AFTER MOHAMMED
So once more we turn back to the East. Jerusalem is still the centre
of the earth. But a change has passed over the world, which influenced
not a little the progress of geography. Mohammed in the seventh century
lived and died in Arabia. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His
prophet," proclaimed his followers, the Arabs or Saracens as they were
called. And just as men had travelled abroad to preach Christianity
to those who knew it not, so now the Mohammedans set forth to teach
the faith of their Lord and Master. But whereas Christianity was taught
by peaceful means, Mohammedanism was carried by the sword. The Roman
provinces of Syria and Egypt had been conquered by the Arabs, and the
famous cities of Jerusalem and Alexandria were filled with teachers
of the new faith. The Mohammedans had conquered Spain and were pressing
by Persia towards India.
What deep root their preaching took in these parts is still evident.
Still the weary fight between the two religions continues.
The first traveller of note through this distracted Europe was a
Frenchman named Arculf, a Christian bishop. When he had visited the
Holy Land and Egypt his ship was caught in a violent storm and driven
on to the west coast of Scotland. After many adventures Arculf found
himself at the famous convent of Iona, made welcome by an Irish monk
Adamnan, who was deeply interested in Arculf's account of his
wanderings, and wrote them down at his dictation, first on waxed
tablets, copied later on to parchment. How tenderly the two monks dwell
on all the glories of Jerusalem. "But in that beautiful place where
once the Temple had been, the Saracens now frequent a four-sided house
of prayer, which they have built, rudely constructing it by raising
boards and great beams on some remains of ruins, which house can hold
three thousand men at once." And Arculf draws on the waxed tablet the
picture of some church or tomb to make his narrative clearer to his
friend Adamnan.
Perhaps the most interesting part of all the travels is the account
of the lofty column that Arculf describes in the midst of Jerusalem.
"This column," he says, "as it stands in the centre of the heaven,
shining straight down from above, proves that the city of Jerusalem
is situated in the middle of the earth."
Arculf's journey aroused great interest among the newly converted
Christians of the north, and Willibald, a high-born Englishman,
started off in 721 to explore farther. But the road through Europe
was now full of danger. The followers of Mohammed were strong, and
it required true courage to face the perils of the long journey.
Willibald was undaunted, and with his father and two brothers he sailed
from Southampton, crossed to France, sailed up the Seine to Rouen,
and reached Italy. Here the old father died. Willibald and his brothers
travelled on through "the vast lands of Italy, through the depths of
the valleys, over the steep brows of the mountains, over the levels
of the plains, climbing on foot the difficult passes of the Alps, over
the icebound and snow-capped summits," till they arrived at Rome.
Thence they made their way to Syria, where they were at once thrown
into prison by Mohammedan conquerors. They were brought before the
ruler of the Mohammedan world, or Khalif, whose seat was at Damascus.
He asked whence they came.
"These men come from the western shore, where the sun sets: and we
know not of any land beyond them, but water only," was the answer.
Such was Britain to the Mohammedans. They never got a footing in that
country: their Empire lay to the east, and their capital was even now
shifting to Bagdad.
[Illustration: THE WORLD-MAP OF COSMAS, SIXTH CENTURY. This is the
oldest Christian map. It shows the flat world surrounded by the ocean,
with the four winds and the four sacred rivers running out of the
terrestrial Paradise; beyond all is the "terra ultra oceanum," "the
world beyond the ocean, where men dwelt before the flood."]
But before turning to their geographical discoveries we must see how
Cosmas, the Egyptian merchant-monk, set the clock back by his quaint
theories of the world in the sixth century. Cosmas hailed from
"Alexander's great city." His calling carried him into seas and
countries remote from home. He knew the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian
Gulf, and the Red Sea. He had narrowly escaped shipwreck in the Indian
Ocean, which in those days was regarded with terror on account of its
violent currents and dense fogs. As the ship carrying the merchant
approached this dread region, a storm gathered overhead, and flocks
of albatross, like birds of ill-omen, hovered about the masts.
"We were all in alarm," relates Cosmas, "for all the men of experience
on board, whether passengers or sailors, began to say that we were
near the ocean and called out to the pilot: 'Steer the ship to port
and make for the gulf, or we shall be swept along by the currents and
carried into the ocean and lost.' For the ocean rushing into the gulf
was swelling with billows of portentous size, while the currents from
the gulf were driving the ship into the ocean, and the outlook was
altogether so dismal that we were kept in a state of great alarm."
That he eventually reached India is clear, for he relates strange
things concerning Ceylon. "There is a large oceanic island lying in
the Indian Sea," he tells us. "It has a length of nine hundred miles
and it is of the like extent in breadth. There are two kings in the
island, and they are at feud the one with the other. The island, being
as it is in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all
parts of India, and from Persia and Ethiopia, and from the remotest
countries, it receives silk, aloes, cloves, and other products ...
farther away is the clove country, then Tzinista (China), which
produces silk. Beyond this there is no other country, for the ocean
surrounds it on the east."
Cosmas was the first to realise that China was bounded on the east
by the ocean. He tells us a good story about the "Lord of India," who
always went to war with two thousand elephants. "Once upon a time this
king would lay siege to an island city of the Indians, which was on
every side protected by water. A long while he sat down before it,
until, what with his elephants, his horses, and his soldiers, all the
water had been drunk up. He then crossed over to the city dryshod and
took it."
[Illustration: THE MOUNTAIN OF COSMAS, CAUSING NIGHT AND DAY AND THE
SEASONS.]
But, strange as are the travels and information of Cosmas, still
stranger is his _Christian Topography_. His commercial travelling
done he retired, became a devout Christian monk, and devoted his
leisure time in trying to reconcile all the progress of geographical
knowledge with old Biblical ideas.
He assures us that the world is flat and not round, and that it is
surrounded by an immense wall supporting the firmament. Indeed, if
we compare the maps of Cosmas in the sixth century with those of the
Babylonians thousands of years before, there is mighty little
difference. With amazing courage he refutes all the old theories and
draws the most astounding maps, which, nevertheless, are the oldest
Christian maps which survive.