A Book of Discovery by M. B. Synge (classic novels TXT) 📖

troops, "that during the last few days the natives of this country have been spreading all sorts of rumours to work upon your fears. The Persians in this way sought to terrify you with the gates of Cilicia, with the plains of Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates, and yet this river you crossed by a ford and that by means of a bridge. By my troth, we had long ago fled from Asia could fables have been able to scare us. We are not standing on the threshold of our enterprise, but at the very close. We have already reached the sunrise and the ocean, and unless your sloth and cowardice prevent, we shall thence return in triumph to our native land, having conquered the earth to its remotest bounds. I beseech you that ye desert not your king just at the very moment when he is approaching the limits of the inhabited world."

But the soldiers, "with their heads bent earthwards," stood in silence. It was not that they would not follow him beyond the sunset; they could not. Their tears began to flow, sobs reached the ears of Alexander, his anger turned to pity, and he wept with his men.

"Oh, sir," at last cried one of his men, "we have done and suffered up to the full measure of the capacity of mortal nature. We have traversed seas and lands, and know them better than do the inhabitants themselves. We are standing now almost on the earth's utmost verge, and yet you are preparing to go in quest of an India unknown even to the Indians themselves. You would fain root out, from their hidden recesses and dens, a race of men that herd with snakes and wild beasts, so that you may traverse as a conqueror more regions than the sun surveys. But while your courage will be ever growing, our vigour is fast waning to its end. See how bloodless be our bodies, pierced with how many wounds and gashed with how many scars! Our weapons are blunt, our armour worn out! We have been driven to assume the Persian dress! Which of us has a horse? We have conquered all the world, but are ourselves destitute of all things."

The conqueror was at last conquered. The order to turn back was reluctantly given by the disappointed king and leader. It was received with shouts of joy from the mixed multitudes of his followers, and the expedition faced for home. Back they marched through the new lands where no less than two thousand cities had owned his sway, till they came to the banks of the river where the ships were building. Two thousand boats were ready, including eighty thirty-oared galleys.

It was now September 326 B.C.

Nearchus from Crete was made Admiral of the new fleet, which at dawn one October morning pushed out upon the river Hydaspes and set sail downstream towards the unknown sea, Alexander standing proudly on the prow of the royal galley. The trumpets rang out, the oars moved, and the strange argosy, "such as had never been seen before in these parts," made its way down the unknown river to the unknown sea. Natives swarmed to the banks of the river to wonder at the strange sight, marvelling specially to see horses as passengers on board! The greater part of the army followed the ships on land, marching along the shores. At last the waters of the Hydaspes mingled with those of the Indus, and onwards down this great river floated the Persian fleet. Alexander had no pilots, no local knowledge of the country, but with his "unquenchable ambition to see the ocean and reach the boundaries of the world," he sailed on, "ignorant of everything on the way they had to pass." In vain they asked the natives assembled on the banks how far distant was the sea; they had never heard of the sea! At last they found a tide mixing its salt waters with the fresh. Soon a flood-tide burst upon them, forcing back the current of the river, and scattering the fleet. The sailors of the tideless Mediterranean knew nothing of the rise and fall of tides. They were in a state of panic and consternation. Some tried to push off their ships with long poles, others tried to row against the incoming tide; prows were dashed against poops, oars were broken, sterns were bumped, until at last the sea had flowed over all the level land near the river mouth.

Suddenly a new danger appeared! The tide turned and the sea began to recede. Further misfortunes now befell the ships. Many were left high and dry; most of them were damaged in some way or another. Alexander sent horsemen to the seashore with instructions to watch for the return of the tide and to ride back in haste so that the fleet might be prepared.

Thus they got safely out to sea on the next high tide.

Alexander's explorations were now at an end. Leaving Nearchus to explore the seacoast at the mouth of the Indus, he left the spot near where the town of Hyderabad now stands, and turned his face toward the home he was never to reach. We must not linger over his terrible coast journey through the scorching desert of Beluchistan the billows of sand, the glare of the barren sea, the awful thirst, the long hungry marches of forty miles a day under the burning Eastern sun.

A SKETCH-MAP OF ALEXANDER'S CHIEF EXPLORATORY MARCHES FROM ATHENS TO HYDERABAD AND GAZA A SKETCH-MAP OF ALEXANDER'S CHIEF EXPLORATORY MARCHES FROM ATHENS TO HYDERABAD AND GAZA.
The dotted line shows the course of Nearchus' voyage down the river Indus, along the northern shores of the Indian Ocean, and up the Persian Gulf to Babylonia.

Our story is one of discovery, and we must turn to Nearchus, Admiral of the fleet, left behind at the mouth of the Indus to explore the coast to the Persian Gulf, where he was to meet Alexander if possible. Shortly after the fleet had emerged from the mouth of the Indus a violent south-west monsoon began to blow and Nearchus was obliged to seek shelter in a harbour, which he called the port of Alexander, but which to-day is known as Karachi, the most western seaport of India. The waters of the Indian Ocean were quite unknown to the Greeks, and they could only coast along in sight of land, anchoring at different points for the men to land and get water and food. Past the wild barren shores of Beluchistan they made their way; the natives subsisted on fish entirely even as they do to-day—even their huts being made of fish bones and their bread of pounded fish.

They had but one adventure in their five months' cruise to the Persian Gulf, but we have a graphic account of how the terrified Greeks met a shoal of whales and how they frightened the whales away. Here is the story. One day towards daybreak they suddenly saw water spouting up from the sea, as if being violently carried upwards by whirlwinds. The sailors, feeling very frightened, asked their native guides what it meant. The natives replied that it was caused by whales blowing the water up into the air. At this explanation the Greek sailors were panic-stricken and dropped the oars from their hands. Nearchus saw that something must be done at once. So he bade the men draw up their ships in line as if for battle and row forward side by side towards the whales, shouting and splashing with their oars. At a given signal they duly advanced, and when they came near the sea-monsters they shouted with all their might and blew their trumpets and made all possible noise with their oars. On hearing which, says the old story, "the whales took fright and plunged into the depths, but not long after came to the surface again close to the sterns of the vessels and once more spouted great jets of water. Then the sailors shouted aloud at their happy and unlooked-for escape," and Nearchus was cheered as the saviour of the fleet. It is not uncommon to-day for steamers bound from Aden to Bombay to encounter what is called a "school of whales" similar to those which alarmed the fleet of Nearchus in the year 323 B.C.

The expedition was completely successful and Nearchus pioneered his fleet to the mouth of the Euphrates.

But the death of Alexander the Great and the confusion that followed set back the advance of geographical discovery in this direction for some time.

ALEXANDRIA IN PIZZIGANI'S MAP, FOURTEENTH CENTURY ALEXANDRIA IN PIZZIGANI'S MAP, FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
The river with the buildings on its bank is the Nile.

Alexandria—one of the many towns founded by Alexander—had become the world centre of the learned from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Its position was unrivalled. Situated at the mouth of the Nile, it commanded the Mediterranean Sea, while by means of the Red Sea it held easy communication with India and Arabia. When Egypt had come under the sway of Alexander, he had made one of his generals ruler over that country, and men of intellect collected there to study and to write. A library was started, and a Greek, Eratosthenes, held the post of librarian at Alexandria for forty years, namely, from 240-196 B.C. During this period he made a collection of all the travels and books of earth description—the first the world had ever known—and stored them in the Great Library of which he must have felt so justly proud. But Eratosthenes did more than this. He was the originator of Scientific Geography. He realised that no maps could be properly laid down till something was known of the size and shape of the earth.

By this time all men of science had ceased to believe that the world was flat; they thought of it as a perfect round, but fixed at the centre in space. Many had guessed at the size of the earth. Some said it was forty thousand miles round, but Eratosthenes was not content with guessing. He studied the length of the shadow thrown by the sun at Alexandria and compared it with that thrown by the sun at Syene, near the first cataract of the Nile, some five hundred miles distant, and, as he thought, in the same longitude. The differences in the length of these two shadows he calculated would represent one-fiftieth of the circumference of the earth which would accordingly be twenty-five thousand miles. There was no one to tell him whether he had calculated right or wrong, but we know to-day that he was wonderfully right. But he must know more. He must find out how much of this earth was habitable. To the north and south of the known countries men declared it was too hot or too cold to live. So he decided that from north to south, that is, from the land of Thule to the land of Punt (Somaliland), the habitable earth stretched for some three thousand eight hundred miles, while from east to west—that is, from the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar) to India—would be some eight thousand miles. All the rest was ocean. Ignoring the division of the world into three continents, he divided it into two, north and south, divided by the Mediterranean and by a long range of mountains intersecting the whole of Asia.

Then the famous librarian drew a map of the world for his library at Alexandria, but it has perished with all the rest of the valuable treasure collected in this once celebrated city. We know that he must have made a great many mistakes in drawing a map of his little island world which measured eight thousand miles by three thousand eight hundred miles. It must have been quaintly arranged. The Caspian Sea was connected with a Northern Ocean,