Footnote 367: Macrobius, Somnium Scipionis, ii. 8. Strabo (ii. 5, §§ 7, 8) sets the southern boundary of the Inhabited World 800 miles south of Syene, and the northern boundary at the north of Ireland.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 368: Another notion, less easily explicable and less commonly entertained, but interesting for its literary associations, was the notion of a mountain of loadstone in the Indian ocean, which prevented access to the torrid zone by drawing the nails from ships and thus wrecking them. This imaginary mountain, with some variations in the description, is made to carry a serious geographical argument by the astrologer Pietro d' Abano, in his book Conciliator Differentiarum, written about 1312. (See Major, Prince Henry the Navigator, p. 100.) It plays an important part in one of the finest tales in the Arabian Nights,—the story of the "Third Royal Mendicant."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 369: Ferdinand Columbus tells us that this objection was urged against the Portuguese captains and afterwards against his father: "E altri di ciò quasi così disputavano, come già i Portoghesi intorno al navigare in Guinea; dicendo che, se si allargasse alcuno a far cammino diritto al occidente, come l' Ammiraglio diceva, non potrebbe poi tornare in Ispagna per la rotondità della sfera; tenendo per certissime, che qualunque uscisse del emisperio conosciuto da Tolomeo, anderebbe in giù, e poi gli sarebbe impossibile dar la volta; e affermando che ciò sarebbe quasi uno ascendere all' insù di un monte. Il che non potrebbono fare i navigli con grandissimo vento." Vita deli' Ammiraglio, Venice, 1571, cap. xii. The same thing is told, in almost the same words, by Las Casas, since both writers followed the same original documents: "Añidian mas, que quien navegase por vía derecha la vuelta del poniente, como el Cristóbal Colon proferia, no podria despues volver, suponiendo que el mundo era redondo y yendo hácia el occidente iban cuesta abajo, y saliendo del hemisferio que Ptolomeo escribiò, á la vuelta érales necesario subir cuesta arriba, lo que los navíos era imposible hacer." The gentle but keen sarcasm that follows is very characteristic of Las Casas: "Esta era gentil y profunda razon, y señal de haber bien el negocio entendido!" Historia de las Indias, tom. i. p. 230.[Back to Main Text]
Mundus, ut ad Scythiam Rhipæasque arduus arces
Consurgit, premitur Libyæ devexus in austros.
Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illum
Sub pedibus Styx atra videt Manesque profundi.
Georg., i. 240.
For an account of the deference paid to Virgil in the Middle Ages, as well as the grotesque fancies about him, see Tunison's Master Virgil, 2d ed., Cincinnati, 1890.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 371: Or simply because a wrong course happened to be taken, through ignorance of atmospheric conditions, as in the second homeward and third outward voyages of Columbus. See below, pp. [485], [490].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 372: Navarrete, Discurso historico sobre los progresos del arte de navegar en España, p. 28; see also Raymond Lully's treatise, Libro felix, ó Maravillas del mundo (A. D. 1286).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 373: See Humboldt's Kosmos, bd. i. p. 294; Klaproth, Lettre à M. de Humboldt sur l'invention de la boussole, pp. 41, 45, 50, 66, 79, 90. But some of Klaproth's conclusions have been doubted: "Pour la boussole, rien ne prouve que les Chinois l'aient employée pour la navigation, tandis que nous la trouvons dès le xie siècle chez les Arabes qui s'en servent non seulement dans leurs traversées maritimes, mais dans les voyages de caravanes au milieu des déserts," etc. Sédillot, Histoire des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 130.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 374: Is it not a curious instance of human perversity that while customary usage from time immemorial has characterized as "acts of God" such horrible events as famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, on the other hand when some purely beneficent invention has appeared, such as the mariner's compass or the printing press, it has commonly been accredited to the Devil? The case of Dr. Faustus is the most familiar example.[Back to Main Text]