Celebrated Travels and Travellers Vol 1 First Part Chapter III part 1 - Celebrated travellers between the 10th and 13th centuries.

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Section 4 of Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Volume 1, Exploration of the World by Jules Verne. First part, Chapter 3, Part 1

Celebrated Travelers between the 10th and 13th centuries. Benjamin of Tudela, 1159 to 1173, Plante Capin, or Capini, 1245 to 1247, Rubuquis, 1253 to 1254

In the course of the 10th and at the beginning of the 11th century, a considerable amount of ardor for exploration had arisen in northern Europe. Some Norwegians and adventurous Gauls had penetrated to the northern seas, and, if we may trust to some accounts, they had gone as far as the White Sea and visited the country of the Semiads. Some documents say the Prince Matic may have explored the American continent.

At all events, we may be tolerably certain that Iceland was discovered about AD 861 by some Scandinavian adventurers, and that it was soon after colonized by Normans. About this time a Norwegian had taken refuge on a newly discovered land, and, surprised by its verdu, he gave it the name of Greenland. The communication with this portion of the American continent was difficult and uncertain, and one geographer says it took five years for a vessel to go from Norway to Greenland and to return from Greenland to Norway.

Sometimes in severe winters the northern ocean was completely frozen over, and a certain horror gate, guided by a goat, was able to cross on foot from Norway to Greenland. We should keep in mind that the period of which we are speaking is the time when legends and traditions were very plentiful, and gained ready credence. Let us return to well authenticated facts, and relate the journey of a Spanish Jew whose truthfulness is beyond question.

This Jew was the son of a rabbi of Tudela, a town in Navarre, and he was called Benjamin of Tudela. It seems probable that the object of his voyage was to make a census of his brother Jews scattered over the service of the globe. But whatever may have been his motive, he spent thirteen years, from 1160 to 1173, exploring nearly all the known world, and his narrative was considered the great authority on this subject up to the sixteenth century. Benjamin of Tudela left Barcelona, and traveling by Tarragona, Guerronde, Narbonne, Bizis, Montpellier, Sunel, Poscuies, St. Giles, and Arles, reached Marseille. Here he visited the two synagogues in the town and the principal Jews, and then set sail for Genoa, arriving there in four days. The Genoese were masters of the sea at that time, and were at war with the people of Pisa. A brave people, who liked the Genoese as a traveler, owned neither kings nor princes, but only the judges whom they appointed at their own pleasure. After visiting Lucca, Benjamin of Tudela went to Rome. Alexander III was pope at this time, and according to this traveler, he included some Jews among his ministers. Among the monuments of special interest in the Eternal City, he mentioned St. Peter's and St. John the Terne, but his descriptions are not interesting. From Rome by Capua and Pozzulli, then partly inundated, he went to Naples, where he seems to have seen nothing but the 500 Jews living there. Then by Salerno, Amalfi, Benevento, Oscali, Trani, St. Nicholas of Bari and Brindisi, he arrived at Entranto, having crossed Italy and yet found nothing interesting to relate of this plundered country. The list of the places Benjamin of Tudela visited is not interesting, but we must not omit to mention one of them, for his narrative is most precise, and it is useful to follow his route by the maps specially prepared for this purpose by Lelouel.

From Entranto to Zantung his halting places were Corfu, the Gulf of Arta, Achelos, an ancient town in Anatolia, Anatolia in Greece, on the Gulf of Pothras, Pothras, Lepanto, Chryssa, at the foot of Mount Parnassus, Corinth, Thebes, whose 2,000 Jewish inhabitants were the best makers of silk and purple in Greece, Nageropont, and Zetoun. Here, according to the Spanish Traveler, is the boundary line of Wallachia. He says the Wallachians are as nimble as goats and come down from the mountains to pillage the neighboring Greek towns.

Benjamin of Tudela went on to Constantinople by way of Gardiki, a small township on the Gulf of Volo. Amoros, a port much frequented by the Venetians and Genoese. Vecina, a town of which no traces are left. Salonica, the ancient Thela Salonica. And Abidos. He gives us some details of Constantinople. The emperor Emmanuel Comenus was reigning at the time and lived in a palace that he built upon the seashore, containing columns of pure gold and silver, and the golden throne studded with precious stones, above which a golden crown is suspended by a chain of the same precious metal, which rests upon the monarch's head as he sits upon the throne. In this crown are many precious stones, and one of priceless worth. So brilliant are they, says the traveller, that at night there is no occasion for any further light than that thrown back by these jewels. He adds that there is a large population in the city, and for the number of merchants from all countries who assemble there, it can only be compared to Baghdad. The inhabitants are principally dressed in embroidered silk robes enriched with golden fringes, and to see them thus attired and mounted upon their horses, one would take them for princes. But they are not brave warriors, and they keep mercenaries from all nations to fight for them. One regret, he expresses, and that is, that there are no Jews left in the city, and that they have all been transported to Galata near the entrance of the port, for nearly 2,500 of the sects, Rabbinites and Chariots, and among them many rich merchants and silk manufacturers, but the Turks have a bitter hatred for them and treat them with great severity. Only one of these rich Jews was allowed to ride on horseback. He was the emperor's physician, Solomon, the Egyptian. As to the remarkable buildings of Constantinople, he mentions the Mosque of St. Sophia, in which the number of altars answers to the number of days in a year, and the columns in gold and silver candlesticks are too numerous to be counted. Also, the Hippodrome, which at the present day is used as a horse market, but was then the scene of combats between lions, bears, tigers and other wild beasts, and even birds. When Benjamin of Tudela left Constantinople, he visited Gallipoli and Chilia, a port on the eastern coast, and went to the islands in the archipelago, Mytilene, Chios, whence there was much trade in the juice of the pistachio tree, Samos, Rhodes and Cyprus. As he sailed towards the land of Aaron, he had passed by Missis, by Antioch, where he admired the arrangements for supplying the city with water, and by Latakia on his way to Tripoli, which he found had been recently shaken by an earthquake that had been felt for miles round. We next hear of him at Beirut, at Sidon, and Tyre, celebrated for its glass manufacturing, at Acre, at Jaffa near Mount Carmel, at Capernaum, at the beautiful town of Cesera, at Samaria, which is built in the midst of a fertile tract where there are vineyards, gardens, orchards, and olive gardens, at Nabolas, at Gibeon, and then at Jerusalem. In the holy city, it was but natural that the Jew could see nothing that would have interested a Christian visitor. For him, Jerusalem appeared only a small town, defended by three walls, and peopled with Jews, Syrians, Greeks, Georgians, and Franks of all languages and nations. He found four hundred horse soldiers in the city ready for war at any moment. A great temple in which there is a tomb of that man, as the Talmud styles our Saviour, and a house in which the Jews had the privilege of carrying on the work of dying. But they were few in number, scarcely two hundred, and they lived under the Tower of David at one corner of the city.