethiopia, in Asia Minor to the
Caucasus, in India and China; and if these old travellers may not
have quite understood mathematical precision, as to some of the
points they visited, at all events the manners and customs of the
inhabitants, the productions of the different countries, the mode of
trading with them, and their religious customs, were quite
sufficiently understood. Ships could sail with more safety when the
change of winds was no longer a subject of mere speculation, the
caravans could take a more direct route in the interior of the
countries, and the great increase of trade which took place in the
middle ages is surely owing to the facilities afforded by the
writings of travellers.