But if the Sindbad saga is based on the stories of Mohammedan travellers and sum up Arab adventure by sea in the tenth century, we must turn to another Arab--Massoudy by name--for land travel of the same period. Massoudy left his home at Bagdad very young and seems to have penetrated into every Mohammedan country from Spain to farther India. In his famous _Meadows of Gold_, with its one hundred and thirty-two chapters, dedicated to "the most illustrious Kings," he describes the various lands through which he has travelled, giving us at the same time a good deal of incorrect information about lands he has never seen. "I have gone so far towards the setting sun That I have lost all remembrance of the east, And my course has taken me so far towards the rising sun That I have forgotten the very name of west." One cannot but look with admiration on the energetic Arab traveller, when one remembers the labour of travel even in the tenth century. There were the long, hot rides through central Asia, under a burning sun, the ascent of unknown mountains, the crossing of unbridged rivers. From his lengthy work we will only extract a few details. Though he had "gone so far toward the setting sun," his knowledge of the West was very limited, and while Vikings tossed on the Atlantic westwards, Massoudy tells us that it is "impossible to navigate beyond the Pillars of Hercules, for no vessel sails on that sea; it is without cultivation or inhabitant, and its end, like its depth, is unknown." Such was the "Green Sea of Darkness" as it was called by the Arabs. Massoudy is more at home when he journeys towards the rising sun to the East, but his descriptions of China, the "Flowery Land," the "Celestial Country," were to be excelled by others. We must pass over Edrisi, who in 1153 wrote on "The going abroad of a curious Man to explore all the Wonders of the World," which wonders he explored very imperfectly, though he has left us a map of the world, which may be seen to-day at the Bodleian Library at Oxford.