Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/92

86 best-known drugs are procured (for instance, it was only in 1867 that that most familiar of drugs, Turkey rhubarb, was discovered by a missionary in Thibet), the jealousy of the Eastern traders having kept the secret so well; and when we recall the success with which the Arabs until recent years had withheld all information about the interior of Africa, we need not wonder if the shrewd merchants of Marseilles and Narbonne professed an intense ignorance about the land from whence came the tin, the source of which was, no doubt, the object of the Roman inquiries.

But to return: these three towns, called by Pytheas “the best cities in this region”, indicate the line of trade to Britain. There are two emporia on the southern, but only one on the western shore of Gaul. From this we may infer with some confidence that as yet the route to Britain across the Straits of Dover was undeveloped, and that the flourishing city of Corbilo, on the mouth of the Loire, probably in the territory of the Namnetes (Nantes), and whose name possibly is still found in that of the village of Couveron, was the port of embarkation and debarkation to and from Britain.

This passage is of great importance also in other respects, for it puts beyond all doubt that the route between Massalia, Narbo, and the mouth of the Loire was already well known, although a writer of repute like Mr. Elton assumes (on very mistaken grounds, as we shall see presently) that Pytheas opened up this route for the Massaliotes. Furthermore, it can also be inferred, from Scipio’s questions, that there was trade with Britain by this route; whilst there is the further probability that tin was comprised in this trade, although the common theory at present is that Pytheas first opened this trade. Nor is this opinion without further evidence. In none of the Greek fragments of Pytheas have we any reference to tin, but there is a short quotation from Timæus (flor. 350-326 B.C.), the Sicilian historian, who was a contemporary of Pytheas, and whose quotations from the latter are frequently given by Pliny.