A Book of Discovery: The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South PoleSynge, M. B. (Margaret Bertha)
History
A Book of Discovery: The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole
Synge, M. B. (Margaret Bertha)
Discoveries in geography
It has been obviously impossible to include all the famous names that
belong to the history of exploration. Most of these explorers have
been chosen for some definite new discovery, some addition to the
world's geographical knowledge, or some great feat of endurance which
may serve to brace us to fresh effort as a nation famous for our seamen.
English navigators have been afforded the lion's share in the book,
partly because they took the lion's share in exploring, partly because
translations of foreign travel are difficult to transcribe. Most of
these stories have been taken from original sources, and most of the
explorers have been allowed to tell part of their own story in their
own words.
Perhaps the most graphic of all explorations is that written by a native
of West Australia, who accompanied an exploring party searching for
an English lad named Smith, who had been starved to death.
"Away, away, away, away; we reach the water of Djunjup; we shoot game.
Away, away, away through a forest away, through a forest away; we see
no water. Through a forest away, along our tracks away; hills ascending,
then pleasantly away, away, through a forest away. We see a
water--along the river away--a short distance we go, then away, away,
away through a forest away. Then along another river away, across the
river away. Still we go onwards, along the sea away, through the bush
away, then along the sea away. We sleep near the sea. I see Mr. Smith's
footsteps ascending a sandhill; onwards I go regarding his footsteps.
I see Mr. Smith dead. Two sleeps had he been dead; greatly did I weep,
and much I grieved. In his blanket folding him, we scraped away the
earth. The sun had inclined to the westward as we laid him in the
ground."
The book is illustrated with reproductions from old maps--old
primitive maps, with a real Adam and Eve standing in the Garden of
Eden, with Pillars of Hercules guarding the Straits of Gibraltar, with
Paradise in the east, a realistic Jerusalem in the centre, the island
of Thule in the north, and St. Brandon's Isles of the Blest in the
west.
Beautifully coloured were the maps of the Middle Ages, "joyous charts
all glorious with gold and vermilion, compasses and crests and flying
banners, with mountains of red and gold." The seas are full of
ships--"brave beflagged vessels with swelling sails." The land is
ablaze with kings and potentates on golden thrones under canopies of
angels. While over all presides the Madonna in her golden chair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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