, 1877-12-08

WHAT WAS KNOWN OF THE WORLD IN
OLD TIMES.

OLD TIMES.
A thousand years ago (says DR.. Robert
Brown, in his new work, "The Countries
OF the World" and for long alter the
world was not all the geologized, bota.
nlzed, zoologized, and mapped out
earthly ball it is now. There it lay, &C.
cording to the inauguration Of men and
women OF these days-or rather, accord.
ing to the ideal OF monks; for the men,
and far less the women, of those distant
times troubled themselves very little
about mnttersof this kind, but LETT it to
the churchmen to meddle with such dan.
gerous book lcarning-a flat plain, full
OF things mysterious and unknown; and
out ofthe four corners, which were placed
there to keep it steady, blew the four
winds of Heaven OF course, the cen =
tire OF it all was the little town, land
country, parish, mano-, barcny, or king
dom where they dwelt; but outside of
that was no mans land. 1t was looked
upon by our remote torcmthers in much
the same light as it is blythe Chinese,
who, while making maps Of the Flowery
Land on scale so large as to show the
ground plan OF every town and village,
mark all the countries Outside of that
magic boundary OF theirs as "inhablted
by barbarans," 1t was the land o! the
infdel, the people said, as they piously
crossed themselves at the thought. All
was mysterious to the travellers of that
age. The unknown lands were full of
dragons and giants, rocs, ores, witch
wales, griffins, chimeras, enchanters,
Paynims, Saracens, Emirs and Sultans.
Kasirs of Constantinople, of Ind, and
Cathay, and CIpango. What u choice
was there then for young traveller, n |
good knight, and proper man withal.
Ifhe had mind he could steer his way
to Lapland, where Gas all the world |
knew dwarls forged chain armor of
magic links, and where witch. whales
and zee mountains roamed about the chill.
ly seas; or, to 90 south, and join the Va
rangers guard at Constantiuople; or,
beard the Turk in Palestine or, into
Egypt, and win the kings daughter by !
killing great Oregon. rs dld st. George
or, down to Cardoya, where there were
dire maglcians; or, into the forests Of
Brittany, where beauteous fairies spcrted
kindly immortals, who loved to be
welded to mortality-who emptisd his
water jars at night and filled them with
good Rhine wine ere dawn Of day. He
might even marry one, rs did st. Lance.
lot, aud pass few years in Fairyland
Even in our own dull old prossic land, |
the geOgraphers ofa thousand years ago
reported wonders to be seen for the |
Dragons were in the land. |
and giants stalked all over Cornwall so |
that, like Hereward, you could go into |
the Land of TIN, kill an ogre and save a
kings daughter. In those days there
were lands to discover and take posses
sion of, and wonders and strange things
to be seen wherever you turned. The
fairies have now hidden farewell to al. |
accessible places, and if you wish to win
them you must go very far af'eld to
places where there are mo books and no
these elf-maidens like not |
letters, and flee before chem like ghosts
before the cock, k,crow; if you wish wine
now, you may gather the grapes-aye,
and tread them out, too. Then think how
easy it was to travel in those barbar-
Gus times; no philosophical instruments
were in demand, only big ox.horn to
engrave your map on, and if you were q |
very learned traveller, an Ink horn and !
A parchment to write your notes on
though, generally speaking, travellers in
those days did not trouble themselves
much with writing, but drew freely on
their imaginations.