Celebrated Travels and Travellers Vol 1 First Part Chapter II - Celebrated travellers from the 1st to the 9th century.

Jules Verne (0:01)

Section 3 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 2

Pausanias 174, Fa-Hian 399, Cosmos Indicopliustes 500, Arculphe 700, Willebald 725, Soliman 851

In the first two centuries of the Christian era, the study of geography received a great stimulus from the advance of other branches of science. But travellers or rather explorers of new countries were very few in number. Pliny in the year AD 23 devoted the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth books of his natural history to geography. And in AD 50, Hippolyse, a clever navigator, discovered the laws governing the monsoon in the Indian Ocean and taught sailors how they might deviate from their usual course so as to make these winds subservient to their being able to go to and return from India in one year. Arian, a Greek historian born AD 105, wrote an account of the navigation of the Euksean or Black Sea and pointed out as nearly as possible the countries that had been discovered by explorers who had lived before his time. And Ptolemy, the Egyptian, about AD 175, making use of the writings of his predecessors, published a celebrated geography in which for the first time places and cities were marked in the relative latitude and longitude on a mathematical plan. The first traveler of the Christian era whose name has been handed down to us was Pausanias, a Greek writer living in Rome in the second century and whose account of his travels bears the date of AD 175 Pausanias did for Ancient Greece what Joanne the industrious and clever Frenchman did for the other countries of Europe in compiling the Traveler's Guide. His account, a most reliable one on all points and most exact even in details, was one upon which travelers of the second century might safely depend in their journeys through the different parts of Greece. Pausanias gives a minute description of Attica and especially of Athens and its monuments, tombs, temples, citadel, academy, columns and of the Aeropagus. From Attica, Pausanias went to Corinth and then explored the islands of Aegina and Mithana, Sparta, the island of Cerigo, Messinae, Achaea, Arcadia, Biotia and Phocis. The roads in the provinces and even the streets in the towns are mentioned in his narrative, as well as the general character of the country through which he passed. Although we can scarcely say that he added any fresh discoveries to those already made, he was one of those careful travelers whose object was more to obtain exact information than to make new discoveries. His narrative has been of the greatest use to all geographers and writers upon Greece and the Peloponnesus, and an author of the 16th century has truly said that this book is a most ancient and rare specimen of erudition.

It was about 130 years after the Greek historian in the 4th century that a Chinese monk undertook the exploration of the countries lying to the west of China. The account of his travels is still extant, and we may well agree with Monsieur Chartong when he says that this is a most valuable work carrying us beyond our ordinarily narrow view of Western civilization.

Fa-Hian, the Traveller, was accompanied by several monks wishing to leave China by the west. They crossed more than one chain of mountains and reached the country now called Canqiao, which is not far from the Great Wall. They crossed the river Chao Ho and a desert that Marco Polo was to explore 800 years later. After 17 days march, they reached the lake of Labnor in Turkestan. From this point, all the countries that the monks visited were alike as to manners and customs, the languages alone differing. Being dissatisfied with the reception that they met with in the country of the Orgas, who are not a hospitable people, they took a south easterly course towards a desert country where they had great difficulty in crossing the rivers. And after a 35 days march, the little caravan reached Tartary in the kingdom of Khotan, which contained, according to Fa-Hian, many times 10,000 holy men. Here they met with a cordial welcome, and after a residence of three months were allowed to assist at the procession of the images. A great feast in which both Brahmins and Buddhists join, when all the idols are placed upon magnificently decorated cars and paraded through streets strewn with flowers amid clouds of incense. The feast over, the monks left Khotan for Kho-Khonya, and after resting there 15 days, we find them further south in the Balistan country of the present day, a cold and mountainous district, where wheat was the only grain cultivated, and where Fa-Hian found, in use, the curious cylinders on which prayers are written, and which are turned by the faithful with the most extraordinary rapidity. Thence they went to the eastern part of Afghanistan. It took them four weeks to cross the mountains, in the midst of which, and the never-melting snow, they are said to have found venomous dragons.