Behind these mountains, and beyond the region of the northern winds, there dwells, if we choose to believe it, a happy race, known as the Hyperborei,[22] a race that lives to an extreme old age, and which has been the subject of many marvellous stories.[23] At this spot are supposed to be the hinges upon which the world revolves, and the extreme limits of the revolutions of the stars. Here we find light for six months together, given by the sun in one continuous day. To these people there is but one rising of the sun for the year, and that at the summer solstice,[24] and but one setting, at the winter solstice. This region, warmed by the rays of the sun, is of a most delightful temperature, and exempt from every noxious blast. The abodes of the natives are the woods and groves, the gods receive their worship singly and in groups, while all discord and every kind of sickness are things utterly unknown. Death comes upon them only when satiated with life; after a career of feasting, in an old age sated with every luxury, they leap from a certain rock there into the sea; and this they deem the most desirable mode of ending existence. Some writers have placed these people, not in Europe, but at the very verge of the shores of Asia. Others again have placed them midway between the two suns, at the spot where it sets to the Antipodes and rises to us; a thing however that cannot possibly be, in consequence of the vast tract of sea which there intervenes. Those writers who place them nowhere but under a day which lasts for six months, state that in the morning they sow, at mid-day they reap, at sunset they gather in the fruits of the trees, and during the night conceal themselves in caves. Nor are we at liberty to entertain any doubts as to the existence of this race; so many authors are there who assert that they were in the habit of sending their first-fruits to Delos to present them to Apollo, whom they especially worship. Virgins used to carry them, who for many years were held in high veneration, and received the rites of hospitality from the nations that lay on the route; until at last, in consequence of repeated violations of good faith, the Hyperboreans came to the determination to deposit these offerings upon the frontiers of the people who adjoined them, and they in their turn were to convey them on to their neighbors, and so from one to the other, till they should have arrived at Delos. However, this custom, even, in time fell into disuse.
CHAPTER XI.
BRITANNIA.
Opposite to the west coast of Europe is the island called Britannia, so celebrated in the records of Greece[25] and of our own country. It is situate to the north-west, and, with a large tract of intervening sea, lies opposite to Germany, Gaul, and Spain, by far the greater part of Europe. Its former name was Albion.[26] This island is distant from the coast of the nation of the Morini,[27] at the spot where the passage across is the shortest, fifty miles. Pytheas and Isidorus say that its circumference is 4875 miles. It is barely thirty years since any extensive knowledge of it was gained by the successes of the Roman arms, and even as yet they have not penetrated beyond the vicinity of the Caledonian[28] forest. Agrippa believes its length to be 800 miles, and its breadth 300; he also thinks that the breadth of Hibernia is the same, but that its length is less by 200 miles. This last island is situated beyond Britannia, the passage across being the shortest from the territory of the Silures,[29] a distance of thirty miles. Of the remaining islands none is said to have a greater circumference than one hundred and twenty-five miles. Among these there are the Orcades,[30] forty in number, and situated within a short distance of each other, the seven islands called Acmodæ.[31] The most remote of all that we find mentioned is Thule,[32] in which, there is no night at the summer solstice, when the sun is passing through the sign of Cancer, while on the other hand at the winter solstice there is no day. Some writers are of opinion that this state of things lasts for six whole months together.
CHAPTER XII.
MOUNT ATLAS.
Through the nation of the Autololes lies the road to Mount Atlas, the most fabulous locality even in Africa.
From the midst of the sands, according to the story, this mountain[33] raises its head to the heavens; rugged and craggy on the side which looks toward the shores of the ocean to which it has given its name, while on that which faces the interior of Africa it is shaded by dense groves of trees, and refreshed by flowing streams; fruits of all kinds springing up there spontaneously to such an extent, as more than to satiate every possible desire. Throughout the daytime, no inhabitant is to be seen; all is silent, like that dreadful stillness which reigns in the desert. A religious horror steals imperceptibly over the feelings of those who approach, and they feel themselves smitten with awe at the stupendous aspect of its summit, which reaches beyond the clouds, and well nigh approaches the very orb of the moon. At night, they say, it gleams with fires innumerable lighted up; it is then the scene of the gambols of the Satyr crew, while it re-echoes with the notes of the flute and the pipe, and the clash of drums and cymbals. All this is what authors of high character have stated, in addition to the labors which Hercules and Perseus there experienced. The space which intervenes before you arrive at this mountain is immense, and the country quite unknown.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ISLAND OF TAPROBANA.
Taprobana,[34] under the name of the “land of the Antipodes,” was long looked upon as another world: the age and the arms of Alexander the Great were the first to give satisfactory proof that it was an island. Onesicritus, the commander of his fleet, has informed us that the elephants of this island are larger, and better adapted for warfare than those of India; and from Megasthenes we learn that it is divided by a river, and that their country is more productive of gold and pearls of great size than even India. Eratosthenes has also given the dimensions of this island, as being seven thousand stadia in length, and five thousand in breadth: he states also that there are no cities, but villages to the number of seven hundred. It begins at the Eastern sea, and lies extended opposite to India, east and west. In former times when the navigation was confined to vessels constructed of papyrus with the tackle peculiar to the Nile, this island was supposed to be twenty days’ sail from the country of the Prasii,[35] but the distance has been estimated at no more than seven days’ sail,[36] reckoned at the speed which can be attained by vessels of our construction. The sea that lies between the island and the mainland is full of shallows, not more than six paces in depth; but in certain channels it is of such extraordinary depth, that no anchor has ever found a bottom. For this reason it is that the vessels are constructed with prows at either end; so that there may be no necessity for tacking while navigating these extremely narrow channels. The tonnage of these vessels is three thousand amphoræ. In traversing their seas, the people of Taprobana take no observations of the stars, and indeed the Great Bear is not visible to them; but they carry birds out to sea, which they let go from time to time, and so follow their course as they make for the land. They devote only four months in the year to the pursuits of navigation, and are particularly careful not to trust themselves on the sea during the next hundred days after our summer solstice, for in those seas it is at that time the middle of winter.
So much we learn from the ancient writers; it has fallen to our lot, however, to obtain a still more accurate knowledge of these people; for, during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, an embassy came from even this distant island to Rome. The circumstances under which this took place were as follows: Annius Plocamus had farmed from the treasury the revenues arising from the Red Sea. A certain freedman of his, while sailing around Arabia, was carried away by a gale from the north beyond the coast of Carmania. In the course of fifteen days he had drifted to Hippuros, a port of Taprobana, where he was most kindly and most hospitably received by the king; and having, after a study of six months, become well acquainted with the language, was enabled to answer all his enquiries relative to the Romans and their emperor. But of all that he heard, the king was more particularly struck with surprise at our rigid notions of justice, on ascertaining that among the coins found on the captive, the denarii were all of equal weight, although the different figures on them plainly showed that they had been struck in the reigns of several emperors. By this circumstance especially, the king was prompted to form an alliance with the Romans, and accordingly sent to Rome an embassy, consisting of four persons, the chief of whom was Rachias.[37]
From these persons we learned that in Taprobana there are five hundred towns, and that there is a harbor that lies facing the south, and adjoining the city of Palæsimundus, the most famous city in the isle, the king’s place of residence, and containing a population of two hundred thousand. They also informed us that in the interior there is a lake called Megisba, three hundred and seventy-five miles in circumference, and containing islands which are fertile, though for pasturage only. In this lake they informed us two rivers take their rise, one of which, called Palæsimundus, flows into the harbor near the city of that name, by three channels, the narrowest of which is five stadia in width, the largest fifteen: while the other, Cydara by name, takes a direction northward, towards the Indian coast. We learned also that the nearest point of the Indian coast is a promontory known as Coliacum,[38] distant from the island four days’ sail, and that midway between them lies the island of the Sun. They stated also that those seas are of a deep green tint; besides which, there are numerous trees growing at the bottom, so much so, that the rudders of the vessels frequently break off portions of their foliage.[39] They were as much astonished at the constellations which are visible to us, the Great Bear and the Pleiades,[40] as though they had now beheld a new expanse of the heavens; and they declared that in their country the moon can only be seen above the horizon[41] from the eighth to its sixteenth day. They also stated that Canopus, a large bright star, gives light to them by night. But what surprised them more than anything else, was that the shadow of their bodies was thrown towards our hemisphere.[42] They also informed us that the side of their island which lies opposite to India is ten thousand stadia in length, and runs in a southeasterly direction—that beyond the Emodian Mountains they look towards[43] the Seræ, whose acquaintance they had also made in the pursuits of commerce; that the father of Rachias had frequently visited their country, and that the Seræ always came to meet them on their arrival. These people, they said, exceeded the ordinary human height, had flaxen hair, and blue eyes, and made an uncouth sort of noise by way of talking, having no language of their own for the purpose of communicating their thoughts. The rest of their information relative to the Seræ was of a similar nature to that communicated by our merchants. It was to the effect that the merchandise on sale was left by them upon the opposite bank of a river on their coast, and it was then removed by the natives, if they thought proper to deal on terms of exchange. On no grounds ought luxury with greater reason to be detested by us, than if we only transport our thoughts to these scenes, and then reflect, what are its demands, to what distant spots it sends in order to satisfy them, and for how mean and how unworthy an end!