CHAPTER VII. MEDIEVAL TRAVELLERS: COSMAS, TUDELA, ODORIC, MARCO POLO. DURING the centuries which intervened between the decline of the Roman Empire, and what are generally termed the Middle Ages, there were a great many so-called travellers-for the most part (if not entirely) monks and crusaders-who were in reality simply pilgrims. They brought back with them abundant reports from the Holy Land of what they had seen and heard, or what they supposed themselves to have seen and heard. But these reports related almost entirely to miracles and legends, and the like; or if they did handle secular matters, their statements, it is to be feared, must be viewed as "Travellers' Tales" in the most dubious sense of that expression. A curious specimen of these is Cosmas, an Egyptian monk of the sixth century, called Indicopleustes, because he had made a voyage as far as India. Nothing can be more significant of how extremely rare travel must have been in those days, than that the mere fact of a man having made a voyage across that part of the Indian ocean, which lies between Arabia and Hindostan, should be sufficient to distinguish him from all others of his generation. Cosmas's great object in visiting the East appears to have been a desire to put down an heretical and impious notion, which, although it had been extensively entertained by learned men for many generations past, was only beginning to be generally adopted-viz. that the earth was spherical in shape. Cosmas appears to have been of the same opinion as the Sultan, whom Lord Byron describes : "He saw with his own eyes the moon was round, It was, according to Cosmas's idea, an oblong plain, surrounded by a vast wall, which supported the heavens. This notion was probably founded on some mystification respecting the “firmament" which God called "Heaven," which expression induced him to suppose the Heaven to be something solid, which needs to be propped up. The alternations of day and night, he regarded as being caused by a huge mountain in the Northern regions of the earth, behind which the sun hid himself every evening. This belief also he held to be endorsed by Scripture, because that speaks of the "Sun going forth like a bridegroom from his chamber, and again hasting to take his rest." It may seem perhaps strange to some that the circular shape of the earth should have been considered unscriptural by Cosmas, seeing that in the 18th Psalm David says "The foundations of the round world were discovered." But David did not write the "round world." That is only Jerome's translation of the Psalms made in the 4th century. Cosmas either did not know of this translation, or regarded it as of no authority. What proof he expected to find in India more than in any other part of the earth, of the truth of his theory it would be hard to say. Possibly he hoped to reach one of the walls on which the Heavens rested, or ascend the great mountain, & and see the sun hide himself behind it. If so, there is unhappily no record of his having accomplished either feat. With Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish Rabbi of the twelfth century, the Medieval travellers may be said to begin. He not only travelled further eastward than his predecessors, but he took note of and described the institutions and habits of the nations he visited; and his reports are in general trustworthy and sensible, though he too can on an occasion make statements, which cause sober readers to open their eyes. Visiting Rome, on his way Eastward, he tells us that the palace of Vespasian is three miles in circumference; that a battle was fought rear it "in times of yore" in which one hundred thousand men were killed, "whose bones are hung up in the palace even to the present day." What a Museum of Anatomy-one hundred thousand skeletons! Also in a cave underground there are the King and Queen-Vespasian and Flavia, it is to be presumed surrounded by one hundred nobles of their court, all embalmed by physicians and in good preservation, though they must have been there for fully a thousand years! Arriving in the Holy Land, he finds on the shores of the Dead Sea, the Salt Pillar, into which Lot's wife (according to his view) was transmuted; and although the sheep which browze around it, are continually licking away the salt, it always grows again to its original shape! The reader will hardly require to be told that Lot's wife was not converted into a "pillar" or "statue" either. The word in the original. means simply "a solid mass," and the word rendered salt may equally well mean asphalte" or "bitumen." In all likelihood the molten bitumen burst up on the spot where she was standing, and hardened almost immediately afterwards round her, leaving no trace of her figure. 66 It should however in justice to Tudela be said, that the idea of Lot's wife having been converted into a column, or some say, a statue of salt, which still remains on the shores of the Dead Sea, has been very widely entertained both before and after his time. Josephus says, "Lot's wife turning back was changed into a pillar of salt, for I have seen it, and it remains unto this day." (Antiq. I. 12.) Irenæus in the second century also mentions the statue, and affirms that it continues to last with all its members entire. Reland reports an ancient tradition similar to that of Tudela, that as fast as any part of the pillar is washed away, it is supernaturally renewed. Lieutenant Lynch in 1852 found a column of solid salt on the shores of the Dead Sea near Usdum, which the natives declared to be the veritable pillar. Perhaps the saying in the Wisdom of Solomon (chap. x. 7), "A standing pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul," has given rise to this strange belief. At Jerusalem Benjamin acquired a piece of information of real interest and value, if only it could be relied on. This is the discovery of the sepulchres of the Kings of Judah. "Two labourers," he tells us, "who were intimate friends, were engaged in quarrying stones under the foundations of the ancient temple, when they chanced to displace one, which formed the mouth of a cavern. They agreed to enter it in search of treasure, and they proceeded till they reached a large hall, supported by pillars of marble, encrusted with gold and silver, and before which stood a table with a golden sceptre and crown. This was the sepulchre of David, King of Israel, to the left of which they saw that of Solomon in a similar state; and so on were all the sepulchres of the Kings of Judah. They further saw chests locked up, the contents of which nobody knew. They were on the point of entering the hall, when a blast of wind like a storm issued from the mouth of the cavern, so strong that it threw them almost lifeless to the ground. There they lay till evening, when another wind rushed forth, and they heard a voice like that a man, calling aloud, 'Get up and go forth from this place.' The men rushed out full of fear, and reported to the patriarch what had happened. ordered the place to be walled up and rendered undiscoverable for the future." He Benjamin also relates that at Alexandria there was a pier extending a mile into the sea, and at the end of the pier a lighthouse, on the top of which was placed a glass mirror. All vessels which approached with hostile intentions from Greece, and the other lands to the north and west, could be seen, when fifty days' journey distant (!) by means of this glass mirror, and so precautions taken against any attack. Many years after the death of Alexander, a Greek contrived by means of a cunning stratagem to break this mirror, and the incursions of the Greeks could thenceforth no longer be prevented. He tells likewise a marvellous tale respecting the burial of the prophet Daniel at Susa. He says that the remains of the prophet, which were interred on the banks of the river Ulai, were supposed by the inhabitants to confer special benefits on those who dwelt on that side of it. The people who lived on the opposite bank requested that the coffin, with all its contingent advantages, might be removed to their side. This being rejected, the applicants proceeded to enforce their demand at the point of the sword, and after a bloody war it was agreed that the bones of Daniel should be removed every year from one side to the other. This singular arrangement |