[17] The error “S. Antonio,” for “Sâo Antâo,” is not the learned Mr Hogg’s; it is common to Norie and other books on navigation.
[18] It is regretable that geographers lost the excellent opportunity offered by the Vienna Weltausstellung of 1873, to determine in congress a single point de départ of longitude for the civilised world. Now each nation has the pretension of making a first meridian of its own, consequently whilst geographical readers have a fair conception of latitude, that of longitude is especially hazy. I only hope we shall not lose sight of the desideratum in the Geographical Congress of Paris (1875).
[19] “A Discourse concerning the Thule of the Ancients,” by Sir Robert Sibbald, vol. iii., Gough’s Camden (Britannia, etc.) of 1787. See also Gibson’s edition of Camden, Lond. 1695, and Frankfort edition, 1602.
[20] The full passage of Tacitus is, “Hanc oram novissimi maris (the Deucaledonian Sea) tunc primum Romana classis circumvecta, insulam esse Britanniam affirmavit, ac simul incognitas ad id tempus insulas, quas Orcades vocant, invenit domuitque. Dispecta est et Thule” (alii “Thyle” and “Tyle”) “quadam trans: nix et hiems appetebat; sed mare pigrum et grave remigantibus: perhibent, ne ventis quidem perinde attolli; credo quod rariores terræ montesque, causa ac materia tempestatum et profunda moles continui maris tardius impellitur.” Plutarch, tells us (Life of Cæsar) that the very existence of such a place as Britain had been doubted. When Diodorus Siculus wrote (temp. J. Cæsar and Augustus), the British Isles were amongst the regions least known to the world: “Ἤκιστα πέπτωκεν ὑρὸ τὴν κοινὴν ἀνθρώπων ἐπίγνωσιν” (lib. iii.). Eusebius (nat. circ. A.D. 264) tells us in his Chronicon, “Claudius de Britannis triumphavit, et Orcades insulas Romano adjecit imperio.” Orosius (circ. A.D. 415) adds (vii. 6, Hist. Adver. Pag., libri vii.), “Cognitæ insulæ erant forte et ante Claudium et sub Claudio, non quidem armis Romanis, sed mercatoribus, aut etiam eruditis, Mela teste.” And Mela, who wrote in the days of Claudius, assures us (iii. 6), “Triginta sunt Orcades angustis inter se diductæ spatiis.”
[21] The mention of fruits in this passage banishes the idea of Iceland.
[22] Diogenes of Apollonia flourished in the fifth century B.C., and also wrote περί φύσεως—concerning nature—a treatise on physical science. In the days when Hanno the Carthaginian, passing the Mediterranean Straits, explored the western coast of Africa, an event usually placed in the fifth century B.C., although Gosselin (Recherches sur la Géographie des Anciens) goes back as far as the tenth, Himilco (Pliny, N. H., ii. 67) was also sent to explore the remote parts of Europe. Sailing along the shores of Gadir, Tartessus (Tarshish), and Gallicia, he reached the Tin Isles. His Periplus, originally deposited in a temple at Carthage, was used by Dionysius, and was versified by Rufus Festus Avienus in the fourth century, in his iambic poem “De Oris Maritimis.” He himself says:
“Hæc nos ab imis Punicorum annalibus,
Prolata longo tempore edidimus tibi.”
And Dodwell justly observes (Dissert. de Peripli Hannonis Ætati): “Ea causa satis verisimilis esse potuit, cur tamdiu Græcos latuerit Himilco, etiam cos qui collegæ meminerint Hannonis.”
[23] Τά ὑπερ θούλης ἀπιστα. An abridgment is preserved by the learned Patriarch Photius in his Myriobiblion seu Bibliotheca.
[24] Juvenal here ironically describes the progress of Greek and Roman letters towards the barbarous north. The Britons are learning eloquence from the Gauls, and even Thule thinks of hiring a rhetorician.