Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/190

Rh .L in gel tables. N ortl1- men. f Early know- I .-rlge of America. Cru- sades. 178 these 2I.'lw seek to eeamler t/u'ou_r/It tlw lfq/ion—s of the Worltl. Finally Al 1{azw1'n1’, who was a compiler from the works of Istakhri and Ibn Haukal in about 1263, brings us down to the times when the Italian explorers began to make known the vast realms of Asia to tl1e people of Europe. The _Iongol a11d Turkish dynasties, which succeeded each other after the fall of the Arabian caliphs, also produced rulers who encouraged geographical science. Philosophers assembled at the court of Hulaku Khan (1253-1264) at Maraghah in the north of Persia; and his friend N asiru—’d- Din was the most famous astronomer of the age. He co11- structed the tables known as the Tables of the Ilkhany, which corrected some important errors in the former mode of adjusting the commencement of the new year. Nearly two centuries later, in 1446, Ulugh Begl}, of the house of Timur, succeeded to the throne of Samarkand, and under his auspices the famous tables called “Zij Ulugh Begh” were composed. They continued to be authorities for long afterwards, a11d even Kinneir, in determining the latitudes of places in Persia, often quotes the tables of Ulugh Begh. The N orthmen of Denmark and Norway, who were the terror of all the coasts of Europe, and who established themselves in England and Ireland, in France and Sicily, were also great promoters of geographical discovery during the darkest period of the Middle Ages. The N ortlnnen were far from bei11g always vikings, bent only on rapine and plunder. They were very often peaceful merchants. King Alfred sent Ulfsten and the Norwegian Ottar on voyages of discovery towards the White Sea ; and the Scandinavian merchants brought the products of India to England and Ireland. From the 8tl1 to the 11tl1 century a commercial route from India passed through Kharism and Novgorod to the Baltic, and immense quantities of Arabian coins have been found in Sweden, and particularly in the island of Gothland, which are preserved at Stockholm. Five-sixths of them were fron1 the mints of the San1a11ian dynasty, which reigned in Khorasan and Transoxiana from about 900 to 1000 A.D. It was the trade with the East that originally gave importance to the city of Visby in Gothland. In the end of the 9th century Iceland was colonized from Norway; and in 985 the intrepid viking Erik, surnamed the Red, discovered Greenland, and induced some of his Icelandic countrymen to settle on its inhospitable shores. In 986 young Bjorni, son of one of Erik’s comrades, sailed from Iceland to join his father in Greenland, but shaped his course too far to the south, and was the discoverer of America. He sailed along the coasts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Nova Scotia, before he eventually found the fjord on the Greenland coast where his father dwelt. Then Leif, the son of Erik, bought the ship from young Bjorni and made another voyage of discovery, and once more the coast of America was visited. Other ‘expeditions were undertaken by his two brothers, intercourse was kept up between Greenland and Norway, and the saga of Thor- ﬁnn tells us of other voyages to America. The last that was heard of the Norwegian colonies in Greenland was in a brief of Pope Nicolas V. in 1448, where it is stated that, 30 years before, the settlements had been destroyed'by the attacks of savages. Two noble Venetians, Nicole and Antonio Zeno, who were in the service of the prince of the Faroe Islands in the end of the 13th century, recorded their observations respecting the Norse colonies. Antonio actually went to Greenland, and heard of the visits of ﬁshermen to two parts of North America called Estotiland and Drogeo. At length the long period of barbarism which accompanied and followed the fall of the Roman empire drew to a close in Europe. The crusades had a very favourable inﬂuence GEOGRAPHY on geography, the full title of which is T/ac Delir/ht of I on the intellectual state of the Western nations. [r1:ooiu-.‘ss or 1>1scov}:r.v. Interest ing regions, known only by the scant reports of pilgrims, were made the objects of attention and research; while religous zeal, and the hope of gain, combined with motives of 111cre curiosity, induced several persons to travel by land into remote regions of the East, far beyond the countries to which the operations of the crusaders extended. .‘unong these was Benjamin of Tudela, who set out from Spain in 1160, travelled by land to Constantinople, and having visited India and some of the eastern islands, returned to Europe by way of Egypt after an absence of 13 years. Christian missionary zeal was another motive for explora- tion. John of Plano Carpini in Perugia, a 1"ranciscan monk, was the head of one of the missions dcspatched by Pope Innocent to call the chief and people of the 'l‘atars to a better mind. He reached the headquarters of l}atu. F ran can 1 siona on the Volga, in February 1246 ; and, after some stay," went on to the can1p of the great khan near liarakorum, and returned safely in the autunm of 1247. A few years afterwards, a Fleming named ltubruquis was sent by St Louis on a mission to the Tatar chiefs, and wrote a very interesting narrative. He entered the Black Sea in .Iay 1253, visited Batu and the court of the great khan )1-angu 11ear Karakorum, and got back to Antioch about the end of June 1255. Rnbruquis had the merit of being the ﬁrst modern traveller who gave a correct account of the Caspian Sea. He ascertained that it had no outlet. At nearly the same time Hayton, king of Armenia, 111ade a journey to Karakorum in 1254, by a route far to the north of that followed by Carpini and Itubruquis. He was treated with honour a11d hospitality, and returned by way of Otrar, Samarkand, and Tabriz, to his own territory. The curious narrative of King Hayton was translated by Klaproth. While the republics of Italy, and above all the state of Mm-co Venice, were engaged i11 distributing the jewels, the spices, P010- and the ﬁne cloths of India over the Western world, it was impossible that motives of curiosity, as well as a desire of commercial advantage, should not be awakened to such a degree as to impel some to brave all the obstacles and dangers to be encountered in visiting those remote countries. Among these were N icolo and Maffeo Polo, two brothers who traded with the East and visited Tatary. The recital of their travels ﬁred the youthful imagination of young Marco Polo, the soil of Nicole, and he set out for the court of Kublai Khan, with his father and uncle, in 1265. After a journey of three years and a half they reached Yeu-king, near the spot where Peking now stands, and young Marco was enrolled among the attendants of honour of the Grand. Khan. During the seventeen years that he remained in this service, Marco Polo was employed on important missions ; and besides what he learnt from his own observation, he collected from others much inforn1ation concerning countries which he did not visit. He returned to Europe possessed of a vast store of knowledge respecting the eastern parts of the world, and, being afterwards made a prisoner by the Genoese, he dictated the narrative of his travels during his captivity. The work of Marco Polo is the most valuable "narrative of travels that appeared during the Middle Ages, and its latest and ablest editor truly says, “All other travellers of that time are but stars of a low magnitude beside the full orb of Marco Polo.” Still these minor orbs continued to do useful geographical work, while striving to spread the truths of the Gospel. Among them were John of Monte Corvino, a Franciscan monk, Andrew of Perugia, John Marignioli, and Friar J ordanus, who visited the west coast of India, and above all Friar Odoric of Pordenone. Odoric set out on his travels in about 1318, and was in western India and northern China between 1321 a11d 1328, dying in 1331. He went by Constantinople to Trebizond, thence through