It is obvious, therefore, that the effect of the Crusades, so far as it is the object of a work like the present to trace and delineate it, was to give the people of Europe a new motive for maintaining an intercourse with the people of Asia. They had seen their superior civilization, and sought to introduce it among themselves. They had learned to appreciate their skill in the arts, and resolved to acclimate those arts at home. They had accustomed themselves to many articles of luxury, which had become articles of necessity, and which it was now essential, therefore, to transport from the Levant, from the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, to the Bay of Venice and the Gulf of Genoa. There was a demand, in short, in the West, for the products, the manufactures, the arts, of the East. Here was the origin of the immense Eastern commerce which now fell into the hands of the Genoese and Venetians, and which, resulting from the Crusades, compelled us to the digression we have made. It is not our purpose, however, to refer more at length to this commerce, as it was carried on upon seas which had been navigated for twenty centuries; and we must hasten forward to the period when new paths were laid out over the immensity of the waters. A map, published just anterior to the First Crusade, fully displays the ignorance which then prevailed in geographical science. The sea, as in the age of Homer, is made to surround the world as a river, the land being divided into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Africa and Asia are joined together in the South, and the Indian Ocean is an inland sea. Asia is as large as the other two continents combined. On the east there is a small spot indicated as the position of the Garden of Eden by the words _Hic est Paradisus_. Europe and Africa are separated from Asia by a long canal, which may be either the Nile or the Hellespont. Africa is still considered the land of mystery and fable: its northern part only is considered inhabitable, the south being even unapproachable, on account of the torrents of flame poured on it by the sun. The Frozen Ocean, the Baltic, the White Sea, and the Caspian, are all united. The Northern regions are represented as forming one single island. Scandinavia is made the birthplace and residence of the Amazons, the famous women-warriors to whom antiquity had given a home in the Caucasus.