The French occupation of Timbuctoo the Mysterious was complete, and Cape Juby was evacuated by England. Two large forts have now replaced the improvised fortifications, and their guns command every side of the town. Under their protection the inhabitants are reviving. The long nightmare of the Touaregs is being slowly dispelled. Houses are being repaired and rebuilt; the occupants leave their doors ajar, and resume their beautifully embroidered robes; and one can picture the city becoming a centre of European civilisation and science as it was formerly of Mussulman culture.
RICHARD HAKLUYT
The Principall Navigations
I.—Of the Book and Why it was Made
Richard Hakluyt, born about 1552 in Herefordshire, England, was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, and became in 1590 rector of Wetheringsett, in Suffolk, where he compiled and arranged "The Principall Navigations, Voyages, Traffikes, and Discoveries of the English Nation to the Remote Quarters of the Earth at any Time within the Compass of these 1600 Years." He grew to manhood in the midst of the most stirring period of travel and discovery that England has known. Under Elizabeth, English sailors and English travellers were penetrating beyond the dim borders of the known world, and almost every returning ship brought back fresh news of strange lands. "Richard Hakluyt, Preacher," tells how his interest was attracted towards this subject of travel and exploration which he made his own. He published other records of travel, but it is through the "Principall Navigations" that his name has been perpetuated. Hakluyt died on November 23, 1616.
I do remember that being a youth, and one of her Majestie's scholars at Westminster, that fruitfull nurserie, it was my happe to visit the chamber of Master Richard Hakluyt, my cousin, a gentleman of the Middle Temple, at a time when I found lying open upon his borde certeine bookes of cosmographie, with an universall mappe; he seeing me somewhat curious in the view thereof, began to instruct my ignorance, by showing me the division of the earth into three parts, after the old account, and then, according to the latter and better distribution, into more. He pointed out with his wand to all the known seas, gulfs, bayes, streights, capes, rivers, empires, kingdoms, dukedoms, and territories of each part, with declaration also of their speciall commodities, and particular wants, which by the benefit of traffike, and intercourse of merchants, are plentifully supplied.
From the mappe he brought me to the Bible, and turning to the 107th Psalme, directed me to the 23rd and 24th verses, where I read that "they which go downe to the sea in ships, and occupy by the great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deepe," etc.
Which words of the prophet together with my cousin's discourse (things of high and rare delight to my young nature), tooke in me so deepe an impression that I constantly resolved, if ever I were preferred to the university, where better time, and more convenient place might be ministered for these studies, I would, by God's assistance, prosecute that knowledge and kinde of literature, the doores whereof were so happily opened before me.