This was the general style of the maps of the world at that period, as we may perceive from the various illustrations we have been able to give, and it curiously initiates us into the mediaeval ideas. Sometimes they are surrounded by laughable figures of the winds with inflated cheeks, sometimes there are drawn light children of Eolus seated on leathern bottles, rotating the liquid within; at other times, saints, angels, Adam and Eve, or other people, adorn the circumference of the map. Within are shown a profusion of animals, trees, populations, monuments, tents, draperies, and monarchs seated on their thrones--an idea which was useful, no doubt, and which gave the reader some knowledge of the local riches, the ethnography, the local forms of government and of architecture in the various countries represented; but the drawings were for the most part childish, and more fantastic than real. The language, too, in which they were written was as mixed as the drawings; no regularity was preserved in the orthography of a name, which on the same map may be written in ten different ways, being expressed in barbarous Latin, Roman, or Old French, Catalan, Italian, Castilian, or Portuguese! During the same epoch other forms of maps in less detail and of smaller size show the characters that we have seen in the maps of earlier centuries. Marco Polo, the traveller, at the end of the fourteenth century, has preserved in his writings all the ancient traditions, and united them in a singular manner with the results of his own observations. He had not seen Paradise, but he had seen the ark of Noah resting on the top of Ararat. His map of the world, preserved in the library at Stockholm, is oval, and represents two continents. In that which we inhabit, the only seas indicated are the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Asia appears at the east, Europe to the north, and Africa to the south. The other continent to the south of the equator, which is not marked, is Antichthonia. In a map of the world engraved on a medal of the fifteenth century during the reign of Charles V. there is still a reminiscence of the ideas of the concealed earth and Meropides, as described by Theopompus. We see the winds as cherubim; Europe more accurately represented than usual; but Africa still unknown, and a second continent, called Brumae, instead of Antichthonia, with imaginary details upon it. [Illustration: FIG. 50--THE MAP OF MARCO POLO.] If such were the ideas entertained amongst the most enlightened nations, what may we expect among those who were less advanced? It would take us too long to describe all that more Eastern nations have done upon this point since the commencement of our present era, but we may give an example or two from the Arabians. [Illustration: FIG. 51.--MAP ON A MEDAL OF CHARLES V.]