A SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY A SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY BY KEITH JOHNSTON, F.R.G.S. LEADER OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY'S EAST AFRICAN EXPEDITION, 1878 i^Reprinted from the Sixth Edition of his '^'' Geography. Physical^ Historical., Political, and Descriptive ") WITH AN APPRECIATION OF THE AUTHOR BY SIR CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM K.C.B., F.R.S. OF THE , UNIVERSITY I 1^ ^^^^ OF LONDON: EDWARD STANFORD 12, 13, & 14, LONG ACRE, W.C 1909 ^Sj ^% Printed by Bali.antyne, Hanson 6r' Co. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh AN APPRECIATION OF THE AUTHOR The author of this admirable sketch of historical geography was fortunate in having had a father who was himself an eminent geographer. The father made geography the ruling and entirely ab- sorbing interest of his life. He certainly did more than any previous author to popularise the science. Dying in June 1871, Dr. Alexander Keith Johnston left an only son, who was born on the 24th of November 1844. Young Keith Johnston was trained specially by his father, and by private tutors, to be a geog- rapher, and at the age of twenty-two he entered Mr. Stanford's establishment as a draftsman and compiler of maps. In 1867 he went to Germany for a year, to visit the geographical establishments and make himself master of the language, and he then imbibed that habit of painstaking thorough- ness in study and work which is apparent in all he afterwards did. After his father's death Keith Johnston settled in London, where he drew many valuable maps and wrote much for gazetteers. During the year 1873 he was Assistant Curator of Maps to the Royal Geographical Society, and constructed some of the 192458 vi AN APPRECIATION OF THE AUTHOR best maps in the Society's Journal. He was ex- ceedingly modest and diffident, but was possessed of a wonderful — an almost inexhaustible store of knowledge. In 1874 young Keith Johnston had reached his thirtieth year, and his great ambition was to become a scientific traveller and explorer. He was not fitted for a man of business. The daily drudgery of such a life was distasteful to him. But, as regards his own favourite pursuits, he worked steadily and systematically. It was, therefore, with great delight that he accepted the offer of a post in an expedition planned by the Government of Paraguay to survey the little-known parts of that territory. Proceeding to South America, he prosecuted the work of ex- ploration in Paraguay during 1874 and 1875, and on his return he constructed a valuable map, and wrote a most interesting account of that country. From 1876 to 1878 Keith Johnston was employed on geographical work in London. He produced the volume on Africa forming part of Mr. Stanford's Compendium Series. But his most important work was the "Physical, Historical, Political, and De- scriptive Geography" of which the present sketch of historical geography formed a part. He had not quite finished this magnum opus when he started on his last expedition. Keith Johnston w^as a very handsome young man of average height, and w^as blessed with a vigorous constitution, which the hardships of his travels in Paraguay seemed rather to have strengthened. He AN APPRECIATION OF THE AUTHOR vii was a good oarsman, and belonged to an eight which won more than one race on the Thames. He continued to feel the old enthusiasm for adven- ture and discovery during all the time of his resi- dence in London. When the Royal Geographical Society determined to send an expedition to land on the east coast of Africa and explore the country between the lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika, Keith Johnston eagerly volunteered his services, which were accepted. In point of fact, he would have been selected if he had not volunteered. No man in England then com- bined such an amount of scientific knowledge with such qualifications as a traveller. He was appointed leader of the expedition, and, accompanied by a young geologist named Thomson, he left England for Zanzibar in November 1878. His great work was still on his hands, and he took several of the sheets out with him to correct and complete. After a preliminary trip to the Usambara Moun- tains, the explorers landed at Dar-es-Salaam on the 19th of May 1879. At first all went well, but on the 27th they came to a more wooded country and the rains began. Keith Johnston made an expedition to a swampy lake in pouring rain in search of game» He lost his way, was wet through, and this brought on an attack of fever. He ought to have returned to the coast, but he gallantly pushed onwards. For several days he was tramping through marsh and forest, with water generally up to his ankles, often viii AN APPRECIATION OF THE AUTHOR over his waist. The fever continued and he became thoroughly exhausted. He was carried, in great misery and discomfort, for the last few marches. At length the party reached a better country, and arrived at a village called Behobeho, about one hun- dred and twenty miles inland from Dar-es-Salaam. Here they built a hut for their dying leader. He gradually sank, and died on the 28th of June 1879, at the age of thirty-four. Keith Johnston had not lived in vain. He left a noble example of steady, untiring work, of lofty en- thusiasm in the cause of science, and of loyal de- votion to duty. Much of his work lives after him, and will long be useful to others. Readers of this sketch will, I feel sure, remember with interest and pleasure w^hat manner of man he was who has left such valuable work for posterity. He wrote this sketch with the earnest hope that it would be serviceable to others, and that it would help to create fresh generations of ardent and zealous geographers like himself, when he was dead and gone. It should be remembered that he was correcting the proofs up almost to the last moment, and that one of the last wishes of that brave heart was that it should be useful to future students. These were Keith Johnston's thoughts when he met a glorious death, falling, as a gallant soldier of science, in the midst of his discoveries. CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM. December 1908. CONTENTS AN APPRECIATION OF THE AUTHOR CHAP. I. INTRODUCTION II. FROM ABOUT lOOO TO 450 B.C. III. FROM 450 TO 325 B.C. . IV. FROM 325 B.C. TO 300 A.D. V. FROM 300 TO 500 A.D. VI. FROM 500 TO 800 A.D. VII. FROM 800 TO 1000 A.D. VIII. FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. IX. FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. X. FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. XI. FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. XII. FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. XIII. FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. INDEX PAGE V 3 8 13 21 25 33 41 58 74 104 124 148 219 LIST OF MAPS -I. ABOUT B.C. 450 facingpage 3 2. » . B.C. 325 )j 8 3- )> A.D. 300 >; 13 4- )> A.D. 500 )) 21 5- )f A.D. 800 >> 25 6. ») A.D. 1000 » 33 7- }) A.D. 1300 • >; 41 8. }} A.D. 1500 )} 58 9. »> A.D. 1600 » 74 lO. )) A.D. 1700 • 55 104 II. }) A.D. 1800 • 5) 124 12. 5J A.D. 1908 >7 148 A SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In exactly the same way as one gathers information about one's own home country, all the knowledge that we yet possess about the surface of the world we live in has been gradually gained. The geog- raphers of ancient times, beginning with the dis- trict in which they lived, little by little extended the circle of their knowledge both by their own journeys and by studying the accounts given by travellers and voyagers outward from that known centre, learning from them what directions they had taken, whether towards the sunrising or sunsetting, the north or the south ; and the times and distances between one point and another of the route ; and by laying down these itineraries on their maps. Little by little the clouds of ignorance were thus rolled backwards, till knowledge spreading westward joined that which had grown out eastward round the globe. Though in our own day the unknown has 2 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY been chased into the most inaccessible corners of the earth, the same process of extending knowledge is in progress, and geographers of the present day are ever gathering accounts of new journeys past the borders of the unknown regions, each of which contributes a little towards the removal of the dark- ness which still hangs over these ^' ends of the earth." We shall perhaps gain the best idea of the gradual expansion of knowledge if we go back nearly to the earliest times of which we have any definite historical accounts, and from that as a starting-point, picture to ourselves the world as known to the more civilised nations, at intervals up to the present time. The little maps which have been designed to accom- pany these chapters exhibit the known world at twelve such periods ; an appearance of cloud covers the skirts of each, leaving unveiled only those lands and seas which were the scene of the recorded events of history, and this lifts or rolls back as the limits of knowledge gradually extend. Each is on the same scale, and on each the different States and Empires of the period are marked out as far as the scale will admit, so that they combine at a glance the geography and history of the ages to which they refer, and from one to another the rise and fall of the great kingdoms of the world may be traced. CHAPTER II FROM ABOUT 1000 TO 450 B.C. I. In the earliest times of which we have any records, the more civilised nations of the world were those inhabiting the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and there accordingly the great events of ancient history have their scenes. The commerce, and along with that the geographical knowledge, of the Egyptians, the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the Greeks and Romans, all centred and spread outward from the deep bays and harbours of that inland sea. The Phoenicians especially, the old inhabitants of the fertile country which slopes down from Mount Lebanon to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, where Sidon and Tyre were great seaports, were the sailors and traders of early times. Within the space of three centuries (from about 1300 to 1000 B.C.) they explored all the islands and shores of the Mediter- ranean, and covered these with their forts, factories, and cities, while their ships ploughed the sea in all directions. They colonised Cyprus, and, after mastering the rich islands of the -^gean, sailed farther west to Sicily and Sardinia, founding also the city of Carthage, destined to be the centre of an opulent and powerful state on the North African 4 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY coast, which grew in greatness as the golden age of the mother country of Phoenicia began to wane. From Sardinia and the Balearic Isles these inde- fatigable explorers pushed farther on through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar into the wide Atlantic, building the town of Gades (the present Cadiz) on the south-west of Spain, in a country w^hich gave them fabulous wealth of silver, iron, and lead ; boldly venturing northward across the stormy Bay of Biscay, they reached the tin-yielding coasts of Cornwall, and loaded their ships with cargoes of that metal at the Scilly Isles. Sailing southward also from the gates of the Mediterranean, they discovered the islands we now know as the Canaries, obtaining from their shores the shell-fish which yielded the costly Tyrian purple. It was in this direction also that HannOy the Cartha- y ginian, led a famous expedition, consisting, it is said, of 60 ships, with 30,000 men and women on board of them, to extend discovery along the African coasts and to found Phoenician towns and colonies. In this voyage Hanno went south perhaps as far as our present colony of Sierra Leone. Himilco, command- ing another fleet, starting from Gades, coasted Spain and Gaul, and reached Great Britain, which he calls Alfionn (Albion) and lerne, a sacred island of the west, the modern Ireland. While some of their navigators were thus exploring the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, others seem to have found their way out by the narrow Red Sea to the Indies, and the overland caravans carrying their manufactures appear to have FROM ABOUT 1000 TO 450 B.C. 5 made them acquainted with all the lands eastward of Syria and Palestine. 2. One of the oldest descriptions of the world that has been preserved to our times is that of the Greek historian, traveller, and geographer, Herodotus, who lived about 450 (484-408) years before Christ, at the time when Greek art was at its zenith. With Athens and Greece for a centre, he describes the countries immediately surrounding the Mediterranean, and shows that knowledge had then spread out north and eastward to the regions beyond the Black Sea and the Caspian, to Persia and the confines of India and the Arabian Sea. Yet, strange to say, the name of Rome, which at that time was a flourishing city, is not mentioned once, and of the Phoenician and Carthaginian discoveries outside the Pillars of Her- cules he had but an imperfect idea. He was minutely acquainted, however, with Greece, the -^gean islands, and Asia Minor ; he travelled also to Phoenicia, through Egypt as far as the Cataracts of the Nile, to Arabia and Mesopotamia, and saw the Euphrates and Tigris, and the cities of Babylon and Ecbatana. Africa is described by him as being sur- rounded by the sea, except where it borders on Asia. 3. In the century previous to that in which he lived, the Persians under Cyrus had established a mighty empire which extended beyond the present area of Persia to the Indies on the east, and west- ward over Asia Minor and Syria. The ancient empires of Assyria and Babylonia also fell under the dominion of Cyrus, and his successors extended 6 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY the Persian Empire to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Egypt. Thrace and Macedonia were also added to the empire, but the attempts to subdue Greece, made only a year or two before the birth of Herodotus, were completely foiled. Three successive invasions of Greece ended disastrously for Persia : in the first the invading fleet was shipwrecked off Mount Athos ; the second was pushed back at Marathon; and the third, under Xerxes, was repulsed at the pass of ThermopylcBy at Salamisy and at Platcea. 4. At the period of our first little chart, then, the decadence of the great Persian Empire had already begun. Greece was becoming a strong power, and had flourishing colonies all round the Mediterranean and Black Seas, at Syracuse in Sicily, on the southern shores of Italy, at Massilia (the present Marseilles), on the coast of Spain, at Cyrene in North Africa, at Cyprus, at Byzantium (Constantinople), on the Thracian coasts, at Theodosia (Kaffa) near the Cim- merian Bosporus, in the Tauric Chersonese (Crimea), and at many points between these. Carthage had already risen from its condition of a colony to that of a great independent state, which held all the North African coast west of Cyrenaica, the rich country of Tartessus (Baetica, Andalucia), and the gates of the Mediterranean between. The Carthaginians had come in contact with the Greeks in Sicily, and in their first trial of strength the Carthaginian army under Hamilcar had been de- feated. Rome had been founded for perhaps 300 years. Already the Romans had taken the lead in FROM ABOUT 1000 TO 450 B.C. 7 Latium, and the Republic was in constant warfare with its neighbours on all sides — the southern Etrus- cans, the VolscianS; and the -^qui. Thus the great events of this period were clustered round the Mediterranean shores. As yet the un- known peoples of the west and north beyond these were vaguely called the Hyperboreans by the Greeks, " the dwellers behind the north wind " ; and east- ward beyond Persia and the Indies Herodotus could only mark ^^ unknown deserts " on his map. CHAPTER III FROM 450 TO 325 B.C. 1. With the defeats that resulted in the attempts to subdue Greece, the decadence of the great Persian Empire may be said to have begun, and it now became a prey to internal conflicts. One of the most memorable of these was the revolt and ex- pedition of the younger Cyrus against his brother the Emperor Artaxerxes, which led to the battle of Cunaxa (401 B.C.); near Babylon, in which Cyrus was slain, and from which Xenophon made his adventurous retreat at the head of the ten thousand Greek mercenaries who had joined the expedition of Cyrus. Civil wars had also broken out between the States of Greece, and soon after the date of the battle of Cunaxa the Spartans gained the ascendency over the Athenian State, which had been the ruling one at the period of the Persian invasions. These troubles gave occasion for the interference of Mace- donia, a State which lay to the north of Thessaly, on the outskirts of the Greek nations, and which had recovered its independence of the Persians after the battle of Plataea. 2. Under Philip II. Macedonia grew in prosperity and power ; he subdued the southern Greek States, >^ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FROM 450 TO 325 B.C. 9 was appointed general of all the Greek forces against Persia, and was preparing for an invasion of that country when he was assassinated (336 B.C.). His son, Alexander, not yet twenty years of age, then ascended the throne, and took up the command of the forces levied against Persia. After putting down several revolts at home with a strong hand, he crossed the Hellespont ^ (334 B.C.) with 30,000 foot and 5000 horse, attacked and defeated the Persians at the river Granicus {Koja Chai). To this suc- ceeded a victorious march through Asia Minor to the defiles of the Cilician mountains, in which Darius III. had stationed his army. At Issus, a seaport at the head of the gulf of Iskenderun (from Iskender = Alexander), the famous battle was fought, in which the treasures as well as the family of Darius fell into the hands of the conqueror, the king himself fleeing to the Euphrates. The whole country eastward now lay open before him, and he turned south towards Phoenicia and Syria, occupy- ing Damascus, and conquering Tyre. Advancing to Egypt, he was welcomed there as a deliverer from the Persian yoke, and founded Alexandria in the Nile Delta (331 B.C.), which became one of the greatest cities of ancient times. 3. In Africa Alexander advanced as far through the Libyan desert as the oasis in which dwelt the oracle of Jupiter Ammon (Siwah), and returning thence eastward, went against Darius, who had collected a new army in the plain of Mesopotamia. ^ Dardanelles. 10 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY The decisive battle near Arbela^ a small town east of Mosul, opened the way to Babylon and Susa, and to Persepolis^ the capital of Persia, which was entered in triumph. Thence Alexander pursued Bessus, a satrap of Bactriana (the modern Balkh), through Iran or Persia proper, across the Oxus to Sogdiana (Bokhara), and penetrated to the farthest known limits of Asia, defeating the Scythian bar- barians (probably the ancestors of the later Turks) on the banks of the Jaxartes. 4. Two years later, Alexander proceeded to the conquest of India, then known only by name to Europeans. He crossed the river Indus near the modern Attock^ and marched through the land now known as the Panjab. Turning at the Hyphasis (the modern Satlej), he caused a fleet to be built, in which he sent one division of his army down the stream, another section following the banks of the river, and fighting its way through successive Indian hosts. Having at length reached the ocean, he ordered one division to sail to the Persian Gulf, while he led another back through the fearful deserts of Gedrosia (the modern Baluchistan), where a great part of his force perished for want of food and water, and was buried in the sands. A third division came back through Arachosia and Drangiana (the modern Afghanistan), but only a fourth part of the army that had set out with him arrived again in Persia. 5. The second of our little maps represents the short-lived Macedonian empire of Alexander, at the FROM 450 TO 325 B.C. ii date of his return to Persia, when his power was at its height, and when ambassadors from all parts of the then known world — from Libya, Italy, Carthage, and Scythia, from the Celts (of Gaul or France), and the Iberians of the Spanish peninsula — came to his court to secure his favour. To his victorious career the world owed a vast increase of geographical know- ledge ; all eastern Asia had been unveiled, and the road to India, with its boundless wealth, was dis- closed to Europeans. Westward also, about Alexander's time, the geog- raphy of the Greeks was greatly extended by Pytheas, a bold navigator of the Greek colony of Massilia (Marseilles), who, from Gadeira (Cadiz), coasted Iberia and the country of the Celts (France), and reached Britain. He followed the southern and eastern shores of the islands, and, after six days' sail from the Orcades (Orkney Islands), discovered Thule, a land of fogs in the north, which has been variously identified as the Shetland Islands, the Norwegian coast, or even Iceland. Pytheas also appears to have sailed round Jutland into the Baltic, proving the existence of sea to the north of Europe, which Herodotus doubted. In Italy the Romans were continuing their struggles with the neighbouring nations. The whole of southern Etruria had yielded to their supremacy, and was kept in check by Roman garrisons ; while towards the south, at this time, a terrible conflict was in progress with the heroic Samnite highlanders. Of Sicily the Carthaginians held the western, the Greek 12 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY colonists the eastern half, a brief lull having taken place in the fierce wars which had been waging between these powers for the possession of the island, during which the prosperity of the great fortified city and seaport of Syracuse was rapidly reviving. CHAPTER IV FROM 325 B.C. TO 300 A.D. 1. After the death of Alexander the Great, the vast Macedonian Empire that he had raised was divided among those of the generals of his armies who had been most eminent under his rule ; but for twenty years afterwards incessant wars prevailed, culminating in the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia (301 B.C.). Four of these generals became pre-eminent, and each formed for himself an independent kingdom. Ptolemy held Egypt, Libya, and northern Syria, and soon after added Judaea to his possessions ; Cassander ruled in Greece and Macedonia proper ; Lysimachus, in Thrace and western Asia Minor ; and Seleucus brought under his power all the remaining portions of the former Macedonian Empire, from Asia Minor to the Indus. The last-named ruler even extended his expeditions beyond the limit reached by Alexander, and advanced into India as far as the Ganges (301 B.C.). 2. While these events were in progress in the lands east of the Mediterranean, the Romans in Italy had been carrying on a sanguinary war with the Samnite highlanders. The heroism of these mountaineers was unavailing against the military genius of the Romans, who, shortly after the date of the first partition of 14 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Alexander's empire; were extending their power over the whole southern peninsula of Italy. Here the Romans next came in contact with the Greek colonists, and the Tarentines,^ in the name of their fellow-countrymen in South Italy, invited Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, the country on the opposite side of the Adriatic Sea, to command their troops against the enemy. The strange appearance and gigantic size of the elephants brought by Pyrrhus, in imitation of the Indian kings in battle, gained a temporary success for him against the Romans ; but soon after he gave up the contest and passed over into Sicily, to aid the Greeks there against the Carthaginians (278 B.C.). All southern Italy acknowledged the supremacy of Rome, and distant nations began to learn that a new power had risen in the world, Ptolemy of Egypt sending an embassy to conclude treaties with the Republic. 3. Now followed the terrible contests between Rome and Carthage, which, in the three Punic'^ Wars, lasted for more than a century. The first of these (264-241 B.C.) was waged merely for the possession of Sicily, and during it the Roman navy was created, which, notwithstanding terrible disasters, finally wrested from Carthage the sovereignty of the seas. At the end of this First Punic War the Cartha- ginians had lost their hold on Sicily and Sardinia, which were transformed into Roman provinces. 4. About the middle of the third century the ^ Tarentum (Taranto), see map of Italy. * Or Phcenician, in allusion to the descent of the Carthaginians. FROM 325 B.C. TO 300 A.D. 15 Carthaginian influence was much extended in Iberia (Spain), and a large extent of territory was brought under subjection. Hamilcar founded the city of Barcelona^ and his son-in-law Hasdrubal that of New Carthage (Cartagena), and concluded a treaty with Rome, whereby it was stipulated that he should not advance beyond the Iberus (Ebro). Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar, succeeded him in the peninsula, and by attacking and destroying Saguntum (Mur- viedro), a city which had been founded by the Greeks, and which had become celebrated for its commerce and wealth, violated the treaty and gave cause for a declaration of war by the Romans (218 B.C.). 5. A series of wars with the Gauls now extended Roman power over northern Italy, and its influence began to be felt on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. The Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.), the great events of which were the crossing of the Alps by Hannibal (most probably by the pass now known as the Little St. Bernard), the defeat of the Romans at Lake Trasimene and at Cannce^ resulted in the final overthrow of the great Carthaginian leader at Zama^ when terms of peace were imposed by the conqueror which reduced Carthage almost to the condition of a tributary state. The Spanish posses- sions of Carthage, like the Sicilian, now passed to the Romans, who formed out of them the province of Hispania Citerior, the north and eastern, and Ulterior, the south and western, or most distant from Rome. ^ 130 miles south-west of Carthage. i6 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 6. An alliance formed by the Macedonians with Hannibal after the battle of Cannae gave cause for the hostile advance of the Romans in their direction also, and the three Macedonian and Greek wars which succeeded led to the establishment of the Roman protectorate over the whole of Greece, and the dismemberment of the Macedonian possessions in Europe and Asia Minor. 7. Although the Carthaginians had been compelled to accept abject terms of peace, their resources had not been utterly destroyed, and Carthage again became sufficiently powerful to excite the jealousy of the Romans, and to draw their armies towards it. After a siege of three years, Carthage was stormed, burned, and razed to the ground, and the once mighty Carthaginian empire vanished for ever from the earth (146 B.C.). 8. Under the six Ptolemies who succeeded to Alexander's great general of that name on the throne of Egypt up to the date of the fall of Carthage, Alexandria had become the seat of the intellectual cultivation that had resided in Greece, as well as the centre of the world's commerce. It was in the famous school of Alexandria that Euclid taught mathematics, about three hundred years before Christ. Hither also Eratosthenes of Cyrene, one of the most eminent of ancient astronomers, was called by Ptolemy Euergetes to superintend the great royal library. The name of Eratosthenes (276-194 B.C.) will ever be remembered in geography, as it was he who first attempted to discover the magnitude of the earth FROM 325 B.C. TO 300 A.D. 17 by the measurement of an arc of the meridian, the same process that is employed at the present day. 9. The next great extension of Roman power was in Asia Minor, where Attains, one of the succes- sors of Alexander's general Lysimachus, bequeathed to Rome the protectorate of Pergamus, which was formed into the province of Asia. Then followed the conquest of Transalpine Gaul, named the Province (<^ Provence ") to distinguish it from the rest of the country. North of the mountains the Romans first came in hostile contact with the Cimbri and Teutones, in the valleys of Noricum (Tyrol) and at Aquce-SexticB (Aix, in the Bouches du Rhone). In Africa, the over- throw of King Jugurtha of Numidia (Algeria) and of King Juba in Mauritania (Morocco) added these regions also to the list of Roman provinces. 10. Now the strength of the Roman arms was turned towards Asia, in the three fierce wars with Mithridates of Pontus and his ally Tigranes of Armenia, against whom they were finally successful, establish- ing Roman authority over all Asia Minor. The last defeat of Mithridates on the Euphrates, in 66 B.C., was followed by a brilliant career of success. Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine were reduced to a state of dependence ; and to the horror of the Jews the holy city of Jerusalem was taken by storm and its walls razed to the ground (63 B.C.). 11. Not long after this, Julius Caesar began his splendid campaigns in Gaul, conquering the whole of that region for Rome, driving the German tribes towards the Rhine, and invading Albion, to which he i8 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY gave the name Britannia (55 B.C.). In the civil v^ar which followed the assassination of Caesar, Marcus Antonius, the ruler of the Eastern Roman world, was aided against his rival Octavianus (afterwards Em- peror Augustus) by Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, but was defeated in the naval battle of Actium,^ and his death and that of Cleopatra soon following, Egypt became henceforth a Roman province. Augustus gathered up into his own hands all civil and military power, and the Roman Empire began (29 B.C.). At the beginning of the Christian era the Roman Empire had spread out nearly to its greatest limits. In Europe the lines of the Rhine and the Danube marked its northern boundary; all Asia Minor and Syria had been subjected, and the whole of North Africa, from Egypt to the Atlantic, acknowledged Roman authority. 12. From this time onward to the date of our third little map (representing the Empire in the time of Constantine) the chief military events were the final conquest of Britain as far north as the Firths of Forth and Clyde by Agricola, and its formation into a prefecture of Gaul, governed by a viceregent resident at Eboracum (York) ; the^ conquest of Dacia, the country north of the lower Danube ; the vic- torious invasion of Armenia and Parthia ; and the subjugation of all the Nile valley as far as Nubia by Trajan. Under Constantine the Great two great changes took place — the introduction of Christianity as the * At the entrance to the Gulf of Arta. FROM 325 B.C. TO 300 A.D. 19 religion of the State, and the transference of the seat of government from Rome to Byzantium (330 A.D.), which was re-named after the Emperor, Constan- tinople. 13. Persia at this time, under theSassanian dynasty, attained a height of prosperity and power such as it had never before reached, and against it even the veteran Roman legions could gain no lasting laurels. 14. In China authentic history begins with the Chow dynasty (1122-255 B.C.), when Confucius and Mincius flourished (600 B.C.). In the next (Tsin) dynasty Shih Hwang Ti (221-209 ^-^O reduced the independent petty States, and built the Great Wall as a protection against the barbarous Hiong-non (Huns) or Tatars of the north. Shortly after the beginning of the Christian era the Chinese seem to have begun intercourse with the Parthians and to have known the Roman Empire as Ta-tsin ; and about the time of Constantine's establishment of his new capital the Chinese Emperor's court was fixed at Nanking, the southern capital. 15. The increase of geographical knowledge during the period in which Rome was spreading out its power in all directions could not fail to be very con- siderable. Already in the latter part of the first century B.C. a general survey of the Roman Empire had been begun by the collection and arrangement of the itineraries of the roads to places in the empire. One of these (called the Peutingerian table, after the antiquary who found a copy of it in a monastery in Bavaria in the fifteenth century) traces the main roads 20 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY of all the region stretching from Britain to the mouth of the Ganges in India. Strabo of Pontus was one of the great geographers of this period, and he wrote an account of Europe and Africa, and of Asia, in which his knowledge extended as far as China. But it was from Claudius Ptolemy, the celebrated astronomer and geographer, who lived in the learned city of Alexandria about 150 A.D., that geography received the greatest advancement in ancient times — one which made itself felt even down to the fifteenth century. He constructed a series of twenty-six maps, with a general map of the world, in illustration of his eight books of universal geography. His information ex- tended from Thule (Shetland) in the north to the Niger and the Nile lakes in Africa, and eastward to the obscurely known region of China and the island of Taprobane (Ceylon). '"^ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHAPTER V FROM 300 TO 500 A.D. 1. Fully half a century before the civil discords of the Roman Empire had been temporarily abated by the genius of Constantine, the whole of Europe beyond the Roman frontier, the almost unknown north; had begun to ferment and to pour forth wave after wave of barbarian hordes. Against these the Roman Empire, distracted by discords, could not prevail. 2. The Goths, a people of Germanic origin, had already once broken through the Roman province of Dacia,! crossing the Black Sea had ravaged the northern shores of Asia Minor, and had advanced as far as Greece, pillaging and burning the famous cities of Athens, Corinth, and Argos. The Vandals, who are first known as the inhabitants of the Bohe- mian mountains, hence called Vandalici Montes, burst like a flood into Gaul, and after ravaging that region, swept south through the passes of the Pyrenees into Spain, and finally settled in the south of that country, to which they gave the name Vandalitia, the modern Andalucia. The Franks, or freemen, a confederation of the tribes inhabiting the borders of ^ Transylvania, Walachia, and Moldavia. 21 22 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY the lower Rhine, made incessant incursions through the low countries into Gaul, where they finally over- threw the Roman dominion. 3. In the reign of Constantine, the Goths had been obliged to sue for peace with the Romans, but not long after his death they once more engaged the legions in a three years' war. The Goths now began to be distinguished as the Ostrogoths, or Goths of the east, the branch which inhabited the shores of the Black Sea ; and the Visigoths, or Goths of the west, extending along the Danube. 4. The Huns, a people of Asiatic origin, the eastern (Mongol) branch of the Scythians, now appear on the scene. They invaded Europe through the country of the Alani, a pastoral people living on the great steppes between the Volga and the Don ; having conquered them and incorporated the survivors, they advanced into the country of the Visigoths and drove these people across the Danube into Moesia (modern Bulgaria), occupying the country they had aban- doned ; afterwards they also crossed the Danube, as the allies of the Goths against the Romans. 5. Under Alaric, the Visigoths invaded Italy, sacked Rome, and ravaged the peninsula. Subsequently, under the successors of Alaric, they withdrew into southern Gaul and crossed the mountains into Spain, beginning a series of struggles there with the Vandals and the Romans. The fatal rivalries of the Roman governors of Spain and Africa now led to the passage of a resistless horde of the Vandals across the Strait of Gibraltar, and to the devastation and ruin of all FROM 300 TO 500 A.D. 23 the region between the shores of the Atlantic and Cyrene, to the loss of Carthage, and the dissolution of the Roman Empire in Africa. Thence the Vandals spread over Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily ; they in- vaded Italy also, and plundered Rome for fourteen days, mutilating and defacing the works of art in the city. 6. After his conquests in the region of the Danube, Attila, king of the Huns, turned his course of invasion westward, and being joined by the Ostrogoths, pene- trated into Gaul, and was defeated there by the united Romans and Visigoths in a sanguinary battle near the site of the present city of Chdlons-sur-Marne. A year later, however, he recovered strength, and in- vaded Italy, devastating its northern plains and driv- ing their inhabitants to seek refuge in those marshy lagoon islands on which Venezia, afterwards the great city of Venice, was founded. Rome itself was saved by the mediation of Pope Leo, only to be plundered three years later by the Vandals, whose progress we have already traced. After the death of Attila, Odoacer, who had been his ambassador at the court of Constantinople, put himself at the head of the barbarians who had flocked into Italy, and finally crushed the Roman power throughout the peninsula. He in turn, however, was overthrown by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who now became master of Italy. 7. The contests with the northern invaders in Gaul had withdrawn thither the greater part of the Roman troops quartered in Britain, and the few remaining 24 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY were taken across to the Continent in the beginning of the fifth century. The Britons, left defenceless, and harassed by the Picts and Scots, invited the Jutes, the Germanic inhabitants of the opposite shores of the North Sea, to their aid, and they, having re- pelled the invaders, began the conquest of the island for themselves, and established their kingdom in Kent. They were soon followed by the Saxons, who took up the southern and central portions of the country, where the names Essex (East Saxons), Middlesex, Sussex, still in use, and Wessex, extending from Surrey to the peninsula of Cornwall, recall their divisions of the land. Cornwall itself remained in the hands of its Celtic inhabitants. 8. Thus, at the period represented in the fourth map, the great Roman Empire had shrunk down to the limits of the Eastern Roman (also called the Byzantine or Greek) Empire, and was restricted to the countries which lie round the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The Vandals had established their rule along North Africa ; the Visigoths ruled in Spain ; the Ostrogothic monarchy of Theodoric the Great extended over Italy, France, and all the countries round the Alps as far as the middle Danube ; the Franks, under Clovis, had possession of the whole of Gaul between the Loire and Somme ; Persia, still under the energetic Sassanian dynasty, not only maintained its integrity as an empire, but had begun to repel the Roman power in Asia and had added part of Armenia. CHAPTER VI FROM 500 TO 800 A.D. 1. At the period represented in the last map, we have seen that the Persians in the east were success- fully opposing the Byzantine Empire and extending their dominion in Asia. Westward, however, the arms of the Byzantine Empire were triumphant, the reign of the Emperor Justinian being rendered famous by the expedition of his great general Belisarius to Africa, where, after a campaign of two years, he com- pletely overthrew the Vandals and led their king cap- tive to Constantinople. In a second war, Belisarius wrested all southern Italy from the Ostrogoths, pur- suing them northward to Rome and Ravenna, and thus beginning the re-conquest of the peninsula, which was completed by his successor the imperial general Narses, after which the Ostrogoths disappear as a distinct nation. 2. At this time, under Khosru, the greatest of the great monarchs of the Sassanian dynasty, the Persian Empire stretched from the Red Sea to the Indus, and from Arabia far into Central Asia. Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Asia Minor were one after another wrested from the Byzantine Empire : Jerusalem was stormed and plundered, and a similar 26 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY fate befell Alexandria. The victorious Persians had even reached to Chalcedon, opposite Constantinople, when the fortune of war turned, and the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius began a magnificent revenge. 3. Having organised a Greek and barbarian army, Heraclius landed and encamped on the famous plain of Issus in Cilicia, and having completely routed the Persian army sent against him, forced his way through the Taurus into Pontus, crossed Armenia, made allies of the barbarians north of the Caucasus, and with their aid attacked Media, and penetrated to Ispahan^ inflicting repeated defeats on the Persians in the heart of their country, and giving the death-blow to the Sassanian dynasty. 4. At the height of the fame of Heraclius, however, a new and terrible power arose in the south. During all the changes of empire in the countries east of the Mediterranean the tribes of Arabia had maintained a brave independence ; neither the Babylonian nor Assyrian kings, neither Egyptians nor Persians, could reduce them to subjection ; and even though the Romans under Trajan had penetrated far into the country, only the northern chieftains were made tributary to the empire. The Himyarites of Yemen, the district bordering on the Red Sea, had stoutly repelled an expedition in the time of Augustus. They carried on commerce across the Indian Ocean with Persia and Syria, and had planted many colonies on the opposite African coasts. The tribes of Yemen dwelt in towns, and cultivated the soil, but the most of the Arabs were nomadic as now, and they retained FROM 500 TO 800 A.D. 27 their ancient pagan nature worship. About 600 A.D. Christianity penetrated into the peninsula, where Judaism had been introduced by emigrants after the destruction of Jerusalem, and a religious ferment began to move the minds of the thoughtful. It was soon after this time that Mohammed, who was born at Mecca in 570, received his first divine communica- tion in the solitudes of Mount Hira, near Mecca, and began to inveigh against the superstition of his time. Persecuted, and unable to find a hearing in his own city, he took refuge in Medina^ and at once assumed the position of judge and ruler of the most powerful of the Arab tribes. He now went to war in the name of God against the enemies of Islam, and gained a victory over the Meccans at Bedvy after which they concluded a peace with him. He now sent his missionaries abroad over Arabia, and they carried his doctrine into Persia, to the court of Heraclius, to Abyssinia, and to Egypt. The king of Persia received his messenger with scorn, and had him executed ; this led to the first war with the Moslems, in which the latter were defeated. 5. The power of the new religion was, however, secured in Arabia, and shortly before his death Mohammed had made extensive preparations for expeditions against Syria and the Byzantines. Abu- Bekr, the first ''Calif' or ^^ Successor" of Moham- med, carried war into Babylonia, and, after several victories over the troops of Heraclius, completed ^ The Hegira, or flight of Mohammed to Medina (622 A.D.), gives the starting-point of the Moslem chronology. 28 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY the conquest of Syria. Omar, the second Calif, pushed the war of conquest with increased vigour ; Jerusalem fell into his hands, and he caused the mosque which bears his name to be built over the site of the temple of Solomon. He next invaded Persia, and subdued the whole of that region. Amru, one of his generals — such was the prestige of the Arabs — took possession of Egypt for the Calif without opposition, and Barka and Tripoli were also subdued. 6. At the time of Omar's death (644) the Saracens ^ had overrun in the short space of ten years all the lands between Armenia and Khiva in Asia, and the Syrtes in North Africa. In the time of Othman, the Mohammedan power was extended westward over Mauretania or Morocco, and the Byzantine posses- sions were restricted to the neighbourhood of New Carthage. The seat of the Califate was now removed from Medina to Damascus in Syria ; Asia Minor was ravaged, and ineffectual siege was laid to Constanti- nople. Before the beginning of the eighth century Carthage had been taken, and the Byzantine dominion in Africa annihilated. The Califate now rose to the zenith of its prosperity, and the conquest of Turkestan in Central Asia was rapidly followed by the invasion of Spain at the opposite extremity of the Arab Empire. The Moors,2 as the Arabo-Berbers are called in ^ Probably from Sharkeyn^ "eastern people," as opposed to Maghribe^ "western people," as the inhabitants of Morocco are called. ^ From Mauharta, "westerns," first applied by the Cartha- ginians to the Atlas aborigines west of Carthage, and later to the mixed Arabo-Berber peoples of the same region. FROM 500 TO 800 A.D. 29 Spanish history, under Tarik, crossed the straits from Ceuta, and effected a landing at Algeciras, near Gibraltar. Roderick, the last king of the Visigoths, met the invader at Xerez de la Frontera (711). Nine days of battle ensued, and in a single combat with Tarik, the Gothic king was slain ; the victory was decisive for the Moslems, and it gave them the mastery over nearly the whole of Spain (except the mountainous country of Asturias in the north), as well as the outlying province of Septimania (Langue- doc, in southern France). 7. We may now turn to glance at the movements which were taking place in northern Europe during this rapid spread of the Mohammedan Empire in the south. Events in Italy have been already traced up to the defeat of the Visigoths, after which the country was placed under the rule of an Exarch or delegate of the Byzantine Emperor, who had his capital at Ravenna. The first of these delegates had only held the country for fifteen years when the Lombards,^ a Germanic people originally from the lower Elbe, poured over the Alps from Pannonia (Lower Austria), bringing with them numbers of other German tribes, and conquered all north and central Italy. Here in the course of time these barbarians became assimilated with the peoples they had subjected, and exchanged their German for the Latin tongue. 8. The first or Merovingian (from Merwig, a chief ^ Lo7igobardij referring either to their long beards or to their battle-axes {Jbarte). 30 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY of the fifth century) dynasty of the Prankish kings, to which Clovis belonged, gave place to the Carlo- vingian, in which Charles, surnamed Martel, was one of the most prominent rulers. His reign was marked by wars with the surrounding tribes of the Saxons and Alemanni, but especially by the stop which he put to the victorious advance of the Saracens northward from Spain, whose power had filled all Christendom with alarm. He defeated them in a great battle fought between Poitiers and Tours in 732. His son Pepin le Bref, taking advantage of the disputes which arose about the succession to the Lombard throne, invaded Italy. It was left to his son Charlemagne, however, who crossed the Alps from Geneva with two armies, by the great St. Bernard and Mont Cenis passes, to complete the overthrow of the Lombard kingdom, which had lasted for two centuries. This monarch also com- pleted the subjection of the Saxons in the northern border of his kingdom, driving them to the Elbe, and from the Moors in the south he wrested and added to his dominion all the country from the Pyrenees to the Ebro, his empire extending also on the side of Germany as far as Pannonia, where he had subdued the Avari. 9. We left Britain at the end of the last period when the Jutes and Saxons had established them- selves in the south and centre of the present England. Soon after this the Angles, a third Germanic tribe from the country east of the Elbe, made a succession of descents on the coasts of Suffolk and Norfolk, FROM 500 TO 800 A.D. 31 as well as in Scotland between the Tweed and Forth. Eventually these last comers obtained possession of all the portions of eastern England that had not fallen to the Saxons, and the union of their different bands with the conquered native Celts took the form of seven kingdoms, the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, a group of states which rose and fell as one or other of them became more powerful. These were Kent, Essex and Middlesex, Sussex, Wessex, already re- ferred to ; besides Northumbria, including the present Northumberland and all Scotland south of the Forth ; East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge), and Mercia, which embraced the central portions of England. 10. To sum up the leading features of the period of the world's history sketched in the fifth of the little maps : — The Arabian Empire had spread itself out to Central Asia and to Spain, and had already passed the zenith of its greatness. The dynasty of the Ommiades of Damascus had given place to that of the Abassides in the east, though a branch from it had set up an independent Califate at Cordova, in Spain. The Abbaside Harun-al-Rashid, whose praises are sung by eastern poets, had his capital at Bagdad, on the Tigris, a city which had been founded by his predecessor in 762. Charlemagne had consolidated and extended the Frank Empire, received the ambassadors sent from the court of Bagdad to salute him, and had been crowned by the Pope at Rome. Irene, the barbarous mother of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VI., had 32 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY conceived the bold plan of uniting the east and west of Europe in one great empire, by marrying the Frank Emperor, a scheme which was frustrated by her overthrow and her banishment to the Isle of Lesbos in the ^gean Sea (802). CHAPTER VII FROM 800 TO 1000 A.D. I. After the accession of the Abbaside dynasty in the Arabian Empire, Bagdad^ as we have noticed, became the capital of the Califate, and the province of Khorassan, in Persia, began to be considered the nucleus of the empire. Though Islamism continued to spread, the rule of the Califs began to be merely nominal. Already during Harun-al-Rashid's reign, independent kingdoms had been formed in Fez (the city of Fez was founded 808) and Tunis, and soon all the western African territories were lost to the Califate. Large numbers of Turks from the region between the Caspian and the central mountains of Asia were called in to be employed in military ser- vice. Acquiring power, the Turks rose against their masters, and for a time Turkish kings reigned in Khorassan. Several transitory dynasties succeeded, pre-eminent among which was that of the Ghizne- vides, who at the height of their power ruled an empire extending from the Tigris to the Ganges, and from the Jaxartes on the north to the Indian Ocean, the central seat of power being the natural fortress of Ghazni. 2. A Turkish governor of Egypt declared himself 33 C 34 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY independent in 868. A century later the Fatimides, a sect of Mohammedans, whose leader claimed de- scent from Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, after overthrowing the rulers of Tunis, conquered Egypt and Syria, and founding Cairo (970), set up a new Califate there ; so that at this time there were three — one in Bagdad, another in Cairo, and a third at Cordova in Spain. Algiers (Al-]ezireh, "the island") had been founded by an Arabian prince twenty-five years previously. 3. In Spain, as we have seen, the inhabitants of the northern mountain country had not been en- tirely subdued in the Moorish conquest of the rest of the peninsula. Asturias and Galicia formed an independent Christian kingdom, and about the middle of the ninth century the brave and hardy Vascones or Basques of Navarre also regained their independ- ence, and aided in the constant warfare that was maintained against the Moors along the north of the peninsula. Though the '^ Spanish March," as the country between the Pyrenees and the Ebro was named, had been retaken from the successors of Charlemagne by the Moors, the Christian moun- taineers recovered a large portion of this district. Latterly another Christian kingdom added its strength to Asturias and Navarre ; it was that of Castile, which, from its central position in the peninsula, was destined to play a most prominent part in the future history of Spain. 4. With the death of Charlemagne the great fabric of the Frankish Empire that he had reared FROM 800 TO 1000 A.D. 35 crumbled rapidly into fragments. Repeated divisions and subdivisions of the empire among his successors weakened and distracted it, and brought on internal wars, while foreign assailants threatened it on every side. The Normans, or Northmen, from Denmark and Scandinavia, poured in and infested the country as far as Paris, and permanently held the territory known afterwards as Normandy ; the Spanish March was lost again to the Moors on the south ; on the east the German princes arrogated to themselves the right of electing their own sovereigns ; and shortly after the beginning of the tenth century, Conrad I., a duke or count of Franconia, reigned as king of Germany. The conquests of his successor Otho over the Danes, the Slavs, and Hungarians, extended the boundary of the German Empire north to the Elbe and south into Lombardy, where he was soon after acknowledged successor of Charle- magne in Italy, and crowned Emperor of the West at Rome. 5. The Hungarians, or Magyars, as they call them- selves, with whom the first emperors of Germany had to contend, were a people of Asiatic origin, who, in the year 889, forming a body of fully 40,000 families, left their homes in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea and made a great exodus to the westward, fighting their way to the central basin of the Danube, and the countries which bordered Pannonia on the north-east. Spreading out in all directions, they extended their conquests from the Carpathian mountains down to Servia, and from the 36 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Transylvanian Alps to the Alps of Styria on the west, founding that realm on the great central plain of the Danube basin which has outlived the storms of nearly a thousand years. 6. The history of the Byzantine or Greek Empire, as it was now called, was chiefly characterised by wars with the Arabian powers in the south, to whom Crete and Sicily were lost, and by the inroads of the Bulgarians, a people of Finnish origin, who having conquered the Moesians, established themselves in the country south of the lower Danube. 7. Towards the close of the tenth century, the Russians begin to emerge from obscurity. Among the enemies of the Greek Empire were the eastern Slavs or Slavonians (the ancestral Russians), part of a group of nations living in eastern Europe, about the sources of the Dnieper and Don rivers, known to the ancient writers as the Sarmatians, who had their chief settlements at Novgorod and Kief, Harassed by warlike neighbours, they sent ambas- sadors, about 862, to the chiefs of the Varangians, or Northmen, beyond the seas, inviting them to their aid. In response came the Scandinavian chief Rurik, at the head of his armed bands, who, from Novgorod first, and then from Kief as capital, ex- tended the embryo empire, till it came in hostile contact with the Greek kingdom on the south. 8. Another branch of the Slavonic family also begins to take its place as a political power in Europe about this time. The tribes of the Polani dwelt between the rivers Oder and Vistula, and FROM 800 TO 1000 A.D. 37 gradually acquired the ascendency over their kindred neighbouring tribes. About the middle of the tenth century their ruler became a convert to Christianity, and under his son Boleslas I., surnamed ^^the Great/' gave unity to the kingdom of Poland, and sustained a successful war with the Germans on the west. CracoWf afterwards the capital, was founded by a Polish prince, Krak, in 700. 9. In Britain, soon after the period represented in the last sketch, the independent states of the Anglo- Saxon Heptarchy were united by Egbert, king of Wessex (827), into the one kingdom of England. To the dynasty thus founded belonged Alfred the Great, whose exertions in repelling the incessant incursions of the Danes, his defeat of their army at Edrington in Wiltshire, his victories at sea with England's first fleet, and the wise and energetic rule which make his memory dear to all generations of Englishmen, scarcely need be here recalled. 10. During this time Denmark and Scandinavia were known only by the hordes of freebooters who sallied out thence, making raids on England, the Prankish Empire, and Germany, and taking the lead even in Russia. The result of these expeditions was the introduction, towards the close of the tenth cen- tury, of Christianity into the Scandinavian countries, and from this time their mythical stories, contained in the heroic ^^ sagas " or ^' eddas," give place to real history. 11. From the time of Ptolemy onward till this period, geographical knowledge had rested at nearly 38 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY the same limits, but now the maritime expeditions of these hardy Northmen were destined to give it a far wider range. Already two northern seamen, named Wolfstan and Othere, had excited interest at King Alfred's court by the story of their voyages through the Baltic to Witland (Prussia) and Estland (Esthonia), and round the North Cape of Europe, in pursuit of the Hval-ros (walrus or whale-horse), to the White Sea. But their discoveries did not end here. The Faroe islands (Faar-oer = sheep islands), with their convenient harbours, became one of their strongholds ; about 867 one of these chieftains, Naddodr by name, driven westward by storms, sighted the mountains of an unknown shore, to which he gave the name of Snowland, the island afterwards known as Iceland. But long before this, in 795, Irish monks had discovered Iceland, and spent a summer there. Some seven years later the Norwegians took permanent possession of Iceland, settling about Reykjavik, the present capital of the island. The Icelanders kept up their character of enterprising sailors, and already, about 876, one of them named Gunbiorn came upon an extensive country, to which, from its great cloak of ice reach- ing down between the black headlands in white glacier arms to the sea, he gave the very apt name of Hvidscerk (*' white shirt "), a name which was unfortunately changed to the inappropriate one of Greenland by Erik the Red, another Icelander who founded (985) the two colonies of the Ostre and Westre Bygd (east and west bays) on its shores. FROM 800 TO 1000 A.D. 39 12. The great achievement of the Greenland colo- nists; however, was the discovery of the American continent nearly five centuries before Columbus. In 986 Bjarne sailed for Greenland, and, being driven out of his course by northerly winds, discovered an island, which he circumnavigated. About the year 994 an expedition under Leif, son of Erik the Red, set sail for this new country. The regions discovered were named Helluland (Slateland), supposed to be Labrador ; Markland, or Woodland, probably Southern Labrador ; and Vinland, a country named from the wild vine growing there, which some identify with Newfoundland, whilst others transfer it to the coast, opposite an island to which the Pilgrim Fathers gave the name of Martha's Vineyard. 13. Thus, at the period shown in the sixth map, the great Arabian Empire had broken up into a number of separate Mohammedan states, extending from Persia to Spain, and already the Central Asiatic Turks had begun to overrule the power of the Califs in the east ; the Greek Empire had lost still more of its reduced territory, and was harassed on the south by the Saracens, and on the north by the Slavonic peoples of Central Europe, now forming themselves into separate kingdoms, such as Russia and Poland. Germany had also risen to an inde- pendent place, while Charlemagne's great Frank Empire had shrunk to a far smaller area, and was overrun by the Northmen. In Spain, the Christian kingdoms of the northern mountaineers held their own, and were extending their power gradually 40 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY southward against the Moors ; England was now one kingdom, and the hardy Scandinavian seamen had pushed back the clouds of ignorance over the vast region of the North Atlantic, and had reached the shores of the great western continent. CHAPTER VIII FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. I. We have now reached the central stage of the period known as the Middle Ages, which separate the ancient or classic times from the modern. Europe, as we have seen, was fast emerging from the state of barbarism, and the nations of modern times were gradually forming and developing themselves. The Christian Church was striving to extend its bounds in northern Europe, and the Papacy had been rising to great temporal power and influence. Superstition and religious enthusiasm prevailed very extensively, and were manifested in magnificent ecclesiastical buildings and pilgrimages. This zeal rose to its height in Europe when the barbarous Seljuk Turks overran Palestine and destroyed the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, and brought about the great religious wars between the Christian nations of the West and the Mohammedans of the East, known as the Crusades (1096-1270). Before touching upon the chief events of these wars and their effects on the civilisation of Europe, it will be well to glance at the movements which were taking place in each State of the known wojld at this time. 41 42 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 2. At the end of the last period we left Persia under the rule of the Ghiznevides. This dynasty had reigned for little more than half a century before the Seljuk Turks began to migrate into the fertile province of Khorassan. These were an offshoot of a number of Asiatic tribes who in 744 had over- whelmed the *^ empire of Kiptchak," as the region north-east of the Caspian was called. Their name they took from their leader, who had held the country about Bokhara. After some conflicts with the Ghiz- nevides they occupied northern Khorassan ; then Balkh and Kharesm (Khiva) fell before them, and ad- vancing southward through Persia they took Karman and Fars. Arrived at Bagdad, the Calif there (whose temporal power was now all but gone, though he was still recognised as the spiritual chief of the Moslems) acknowledged the Turkish leader, and in 1060 the conquest of Persia was complete. Later, Melek Shah, the most powerful of the succeeding Seljuk rulers, added Arabia, Asia Minor, and Armenia, besides Syria, Palestine, and the countries beyond the Oxus, to the Seljuk Empire, which at the height of its greatness stretched from the -^gean Sea to India and Tartary. 3. Egypt at this time was in the hands of the now effeminate Fatimide dynasty, and so remained till the latter part of the twelfth century, when the famous Salah-ed-din, or Saladin, son of the Seljuk governor of Tekrit, on the Tigris, established himself as Sultan of Syria and Egypt. 4. Algeria was governed by Arabian princes up ^^ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. 43 to the middle of the twelfth century ; Morocco had been formed into a separate state shortly after the beginning of the eleventh century, and the city of that name was founded in 1072. Both of these states were, however, destined to fall before the Moham- medan sect named the Almohades or Unitarians, founded by a native of the Atlas region, to whom Arabs and Berbers flocked. From being a religious body the Almohades became a political power, which mastered all North Africa from Morocco to Tunis, and also extended conquest into Mohammedan Spain as far as the Ebro and Tagus. 5. In the north of the Spanish Peninsula, soon after the foundation of the kingdom of Castile, another Christian state, that of Aragon, was formed in the basin of the Ebro. These now, with Navarre, waged war with the common enemy, the Moors. 6. Portugal, the ancient Lusitania, from the Minho to the Tagus, had fallen under the sway of Castile, and in 1095 Henry of Burgundy governed it as a dependent fief of that kingdom ; but after a great victory over the Moors at Ourique, in Alemtejo, his son Alfonso I. was proclaimed king of Portugal by his soldiers. In 121 2 a great and decisive battle was fought by the combined forces of Castile, Navarre, Aragon, and Portugal, against the Moors, on the plains of Tolosa, which effectually broke the Almohade power in Spain. The Mohammedan kingdom of Granada, founded shortly after this, was speedily compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of Castile, and 44 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY henceforward all danger from the Moslems was at an end. 7. When Hugh Capet ascended the Prankish throne towards the close of the tenth century, and first made Paris the capital, the greater part of the land was held by independent lords, and the authority of the kings extended little beyond Paris and Orleans. Louis VI., surnamed the Good (1108-1137), re-extended the royal power over the kingdom, and carried on war with England and Germany. In the latter part of the thirteenth century Navarre was added to the Prankish kingdom. 8. We have noticed in a former paragraph, that in the ruinous time which followed the breaking up of the empire of Charlemagne, the Northmen had invaded northern Prance, and had subsequently planted themselves firmly in the country, which from them took the name of Normandy. Rolf, or Rollo, the leader of this northern expedition, was the ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who were to play such an important part in English history. 9. The successors of Alfred the Great on the English throne were in constant conflict with the Danes and the Welsh mountaineers, till a more formidable invasion by the former drove Ethelred the Unready to Normandy, and England passed for twenty-eight years under the rule of the Danish kings Sweyn and Canute. With Edward the Confessor, son of Ethelred, the Saxon power was again restored in England (1042), notable events in his reign being the successful wars with the Welsh and Northumbrians, FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. 45 the advance of an English army into Scotland against Macbeth, and the building of Westminster Abbey. 10. Harold, the son of the powerful Earl Goodwin of Kent, was raised to the throne on Edward's death, but William, Duke of Normandy, to whom Edward had made a promise of the English crown, asserted his right by an invasion of England (1066). Land- ing at Pevenseyy on the Sussex coast, with 60,000 men, he advanced as far as Hastings. Harold met the invader on the heath, where the village of Battle now stands ; in the fight Harold was slain and William ^^the Conqueror" became king, transferring the crown of England from the Saxon to the Norman line. Twenty years, however, were required to com- plete the conquest, for the Saxons maintained an unequal resistance, retiring to the forests, and as outlaws became the heroes of popular legends like that of Robin Hood. The Normans in turn became absorbed in the stronger Saxon element ; even their language disappeared, leaving only its traces. 11. The Scots and Picts had gradually coalesced into one people under King Kenneth (843), who established his capital at Forteviot, in Strathearn, formerly the centre of the Pictish kingdom. Under Malcolm Canmore, who ruled at the time of the Norman Conquest, and his successors, the country enjoyed comparative quiet ; but towards the end of the thirteenth century the great struggle with Eng- land began in which the heroic names of Wallace and Bruce are prominent — a contest which termi- 46 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY nated in securing the independence of Scotland on the field of Bannockburn. 12. Norway was brought for a short time under the sway of the Danish conqueror Knut, or Canute the Great, but thenceforward continued to be governed by native kings. Sweden first emerges as an independ- ent kingdom in the beginning of the twelfth century, when Gothland was united with it, and soon after we find its Christian kings subjugating and converting the pagan Finns and adding their land to the kingdom. 13. Germany during this period was troubled by the dissensions of the two great rival parties in the empire, who are best known, in the Italian form of their names, as the Ghibbelines and Guelphs — the one formed of the supporters of imperial authority, the other opposed to it, and representing the church and municipal rights. These parties took their names from the rival dukes of Franconia and Saxony, whose war-cries were the family names of Waiblingen and Welf (Wolf), corrupted into the forms above given by the Italians, in whose country their con- flicts found their chief scene. 14. Poland at this time was mainly occupied in wars with the pagan Prussians, who, for fear of losing their freedom, resisted every effort at con- version ; and it was not until the Teutonic knights had been invited by Poland to aid in their sub- jugation that the Christian faith was established in Prussia. The knights in turn, however, became for- midable enemies of Poland, and gained for themselves the countries of Prussia, Livonia, and Courland. FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. 47 15. Russia had meanwhile fallen from its condition as a united realm, and was held by a number of petty, princes, whose quarrels kept it in a state of anarchy and weakness. 16. The Greek Empire in the earlier part of this period was harassed on all sides — by the Arabs, the Seljuk Turks, and the northern barbarians ; and in Italy the Normans had reduced Byzantine territory to the district of Otranto. The twelve sons of a knight of Normandy named Tancred de Hauteville, whose estates were insufficient to support such a numerous family, sailed to seek their fortune in the Italian wars. One of them, with a small band of followers, gained possession of Apulia ; another brother, named Roger, conquered the island of Sicily. The son of this knight, Roger II., ultimately obtained possession of all his uncle's territories on the mainland, and thus was formed the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 17. We have already referred to the lagoon islands of the Adriatic coast, which gave a refuge to the eastern inhabitants from the devastating wars of the North Italian plains, and to the gradual rise of the settlement of Venezia or Venice, The first form of government of the island state was republican ; which, by and by, gave way to a magistracy in which a duke or ^Moge " was invested with undivided authority (697). Keeping up a close alliance with Constantinople, the naval importance and commerce of the little state increased year by year. It was after the eleventh century had begun, however, that 48 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY the commercial relations of Venice gradually extended east and west, to the Black Sea, and all the Medi- terranean coastlands. The territorial possessions of Venice were also enlarged by the conquest of Dal- matia, Istria, and Croatia. In Central Italy the temporal power and possessions of the Pope of Rome had been spreading till they reached thence to Bologna, Ravenna, and Ancona. 1 8. In 1073 the great Pope Gregory had received a supplication for aid from the Greek Emperor against the Turks, to which he cordially responded, and thus the grand idea of a Christian expedition against the Saracens was first entertained. His suc- cessor Urban revived the design, and after a council held at Clermont in France in 1095, the expedition was resolved upon. Thousands upon thousands, from the remotest corners of Europe, hurried to engage in the holy war, and, each wearing as a badge the sign of the cross, gave the name ^^ crusade" to the movement. First one, then a second great army, led by Peter the Hermit, set out across Hun- gary and Bulgaria for Constantinople ; a third and a fourth horde followed, though it was not till later that the real Crusaders, the nobility and yeomanry of Europe, set forth. In this way not fewer than 600,000 men gathered at Constantinople, whence they crossed to Asia Minor, into Mesopotamia and Syria, besieging and taking Antioch ; two years afterwards, the remnant of this great army delivered Jerusalem from the hands of the infidel, and Godfrey of Bouillon was elected king of Palestine (1099). FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. 49 19. Forty years later, a second crusade, consisting of two vast armies from France and Germany, proved a total failure. Now Saladin, the Seljuk sultan of Egypt, invaded Palestine, and, compelling Jerusalem to capitulate, gave the death-blow to the Christian kingdom. This led to a third crusade, uniting the strength of Germany, France, and England, in which the important city of Acre was besieged and taken (1191), though no further conclusion was reached than that of a treaty granting liberty to the people of the west to make free pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre. 20. The Crusaders had now changed their object from a religious to a secular one ; the fourth expedition ( 1 202-1 204), in which the Franks and the Venetians joined, advancing on Constantinople, took that city, and having mastered the provinces, divided the whole into four parts — Baldwin, Count of Flanders, being made emperor, and the Venetians receiving the coast- lands of the Adriatic and ^gean. A fifth crusade, led by Frederick of Germany (1228), terminated in the cession of Palestine to that emperor ; a sixth was called forth by the irruption of a new race of Turks into Syria, but Louis IX. of France, who led it, was utterly defeated ; he himself was captured, and only obtained his release on paying a heavy ransom to the Sultan of Egypt. Still a seventh crusade was begun by Louis (1270), and carried on after his death by Prince Edward of England, but nothing of importance resulted, save that the Templars and other military knights retained, for a few years longer, possession of Acre and some other towns. 50 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 21. By bringing the civilisation of the east and west into contact, and removing the prejudices of ignorance, relations of advantage, if not of sympathy, were opened up between those different regions ; commerce between east and west received a great impulse, and other great social changes were brought about. 22. While the wars with the Saracens were occupy- ing all minds in Europe, vast changes of dominion were brewing in Asia. Towards the middle of the twelfth century, a Mongol chief named Yesukai Bahadur ruled over some thirty or forty clans who dwelt between the river Amur and the Great Wall of China, far on the east of Asia. On his death, his son Temujin, only thirteen years of age, assumed his place, but the clans, refusing to acknowledge him, chose another chief, and compelled the rightful heir to retire to Karakorti^n^ and place himself there under the protection of the monarch of Keraeit. In the service of this king, Temujin distinguished him- self greatly in conflicts with neighbouring tribes, and obtained the king's daughter in marriage. The king of Karakorum, becoming jealous of his growing in- fluence, ordered Temujin to be assassinated, but he escaped to his own country at the head of a consider- able following. Raising an army there, he marched against his father-in-law, whom he vanquished (1203), seized upon the dominions of Karakorum, and after a short time made himself master of East Mongolia. Assuming now the name of Genghiz Khan ( = Khan of Khans), he turned his forces south towards China, FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. 51 conquered the northern Chinese region of Khatai, scaled the Great Wall, and after a long series of campaigns captured Pekin in 121 5. The victorious Mongols now pressed westward into Turkestan, the vast region stretching between Lake Lob and the Sea of Aral, and reached the Jihun (Oxus) on the borders of Kharesm or Khiva. Seven hundred thou- sand of his cavalry burst into Khiva in 1219; Samarkand^ Bokhara, and all the chief cities of the land, were taken ; next his hordes overran Persia, driving out the last of the Seljuk kings ; they crossed the Caucasus into Russia and routed the Russians in a great battle near the Sea of Azov ; after destroy- ing Riazatty Moscow, and the other settlements, they carried victory into Poland and Hungary. Nor were these Mongols less successful in the east, for the whole of southern Asia, and India as far as the Satlej, was laid waste before them. 23. The sons and grandsons of Genghiz Khan still further extended the huge empire. One of the latter, named Kublai Khan, availing himself of an invitation from a king of the Sung dynasty in China to aid him against the Manchu Tatars, entered China (1260) with a great army and drove out the Manchus ; but afterwards overthrew the Sung dynasty and con- quered all southern China, extending his dominion as far as the Strait of Malacca. The court of Kublai Khan, the magnificence of which is described by Marco Polo, was attended by learned men from India, Persia, and even from Europe ; and his rule was a most beneficent one. During it the noble work of 52 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY the Grand Canal of China was completed, connect- ing Tientsin, the port of Pekin, with Hang-chau on the lower course of the great river Yangtze, a distance as great as from Land's End to the Shetland Isles. Even still, a grain fleet, with great quantities of rice for the supply of the capital, passes every year from the south by this route, avoiding the storms and pirates of the coast. 24. Thus before the middle of the thirteenth century the vast Mongol Empire had stretched out from China to Poland and Hungary, over all Asia except India and Asia Minor — an empire which far surpassed in extent any that had yet been known on the surface of the globe ; and yet one which was so thoroughly organised under strict laws, that it was said one might travel from end to end of it without danger. 25. Among the great changes of power brought about by the Mongol invasion was that of the re- moval of the Oguzian Turks, who retreated before it from the steppes east of the Caspian to the mountains of Armenia. Othman or Osman, a chief of the tribe, on the destruction of the Seljuk power, obtained possession of Bithynia, and grew so strong as to be able to attack the Asiatic portion of the sinking Byzantine empire with success, founding there (1299) the subsequently great empire of the Ottoman or Osmanli Turks, as they are named from him. 26. In the course of his conquest Genghiz Khan had carried off multitudes of western Asiatics as slaves. Twelve thousand of these, mostly Turks and FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. 53 Circassians, were bought by the Sultan of Egypt (a successor of Saladin), who formed them into a body of troops. From being servants these well- armed slaves rose to be masters in Egypt, and placed one of their own number in the sultanate (1254), thus founding the Mameluke (or slave) dynasty in Egypt, which lasted for nearly three centuries, bringing the country again into great prosperity and power. 27. Thus about the year 1300, at the period re- presented in the seventh little chart, the relic of the once great Arabian Empire had been restricted to its original seat, and to the western region of North Africa, all else having fallen into the hands of the Turks. The Calif of Bagdad had taken refuge under the protection of the Mamelukes of Egypt, retaining his spiritual power only ; the Ommiade califate in Spain had long fallen ; the Mohammedan princes now held the kingdom of Granada only, as vassals to the Christian court of Castile ; Navarre, on the north, had become an appanage of the crown of France, to which Normandy and Poitou had been annexed. The English under Edward I. had incorporated Wales after ten years' contest, and Scotland was fighting for independence, led by Wallace and Bruce ; Anglo-Norman adventurers (Fitzgeralds, Butlers, and others) had established themselves among the native clans of Ireland. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were separate states, and the Norse colonies across the Atlantic had reached the most flourishing period of their commerce, the old literature of historical sagas or tales and poems being zealously cultivated. 54 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY In central Europe, Poland and Hungary had been brought to the verge of ruin by the Mongol inva- sions, which had swept away for the time the divided principalities of Russia. In the south, the old Greek Empire was fast sinking, and assaults on it by the Turks had begun. 28. During the earlier part of the period that we have been considering, there lived and travelled a man who may be called the great geographer of the Middle Ages, as Ptolemy was of ancient times. This was the Arabian Edrisi, a man of noble birth, born at Ceuta, in North Africa, in 1099. He studied at Cordova, then the great centre of commerce and the seat of learning of the western Califate, and afterwards he travelled to Constantinople and Asia Minor, Egypt and Morocco, through Spain, and to the coasts of France and England, finally settling with King Roger of Sicily, there to put into shape the materials which this enlightened ruler had been gathering for fifteen years from travellers to all parts of the known world — itineraries, measurements, and observations of all kinds. Here Edrisi drew on a great globe of silver, and described in a book, all that was then known of the earth, from the '' Sea of Darkness" west of the Spanish peninsula to the **Sea of Pitchy Darkness," which was believed to lie east of Asia. He divided the known world, like Ptolemy, into seven belts of climate, from the hottest in the south to the coldest in the far north. 29. Later, as we have seen, the crusades brought the western and eastern nations into close contact. FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. 55 and could not fail to extend the geographical know- ledge of both sides of the civilised world. Then the terrible march of the Mongols over Asia and eastern Europe drew all eyes in that direction, and ambassadors and conciliatory embassies were sent from all the western powers to the court of the great Khan. John de Piano Carpini, a Franciscan monk of Naples, was the Pope's envoy to the new potentate, and he brought back from the Mongol court a striking narrative of his adventures in the rigorous climate of Central Asia, describing also the great plains east of the Caspian, strewn with the bones and skulls of the victims of the devastating warfare that had just passed over them, and giving for the first time to Europeans a true account of the Tatars and their manner of living. William de Rubruquis, also a Minorite friar, was sent into Asia by Louis of France (1253-54), and he too reached the court of the Khan at Karakorum after crossing the great deserts, which he compared to an ocean for extent. 30. Among those who were at this time attracted towards the newly known lands of Asia were two merchants of far-reaching Venice, Nicolo and Matteo Polo, who carried their trading venture past the Euxine and the Volga, round the Caspian to Bokhara, where, meeting with some ambassadors going south- wards to the court of Kublai Khan, they accompanied them to Kemenfuy the summer residence of the ruler. They were well received, and returned to Europe as envoys to the Pope, bearing a request for one 56 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY hundred Europeans well versed in arts and sciences to instruct the Mongols. Finding it impossible to fulfil their mission, they returned in 1271, taking with them Marco, the son of Nicolo Polo, who commended himself to the Khan by his skill and learning, and was made his envoy to several of the other Asiatic rulers, to China, Assam, Tibet, Bengal, and Pegu. In this service Marco Polo gained the material for his book, which is the chief source of information regarding the state of Asia at the close of the thir- teenth century. Having thus passed seventeen years in travelling through kingdoms which no European had ever before seen, from the high table-lands of Central Asia to the great rivers and teeming population of the lowlands of China, he obtained permission to join the escort of a Mongol princess travelling to the west of Persia. He accordingly set out from China (1291), and w^as the first European to sail on the China Sea, and to pass through what we now know as the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. He came to Teheran in Persia ; hearing, on arrival there, that Kublai Khan was dead, he returned to Venice (1295), bringing much wealth and many strange objects from the unknown regions he had visited. To Marco Polo is due not only the opening up to accurate knowledge of the vast region of the Central Asiatic continent, but also the disclosure of the chief of the great islands which lie beyond it. Before his journey the existence of Japan, which he called Zipangu, had not even been suspected, any more than that of the archipelago to the south-east FROM 1000 TO 1300 A.D. 57 of Asia. His book, as might be expected, created an immense interest in the learned world of the west, and was of inestimable value in stimulating geo- graphical research, as we shall afterwards see. 31. But whilst Venice opened up new paths to commerce towards the east, Genoa, which found her- self excluded from these profitable pastures through the jealousy of her countrymen, looked westward, and sought to open up a new road to India by sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar and round the southern extremity of Africa. It was Genoese who first, in modern times, ventured upon the Atlantic ; it was they who discovered the Canaries, Madeira, and the Azores, and who first felt their way along the west coast of Africa. Tedisio Doria and the brothers Vivaldi, who left Genoa in three small vessels, in 1291, had no other object than the discovery of an ocean highway to India, and we have good reason to believe that at least one of their vessels sailed to the Senegal, if not beyond it. CHAPTER IX FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. 1. The death of the emperor Kublai Khan was the signal for great changes of empire in Asia. In China the power of the Tatar ruler, who had grown effemi- nate under the unaccustomed luxuries of a more civilised state, was overthrown by a revolt of the Chinese, and the Ming or bright dynasty arose. China was again united under its own sovereign at the court of Nanking, and Chinese supremacy was recognised in the surrounding countries of Korea, Manchuria, and Mongolia on the north, and perhaps also by the Grand Lama of Tibet. 2. A second great conqueror-hero now appeared in western Asia. This was Timur-leng, so called from his lameness (vulg. Tamerlane), a descendant of the family of Genghiz Khan, and a chief of the division of his great empire, known as Jagatai^ or Turkestan north of the Amu river, who had reunited some of its independent sections under his sway. Ambitious of restoring this kingdom to its former power and extent, he first reduced the rebellious prince of Herat, and afterwards invading Seistan and Mazanderan, in Persia, subdued all the districts east of the Euphrates from Tiflis to Shiraz. 58 FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. 59 3. While engaged in this southern campaign his unprotected northern territories were invaded by the Khan of Kiptchak. Hastening home, Timur speedily drove out the invaders, and pursued them westward, almost annihilating the Kiptchak army in a great battle on the Bielaya (a tributary of the Kama) in 1391. Still advancing westward, he now passed through the gates of Derbendy and thence northward by the Volga as far as Moscow, leaving death and desolation in his track. A few years later he turned his conquering army towards India, and going by the Khaibar Pass descended into the plains, fought a great battle before Delhi and took that city, advancing afterwards beyond it to the Ganges. Returning with immense spoils, he expended these in adorning his capital of Samarkand, 4. A year later Timur made a new expedition to the south-west, attacking and overthrowing the Egyptian Empire in Syria, capturing the towns of Aleppo, Baal- bek, and Damascus. He next attacked the Turkish possessions in Asia Minor, and completely routed the Sultan Bayazet near Angora, and captured his person. On his return homeward Timur conquered Georgia, and by way of Merv and Balkh again reached Samar- kand. A great invasion of China was next projected by the conqueror, and had actively begun, when he died of a fever caught on the banks of the Jihun (1405)- 5. While Timur was beginning his conquests in Asia, the Ottoman Turks had gained a footing in Europe by taking Gallipoli, and the Greek Empire was reduced 6o SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY to the districts round Constantinople. The power of Servia was annihilated on the bloody field of Kosovo- polye ('^ plain of blackbirds"), to the west of Prishtina (1389); and the decisive victory over the Hungarians, won seven years later at Nicopoli, opened Central Europe to the inroads of the Turks. The great defeat of the Sultan by Timur in Asia gave Constantinople a respite for fifty years. Recovering from this defeat, the Turks now mastered Macedonia and Greece. Constantinople was stormed in 1453, and with it fell the last relic of the empire of the Romans. Before the close of the fifteenth century the Turkish Empire in Europe had been extended over all the Balkan Peninsula, and included, besides this, the northern shores of the Black Sea, with Dalmatia, and Otranto in Italy. 6. During this period Hungary recovered from the' wounds inflicted by the Mongol invaders, and became a firmly established State : at the head of it was Matthias Corvinus, the greatest of Hungarian kings, who raised the cavalry force known as the Hussars (IIus2;ar=ihe twentieth, from kusjs= 20, since one man in each village was enrolled out of every twenty), and with their aid the independence of Hungary was maintained against the advancing Turks. 7. Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, when the fierce energy of the Mongols was declining, the principalities of Russia began to shake off the yoke to which they had been subjected, and to strive among themselves for the supremacy ; the princes of Moscow and Tver were the strongest, the former FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. 6i ultimately becoming the chief. The first great step towards liberation was gained in a victory over the Mongol Khan on the banks of the Don (1380); before Timiir's invasion. It is, however, to Ivan III. (1462- 1505), surnamed the Great, that the Russian Empire owes its true foundation ; under his skilful guidance the petty principalities were united into one, and their strength turned against the Mongol khanates of the south and east (Kazan, Astrakhan, Krim Tartary, and dismembered Kiptchak), and against the Lithuanians of the north-west. He married Zoe, the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor, and thus paved the way for the introduction of European civilisation. He also introduced the two-headed Byzantine eagle as the Russian arms, an emblem in connection with which certain pretensions are still remembered. 8. In the earlier part of this period Poland was engaged in repelling the attack of the Teutonic knights, who had been engaged in a crusade for enforcing Christianity on the people of the southern shores of the Baltic, and had thereby acquired possession of Prussia, Livonia, and Courland, but who were finally overthrown. Subsequently the Polish crown passed to Jagello, a grand-duke of Lithuania, the founder of the illustrious dynasty of the Jagellons, and for the first time Lithuania was united to Poland. 9. In Germany the house of Hapsburg had been rising into power, and afterwards held the throne of the German Empire almost uninterruptedly. The period is marked chiefly by the intrigues of the popes, the Roman Church having gradually merged 62 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY its spiritual aspect into a widespread machinery of external government. This spiritual decay was naturally followed by those corruptions and abuses which began to be denounced by such men as the Bohemian reformer and martyr John Huss, whose followers subsequently took such terrible revenge in the insurrections known as the Hussite Wars. 10. This time is also memorable as that of the contest for independence carried on by the Swiss mountaineers against the Austrian power, and the for- mation of the Confederation of the Cantons, which successfully established its independence in many battles, from that of Morgarten (13 15) to that of Moral (1476). 11. In France a great part of the fourteenth century was disturbed by the constant wars with Edward III. of England, who laid claim to the French throne in right of his mother ; now were fought the battle of Crecy (1346), where the Black Prince gained his crest, and that of Poitiers (1356), in which King John was taken prisoner — victories which cut down the flower of the French nobility. After a pause during the minority of Richard II. the war was renewed ; Henry V. won the great victory of Agincourt (141 5) ; but four- teen years later, when the English had advanced to Orleansy a reaction came ; Joan of Arc inspired courage into the hearts of the besieged, and became the dread of the previously triumphant English. Not many years later the English lost all their acquisi- tions with the exception of the town of Calais, for the disastrous civil contests, known as the Wars of the FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. 63 Roses, had broken out in England and divided its strength. 12. In the northern countries, after many feuds and changes of territory, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were first united as one by the treaty of Calmar{i'^()'])y under Margaret of Denmark. Iceland passed with Norway under the new sovereign ; but all com- munication with the Greenland colonies appears to have ceased soon after this date, and they seem to have been completely forgotten for more than three centuries ; the fearful pestilence which had ravaged northern Europe reached them about the beginning of the fifteenth century, sweeping off the greater part of the colonists, and leaving the rest a prey to the attacks of the Eskimo, or Skrellings as they were named by the Norwegians. The very site of the colonies was lost till quite recently. 13. We come now to the Spanish Peninsula, where great events were in progress, and where that spirit of adventure and discovery was being fostered which was to add a new hemisphere to the known world. When we last glanced at the changes of power in Spain, the Mohammedan Moors had been restricted to the vassal kingdom of Granada, in the south of the Peninsula, whence they were carrying on a chivalrous warfare with the kings of Castile. The kingdom of Aragon was rapidly spreading outward ; the Balearic Isles, Sicily, and Sardinia were added to it before the beginning of the fourteenth century, and soon after- wards all Naples and southern Italy were brought under its dominion. With the marriage of Ferdinand 64 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY of Aragon with Isabella queen of Castile (1469) began the consolidation of Spain into one great empire. Granada was conquered; and all those of the Moors who refused to adopt Christianity were expelled from the Peninsula (1492). Twenty years later the king- dom of Navarre, in the north, was seized upon by Ferdinand, so that about the close of the fifteenth century Spain was one united kingdom from the Pyrenees to Gibraltar. 14. Portugal meanwhile had maintained its inde- pendence, and was steadily rising to the highest place as the greatest maritime power in Europe. Already in 141 5 the Portuguese, taking the aggressive against the Moors, captured from them the town of CeutUy on the African coast, and established themselves there. Prince Henry, son of King John I., distinguished himself greatly in this conquest, and on his return took up his residence at Sagres, close to Cape St. Vincent. His mariners, in their sea-fights with the Moors, had sailed into parts of the ocean long be- lieved to be inaccessible, and Prince Henry's ambi- tion for discovery had been awakened. Forming an observatory at Sagres, he gathered there the sons of the nobility of Portugal, and had them trained in the sciences necessary for navigation. Rumours of the gold-yielding coasts of Guinea had been gathered from the Moors, and the thoughts of adventurers were turned thither. 15. The voyagers sent out southward doubled Cape Bojador, on the African coast, in 1433 ; and in 1441 Cape Blanco was reached. In the following year FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. 65 Nuno TristSo sighted Cape Verd, whose luxuriant vegetation for ever silenced those who looked upon the equatorial regions as an uninhabitable waste scorched up by the heat of the sun. In 1455 the Venetian Ca da MostO; on his return from a visit to the Senegal and Gambia, discovered the Cape Verd islands, which were immediately taken possession of by the Portuguese. The last expedition which sailed under the auspices of Prince Henry was commanded by Pedro de Cintra, 1462, who discovered Sierra Leone. Thus before Prince Henry's death the coast was known as far as Sierra Leone, and the work he had set on foot was eagerly taken up by others. The coast, which was named from the grain of the Mele- guetta pepper, was next explored, and Fernando Po reached the island which now bears his name, though he called it Ilha Formosa, the beautiful isle. Each new voyager surpassed his predecessor. Joao de Santarem and Pedro d'Escobar were the first to cross the equator, in 1471. Diego Cam, in 1482, found the mouth of the huge river we now know as the Congo, and there set up the pillar to mark his discovery, from which the river itself for a long time was known as the Rio do Padrao ; sailing still farther south, he explored the coast nearly to the southern tropic. Following him two years later came Bartholomew Diaz, who passed on beyond this limit to the cape named Das Voltas, near the Orange River ; whence driven out to sea by storms, he regained the coast at Algoa Bay, and planted a cross on the islet there, still 66 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY known as St. Croix. He had thus rounded the south- western promontory of Africa, and from the violent weather he had experienced it was named Cabo Tor- mentoso (the Cape of Storms), a name afterwards changed by King John of Portugal to the more auspicious one of Cabo de bona Esperanza, the Cape of Good Hope. i6. One of the vague legends of mediaeval times was that of a rich and magnificent kingdom, the sovereign and priest of which came to be known in the west as ^' Prester John " ; but the locality of this kingdom was undefined, and it was sometimes supposed to be in Asia, sometimes in Africa. The reports concerning it had, however, made a profound impression in Europe, and led the adventurous Portuguese to search for it in Africa. In this quest Abyssinia was visited by Pedro de Covilham, an emissary of King John of Portugal, a few years after the southern cape of Africa was discovered, and thus close relations were begun with this part of Africa which lasted for several centuries. But, before entering Abyssinia, the Portuguese emis- sary had visited Ormuz, Goa, and Malabar, and, crossing the Indian Ocean, he had landed on the Sofala coast, rich in mines of gold and silver, and identified by some as the land of Ophir to which Solomon sent his ships. It was then Europeans first heard of the powerful kingdom of the Monomotapa, to the south of the Zambesi. 17. Lisbon at this time had become the centre of all that was speculative and adventurous in maritime discovery. Here there lived an Italian of Genoa, FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. 67 named Colon (Columbus), who while employed in the construction of charts and maps, conceived the idea of sailing westward to the Indies of Marco Polo. Toscanelli, the great Florentine astronomer, had sanctioned such a project in a letter written in 1474 ; and Columbus was confirmed in his views by the discovery, on the Azores, of pieces of carved wood, and even of a boat containing the bodies of men whose features differed from those of Africans or Europeans, and who had evidently been drifted ashore from some distant country in the west. He ultimately found the means of laying his scheme before King John. The Portuguese sovereign having decided against the venture, Columbus, disappointed but not despairing, turned to England and then to Spain, and after eight years of hoping at length was put in command of three small vessels, only one of which was decked. With these he set sail from the bar of Suites, near Palos on the Rio Tinto, in August 1492. After a month spent in refitting at the Canaries he ventured out into the unknown seas, and, disregarding the fears and disaffection of his crew, bore steadily westward. On the nth of October, says Columbus in his diary, ^^the sailors of the caravel Pinta saw a reed and a stick ; and they picked up another small bit of carved wood, and also a piece of cane, some other fragments of land vegetation, and a small board. At these indications they drew in their breath and were all full of gladness. At ten o'clock at night the admiral, while standing on the quarter deck, saw a light. 68 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY although it was so indistinct that he could not say with certainty that it was land; but he called to Pero Gutierrez, the king's groom of the chambers, and told him there was land in sight, and desired him to look out, and so he did, and saw it." At two o'clock after midnight, the land appeared at two leagues' distance. They struck all sail and lay to until Friday the 12th of October, when they went on shore in an armed barge and took possession in the name of the king and queen of Spain ; the island was called Guanahani in the Indian language, but Columbus gave it the name San Salvador. This islet was either Wailing or Samana Cay in the Lucayos or Bahama group. Continuing westward, Columbus discovered Cuba and Hayti or San Domingo, and on the latter, which he called Hispaniola, he left a small colony and set sail again for Spain, where he was now received with joy and admiration. 18. In the belief that the eastern side of Asia had been reached, the new lands were collectively named the West Indies. In September of next year Columbus set sail again for the west from Cadiz with seventeen ships and a strong force, and on this voyage added the Caribee Islands diiid Jamaica to his discoveries. In a third voyage, in 1498, he steered more to the south, and found the island of Trinidad, and the mouth of the Orinoco river, landing in the Gulf of Paria. The success of Columbus had naturally inflamed many with the passion for discovery; among those who first set out on the path he had opened up to the west, was Amerigo Vespucci, a naval astronomer FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. 69 of Florence, who sailed with Admiral Ojeda from Cadiz in 1499, and with him explored the coast from Trinidad westward, discovering the lake of Maracaybo; they gave the name Venezuela (little Venice) to a village built on piles at the entrance to the lake which reminded them of Venice, a name which afterwards spread to the whole country. It was Amerigo who first proclaimed the fact that the newly discovered countries had no connection with Asia, but formed a "New World," which geographers, soon after the publication of his narrative, named "America." Next year, Pinzon, a companion of Columbus, sailed south, discovering the mouth of the Amazon, and doubling the promontory called Cape San Roque. 19. Meanwhile the Portuguese had been vigorously following up their African expeditions, and had made a discovery only second to that of the new continent in the west. On the return of Bartholomew Diaz from the Cape of Storms, King John chose Vasco da Gama, an intrepid mariner of high birth, to search for a southern passage to India. With four vessels, and provided with letters to all potentates that might be met with, among others to the mythical " Prester John," the little fleet left Lisbon in July 1497, and reached the inlet we now know as Table Bay, near the Cape of Good Hope, in November of that year. A mutiny of his crew had to be suppressed before he could sail round the south of Africa. On Christmas day the land which was thence named ^^ Natal'* was seen, and presently the known coasts of Mozambique came in view. Reaching the Arab port of Melinde, 70 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY north of Zanzibar, an Indian pilot was taken on board, under whose guidance the Indian Ocean was safely crossed to the port of Calicut in India. The Arab merchants here, fearing interference with their com- merce, incited the Hindus against the Portuguese, and Gama had to fight his way out of the port. 20. Soon after he had again cast anchor in the Tagus the Portuguese king resolved to follow up the discovery of the new route by sending out a strong force to establish settlements in India ; and a fleet of thirteen vessels under Pedro Cabral set sail in March 1500. To avoid the calms of the equatorial latitudes in the Atlantic, Cabral took a course too far to the west, and falling into the southerly current was borne to the shores of South America near the har- bour now known as Porto Seguro. Landing here, he took possession of the new land in the name of the king of Portugal, and sent back two of his vessels to announce his discovery of the ^^ Terra da Santa Cruz!' the country now called Brazil. Afterwards passing round the Cape to Mozambique and India, and making the force of the Portuguese arms felt at Calicut, he was permitted to found a factory there, after concluding a treaty with the native ruler. 21. The ardour of the English also had been roused by Columbus's great discovery, and Henry VII. gave to Giovanni Cabot, a Venetian sailor resident in Bristol, the command of a squadron of five vessels for a voyage of discovery across the Atlantic. Cabot the elder was accompanied in this voyage by his sons Ludovico and Sebastian (born at Bristol), and in June 1497 FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. 71 they sighted the coast of America, at the Helluland of the old Norwegian voyagers, giving the re-discovered country the name of Newfoundland. Three years later these shores were visited by the Portuguese navigator Cortereal, who found the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and the wild and precipitous shores to the north of it, on which he bestowed the name Terra Lalforador = ^^ cu\iiv3.b\e land," a name quite as inept as that of Greenland. 22. The immediate result of the discoveries of Marco Polo was the establishment of more intimate relations with eastern Asia. The Mongol sovereigns of China encouraged Christian missionaries, foremost amongst whom were Juan de Montecorvino, Friar Odorico of Pordenone, and Marignola. Italian merchants, in- cluding Pegoletti of Florence and Nicolo Conti, the first European to cross the Dekkan (1424), penetrated to India and into Turkestan ; and Clavijo, the ambas- sador of King Henry of Castile, partook of the rude hospitality of Timur-leng at Samarkand. Nor must we omit here Sir John Mandeville's wonderful account of travels, which enjoyed a popularity quite unpre- cedented. 23. To recapitulate the chief features and condi- tions of the known world, at the time represented in the eighth little chart: — In the far east China had recovered its independence under the Ming dynasty, and its supremacy was acknowledged over Mongolia and eastern Turkestan, though the states of Tongking and Cochin China, in the southern pen- insula beyond India, had assumed a political inde- 72 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY pendence. Western Asia, as we have seen, had been reconquered by Timur of the country of Jagatai, or western Turkestan, whose successors maintained his empire till near the end of the fifteenth century, when it was again subdivided, all eastern Persia falling to the Usbegs of Kiptchak, who had raised the Khanate of Khiva to power ; while a new dynasty, formed by the union of a number of tribes, had sprung up in western Persia, making Azerbijan its chief seat. The Ottoman Turks had extended their European territory to its widest limit over the ruins of the Greek Empire, and their farther advance had been sternly checked by the Hussars of Hungary. Russia had become a united kingdom under Ivan the Great, and had acquired from its union the power to throw off the Tatar yoke. 24. In western Europe, the Swiss mountaineers had secured their independence. France was re- covering from the calamities inflicted on it by the English, who had all but lost their hold on the land. In the south the reaction of Christendom against Mohammedanism had begun. The Christian king- doms of Spain and Portugal had driven back the Moors across the Straits into Africa, and had con- solidated their strength over the whole Peninsula. The Moors in turn had settled themselves along the North African coast, and had begun that course of piracy which was first instituted as a retaliation against the Christian persecution, but which after- wards sank to a barbarous profession. 25. Morocco at this time had been formed into FROM 1300 TO 1500 A.D. 73 a monarchy, and enjoyed great prosperity. In the south it touched upon a great empire which had risen in Negroland. This was the kingdom of Songhay, the rulers of which had embraced Moham- medanism in the eleventh century, and which, under Haj Mohammed A'Skia, who came into power in the end of the fifteenth century, extended its dominion across the whole region about the great bend of the Niger, to the confines of Morocco on the north, and on the west almost to the shores of the Atlantic. More towards the centre of the continent, round the basin we now know as that of Lake Chad, another great Mohammedan empire, that of Bornu, had also arisen, and reached its height of greatness about the close of the fifteenth century. 26. Portugal and Spain, as we have seen, had given birth to the boldest navigators the world had ever known ; the terrors of the unknown ^^ Sea of Dark- ness " in the west had been overcome. The wealth of a new hemisphere had been laid open to adven- ture and conquest. Africa had been circumnavi- gated, and the way to the wealth of India had been found. Spain had already laid hold of the islands of the West Indies ; and Portugal had estab- lished the first European settlements on the shores of India. CHAPTER X F'ROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. Within the last eight years of the fifteenth century, as we have seen, the circle of darkness which had so long hung round the Old World was driven back on all sides, and geographical knowledge expanded from its former contracted limits with a great leap, such as it can never again take in the history of the world. The spirit of Henry the Navigator had entered into the heart of all the maritime nations of Europe, the race for the discovery and conquest of new worlds had begun, and every year, almost every day, brought tidings to the Old World of fresh wonders from the New. I. Before turning to follow the progress of events beyond the seas, it may be well to glance, as formerly, at the leading events and changes of power which were progressing meantime in the Old World. In China — still under the Ming dynasty (i 368-1 644) — there is no great change to notice, but in the western half of the Asiatic continent power is now rapidly changing hands. The Mohammedan dynasty of Ismail, leading the sect called Shias or Shiites, followers of Ali, had acquired command, as we have before noticed, in FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. • 75 western Persia, and soon the central provinces of Khorassan and Balkh were taken from the Usbegs. On the western frontier their territories were now attacked by the mighty Sultan Selim of Turkey, whose troops, inflamed by religious animosity, mas- sacred the Sectaries at Calderoon, but after their retirement, Ismail pressed westward and conquered Georgia. To this ruler is ascribed not only the restoration of the Persian state to its prosperity, but the establishment of the particular form of the Mohammedan faith which the majority of Persians still hold. 2. About this time another Asiatic conqueror, a great-grandson of Timur, appeared in the country east of Persia. This was Baber, the founder of the Mogul or Mongol Empire, which had its centre at Delhi in northern India. Having mastered the pro- vinces of Kashgar, Kunduz, Kandahar, and Kabul, he crossed the Indus into Hindustan, and after defeat- ing the native princes in a great battle at Paniputy near Delhi (1526), he captured that city and Agra. Afterwards he established the powerful empire which lasted till the beginning of the nineteenth century. 3. North of Persia, the country between the Cas- pian and the borders of Mongolia was in the hands of the dominant Usbeg Turks in the states of Khiva, Bokhara, and Kokan. In the south-west of Asia, the Ottoman Empire was being raised to its extreme height of power. Sultan Selim ascended the throne in 151 2. Urged 76 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY by a devouring appetite for conquest, he declared war against the Sectaries in Persia, and march- ing eastward at the head of 250,000 men, overran Diarbekr, Kurdistan, and Armenia ; then, turning southwards through Syria, he defeated the Mame- luke Sultan of Egypt, and entered Cairo unopposed. Here the last descendant of the Abbaside Calif in- vested him as the chief of all Islam and the repre- sentative of Mohammed. Now the chief Arabian tribes, and the holy cities of Medina and Mecca, also recognised the supremacy of the Ottoman ruler. The reign of Selim was marked by the construction of the arsenal at Pera beside Constantinople, and the foundation of the Turkish navy, which was soon to command the Mediterranean. His successor, Solyman ^'The Magnificent," carried on the course of conquest ; he exterminated the Egyptian Mame- lukes, and concluded treaties with Persia. In Europe his arms were turned against Hungary ; Belgrad was captured, and his resistless march was continued to Buda and Pest, in the heart of the country ; some years later even Vienna (1529) was besieged by his invading hosts. 4. The progress of the Turks in this direction was checked by the Imperial army of Charles V. of Germany, but ultimately they gained complete possession of Hungary. An alliance between the Turks and the French, by which the commerce of the Levant was opened to the flag of the latter nation only, bore fruit in the ravages of the coasts of Italy by the united fleets. The Turks became FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 77 supreme in the eastern Mediterranean, and Tripoli fell into their hands. 5. During the reign of Selim II. (1570), the first collision of the Turks with the Russians was brought about in the following manner : — The project of uniting the Black Sea and the Caspian by a canal between the Don and the Volga had been conceived, but the programme required the possession of Astra- khan. The attack made on the city by the Turks brought down the interference of the Russians, and the projected canal scheme was blighted. At this time Ivan IV., ^^The Terrible," reigned in Russia, and his arms were everywhere successful, against the Lithuanians in the north-west and the Tatar Khanates of the south-east. He captured the strong city of Kazan in the middle of the century, annex- ing the state of which it was capital to his empire, and Astrakhan soon afterwards followed the same fate. 6. It was during his reign that the Cossack Vassili Yermak, an absconded criminal, at the head of a band of wild followers, forced his way eastward into Asia, and extended his conquests as far as the river Irtish, taking the town of Sibir (the site of which was near the present town of Tobolsk), from which the whole land of Siberia was to receive its name. Before the end of the century Russian dominion had here been consolidated. 7. Early in the sixteenth century Sweden emanci- pated itself from union with Denmark, and Gustavus Ericson, afterwards known as Vasa of romantic 78 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY story, during forty years of noble effort, raised the country from its turbulence and barbarism to the condition of a prosperous and civilised realm ; a condition destined, however, only to fall again in the stormy reigns of his immediate successors, which were marked by internal disorders and disastrous wars with Denmark, Poland, and Russia. When Sweden elected a king of its own, the crown of Denmark and Norway passed to Frederick, Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, and these duchies were united to the State. 8. Germany at the commencement of this period was in a state of great agitation concerning the doc- trines proclaimed by Luther, and the great move- ment of the Reformation had begun, by which Jhe church of the greater part of north-western EurQpe became separated from that of Rome. On the death of Ferdinand of Spain, his grandson Charles rose to the throne of that country, taking with him to the Peninsula many followers from Flanders, where he had been born and educated. Three years later he was also elected German Emperor. As Charles V. of Germany, one of his first acts was an endeavour to restore tranquillity by summoning the princes and statesmen of the land to the town of Worms, where Luther confronted the assembly, and made the famous declaration of his principles (152 1). 9. We have already referred to Charles's success- ful opposition to the advance of the Turks in Austria. Between France and Germany a long struggle was in progress during his reign, in which his armies FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 79 eventually drove the French from the greater part of their conquests in Italy, defeating them at Pavia (1525), and taking the French king prisoner. Another great act of his reign was an expedition undertaken against the pirate Barbarossa, who had established himself in Tunis, and whose ships did great injury to the commerce of Spain. After Charles's abdica- tion (1556), during the latter half of the century, Germany was a prey to internal dissensions of oppo- site religious factions, which each in turn invited the aid of foreign powers to contribute to the growing anarchy. 10. The defeat of the French at Pavia, and the capture of King Francis, threw that nation into great disorder, upon which followed the persecutions of the Huguenots,^ as the Protestants or followers of the Reformation in France were called, culminating in the frightful massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572) in Paris, and leading the country into the suc- cessive religious wars which continued till the end of the sixteenth century, when the famous Edict of Nantes established the rights of the Protestants (1598). 11. In England the struggle of the court with the Pope of Rome and the advance of the Protestant doctrines marked the earlier half of the sixteenth century ; then, in the reign of Mary (1553-58), the reaction brought back Papal supremacy, till the atrocities of the persecutors of the Reformers, and the cruel martyrdoms of Smithfield, once and for ^ A nickname ("Little Hugues") first applied to them in 1560. 8o SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY ever turned the popular mind from the Church of Rome. Then followed the long and happy reign of Elizabeth, towards the end of which patriotism overcame religious differences, and Protestant and Catholic alike fought to repel the great Armada. This was a huge fleet, with the aid of which Philip of Spain had resolved to strike a decisive blow at the Protestant interest by conquering England, which Pope Sixtus had made over to him. On the death of Elizabeth the crowns of England and Scotland were for the first time united (1603). 12. We have already referred to the accession of Charles to the Spanish throne. As head of the house of Burgundy he also inherited and united the Netherlands under his sceptre ; and, through the encouragement he gave to commerce and naviga- tion, that country attained to great prosperity, and Amsterdam rose to be its great port. In Spain itself the very events which had raised the empire to magnificence may be said to have laid the seeds of its decline ; for all its most active spirits had set out in search of the El Dorado of the New World, where gold was believed to be more plentiful than in the old country, the culture of which was in consequence neglected. 13. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain, as we have formerly noticed, had driven them to the opposite African coasts and made them pirates. Their outrages drew down an attack from Ferdinand of Spain in 1509, in which be captured the town of Algiers. Later, one of the Algerian princes in- FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 8i vited the aid of the Greek renegade Barbarossa, who had made himself famous as a Turkish naval chief ; but when he arrived he treacherously turned his Corsairs against the Algerians, and made himself Sultan of their country and of Tunis. The Spaniards marched against him from Oran ; and Barbarossa, after many encounters, was defeated and slain. His brother was then chosen Sultan, and placing himself under the protection of Turkey, drove the Spaniards out of the country. In 1535 Charles of Spain under- took an expedition against the Corsairs, and set free no fewer than 20,000 Christians who had been held as slaves ; but a subsequent great armada of 370 ships intended to crush their power proved a complete failure. Emboldened by this, the Algerians pushed their excursions even beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, till the maritime states of Europe were obliged to recognise and pay annual quit money to the pirates of the mountainous Riff coast, between Tangier and Algeria, and the Sallee rovers were the dread of the peaceful mariners of the Atlantic. 14. Philip II., the successor of Charles in Spain, was on his accession (1555) the most powerful sovereign in Europe, having Spain, the Two Sicilies, Milan, and the Netherlands under his sway, but his maladministration and enormous war expenditure overtaxed the resources of the empire. His fana- tical enthusiasm for Catholicism, and his persecution of the Reformers in the Netherlands, excited a re- bellion there, and brought about the eighty years' struggle which resulted in the establishment of the 82 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY independent republic of the United Provinces. The direct line of succession in Portugal having become extinct in 1580, Philip laid claim to the throne of that country, and, occupying it with an army, was recognised as sovereign by the Portuguese. His sub- sequent attempt at the conquest of England by his " invincible Armada " has been previously referred to. 15. While Spain was thus passing the zenith of its greatness, Morocco, on the opposite side of the Medi- terranean, was spreading out its limits ; the armies sent southward by its emperor, with the aid of the muskets with which his soldiers were armed, had overthrown the great Songhay Empire, occupying Timbuktu and all the towns and routes as far as the line of the rivers Niger and Senegal. Having thus obtained some idea of what was going on in the Old World of history during the sixteenth century, we may now turn to sketch out for our- selves the rapid progress of discovery beyond the old limits. 16. On Ascension day of 1501 the Portuguese navi- gator Juan de Nova fell in with the solitary volcanic islet of the Atlantic, to which he gave the name of the day of its discovery. Tristan da Cunha, another Portuguese, found the islet which bears his name ; and next year, on St. Helenas day (22nd May), another of the solitary islets of the South Atlantic came to light. In 1502 Columbus set out for his last voyage, to follow up his discoveries along the coasts of Central America ; but his venture was a disastrous one, and on his return home the Spanish FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 83 king proved basely ungrateful, and the ablest of navi- gators was allowed to die in poverty at Valladolid, 17. The Portuguese, as we have already seen, had discovered and formed settlements along a great part of the coast of West Africa, and were begin- ning to extend their dominion over the Indian seas — the great Albuquerque, of the family of the blood royal of Portugal, having been appointed viceroy of the Indies. During the first years of the century they began to supplant the Arabs on the south-east African shores, taking possession of the port of Sofala, extending their conquests inland over the gold region of Manicay and soon after establishing themselves at Mozambique. Across the Indian Ocean Albuquerque followed up the beginning made by Cabral on the Malabar coast, conquering GoUy which he made the seat of the Portuguese government and the chief place of its Asiatic trade, extending com- merce and settlements thence to the whole west coast of India, to Ceylon, Malacca, the Sunda islands, and the coasts of China, and gathering knowledge of the Archipelago as far as the shores of New Guinea. The Arab state of Muscat fell into their power in 1507 ; the islet of OrmuZj in the entrance of the Persian Gulf, Wfis also taken and made into a great entrepot for the goods brought from the Indies ; and when the king of Persia sent to col- lect the tribute formerly paid him by the princes of the island, Albuquerque pointed to cannon balls and swords as the only coin that Portugal would render. 18. Meanwhile the Spaniards were year by year 84 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY adding new discoveries across the Atlantic. Their first settlement on the island of Cuba was made in 151 1 ; two years after that the peninsula called Florida^ on account of its rich vegetation, was made known, and St. Augustine, the first European settle- ment on the mainland of America, was founded on its Atlantic shores. A small settlement was next made on the inward side of the Caribbean Sea, on the shore of the Gulf of Darien, where the settlers soon gathered rumours from the natives of rich lands to the south, and of a new sea w^hich might be seen from the neighbouring mountains. Vasco Nunez Balbao was the first to penetrate the forests of the Isthmus of Panama to its central range ; leaving his followers below, he ascended the highest ridge, and there, beyond the intervening forests and valleys, the immense expanse of the ^^ South Sea " lay before him (1513)- 19. No sooner had the news of Balbao's discovery reached Spain than Juan Diaz de Solis, who with Yanez Pinzon had been engaged for some years previously in exploring the eastern coast of South America as far as the La Plata, was sent out again with three well-appointed ships to ^^ sail to the other side of Castillia del Oroj" the name then given to the lands of supposed fabulous wealth which lay beyond the Isthmus of Panama. Sailing south along the coast of Brazil, he came once more to the great opening of the La Plata, which he hoped to find a strait leading to the South Sea. Finding the navi- gation intricate, he left his vessels and ranged the FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 85 shores as high as the islet of Martin Garcia, where, deceived by the submissive movements of some natives, he ventured to land. The treacherous sav- ages, however, set upon him and killed him with all his attendants, and, says Charleroix, '* roasted and eat them in sight of those who remained in the boat, and who had now no other course to take but to return to Spain." The inlet thus discovered is now known as the Rio de la Plata (the river of silver), but at first it received the more appropriate name of Rio de Solis. 20. It was about this time that the lonely coral group of the Bermuda isles was discovered in the North Atlantic : they take their name from that of the Spanish voyager Bermudez, who first sighted them. Discovery was also progressing to the north- west. King Henry VIII. of England had sent out Sebastian Cabot in command of an expedition to Labrador, in which he sailed north across the Arctic Circle and found the wide strait which leads into Hudson Bay (1517). 21. We left the Portuguese extending the con- quests and discoveries they had begun in India even farther to the east. After the conquest of Malacca by Albuquerque, they had heard of the famed Spice Islands^ and several ships — one commanded by Fran- cisco Serrao (or Serrano, as the Spaniards called him), and another by his friend Fernao de Magalhaens (whom we know as Magellan) — were sent out in quest of them. The Portuguese Serrao was fortunate in reaching the Spice Islands or Moluccas on the western 86 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY borders of the great ocean almost at the same time that Balbao and his Spaniards caught their first glimpse of the great South Sea from the east. So little was then known or conceived of the huge width of this ocean, that Serrao believed, on reaching the Spice Islands, that he must be close to America, and laid plans with his friend Magellan for reaching them by a nearer route. The latter returned to the Portuguese court with great hopes of reward for his services in the Indies, and with schemes for future discovery, but on being coldly received and denied his well- merited honours, he renounced his allegiance and took service under the king of Spain. 22. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, when the sailors of Spain and Portugal were ex- tending their discoveries ever farther west and east, Pope Alexander had divided the world between these nations, giving the western hemisphere to Spain, and the eastern to the Portuguese. The line of demarcation was drawn indefinitely through the unknown region of the other side of the world, and when the Portuguese had reached the Spice Islands doubts were raised as to whether they had not passed the limit assigned to them by the Pope and trespassed on the Spanish hemisphere. Acting upon these doubts, Magellan, in concert with the astronomer Ruy Faleiro, who had likewise expatriated himself from Portugal, prepared a globe on which they showed the Spice Islands in such a position that they lay within the Spanish hemisphere, and Magellan urged upon the Spanish court that these FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 87 rich possessions could be reached more readily by the " Spanish route " — that is, by the western voyage — than by the <^ Portuguese " or eastern route round the south cape of Africa. At the same time, com- paring South America with South Africa, he showed the probability of the existence of a passage to the South Sea round the coast of South America, and warmly advised a renewal of the search, which had been abandoned in the belief that the land stretched continuously to the south. 23. Thus it came about that five Spanish ships were fitted and manned with 236 seamen, under Magellan, who weighed anchor and set sail from San Lucar in September 1519. Taking the ordinary track by the Canaries, the fleet reached the shores of the Terra da Santa Cruz (Brazil), and in January of the next year lay off the " Rio de Solis." After explor- ing this inlet and becoming convinced that it was no strait, but the mouth of great rivers, and giving the name Monte Vidi (Monte Video) to a height on its northern shore, Magellan steered south along the coast, examining each of its many inlets in the hope of finding a passage to the westward, till the barren coasts in the south were reached, and the cold storms of this region and the diminution of provisions raised murmurs and discontent in his ships, testing the energy of the leader to the utmost. Later the discontent broke out into an open mutiny, only subdued by the masterful tact of Magellan. One of its ringleaders was executed, and two others — the general controller, Juan de Cartagenas, and 88 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY the priest; Pedro Sanchez — were condemned to banishment, and set ashore on the desert coast. The harbour of San Julian^ where Magellan's ex- pedition wintered (1520), is memorable also as the place at which the name Patagones (big feet) was given to the natives, from the apparent size of their extremities when covered up in skins ; and this name has extended, in the form of Patagonia, to the south-east land of America. In August 1520, with the return of fine weather, the expedition again set out, and in October a deep strait was reached in which the strong tides and currents gave Magellan the hope that he had at length attained the object of his desires, and which proved indeed to be the long-sought passage to the South Sea. The land to the left in passing through it was called Tierra del Fuego, since every night the discoverers saw many fires in the woods, no doubt lighted by the natives. New fears and difficulties now arose among his command before venturing out into the un- known seas to reach the Moluccas, and many were in favour of returning for new outfit. To them, however, Magellan replied that " if he knew that they should be brought to such a pass as to have to eat the leather work of the rigging, still he would go on through the strait, to fulfil the promise he had given to the king, and he hoped that God would help him therein." One ship, missing the others in the labyrinth of the strait, returned to Europe, bringing thither the first news of the great discovery, but with the rest Magellan began his FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 89 long voyage across the vast South Sea. Soon, under the fair trade wind, its warm latitudes were reached, and he gave it the name Oceano Pacificoy from the line weather he experienced in sailing through its vast breadth. Strange to relate, Magellan's ships threaded the multitude of the islands of Oceania, sighting but two islets before the discovery of Guahan or Guam (6th March 1521), one of the group to which Magellan gave the name Ladrones, or Thieves' Islands, now known as the Marianas, Next he came upon one of the group afterwards named the Philippine Islands, and there, on the island of Zebu, met his death in a foolish conflict provoked with the islanders, in April 1521. The rest of his command, choosing a new leader, reached the long-sought Moluccas ; but only eighteen of the seamen who had set out from Spain under Sebastian del Cano crossed the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic again, and only one ship, the famed Victoria, with tattered sails and planks as full of holes as a sieve, again appeared at the mouth of the Guadalquivir (September 1522), a glorious ruin and an object of wonder to all Europe. Thus the world was first encompassed, and its roundness was first demonstrated to the popular mind. 24. The chivalrous Francis I. of France now joined in the work of discovery, and the voyager Verazzano, sent out under his auspices, explored the Atlantic coast of North America, joining the Spanish discoveries in Florida with those of the Cabots about Newfoundland (1524). Ten years '^ OF THE 90 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY later, Jacques Cartier, in the service of the same prince, explored the gulf and river St. Lawrence (giving them the name from having first sailed into the gulf on that saint's day), and penetrated as far as the rapids, near the site of the present city of Montreal, in Canada.^ 25. The Spaniards were meanwhile rapidly extend- ing their excursions and conquests from the settle- ments in the West Indies. Cuba, the Queen of the Antilles, began to be colonised permanently in 151 1, and soon became the base of further operations. As the Spaniards increased in numbers and em- ployed the aborigines, Arawaks and Caribs, in work- ing at the mines, these native West Indians died out with extraordinary rapidity, and the philan- thropic Las Casas, Bishop of Cuba, proposed the introduction of stronger African negro slaves to work in the sugar plantations and mines. Charles of Spain accordingly authorised, in 1577, the importa- tion of negroes from the Portuguese African settle- ments in Guinea, and thus began the American slave trade, which afterwards grew to such gigantic propor- tions, and laid the seeds of so much future trouble for the land. 26. Only three years after Cuba had been con- quered, its Spanish governor, Diego Velasquez, en- trusted his lieutenant, Hernan Cortes, with the leadership of an expedition for the conquest of ^ Canada has its name from Kanata^ an Iroquois word signify- ing a collection of huts, which the discoverers mistook for the name of the country. FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 91 Mexico, on the western mainland. The continent was peopled by a race which was very different from that of the aborigines of the islands. As early, perhaps, as the fifth century, when the bar- barian hordes from the north were beginning to descend in bands upon the nations of western Europe, a people named the Toltecs had come from some primitive seat in the north to occupy the Mexican plateau, bringing to it the elements of civilisation, introducing agriculture and metal-work- ing, making roads, and raising great cities and temples of colossal dimensions, the ruins of which remain to this day. To this people, about the twelfth century, had succeeded another family, named the Aztecs^ also from the north, who engrafted upon the civilisation bequeathed them by the Toltecs many fierce and sanguinary religious observances, in which human sacrifices to the patron gods were carried out in splendid temples. Their city of Tenochtitlan, or Mexico, had been founded about 1325. Their form of government was that of an elective empire, and the land was ruled by severe laws, though justice was administered in open courts. At the time when the Spaniards first reached America, the Aztec Empire stretched across Mexico from sea to sea. When Cortes set out from the Havana or Haven of Cuba for the conquest of this remarkable country in 15 19, its throne was occupied by Montezuma, who had at first been an energetic prince, extending his dominion to the south, but who had later grown indolent and estranged from 92 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY his people. The oracles which he consulted fre- quently portended the speedy fall of his empire, and thus the landing of the Spaniards on the coast, near where the town of Vera Cruz now stands, terrified him and his priestly councillors, who en- deavoured to propitiate the strangers by sending costly gifts. The road to success was thus strangely opened to Cortes, who had with him but a handful of men to attack this great empire. Resolved to advance, Cortes burned his ships to prevent retreat, and after founding the settlement of the Vera Cruz ("true cross"), set out for the capital, where he was received with great pomp, the Spaniards being regarded as the descendants of the sun, who, ac- cording to prophecy, were to come from the east to succeed to the Aztec Empire. It was soon dis- covered, however, that the Spaniards were but mortal, and the city of Mexico rose against them, but after a siege of four months in 1521, during which a famine aided the Spanish arms, the city was taken, and soon the whole empire was sub- jugated. Cortes subsequently fitted out several ex- peditions, one of which, exploring the western shores of the newly conquered land, discovered the penin- sula which was named California (1534). 27. The fame of the splendid achievement of Cortes gave fresh impulse to adventure, and led others to imitate his exploits. Among the adventurers who had been with Balbao when he discovered the South Sea from the Isthmus of Panama, and heard of the golden country to the south, was a Spanish soldier FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 93 named Francisco Pizarro, and Cortes' success re- kindled his ambition to reach this unknown country. Forming a copartnery with another adventurer named Diego de Almagro, and a priest named Hernando Luque, the three friends made up a small expedition which set out from Panama to the south in November 1524, but they did not pass beyond a cape at the southern entrance of the Gulf of Panama, which they called Punta Quemada (Burnt Point). Two years later, however, they set sail again in two ships, and this time reached the port now called Santa, in about 9° S. lat., thus discovering the coast-line of Peru and the northern portion of the giant Andes ; they re- turned to Panama with many ornaments of gold and silver, woollen cloths of brilliant dyes, and some members of the camel order called llamas or alpacas. With these proofs Pizarro now repaired to Spain to seek the aid of King Charles, and he obtained from him the rights of discovery and conquest. He was named Governor and Captain-General of Peru, agreeing to send to Spain a fifth of all treasures he should gain, and, returning to Panama, set sail for the south again with a small force of 180 men. 28. The new lands thus approached by the Spaniards were by no means savage countries, but had, like Mexico, a civilisation and history of their own, leading back into mysterious centuries of the past. We now know that before the tenth century A.D. the Colla or Aymara nation lived during a period of unknown duration on the high plateaus of the Andes, and built themselves large cities and temples, attested by the 94 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY great ruins still found everywhere throughout the land. This ancient race was supplanted, about the year looo, by the Quichuas, one of whose tribes were the Incas, who first appeared on the shores of Lake Titicaca, proclaiming themselves children of Inti (the Sun). Manco Capac (or Manco the Ruler), the first Inca sovereign, who founded the city of CuzcOy intro- duced law and organisation into his small territory round the new city. From this nucleus the Empire spread out, till, in the fifteenth century, the Inca armies had crossed over the terrible desert of Atacama into Chile, fixed the southern boundary of Peru at the river Maule (in 36° S.), and brought all the vast territory extending from the forests of the Amazonas plain to the sources of the river Paraguay under the sway of the central power at Cuzco. From the capital, great roads had been made, radiating out to every part of the empire. The Inca monarch, as the representative of the sun, was also the head of the priesthood, and presided at the great religious festivals. The four great provinces of the empire were each ruled by a Governor or Viceroy, and the nation, which numbered not fewer than thirty millions of people, was further subdivided into departments of about 10,000 inhabitants each. The arts of archi- tecture and agriculture had been brought to high excellence, and peace and security smiled upon the land. 29. Shortly before the arrival of Pizarro, however, on the death of the reigning Inca, a strife arose between his sons Atahualpa and Huascar for the FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 95 inheritance. Atahualpa, to whom the recently con- quered kingdom of Quito in the north had been apportioned; had advanced with an army against his brother at Cuzco, had defeated and taken him prisoner there, and had retired with his army to Cajamarca, on the eastern side of the Andes. At this crisis Pizarro disembarked his Spaniards at Tumbez, and boldly advanced to Atahualpa's camp. Here, at Cajamarca, while Pizarro's priest was telling the indignant Inca how the Pope of Rome had pre- sented Peru to the Spanish monarch, the Spaniards treacherously turned the murderous fire of their mysterious artillery against the Peruvians. Atahualpa himself was captured, and, despite his payment of a vast ransom in gold, was basely executed. Now the adventurers set out for the capital, Cuzco, which they entered in November 1533, stripping the splendid Temple of the Sun, and gaining great treasures of gold and silver. Leaving a garrison in the capital, Pizarro repaired to the sea-coast, where he founded the ^'City of the Kings," now called Lima. There were many insurrections of the Incas before their great nation was finally conquered, but more serious than these was a quarrel between Pizarro and his fellow-adventurer Almagro. This conquistador had obtained from Spain a permission to subjugate for himself a new province to the south of Pizarro's conquests, and accordingly marched south into Chile. On returning from this victorious expedition he found the Spaniards enclosed in Cuzco and Lima by the Peruvians, and, taking advantage 96 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY of the opportunity, endeavoured to make himself master of Peru also. In a desperate battle before Cuzco (1538), Almagro was defeated, taken, and con- demned to death. 30. While Pizarro was conquering Peru, the Spanish navigators had l3een following up Magellan's dis- coveries in the West Pacific ; some of the islands of the group, afterwards known as the Carolinas, on the western border of the Pacific, were discovered, as well as several of those which form the Radack and Ralik chains. The Portuguese seamen were also busily exploring the confines of their half of the outer world. Mascarenhas had found the important islands of Bourbon and Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, which are still collectively named after him. The ports of China (Macao) and Japan were now visited by their trading ships ; and Francis Xavier, one of the founders of the Jesuit order, had set out on his great mission, and had journeyed from India and Malacca to begin his efforts for the conversion of the Japanese Empire ; his efforts were so successful that at one time it seemed as if the whole of this secluded but cultivated region would embrace the Catholic faith. 31. Spain and Portugal, now at the height of their prosperity, held complete command of the southern seas, and of the known highways to the Indies, East and West, to the exclusion of the other maritime nations of Europe, however anxious they were to share their good fortune and to prosecute trade with the new realms. It was for this reason that the FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 97 thoughts of the northern maritime nations were turned to the possibility of opening up a new and inde- pendent trade route to the Indies and the Spice Islands, either by what was called the North-East Passage^ round Norway and along the coast of Siberia, or the North- West Passage^ between Greenland and the north coast of America. 32. The search for a north-east passage was begun by England in 1553, when Sir Hugh Willoughby set out with three vessels ; passing round the North Cape he entered the White Sea, and sighted the land now called by the Russians Novaya Zemlya (New Land) ; but the voyage was disastrous, and two of the vessels were lost after drifting about with the ice over the waste of water, and with them perished the leader of the first Arctic expedition. The attempt was twice renewed by the English before the end of the century, in expeditions under Burroughes and Pet, and Jackman, but without success. When the attempts to force a passage north-east- ward had failed, efforts were directed to the north- west, and Martin Frobisher sailed from Deptford in March 1576 with two little vessels of 25 tons each, Queen Elizabeth, who was then at Greenwich, bidding them God speed as they passed down the river. In July they sighted Greenland, and soon after the barren lands on the American coast to which the name ^^ Meta Incognita'' was given, and they discovered the bay to the north of Hudson Bay, which is named after Frobisher. Ten years later. Captain John Davis was more successful in sailing 98 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY north through the strait which bears his name, and in reaching as high a latitude as 72° oi¥ the west Greenland coast. 33. While other maritime nations were forbidden a lawful share in the good fortune of the Spaniards, who arrogantly assumed a divine right to the New World and practised great cruelties upon all foreign interlopers, enterprising mariners of England and France began to make reprisals in the ^^ Spanish Main," to cut out their trading vessels, and espe- cially to intercept and capture the heavy galleons which every year brought to the Peninsula the gold, silver, and other wealth contributed by the American colonies to the mother country. Sir John Hawkins, the first Englishman, it is said, who trafficked in slaves, was afterwards more honourably employed, and became noted for his exploits in the Spanish Main. In one of his last adventures he was joined by Francis Drake, who subsequently made several freebooting voyages to the West Indies. In 1570 Drake obtained a commission from Queen Elizabeth, and sailing again for America plundered the town of Nombre de Dios, on the Isthmus of Panama. Crossing the mountains, he saw the Pacific, and ^' prayed God to grant him leave to sail an English ship on this sea." Retiring with much spoil to England, he set out again in 1577, and following on the track of Magellan reached the Pacific, sacked and plundered all the Spanish coast towns from Chile up to Peru, capturing also a great plate galleon. He then steered still northward, hoping to find a northern FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 99 passage back to the Atlantic, and took formal posses- sion of the land between 43° N. and 38° 30' N. in the name of Queen Elizabeth. Thence he sailed across the Pacific to the Moluccas, to Ternate, and Java, and straight across the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope, reaching Plymouth again in 1579, completing thus the second circumnavigation of the globe. 34. Within a few months of Drake's return. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, accompanied by the famous Sir Walter Raleigh, set out on an ill-fated expedition to Newfoundland, with the object of forming a colony in North America. The island was formally taken possession of in the name of Queen Elizabeth ; but the return voyage was disastrous, and the leader of the expedition was lost. Raleigh's spirit of enter- prise, however, led him again to America, and on his behalf the country was now first occupied which he named Virginiuy in allusion to his virgin Queen Elizabeth, and thus was here planted the first little germ of Anglo-Saxon America. 35. It was to men trained in these schools of mari- time adventure under Drake and Hawkins, Frobisher and Raleigh, bold and dexterous in the management of their little vessels, that England owed her safety when Philip of Spain, burning to revenge his losses on the Spanish Main, and the aid given by England to the Protestants of the Netherlands in their war of independence, sent his huge Armada of 130 great war vessels into the English Channel. It was there de- feated and chased away north to the Orkneys, and 100 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY round the Western Isles of Scotland, to be wrecked all along those stormy shores. 36. Meanwhile in Holland William of Orange was fighting for his country's freedom against the Spanish troops, relieving Leyden by breaking through the sea dykes, flooding the country, and drowning many of the besieging Spaniards ; while his coadjutors, the ^^ Beggars of the Sea," made heavy depredations on Spanish commerce, and took the ports of Brill and Flushing. Henceforth the Dutch also began to take a place in maritime adventure and discovery on the high seas. They were the first Europeans to settle and organise trading stations in the country called ^' Guayana " (or Guiana), on the coast of South America (1580). The Dutch also took up the quest of the supposed north-east passage to the Indies, and William Barentz, one of the best seamen of his age, sailed three times to the north, reaching the high latitude of 80° in his last voyage in 1596 ; he dis- covered Bear Island^ and the sharp black peaks of the glacial land named Spitzbergen ; doubling also the northern cape of Novaya Zemlya he wintered on its eastern coast, and was the first European to live out a dark season in the Arctic region. 37. Spanish seamen also continued to add to their discoveries in the Pacific. In 1567 Alvaro Mendana found the islands which he called the Salomonsy to suggest the idea that Solomon had gone thither for the gold which adorned his temple, and thus to draw attention to the discovery. Thirty years later the group which was called Sta. Cruz was discovered, FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. loi and in the next year, the archipelago far out in the centre of the Pacific, to which Mendafia attached the name of the reigning viceroy of Peru, calling them the Marquesas de Mendoza, Farther east in the Pacific Juan Fernandez found the islet on which the English mariner Selkirk (Robinson Crusoe) afterwards was exiled ; but on the west coast of North America they never got farther north than 43° 10' during the sixteenth century, for Juan de Fuca, who claimed to have discovered the strait now named after him, has been proved an impostor, 38. Failing in their efforts to find an independent track to the Indies, the other maritime nations of Europe, now that the pride of Spain had been humbled, began towards the end of the century to frequent the southern trade routes hitherto sacred to the Portuguese and Spaniards. We have noticed that the Dutch had already secured a footing in South America in Guayana. The British also had laid the foundation of a colony in Virginia on the northern half of the continent, and were soon to gain a hold on the West Indies by settling in the fertile islet of Barbados, Away in the East Indies also, British and Dutch ships began to appear, and to compete there with the Portuguese. The Dutch under Houtman reached Achiny in the north of Sumatra, in 1599, and two years later brought home to Holland the first cargo of goods from that region, with two native ambassadors. It was on the 31st December 1600 that Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to a number of merchants of London trading to the East Indies, 102 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY which gave them the exclusive right of trading in the Indian Ocean and Pacific ; and from this East India Company our great Indian Empire was to rise. 39. To sum up in a few words the state of the known world at the end of the sixteenth century : — In Asia the Chinese Empire remained unshaken ; Persia had again become an independent empire ; the Mohammedan Moguls had begun to reign in northern India ; the once great Tatar Empire had been reduced to the states east of the Caspian. In the north, Russia was spreading eastward over Asia, and had come in contact with the Ottoman Empire, now expanding to its greatest extent in the south, and with Sweden in the north-west. The great Reformation had passed over Europe, separating its Catholic states of the south from the Protestants of the north, and giving rise to fierce wars and many political changes. Maritime discovery and adventure and commerce were being eagerly extended by the nations of western Europe. Four times the world had been circumnavigated — by the Portuguese Magellan, by the English Drake and Cavendish, and lastly by the Dutchman Van Noort. Spain had extended her conquests to Mexico, Peru, and Chile, which were now ruled by Spanish viceroys. The Portuguese had established themselves firmly on the African shores at Senegambia, Guinea, and Angola on the west, and at Mozambique and Sofala on the east ; their posses- sions and settlements in the East Indies included the Malabar coast of India, Ceylon, and Malacca ; and their traffic reached to all the islands of the Asiatic FROM 1500 TO 1600 A.D. 103 archipelago, to China and Japan, touching on these seas the discoveries and claims of Spain. The English and Dutch, after vainly seeking an in- dependent highway to the north-east or north-west through the ice-fields of the Arctic region, had become formidable rivals of the Spaniards and Portuguese in their own lines, both in the West Indies and round the Cape of Good Hope to the eastward. In the Indian Ocean the Dutch (1598) even took one of the Mas- carenhas isles from the Portuguese, giving it the name Mauritius in honour of their prince Maurice. CHAPTER XI FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 1. Not long after the coasts of Cathay or China began to be better known to the maritime nations of the West, and to be brought under the influence of the Christian religion by the Jesuit missionaries, the Manchu Tatars from beyond the Great Wall on the north-east took advantage of a civil strife in the empire to invade it. The rebel bands entered Pekin, where- upon the last of the Ming sovereigns strangled himself with his girdle, and a seven years' contest began, which was to end in the establishment of the Tatar ^^Tsin" or pure dynasty. The Manchu Tatar con- querors were not, like the Mongols, a nomadic race, but a much more cultivated and agricultural people, and they had the wisdom to conform in great measure to the existing institutions of Chinese government; but they altered the national Chinese costume, and com- pelled the men of the country to wear the badge of servitude implied in shaving the head and wearing the long Tatar queue with which every one is now familiar in all pictures. 2. In the latter part of the century, the Russians, overrunning and conquering Siberia, threatened the northern Manchu frontier, and a desultory warfare FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 105 ensued with the Cossack freebooters which extended over thirty years ; but a mission was finally sent to the frontier, and the boundary dividing the two nations was settled by mutual agreement in 1689. 3. Westward of the Chinese Empire the Khanates of Turkestan do not appear to have materially altered their relative positions in this century. In Persia the period begins in the midst of the reign of Shah Abbas the Great, who distinguished his rule by recovering Kurdistan, Mosul, and Diarbekr for Persia from the Ottoman Turks in the west, and by taking Kandahar from the possessions of the Great Mogul on the east. The reigns of his successors during this century were not marked by further increase of territory, but were spent in promoting the internal prosperity of the kingdom. 4. This was the period, also, at which the Moham- medan empire in India was raised to its highest point of splendour and greatness by Shah Jehan, the " King of the World," who subjugated the kingdoms of Ahmednuggur, Beejapur, and Golconda, on the Dekkan plateau ; and by his son, the famous Aurung- zeb, the crafty and ambitious ^^ reviver of religion." It was during these reigns that the English began to gain a hold on India and to take a part in its politics ; we shall afterwards, however, have occasion to notice the chief events of their arrival and establishment. 5. Coming now westward to the Ottoman Empire, we find its Sultans contending successfully with Austria in the earlier part of the century for the possession of Hungary, but losing Mesopotamia, as io6 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY we have seen, to the Persians in the east, and the allegiance of the Khanates of the Crimea. Wars with the Poles and Venetians followed, in which the island of Candia was gained by the Turks, along with most of the old Venetian strongholds in the -^gean, though with some losses in Dalmatia. Later, a combined Polish and German army defeated a Turkish force which had advanced to lay siege to Vienna ; and the Austrians followed up their victory by repossessing themselves of Hungary after the great battle of Mohacz (1687). The Peace of Carlowitz at the end of the cen- tury put an end for ever to the Turkish dominion in Hungary. 6. For Russia the seventeenth century began very disastrously with internal quarrels, which gave Sigis- mund of Poland the opportunity to invade the coun- try, to take Moscow, and carry off the Tsar to die in a Polish prison, and to leave the country com- pletely disorganised. A rising of the Russians three years later drove the Poles out of the country, and placed the Tsar Michael, of the house of Romanof, on the throne (1613). After restoring order in his empire, this sovereign concluded a treaty with Sweden, giving that country the coasts of the Gulf of Finland. His successor carried on a war with Turkey, and obtained Smolensk from Poland and the abandonment of all claims on Little Russia by the Turks. The close of the century brought Peter the Great to the throne, and opened his grand schemes for the reorganisation of Russia. 7. Eastward the Russians had been busily pushing FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 107 their conquests across the forest lands of northern Asia. The river Obi had been reached, as we have seen, in the last century, and the town of Tobolsk had been founded. During the early part of the seven- teenth century the Yenisei was passed and the Lena crossed ; the settlement of Yakutsk was made in 1632, and the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk were reached in 1639. Thus, while the Manchu Tatars were advancing southward to the conquest of the Chinese Empire, the Russians were occupying the land on their northern borders, and had confirmed themselves so strongly in its possession that they could conclude a treaty with the Chinese in 1689, which defined the Siberian-Chinese frontier in the line running from the Sea of Okhotsk, north of the basin of the Amur, westward by the great Lake Baikal, and thence to the source mountains of the Obi, called the Ala Tau. 8. In the last chapter we left Sweden at a time when the feeble rule of the successors of Gustavus Vasa had brought the land into disorder and had involved it in war with Russia, Poland, and Denmark. Early in the seventeenth century, Gustavus Adolphus, grandson of Vasa, succeeded to the throne, estab- lished a feudal or military government, drove the Danes out of the Baltic coasts of Sweden, opening up the ocean route to western Europe ; allying himself with the Hollanders, he obtained a settlement of the Russian limits. The new boundary line included in Sweden the country beyond the south coast of the Gulf of Finland. A settlement with Poland was next io8 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY agreed on, which gave to Sweden the Baltic coast districts of Elbing, Braunsbergy PillaUy and Memel. Gustavus's hands were now free to carry out a cherished plan to aid the Protestants of Germany in their struggle with the Catholic League. March- ing south at the head of 15,000 men, he gave the Catholics good reason to fear the "snow king and his bodyguard," for he crossed the Danube, gained a great victory at Ingolstadty marching triumphantly to Munich, and dying on the victorious field of Liitzen (1632). 9. The reign of his successor, Charles X., was also a warlike one. Poland was again invaded, when Russia, Denmark, and Prussia combined against the northern king. From Holstein Charles at once marched across the frozen Belt to the Danish capital, before which he dictated the Peace of Roskilde. The reign of Charles XI. was also characterised by success abroad ; and at the close of the century, when young Charles XII. had newly ascended the throne, we find Sweden so strong as to have become the object of a combined attack upon it by the neighbouring powers. The young king, however, threatening Copenhagen, compelled the Danes to a new peace, and with only 8000 Swedes stormed the Russian camp with its army of 50,000 at Narva in November 1700. 10. In Norway and Denmark, beyond the frequent contests with Sweden referred to, there is nothing of moment to occupy us at this time. 11. During the first half of the seventeenth century, Germany was kept in ferment by the succession of FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 109 contests which are generally termed the '^Thirty Years' War" (1612-1648), and which originated with attempts of the Catholics to deprive the Protestants of the liberties they had attained. The Treaty of Westphalia (or of Mtinster), drawn up by congresses of all the great continental powers of Europe, re- stored tranquillity to Germany and established a new system of political equilibrium in Europe. By this treaty, the independence of the United Provinces of the Netherlands was recognised by Spain, and that of Switzerland by Germany, which last country was cut up into a multitude of petty states. 12. In former paragraphs we have referred to the forcible Christianisation and conquest of the lands south of the Baltic by the Teutonic knights, the cession of West Prussia to Poland, and the declara- tion of the remainder of the country as fief to that kingdom. The Grand Masters of the Order subse- quently took the title of Dukes of Prussia (by one of whom the university of Konigsberg was founded in 1544). Early in the seventeenth century the Duchy of Prussia became incorporated with the Electorate of Brandenburg. During the Thirty Years' War the country was alternately a prey to the Swedish and Imperial armies ; but the Treaty of Westphalia re- stored to it eastern Pomerania and other territories, and the aid given by the Elector Frederick William to King Charles of Sweden in the taking of Warsaw (1656) was recompensed by the complete emancipa- tion of the Prussian Duchy from Polish dependence. no SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Frederick William, called the <' Great Elector/' now devoted himself to consolidating and advancing the prosperity of his dominions. Such was his success that Prussia now rose to the rank of a great Euro- pean power. Frederick III., who succeeded him, exhibited the same zeal for the amelioration and extension of his dominions, and was crowned first King of Prussia at Konigsberg in 1701. 13. The politics of France in the earlier portion of the century were directed by the great Cardinal Richelieu, who, in furtherance of his great object of humbling the power of the house of Austria, allied himself with the Protestants in Germany, and with their champion Gustavus of Sweden, involving France in long and costly wars. At home, however, he oppressed the Protestant party and overthrew the political power of the Reformers or Huguenots, conducting in person the siege and capture of their stronghold La Rochelle. During the minority of Louis XIV., the French nobles seeking to shake off the authority of the Crown, and the political faction known as the Frondeurs, caused great domestic dis- turbances ; but with the assumption of absolute power by the young king (1661) a new era began for France ; prosperity was again restored ; the military successes of Louis's generals, Turenne and Cond6, were most brilliant, and the borders of France were greatly enlarged. First, in virtue of his claim to it as the son-in-law of Philip IV. of Spain, Louis mastered the portion of Flanders known as French Flanders, and the whole of Franche FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. iii Comtd. The triple alliance of England, the Nether- lands, and Sweden, compelled him to relinquish the latter, and arrested for a time his course of con- quest ; but two years later, after seizing Lorraine, he marched into the Netherlands, conquering half the country. Ten cities of Alsace also fell into his power, and the free German city of Strassburg was taken in 1681. During the earlier part of his reign, manufactures had begun to flourish greatly — the textures of the Gobelins^ the silks of Tours and Lyon, and the fine cloths of the northern towns, LouvierSy Abbeville, Sedan, acquired great celebrity. Not long after the zenith of his power and influence had been reached and passed, Louis fell under the influence of the Jesuits ; the effect of the change was the adoption of severe measures against the Protestants, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which had given them liberty of worship. The result of this despotic act, disastrous for France, was the exodus from the country of not fewer than 400,000 of the most industrious and intelligent of its people, chiefly manufacturers and artisans, who carried with them into exile, to all parts of the known world, their skill, knowledge, and taste. From them England especially learned the art of silk manu- facture, and many other industrial arts. Towards the close of the century an invasion of South Germany led to a coalition against France; and, his resources being exhausted, Louis signed the Treaty of Ryswick (between Delf and The Hague) concluded between England, France, Spain, and Germany, 1697. 112 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 14. The seventeenth century opened for Britain with the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, under James I. ; then followed the dis- turbed reign of Charles I., beginning badly with the unsuccessful expedition against Cadiz, and the loss of the fleet off Rochelle. His persecutions of the Puritans in England, and of the Presbyterians in Scotland, and the embitterment of popular feel- ing, brewed the storm which broke out in the civil wars and the battles of Edgehill and Marston Moor, The final defeat of the Royalists at Naseby was followed by the execution of Charles in 1649, and the protectorate of Cromwell, under which England was respected abroad and was brilliantly successful at sea against the Spaniards. Charles the Second was at The Hague at the time of his father's execution, and immediately assuming the title of King pro- ceeded to Scotland, and was crowned at Scone in 1651 ; putting himself at the head of the Scots, he marched into England, only to be defeated on the field of WorcesteVy w^hence he escaped amid many dangers to France. After the death of the Pro- tector, a reversal of popular feeling recalled Charles from France to the English throne, when he began his dishonourable and dissolute reign, persecuting all Presbyterians and Nonconformists at home, agreeing for money to carry on war with the Netherlands, till compelled by the appearance in the Thames of the Dutch fleet under De Ruyter to make an ignominious peace. James II. now succeeded, and by his tyranny estranged all classes of his subjects. FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 113 15. The independence of the United Provinces (the Netherlands) had been acknowledged by the Treaty of Miinster (1648). During the reign of Charles II. of England they had been engaged in a seven years' contest with Louis XIV. of France, which had terminated in an honourable way for the United Provinces, and the power of the "Stadtholder," William, Prince of Orange,^ who had married Mary, the eldest daughter of the Duke of York, afterwards James II. of England, had become great in Europe. The Stadtholder had leagued himself with the mal- contents in England, and when disaffection was at its height, landed at Torbay (1688) with 15,000 Eng- lish and Dutchmen, entered London as a national deliverer, and Parliament gave the crown to William and Mary. The adherents of James held out in Scotland and Ireland till the battle of the Boyne terminated the contest, and James fled to France. Then Britain and Holland came into close union against France. 16. We left the Spanish peninsula, in the last section, at the time of the death of Philip II., when Portugal had been reduced to a Spanish province ; but the Spanish kingdom had been impoverished in unsuccessful wars in the Netherlands, and in the attempts against England. One of the earliest acts of his successor Philip III. was the unwise expulsion from the peninsula of the remaining Moriscoes, or half-caste Moors, who had been allowed by Ferdi- ^ A principality now comprised in the French department of Vaucluse. H 114 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY nand the Catholic to remain ; about half a million of these industrious and peaceable inhabitants were thus driven from the land. The reign of Charles II. was still more unfortunate ; Spanish armies and fleets were everywhere defeated, and the wealth of America was in vain poured into the enervated country. 17. A few years before the Peace of Westphalia secured the independence of Holland from the Spanish yoke, Portugal freed itself by a rebellion (1640) from the forced union with Spain, which had lasted for sixty years, and had involved the country in war and disaster at home, as well as abroad in the Indies. 18. In Italy, during this century, the Papal States grew out to their widest limit. Venetia was at war with the Turks ; and Naples and Sicily, in the south of the peninsula, continued under the sway of Spain. 19. Across in North Africa the Algerians continued to harass the powers of Christendom trading in the Mediterranean, and their insolence at sea increased. They even attacked the south coasts of France, compelling Louis XIV. to retaliate by bombarding Algiers (1682) ; when, by way of replying to the cannonade, the Dey caused the French consul to be shot off from the mouth of a cannon. The result of the punishment was indecisive ; nor were the English and Dutch fleets more successful in re- pressing the ferocity of the Corsairs. 20. In Morocco, the empire that had extended its limits to the Sudan in the previous century fell to FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 115 pieces in this, and was succeeded (1647) by the government of the Sherifs of Tafilet, who conquered Morocco proper and Fez, united the whole under one rule, and founded the dynasty which reigns at present. The influence of Morocco again spread southward till it reached, in the middle of the century, even to the borders of the Portuguese settlements in Guinea. If we now turn to look at the progress of conquest and discovery beyond the seas during the seventeenth century, it cannot fail to be remarked how completely the spread of knowledge on the outer borders of the known world was controlled by events which took place in western Europe. We have remarked the gradual crippling and decay of the maritime supremacy of Spain and Portugal, and the rise of that of the Dutch and British into strength. Maritime enterprise during this century passed to Holland, England, and France. 21. Just at the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch first opened up trading communication with the East Indies, and entered into alliances with the Achinese of Sumatra ; two years later their East India Company was formed. Spain and Portugal being united in war with the Netherlands at home in Europe, the contest was extended to the Indies, where by violence and intrigue the Dutch began to oust the Portuguese from their possessions. A footing was also gained in the Spanish half of the world, for in the year 1600 the Dutch captured the island of St, Eustatius; and five years later the ii6 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY British settled in BarbadoSy the most easterly of the Antilles. 22. Among the last important discoveries made by the Spaniards in the Pacific were those of the island of Sagittaria (now known as Tahiti) by the voyager Quiros, and of the strait which has been named from its discoverer Luis Vaez de Torres, who sailed into it in 1605, and who saw the northern extremity of the great southern continent, afterwards to be made known. 23. While the Dutch were wresting the Spice Islands from the Portuguese, a band of English gentlemen and a few artisans went out to Sir Walter Raleigh's Virginia, and formed (May 1607) the first perma- nent English colony on the North American shores, founding James Town on the James River (named after King James), and buying land and provisions from the friendly Indians. A year later the French were following up the discoveries of Jacques Cartier on the St. Lawrence ; Champlain discovered the great Lake Ontario, and founded the city of Quebec, which for more than a century was the centre of French trade and civilisation in North America, and the point whence the efforts of the Roman Catholic missionaries radiated. 24. During these two years the navigator Henry Hudson was making vain attempts to penetrate the north-east passage by Novaya Zemlya ; giving up hope of finding a passage there, he sailed a third time to the north-west by Davis Strait, in a vessel fitted out by the Dutch East India Company (1609). Reaching America about latitude 44° north, he dis- FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 117 covered the beautiful river which bears his name, and took possession of it for Holland. Next year he again bore to the north-west, and on the farther side of Davis Strait passed through the channel now known as Hudson Strait^ and entered the vast bay beyond, which he took to be none other than an inlet of the Pacific, an opinion which was contradicted some years later by the researches of Baffin. He resolved to winter here and to follow up his discoveries in the following spring, but his crew mutinied, and placed him with his gun in a small boat at the mercy of the waves, after which nothing was ever heard of this brave mariner. 25. As early as 161 1 the solitary Bermudas Islands were colonised from the new British settlements in Virginia ; in the same year a Dutch navigator sailing north of Iceland discovered the island which takes his name, Jan Mayen, with its volcano sending flames and smoke out of its snow-clad cone. 26. About the year 1614 there was living at Amster- dam a famous merchant named Lemaire, who then began to interest himself in geographical discovery ; for it had been a recognised rule in Europe since the time of Columbus that any one making a new discovery beyond the seas had the rights and use of whatever he found. The Dutch East India Com- pany had now been successful in exploring for themselves the way by the Strait of Magellan, and had consequently the exclusive right to the use of this passage to the South Seas. With some other merchants of the town of Hoorn, Lemaire joined ii8 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY to form an "Austral Company," and fitted out two ships, the Eendragt and Het Hoortty placing them under the command of the navigators Schouten and Jacob Lemaire, son of the merchant. In June 1615 the vessels left the Texel, and by the end of Decem- ber had reached the south of Patagonia, making what was then considered a very rapid passage through the Atlantic. Here the yacht Hoorn took fire, and was totally wrecked, and her crew were transferred to the Eendragt, Passing the eastern entrance of the Strait of Magellan, they came upon the long eastw^ard promontory of Tierra del Fuego, through which they soon found a broad deep passage to the south; the land east of this they named, in honour of the States-General of Holland, Staaten Land, Thence bearing south and west against the adverse winds, they passed along the island-bound south coast of Tierra del Fuego, and, reaching a high rocky island peak, which they took to be the extremity of the mainland, they named it Kaep van Hoorn, in honour of the native town of Schouten and many of his sailors. Thence sailing into the open South Sea and northward by Juan Fernandez island, they crossed the ocean to the East Indies, being the first to see the land afterwards called New Britain. Schouten alone of the discoverers again reached Holland, his companion Lemaire having died on the homeward voyage.^ * On reaching the East Indies and the Dutch settlements in Java, the governor there, disbelieving the report of their discovery of a new passage, or taking it to be adverse to the interests of the Dutch India Company, confiscated the Eendragt and her FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 119 27. The British East India Company had mean- while been establishing itself on the mainland ; in 161 2 they had factories at Surat, Ahmedabady Cambaya, and Gogha on the coast of the Gulf of Cambay, and in 1615 the English ambassador was well received in the Court of the Great Mogul. 28. It was about this time that the great south land, now known as Australia, began to be made known. The Dutch, finding the harbours on the east coast of Africa and in India closed against them by the jealousy of the Portuguese, sought for a passage in more southerly latitudes ; and thus, partly by accident, partly by design, they discovered a large portion of Australia. In 1605 Captain Saris, of the Dutch yacht Duiveken, was despatched from Bantam to search for a passage to the south of New Guinea, and obtained some glimpses of the north coast. In 1616 another Dutch voyager, Dirk Hartog, in the ship Eendragt, sailed down its western shores as far as 27° S., and his discovery is perpetuated in the name of Dirk Hartog Island, one of those which enclose Shark Bay, on the west Australian coast. 29. The course of discovery and colonisation now takes us back to the Atlantic. In Britain, the hope of the possible discovery of a shorter north-west passage to the Pacific was still strong. The account of the complete closure of the inland sea discovered by Hudson was not universally credited, and accordingly, in 161 5, Captain Bylot sailed for that bay, without, however, finding any outlet from it. Next year, with his pilot Baffin, he sailed up Davis Strait, reaching 120 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 78° N.; and; after a superficial examination of the coast, came to the conclusion that this also was a great gulf without outlet. Hence the name Baffiri Bay was given to this, the northern broad expanse of the strait which divides the American Arctic islands from Greenland. 30. The violent efforts made by King James to extirpate Puritanism in England drove a large number of the Independents to embark at Plymouth^ in 1620, for the New World. These emigrants, known as the ^^ Pilgrim Fathers," disembarked from the May- flower on the North American coast, in lat. 42° N., on a bay about 200 miles north-east of the river-mouth discovered by Hudson, and there founded the settle- ment of New Plymouth, calling the land New Eng- land. A year afterwards the Dutch bought Manhattan Island (at the mouth of Hudson River, on which the central portion of the city of New York now stands) from the native Indians for twenty-four dollars, and founded there the settlement of New Amsterdam, naming the country round it New Holland. Thus there were now five European settlements on the North American coast, — those of the Spaniards in Florida, the English Cavaliers in Virginia, the Dutch at the mouth of the Hudson, the English Puritans more to the north, and the French on the St. Law- rence ; in 1638 a sixth was added by the Swedes, who then colonised the Delaware River. 31. In the West Indies also the northern nations began to gain ground on the Spanish lands. Bar- bados, as we have noticed, was already British; St, Christopher, or St. Kitts, was added in 1623, and FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 121 thence English emigrants passed to Nevis in 1628. Antigua and Montserrat followed in 1632. Then the French came to settle on Martinique and Guadaloupe in 1635, and about that time British settlements were formed on the South American mainland in Guayana at the mouths of the Berbice and Surinam, and by the French in Cayenne, farther east. 32. The French now began to appear in the Indian Ocean also ; for in 1642 we find them taking pos- session of the southern island of the Mascarenhas, and naming it He Bourbon, and also settling on the north-west of Madagascar. 33. Meanwhile the Dutch had been extending their circle of exploration from their settlements, and the western coast of Australia had been traced along its whole extent ; for in 161 9 the merchants named Edel and Houtman had passed beyond Dirk Hartog's farthest, to 32^° S., and named the coast-land there Edel's Land. Another Dutch ship, in 1622, reached the south-west cape, giving it the name of the ship, Leeuwin (or Lioness). Before the end of 1627 the south-west corner had been turned, and another Dutchman sailing along it in the Guldezeepard (Golden Sea-Lion), gave the name Nuyts Land to the coast, in honour of a distinguished passenger, Peter Nuyts — a name which is preserved in Nuyts' Archi- pelago in the great Australian bight. 34. Far more extended discoveries were made in this direction by the navigator Abel Jansen Tasman, who sailed from Batavia in November 1642. Round- ing the west coast of Australia, and then turning east. 122 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY he came upon what he believed to be a portion of the same southern continent of New Holland, and named the new territory Van Diemen s Land, in honour of the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. An island on its eastern coast he called Maria, after Van Diemen's daughter. Sailing still farther east into the Pacific, Tasman discovered the shore of a new land, which he took to be a continuation of the Staaten Land of Schouten and Lemaire, and named it accord- ingly ; but Hendrik Brouwer, in the following year, showed that it could not be united in any way to the Staaten Land east of Tierra del Fuego, and re-named it New Zealandy from the Dutch province. 35. We have already noticed the rapid advance of the Russian Cossacks over Siberia, conquering and rendering tributary the native tribes of Tunguses and Yakuts ; how the Arctic Ocean was reached at the mouth of the Lena in 1636, and the Pacific at the Sea of Okhotsk in 1639. Not halting at this barrier, the Cossacks took to the sea at the farthest limits of their land journeys, and one of them, named Deshenev, as early as 1648, reported that he had sailed between Asia and America, and that the two continents were not united. His whole voyage, however, was at the time regarded as a fable, and was not confirmed till nearly a century after. 36. The leading movement of subsequent years in the Asiatic region appears to have been the extension of Dutch power over Portuguese in the East India Islands, — in Celebes^ Borneo^ and at Padangin Sumatra. ^ A corruption of the native name Bruni or Brunei. FROM 1600 TO 1700 A.D. 123 It was in the middle of this century also that the attention of the Dutch East India Company was first effectively directed towards South Africa, when, in 1652, Jan Anthony van Riebeek, a surgeon in the service of the company, first settled on the promontory of the Cape of Good Hope with about a hundred officers and servants of the company. On the Gold Coast of Africa the Dutch had already supplanted the Portu- guese, and there the British first settled in 1664. 37. Three or four years later the French gained a footing on the Senegal coast, and afterwards formed their Senegal Company. In 1668 they first appear in India at Surat, and four years later we find them buying their possession of Pondichery from the native princes. 38. In America the British dominion was extended by the addition of one of the Virgin Islands (1666), and by the formation in 1670 of the Hudson Bay Com- pany, which at first consisted of Prince Rupert, cousin of Charles II. of England, and certain associates of his who were invested with the absolute proprietorship and sovereignty of all the territory draining to Hudson Bay and its strait. In 1690 this fur company was in full working, and had built several forts and factories on the coasts, whence from time to time their opera- tions extended inland. The French also, after their countryman La Salle first descended (1682) the great river Mississippi j ^^the father of waters," invaded Spanish claims by settling in Louisiana, about the mouth of the great river, in 1699. CHAPTER XII FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. According to the general plan that we have been following, we now return to review briefly the greater changes, extensions, and contractions of power within the Old World, before taking up again the outline of discovery and conquest beyond the seas within the next hundred years. 1. Of China under the prosperous rule of the Manchu Emperors there is little to be told that affects the outer world. One of its rulers during this century (Kien-lung) had a reign of sixty years of uninterrupted external peace, and was successful in many military expeditions against the interior tribes, over whom he asserted the authority of the empire. It was only during the last year of his reign (1796) that the turbulent and aggressive prince of the State of Nepal, on the southern slope of the Himalaya range in North India, invaded Tibet on the high Asiatic plateau, and plundered the Lama monastery of Teshu Lumpo near Shigatse, 2. Tibet had for several centuries been partially tributary to China ; its danger now gave an oppor- tunity for the intervention of the empire : a Chinese army marched into it, defeated the Nepalese, and X24 FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 125 drove them back across the Himalayas. From that time onwards Tibet has remained under Chinese control ; a Chinese viceroy sits at Lhassuy and the Grand Lama of Tibet, or Pope of Buddhism, re- tained only his spiritual authority till 1904, when he withdrew to China before the English expedition to Lhassa in that year. During the reign of Kien- lung the Chinese occupied Bokhara. 3. Near the end of the century the semi-tributary State of Annam or Cochin China was extended by incorporating Tongking, its sovereign receiving aid in this from France. Burma, another State of the peninsula of farther India, also begins to acquire importance at this period ; it was in 1752 that Aloung- Pra, the most celebrated warrior-king in Burman history, arose, subdued the hostile Peguans and incorporated their country and many neighbouring States, thus forming an empire which continued to expand to such an extent as to attract to itself a Chinese military expedition (1767) for its conquest, which, however, was destroyed on the river Irawadi. 4. The expansion of Russian power, both in Europe and Asia, is one of the great features of the century. European Russia at the beginning of this period was still shut out from navigable seas, — by Sweden from the Baltic in the north, and by Turkey from the Euxine in the south, — leaving only the northern port of Archangel on the icy White Sea as the outlet of its ships. One of the most cherished designs of Peter the Great, in the middle of whose reign the century begins, was that of creating an armed and 126 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY mercantile fleet for Russia ; for this, however, the possession of accessible seaports was essential, and these were to be obtained only by breaking through Turkish or Swedish territory. The Turkish port of Azov at the mouth of the Don was taken after a long siege (1696). In the north the Tsar joined with Poland and Denmark in attacking Sweden, and though defeated, as we have seen, at Narva, in 1700, he laid the foundation of the city of St. Petersburg in Swedish territory in 1703, and by routing the Swedish army at Poltava in 1709 gained for Russia the whole of the Baltic provinces and part of Finland. Two years later an unsuccessful war with Turkey lost him the hard-won port of Azov ; but in the north his arms were crowned with success ; the Swedish fleet was defeated at Hango, and the outlet of the Baltic was secured. 5. In 1722 a war was begun with Persia in order to open up the Caspian Sea to Russian commerce, and for a time the provinces of Persia bordering on that sea were in Russian hands. The reign of Catherine II. (i 762-1 796) was not less glorious for Russia than that of Peter the Great had been. Her successful wars with Poland and Sweden in the north, and with Turkey and Persia in the south, widely extended the limits of the empire. In a scheme for the partition of Turkey between Austria and Russia, the former aggressive power was con- stantly defeated, but the Russians were as uniformly successful : the Turkish provinces on the Danube fell into their hands, and the main army of the Turks FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 127 was signally defeated before Shumla. In spite of a clear treaty concluded in 1774, the Crimea and the whole country eastward to the Caspian were imme- diately afterwards annexed. Again war broke out ; the Russian armies again overran the northern pro- vinces of Turkey, and by the Treaty of J assy (1792) the Dniester river was made the boundary line, and the Crimea and Kuban were finally ceded to Russia, which thus gained the whole north shores of the Black Sea. 6. Power was also being rapidly consolidated in Asiatic Russia ; already in 1727 a line of armed Cossack outposts was drawn along the Chinese frontier from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Ala Tau Mountains; in 1772 these posts were increased in numbers and strengthened by regular troops. Dis- covery had also been progressing towards the north and east, defining more clearly the natural limits of the new possession. Adventurers had even gone beyond its shores : the Liakhov, or New Siberian islands in the icy Arctic Sea, with their stores of mammoth ivory, had been found ; and the voyager Vitus Beringy sailing out from a port of the penin- sula of Kamtchatka in 1728, had reached the entrance of the strait which bears his name, confirming the separation of Asia from America that had been re- ported by the Cossack Deshenev. The division of Russia into Governments dates from 1769. 7. Sweden's wars with Russia in the early part of the century, which lost for her the south-eastern coasts of the Baltic, have been already referred to ; 128 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY these overwhelmed the country with debt, and were followed by a long period of disorganisation. In 1788 Sweden again went to war with Russia, at the time when that country was engaged in active hostili- ties against the Turks, but without advantageous issue. 8. Denmark during this period still ruled over Norway ; it exercised no very important influence in the affairs of Europe, but increased greatly in wealth and commerce. A Danish Asiatic Company was formed in 1733, and the French gave their share of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies to Denmark, on the condition that they should not be made over to any other power without the sanction of France. It was during the reign of Frederick V. (i 746-1 766) that a Greenland Company was formed, and that a number of learned men, among whom was Niebuhr, the explorer of Arabia, were sent from Denmark to travel in the east. 9. Prussia, we have already seen, had risen in the first year of this century to the rank of a great European power. Frederick William created for it his splendid army of tall soldiers, which his successor Frederick the Great (i 740-1 786) used to such advan- tage for the extension of the kingdom, beginning his career by occupying Silesia, and holding it against the utmost efforts of Austria. The desperate conflict of the ^' Seven Years' War" (1756-1763), in which all the powers of Central Europe were engaged, made no change in the territorial distribution, but left Frederick the acknowledged sovereign of Silesia. 10. Poland had been closely allied with Russia FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 129 against the Swedes, and thus the dependence of that country on the stronger power had begun. From this time its government fell more and more under Russian influence, the intensely national spirit of the Poles being craftily turned so as to keep alive the dissensions which were surely weakening the country. A few zealous patriots, alarmed at the closing grasp of Russia, and supported by Turkey, raised an army and declared war. 11. It was at this juncture that Frederick of Prussia proposed to Austria and Russia an iniquitous parti- tion of Poland ; the mediation of the other powers of Europe was sought by Poland in vain, so that in 1772 a first partition of a large part of the country was effected by these three powers. A second par- tition of still larger territories between Russia and Prussia followed in 1793. The Poles now became desperate, and compelled the Prussians to retreat to their own country, and several times routed the Russian troops. But Austria, chagrined at having had no share in the second division, now again appeared on the scene, and fresh Russian forces arriving, the patriot army of Kosciusco was finally defeated, Warsaw was captured, and the Polish monarchy for ever annihilated. The third and last partition of this unfortunate kingdom gave all eastern and cen- tral Poland to Russia, Posen to Prussia, and Galicia and Bukovina to Austria. 12. All western Europe became involved in the very first year of this century in the long contest known as the War of the Spanish Succession (1700- I 130 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 1 71 3). Charles II. of Spain died without heir, and Louis of France and Leopold of Austria became the rival claimants for the vacant throne, which carried with it the sovereignty of the Spanish Netherlands, the Milanese, Naples and Sicily in Italy, and the vast American possessions. The Austrian party at first prevailed in Spain, but Louis succeeded in under- mining their influence and in having his second grandson Philip declared king. This union could not fail to endanger the independence of every other state in western Europe, and the subsequent occupa- tion of the Netherlands by Louis brought about the alliance of Britain, Germany, and Holland against France and the Spanish usurper. A combined army of these pow^ers, under Marlborough, attacked the French in Belgium. The Austrians also sent an army into Italy, Bavaria alone declaring for France. The defeat at Blenheim^ in Bavaria, lost the French their hold on Germany ; at Ramillies the fate of the Spanish Netherlands was decided ; and in the battle of Turin the French power in North Italy was shattered. A force of British and Dutch troops also landing at Lisbotty were joined by the Portuguese, and invaded Spain from the west, ultimately driving the Bourbon forces across the Pyrenees. By the Peace of Utrechty w^hich concluded this contest, France ceded to Britain her American possessions of Hudson Bay, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, with St. Kitts in the West Indies ; the Italian possessions of Spain were renounced in favour of Austria ; the Rock of Gibraltar and the island of Minorca w^ere FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 131 given up to Britain ; Portugal gained the country north of the Amazon in South America ; and the profit- able "asiento" or monopoly of the supply of negro slaves to the American colonies was transferred to Britain. 13. The death of the Emperor Charles VI. of Austria (1740), by which the male line of the house of Hapsburg became extinct, was the signal for another war among the powers of Europe, which continued with alternating success for eight years, but left the limits of the various states, at the Peace of Aix which concluded it, very much as before. 14. In 1756 broke out the Seven Years' War, in which Britain took the part of Prussia against France, Austria, and Russia ; during this contest Wolfe made his conquest of the French Canadian possessions, and Clive took from them their settle- ments in India. 15. It was soon after the conclusion of this war by the Treaty of Paris, by which the greater part of the French colonial possessions were given up to Britain, that the first attempt was made to increase the finances of the United Kingdom by taxing the American colonies, a measure which excited the most determined opposition, ultimately leading to a war (1774) between them and the mother country, in which they were materially supported by her enemies France and Spain, and by Holland. After eight years of fighting this struggle concluded in the acknowledgment of the independence of the American colonies and the formation of the Re- 132 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY public of the United States (1783), which we shall afterwards notice more particularly. 16. This war for freedom had disseminated re- publican ideas in the minds of the lower orders in France, where an incapable government and prodigal court threatened the bankruptcy of the state, and undoubtedly laid the seeds of the great revolution which was about to break out. Insurrections first alarmed Paris in 1789, when the people took pos- session of the Bastille, but the conciliations at- tempted by the king and nobles delayed the grand outbreak till 1792, when a war with Austria was begun, and the defeat of the French was visited on the unfortunate Louis. Revolt now broke loose in every part of France ; a reign of blood and terror succeeded, and all the surrounding states combined against the new republic, till the brilliant exploits of the young general Napoleon Bonaparte, at the head of the French troops against the Austrians in Lombardy, turned all men's thoughts to follow his successes. 17. In 1797 Bonaparte was master in Italy, and Austria had been compelled to give up Belgium, which had been hers since the Peace of Utrecht, and which was afterwards recognised as part of France. In Holland the French troops had been warmly received by the so-called patriots of the United Provinces ; the Stadtholder William V. and his family (1795) had been obliged to escape to England in a fishing-boat, and the Batavian Re- public, under the protection of France, had been set up. A year later Bonaparte undertook the FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 133 famous expedition against Egypt, in which the battle of the Pyramids made the French for a time masters of the Nile Delta. This also was the ex- pedition which gave Nelson the opportunity of signalising his first independent command by the grand victory of the Nile, in which he utterly de- stroyed the French fleet and cut off Napoleon's communications with Europe. Leaving his army behind, Bonaparte escaped from Alexandria, and we leave him at the end of the century First Consul of France, soon to extend the limits of his kingdom by further successes in Europe. 18. Passing by Portugal, now apathetic and sub- ordinate, from which state the ancient glory had departed never to return, we come to the states which lie along the shores of the Mediterranean. Morocco we find remaining an independent state under the rule of the Sherifs of Tafilet ; Algeria, a military oligarchy, at the head of which was the Dey, and under him a strong Turkish militia, law- less and turbulent at home and piratical abroad, defying the greater Christian powders, and forcing tribute from the lesser on the waters of the Medi- terranean. Against them the last Spanish expedition, with 44 ships of war and 340 transports, carrying 25,000 soldiers, went fruitlessly in 1775. Tunis at this time had been made tributary to Algiers ; Egypt remained a province of Turkey, administered by Pashas, until Bonaparte's invasion brought it for a year or two at the close of the century under the power of France. 134 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 19. The repeated aggressions of Russia and Austria in the Ottoman dominion in Europe, and the loss to Turkey of the lands bordering on the north coasts of the Black Sea, have been already alluded to. In part recompense for these losses the Turks received the Morea from the Venetians, and brought the whole of Greece again under Mohammedan dominion. 20. In Asia the story of the Ottoman Empire at this time connects itself with that of Persia. At the beginning of this century the Afghans of the east had acquired independence and power, and Persia was ruled by an Afghan king, whose cruelties have made the name of his people hated in Persia to the present day. A notable leader, who has been called the Wallace of Persia, soon, however, appeared as the deliverer of the country. This was Nadir Shah; at first merely the leader of a band of outlaws who levied contributions on the province of Khorassan, and by announcing his intention of expelling the hated race of the Afghans, drew large numbers to his standard ; he reduced the cities of Mashhad and Herat, and afterwards subdued all Khorassan, and placed a Persian king again on the throne. He was then sent against the Turks (1731), and defeating them at Hamadan, regained for Persia the Armenian provinces. On returning after this campaign Nadir was himself crowned Shah. He resumed his war with the Turks, and granted terms of peace, Persia thereby recovering the province of Georgia. He now advanced against the Afghans in the East, and con- quering them passed on to the North-West Provinces FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 135 of India against the Great Mogul ; took Delhi, and returned to Persia with an enormous booty, includ- ing the famous diamond, the ^^ Koh-i-nur." He next drove back the Usbegs on the north, and reducing Bokhara and Kharesm, or Khiva, restored for a time to Persia the wide limits of the empire as in the days of the Sassanian kings. On his death anarchy again broke loose in Persia, and before the end of the century we find Afghanistan and Baluchistan finally separated as independent states from Persia proper, and large territories in the north-west, border- ing on the Caspian, in the hands of Russia, to which empire Georgia was also soon to be added as a new province. 21. During the wars between Britain and France at home in this period hostilities broke out in India, where the French and British were already suffi- ciently jealous of one another's influence with the native princes. It was now that the great soldier- statesman Clive laid the foundation of British supre- macy in the East, breaking the power of France in this region by his great victory at Arcot in 1751. The next great event here was the siege and capture of Calcutta by the viceroy of the Great Mogul in Bengal, when the prisoners captured suffered the horrors of the '^ Black Hole of Calcutta." In com- mand of an expedition fitted out at Madras^ Clive soon recovered Calcutta, and before 1765, Bengal, with part of Behar and Orissa, had been ceded by the Great Mogul to the East India Company. The power of the great Mohammedan ruler of northern 136 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY India had indeed already suffered greatly from the expedition of Nadir Shah. Ten years later two powerful Mohammedan sovereigns of southern India, Hyder Ali and the Nizam of the Dekkan, assisted by French officers, combined against the English, but the able policy of Warren Hastings broke up the federation and defeated Hyder Ali. War next broke out with Tippoo, Hyder All's son and successor, who had invaded Travancore, then under British pro- tection. Seringapataniy his capital, was taken, and half his dominions ceded to the Company as the price of peace. Not long after this the bad faith of Tippoo and his intrigues with the French again drew the British, under Marquis Wellesley, to Seringapatam (1799), when Tippoo lost both his crown and his life. It remains for us now to sketch out the progress of geographical discovery beyond the limits of the Old World during this period. 22. One of the earliest important expeditions sent out from the Old World in this century was that of Hans Eged^, a Norwegian clergyman, who, believing it possible that the old Greenland colonies might still be in existence, determined to seek out his forlorn countrymen ; accordingly in 172 1 he em- barked with his wife and family and 46 emigrants, sailed for the west coast of Greenland, and there founded the settlements which at present occupy that rock and ice bound shore. 23. We have already referred to the Russian ex- pedition from Petropavlovsk in Kamtchatka under FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 137 Bering, in which he discovered the straits between Asia and America. After some years spent in ex- ploring the Asiatic coasts of Siberia, this voyager sailed in 1741 from Okhotsk out to the east, sighted land in about 58^° N., and was the first to trace the American coast in the Alaska peninsula, and to dis- cover the high volcano called Mount St. Elias ; but it was not made certain by his voyage whether these were really parts of the American continent, or only the shores of islands lying between the mainlands. Bering followed the coast northward, till, overtaken by sickness and storms, his ship was wrecked on the island of Awatska, since called Bering Island, and he died there in December 1741. 24. About this time the search for the '^ North-West Passage " was renewed, and several ships were sent to explore the coasts of Hudson Bay, where it was be- lieved some outlet to the west would be discovered ; but in vain ; and though a reward of ^£20,000 was offered by the British Government to the fortunate discoverer of such a navigable passage to the Pacific, the search was abandoned for almost the whole re- maining part of the century. On the side of the "north-east," the search for a navigable route had also been abandoned by the western nations of Europe ; Russia, however, was exploring the Arctic shores of her vast Siberian territory, and a Russian walrus-fisher for the first time found the eastern or inner coast of Novaya Zemlya in 1742. 25. Two years before this, war between England and Spain having again broken out in 1739, Lord 138 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY George Anson was sent out from England, com- manding a fleet which was intended to inflict what- ever injury was possible on Spanish commerce and colonies in the South Seas. His fleet of seven vessels was scattered before rounding the stormy Cape Hoorn, but four of these arrived at the island of Juan Fernandez ; with these he captured a Spanish galleon from Acapulco, and steering across the Pacific discovered a number of the smaller uninhabited islands which lie west of the Sandwich group. He reached Spithead again in 1744, having circum- navigated the globe in a cruise of nearly four years. In 1778 Captain Cook explored much of this ocean. 26. Another British officer, Captain Vancouver (1791), was the next to make any important discovery in the Pacific ; during four years of incessant exer- tion he explored the shores of the island on the west coast of North America which now bears his name, and the labyrinth of islands and sounds which ex- tends thence to the limit of Bering's discoveries, thus showing for the first time that no navigable passage existed between this coast and Hudson Bay, as had been so confidently hoped and expected. 27. Shortly before these discoveries were made. General Wolfe had set out (1759) from England with his little army of 8000 men to take Canada from the French. Arrived there, he landed on the island of Orleans in the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec, scaled the Heights of Abraham at fearful risk, and made his memorable capture of the city. At the date of the union of Canada to Britain by the Treaty of Paris, FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 139 1763, the colony had gathered a French population of 65,000; inhabiting the immediate banks of the broad St. Lawrence. 28. Soon after his succession to the throne, and after the close of the Seven Years' War, George III. of England took advantage of the returning time of peace to send out, one after the other, a number of voyagers, who made themselves famous by their circumnavigations of the globe and discoveries of new lands. Byron, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook all left these shores soon after 1764; it was at this time also that Bougainville set out to make the first French circumnavigation of the globe. To Byron geography owes the first survey of the Falkland Islands; to Wallis the survey of the Queen Charlotte Group of islets in the Pacific, and the re- finding of the beautiful Tahiti ; while Carteret made known the afterwards famous Pitcairn Island, and was the first to sail through St. George's Channel, between New Britain and New Ireland ; but Cook's three great voyages formed the great geographical event of the century. 29. Captain Cook's surveys of the shores of the British possessions of Newfoundland and Labrador introduced him to the notice of the Royal Society, who gave him command of an expedition to the Pacific to observe the approaching transit of Venus over the sun's disc ; and he sailed from Plymouth in August 1768. Having passed round South America to Tahiti in the Pacific, he there successfully carried out the main object of his voyage, and leaving 140 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY that island in July of the following year, steered westward for New Zealand, which had not been seen by Europeans since Tasman's visit, 126 years before. He landed on the coast of North Island, at a place which he named Poverty Bay, in October 1769 ; the natives, the cannibal Maoris, as was after- wards learned, took his ship for a gigantic bird, and were thunderstruck at the beauty and size of its wings. Nearly a year was spent in surveying the coasts of these islands, and thence sailing west- ward Cook discovered the eastern side of New Holland, or Australia, and coasted along nearly its whole length, taking possession of it in the name of Britain, and giving it the name of New South Wales. A landing was made in the inlet which was called Botany Bay (34° S.), from the great number of strange plants seen for the first time on its shores. He next turned north to New Guinea, and proved, by passing through Torres Strait, that the island was really separated from New Holland ; thence, continuing his voyage by Java and the Cape of Good Hope, he reached the Downs again in June 1771- 30. Geographers had long theoretically held that there must exist a great continent in the south to balance the mass of land in the northern hemisphere, and accordingly a vast ^^ Terra Australis Incognita'' was shown on most maps of the time, filling up the Antarctic regions. To ascertain the truth about this unknown land was the main object of Cook's second expedition in the ships Resolution and Ad- FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 141 venture^ with which for three years he searched all round the icy Antarctic region, passing due east from the Cape of Good Hope to New Zealand, and thence round to Patagonia, steering south at frequent intervals, till brought to a halt each time by the close pack-ice of the Antarctic region. He thus made known the vast extent of the southern ocean, freeing it from the fantastic lands that had filled it up, and proving conclusively that no great continent existed at all outside the limit of the South Polar Circle. 31. The belief in the possibility of a north-west passage between the Atlantic and Pacific still pre- vailed at home, and Cook had no sooner returned from his second voyage, than his offer to set out on a new voyage of exploration was accepted by the Admiralty. In this third campaign (1776-79), Cook sought a passage through Bering Straits instead of the old route by Davis Strait, and rounded the north-western extremity of America by this route, but was brought to a standstill by the barrier of ice in front (Icy Cape). On returning south, he was the first to explore the Sandwich Islands (one of which had been seen by Gaetano in 1542), naming them thus after the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time. It was on the island of Hawaii, in this group, that Cook met his tragical death in 1779. 32. While Cook was absent on this third voyage the attempts to enforce taxation on the North Ameri- can colonies had led to great events in that part of the world. Though of very various origin, as we have 142 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY seen, these colonies were united by common fears and interests, so that their first impulse was to join in their common grievance. The first Act to raise revenue by stamps caused great indignation, and was repealed, but the principle was not abandoned, though ultimately the only duty remaining was that on tea. From north to south in the colonies, however, it was determined that this tax should not be paid, and rioters in Boston J disguised as Indians, were the first to break the peace by wantonly destroying some cargoes of it, ^^ blackening the harbour with unexpected tea." It was now determined to enforce the government of the Crown over the colonies, and a fleet with 10,000 troops was despatched to America, and war was begun in 1775, when the famous battle of Bunker* s Hilly near Boston, was fought. Next year the colonies proclaimed their separation from Great Britain, de- claring themselves free and independent under the general title of the thirteen United States of America. These thirteen States, occupying the Atlantic coast- slope between Spanish Florida and Canada, east of the Alleghany Mountains, had gathered a population, m the century and a half which had elapsed since the first settlement on the coast of Virginia had been made, of about 2,500,000. The war was carried on with varying success ; army after army was sent out from England. The States on their part endea- voured in vain to induce the British colonies of Canada and Nova Scotia to join in the struggle for independence ; but Spain and Holland joined them in the war, and Paul Jones, with ships fitted out FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 143 in French ports, but sailing under the American flag, fought desperate battles on the English coasts. It was only in 1783 that peace was finally concluded between England, France, Holland, and America, the independence of the States being acknowledged. Four years later the constitution of the United States was framed, and Washington was the first president. 33. Thus in the latter part of this century, the por- tions of the North American continent which had been occupied and brought under European government were five, (i) Mexico or New Spain, with California (which had been occupied in 1767 by the Franciscan friars, the successors of the expelled Jesuits in Mexico), was under the dominion of Spain. (2) Louisiana, which had been made over to Spain by the igno- minious Peace of Paris in 1763, was restored at the close of the century to France. (3) The United States in the east were extended before the end of the century by the addition, to the original thirteen, of the new States of Vermont, Kentucky, and Ten- nessee. (4) Canada after its conquest had been ex- tended to include all the interior country down to the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio ; but the territories of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were given up to the American Republic in 1783. (5) Finally, in the north were the territories of the Hudson Bay Company. All the interior and western region of the continent remained still in the hands of the warlike aboriginal Indians. 34. Explorers sent by the American fur traders of 144 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY the north were the first to gain a knowledge of the interior of the continent and of its extent towards the Arctic Sea. The Coppermine River was first traced down to its mouth on the shore of the Arctic Ocean by an emissary of the Hudson Bay Company named Hearne in 1769 ; twenty years later, on behalf of a rival association called the North-West Company of Montreal, Mackenzie descended the great river which now bears his name, past the Great Slave and Bear Lakes to the Arctic Sea, and was the first to cross the continent in its entire breadth over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. 35. In Spanish South America several changes were made in the administrative divisions during this century ; in the north New Granada was made into a separate viceroyalty, formed of the provinces of Panama, Santa F6 de Bogotd, and Quito, the last being taken from the existing viceroyalty of Peru. Down to 1775 the basin of the Rio de la Plata in the south remained a dependency of Peru, but in that year it was erected into a distinct viceroyalty, and Upper Peru or Bolivia was subsequently added to it. During the earlier half of the century the ^^ Christian Republic " of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay had enjoyed un- exampled prosperity and was rising surely to wealth and power, when the edict went forth from Spain banishing the Jesuits from the realm, and Paraguay was added to the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres. 36. Brazil meanwhile had entirely recovered*^ its independence from the Dutch, who had all but supplanted the Portuguese in their East Indian colo- FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 145 iiies, and the fostering care of the mother country was devoted to it ahnost exclusively. In 1780 the boundaries between Spanish and Portuguese America were first defined. Here, however, as in North America, the European settlements were mainly along the coast-land and the lines of the great rivers, all the interior of the land remaining in possession of the native Indian tribes, who were gradually amalgamat- ing with their conquerors and the Africans brought thither as slaves. 37. In West Africa, the coast-line of the vast con- tinent was now well known, and had been settled at various points by European colonies. The period of those inland journeys of exploration which have little by little disclosed its hidden features and unveiled the very fountains of the Nile itself, had now begun. In 1770 James Bruce had reached the capital of Abyssinia and the source-lake of the Blue Nile, bringing back with him such marvellous tales that some of them were set down as fabrications, though they have now been fully confirmed. In 1793, Browne first reached Darfur, and brought the first reports of the White Nile. Three years later, Mungo Park first saw the Niger ; and in the same year the Portuguese sent Dr. Lacerda from Mozambique and the Zambesi stations to visit the inland potentate, the Cazembe. 38. It was in 1793 that the British first took pos- session of the Cape Colony, though six years later it was temporarily restored to Holland ; and in 1787 the philanthropic endeavours then being made in England under the leadership of William Wilber- 146 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY force brought about the establishment of the West African colony of Sierra Leone, to show the pos- sibility of obtaining colonial produce without slave labour. Perim Island, a barren rock, important how- ever in its position at the entrance to the Red Sea, of which it may be called the Gibraltar, was now first taken possession of by the British. 39. Across the Indian Ocean the first European settlement in Australia was formed by the despatch from England of a batch of 760 convicts and 700 soldiers, besides a few cattle, horses, and sheep, all which were landed (January 1788) at Cook's Botany Bay ; soon afterwards the settlement was transferred a little way north to the more promising shores of Port Jackson, the beautiful harbour of the present city of Sydney. Twelve years later Norfolk Island was made into a penal settlement for the colony of New South Wales. 40. An important voyage of discovery on the Asiatic coast remains to be noticed. It was made by the French voyager La Perouse, who distinguished him- self during the American War by his expedition to attack the British forts on the stormy ice-bound shores of Hudson Bay ; he was sent out in 1785 to attempt again the discovery of a north-west passage by Bering Strait. He for the first time surveyed the shores of Japan and Tartary, discovering Saghalien Island, and the straits which separate it from the island of Yezo and the mainland, sending home his journals by way of Kamtchatka. He also ex- amined part of the little-known American coast on FROM 1700 TO 1800 A.D. 147 the opposite side of the Pacific, though he failed to add to knowledge farther north. His voyage has a strange interest, for after anchoring in Botany Bay on his return, his ships disappeared altogether, and no trace of them was ever afterwards found, though several expeditions were sent out in search — the only clue to his fate being the discovery thirty years later of some articles that had belonged to his vessels on one of the small northern islets of the New Hebrides. CHAPTER XIII FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. By far the most important and rapid changes of power and territorial limits in the beginning of the nineteenth century were those which were taking place in western Europe, where the boundless am- bition of France under Napoleon Bonaparte brought about the most tremendous wars that the civilised world had ever known, and threatened the overthrow of the oldest states of Europe. With this part of the world, accordingly, it may be well to begin our out- line of the leading movements of the century through which we have now passed. I. We left France when that state had been ex- tended far beyond its normal limits to include the greater part of North Italy on the one side, and Belgium on the other. Egypt also had fallen under its sway, and Napoleon, as First Consul, had in his hands the entire command of its affairs, civil and military. Austria in alliance with Russia had renewed the war with France in 1799, to recover Piedmont and Lombardy, giving the cause for Napoleon's daring march across the Alps by the Great St. Bernard pass, in the spring of 1800, and the great battle of Marengo, which for the second time compelled the 148 FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 149 Austrians to resign their hold on Lombardy. The Peace of Luneville (1801) confirmed the conditions which had been premised by those of Campo Formio two years before, Austria receiving Venetia within the Adige, while France grasped all the remaining portions of the old maritime state, including its possessions on the Albanian coast, and the Ionian Islands. Nearer home also the French boundary was extended over Belgium to the Rhine. 2. While these events were progressing, the northern powers of Europe — Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Prussia — jealous of the growing maritime power of Britain, shown by the splendid victories over the Spanish at Cape St. Vincent^ and the French at Aboukir Bay^ had entered into an armed neutrality to restrict its power. On this, the British fleet was promptly despatched to the Baltic, and in the glorious battle of Copenhagen (1801) Nelson not only captured the Danish fleet, but shattered the dreaded coalition completely. About the same time the British and Turks were finally expelling the French from Egypt — events which paved the way for negotiations. 3. The Peace of Amiens (1802), which was intended to settle the points in dispute between France, Eng- land, Spain, and Holland, obliged the French to leave Rome, Naples, and Elba, but restored tranquillity for a brief space only : next year the peace was again dissolved, war with Britain was declared, and a large army was assembled at Boulogne to invade our islands. The French troops now took possession of Hanover ; Sweden joined with Britain, and Spain with France. 150 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Over the seas, the Dutch possessions of Surinam, Demerara, and Essequibo, which had been restored to the Batavian RepubHc by the Treaty of Amiens, again fell to Britain. 4. In 1804 Napoleon assumed the title of Emperor of France ; in the following summer he was crowned King of Italy at Milan, and in the same year the Genoese or Ligurian Republic was incorporated with France. Alarmed at the growing extent of French power, Austria, Russia, and Sweden now formed a new coalition with Britain, and hostilities began, in which a series of extraordinary triumphs crowned the arms of France. Though at sea the British were still triumphant, gaining the glorious victory of Trafalgar over the combined French and Spanish fleets (October 1805), the Austro-Russian army was totally defeated by Bonaparte, two months later, on the field of Austerlitz ; the continental coali- tion against France was thereby broken, and the peace that was signed at Pressburg on the Danube, gave Venetia and the Adriatic provinces of Austria to France. 5. Next year Bonaparte made his brother Joseph King of Naples, and Louis King of Holland. He then formed the "Confederation of the Rhine," which induced the ruler of Austria to give up his title of Emperor of Germany. Sixteen of the German princes, the chief of whom were the sovereigns of Bavaria and WUrtemberg, signed an act of con- federation at Paris, dissolving their connection with the Germanic Empire and allying themselves with FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 151 France. Hostilities were now begun against Prussia, which found an ally in Russia, while Napoleon sum- moned the Poles to his aid by promises of liberation, and gathered round him an army of patriots. The French entered Berlin, defeated the Russians in the great battle of Friedland ; and the Peace of Tilsit in 1807 cost Prussia half its dominions, the Poles being rewarded by the partial restoration of their independence by the creation of the ^' Duchy of Warsaw," to which Galicia was added in 1809. 6. The kingdom of Westphalia, which included that province and a number of the adjoining petty German states, was now formed, and placed under Jerome Bonaparte as a preliminary step to its in- corporation with France. Denmark, which had hitherto maintained neutrality, and had been rapidly increasing her fleet, was now summoned to enter into an alliance with England. Refusing this, Copen- hagen was bombarded by the British, the arsenals and docks commanding the Sound were destroyed, and all the shipping disabled, sunk, or taken back to England. Smarting under this treatment, Den- mark soon after became the ally of France. 7. Napoleon next turned his attention to Portugal, which country had refused to conform to his edict issued at Berlin, excluding British manufactures from the Continent, and Dom Joao, the Prince Regent, learning that Napoleon had determined upon the destruction of his dynasty, left Portugal with all his family in 1807, transferring his seat of govern- ment to Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, an act 152 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY which was immediately followed by the occupation and annexation of Portugal by the French. 8. Spain had been a party to the aggressions of France in Portugal, but soon herself felt the effects of her folly; the whole of her royal family was en- trapped at Bayonne, and the crown of Spain and the Indies was made over by Napoleon to his brother, Joseph of Naples, his kingdom there being given to his brother-in-law, the ^^ Swordsman," Murat. The patriots of Spain and Portugal soon rose against the yoke of France, and Britain being invited to their aid, the Peninsular War began (1808), in which Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) gained his glorious name in the triumphs of Vimiera and TalaverUf on the famous lines of Torres Vedras, at Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca^ and Vitoriuy pursuing the French gradually back across the Pyrenees and across the Garonne, to defeat them beneath the walls of Toulouse (1814). 9. When the Peninsular War was just beginning, Austria had once more taken arms against the French, drawing upon itself another invasion by Napoleon ; the French again entered Venice, and notwithstanding the defeats of Aspern and Essling^ once more prostrated Austria in the decisive battle of Wagrarny compelling the ignoble Peace, of Vienna, by which more than 58,000 square miles of her terri- tory on the south and all her seaboard passed into the hands of France— western Galicia, with Cracow, being given up to the Duchy of Warsaw. 10. This treaty was followed by the marriage of FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 153 Napoleon to the Archduchess Maria Louisa ; and three years later Austria joined with France in a short-lived alliance against Russia, when, gathering between the Vistula and Memel a huge force from all his allies — Austrians, Poles, Italians, Swiss, and Germans — Napoleon undertook the invasion of that country. Through Wilna^ losing thousands after thousands of his troops by sickness and by the incessant attacks of the Cossacks who hung in the rear of his army, he chased the Russians by Smolensk till he came up with them at the battle- field of Borodino, a week after which deserted Moscow was reached. Winter coming on early in the already wasted country compelled the disastrous retreat in October 18 12, the very time at which Well- ington was beginning to invade southern France from Spain. II. Abandoning the wretched remnant of his army. Napoleon hastened back to Paris, there to raise a fresh conscription and again to march into Ger- many. But the spell of terror which the very name of Bonaparte had hitherto exercised was broken. Russia and Prussia allied themselves against him ; Austria also joined them ; the Confederation of the Rhine and the powers of Westphalia vanished like a mist, the whole German people rising to deliver themselves from their bondage. The three days' '^ battle of the nations " at Leipzig hopelessly ruined the power of Napoleon, and compelled his retreat across the Rhine, followed into France by the allies. In March 18 14 Paris was taken, and the Emperor 154 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY of Russia and the King of Prussia entered it as conquerors, the victorious Wellington joining them a few weeks later from the south. Napoleon abdi- cated, but was allowed to retain the title of emperor and the sovereignty of the little Italian island of Elba, whither he was conveyed in a British ship. 12. Less than a year later Napoleon made his escape from Elba; landing near Frejus (March 1815) on the French coast, he rallied round him his old soldiers, marched to Paris, and once more prepared to give battle to the allies. The news of his land- ing had again spread terror throughout Europe, and Austria, Russia, Prussia, and England at once allied themselves, the Duke of Wellington taking command of the armies of the Netherlands. The campaign lasted but a few days, the memorable battle of Waterloo (i8th June 1815) annihilating the power of Napoleon, who, under the safeguard of the British, was exiled to the solitary ocean islet of St, Helena. 13. Immediately after the downfall of Napoleon, the representatives of every sovereign state in Europe, to the number of five hundred, gathered in the Congress of Vienna to re-arrange and settle the respective limits which had been' so rudely broken through in Napoleon's aggressive wars. By this conference, Belgium and Holland were joined to form the ^^ Kingdom of the Netherlands " ; Norway was separated from Denmark and annexed to Sweden in consideration of the aid given by the Swedes against Napoleon, though Iceland and the Green- FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 155 land colonies remained to Denmark ; Hanover was restored to Britain, with a large slice of Westphalia ; Lombardy to Austria ; Savoy to Piedmont. Greater discussion was needed before it was decided that Prussia should obtain a portion of Saxony (Prussian Saxony), with Posen and the greater part of the left bank of the Rhine ; and before those portions of the Duchy of Warsaw which were not resigned to Austria and Prussia, were formed into the king- dom of Poland as a separate state, united to Russia by the personal tie of the same monarch being sove- reign in each. The old constitution of Switzerland was re-established ; Genoa was joined to Sardinia ; and the Pope was restored to his territorial authority. From the starting-point of this re-arrangement of the map of Europe we may now follow rapidly the subsequent changes of territory in each of the leading states of Europe which have given them the limits they occupy at the present day. 14. France was now restricted to the limits which it had before the outbreak of the Revolution (1790), and her frontier fortresses were occupied by the allied troops for five years. It may be sufficient here to recall three leading points in the subsequent history of this state — the conquest of Algeria, begun in 1830, which we shall afterwards refer to more particularly ; the Italian campaigns in aid of Sardinia against Austria in 1859, in compensation for which the provinces of Savoy and Nice (Alpes Maritimes) were added to France ; and the Franco-German War of 1871, during which more than a fourth part of 156 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY France was overrun by the Germans, and after which two of its most populous and industrial provinces, those of Lorraine and Alsace (which had formed part of Germany till the end of the seventeenth century), were incorporated as part of the German Empire. 15. Directly after the settlement of Vienna, those of the German states which still retained their sovereignty (now about forty in number) united to form a confederation, of which Austria and Prussia were naturally by far the most powerful members, rivalling one another for the leadership of Germany. This rivalry displayed itself in mutual jealousy and ill-will, which seemed more than once likely to end in war. On the northern border animosity had long existed between the German and Danish inhabitants of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which broke out in an actual war in 1848, put down for a time by the defeat of the Schleswig-Holsteiners at Idsted in 1849. On the death of Frederick VII. of Denmark in 1863, however, the duchies refused the oath of allegiance to the new king as their rightful duke, and appealed to the German Diet ; this gave a pretext for the entry of an Austro-Prussian army into Holstein. For ten weeks the Danes made a gallant resistance, but the final victory of the greater powers was inevitable, and after protracted negotiations Denmark was obliged to accept peace (August 1864) on the hard terms of ceding to Austria and Prussia the duchies of Holstein, Schleswig, and Lauenburg, when, by the Treaty of FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 157 Gasteiftj a joint occupation of the duchies by these powers was agreed upon. 16. Already differences of policy between the two rival powers of Germany had begun to show them- selves, Prussia being supposed to intend the final annexation of the duchies, Austria to desire the question relating to them to be referred to the Diet for settlement, and both nations made preparations for a final struggle. Italy also was actively arming to take advantage of the impending contest to strike a blow for Venetia. On the sitting of the Diet in 1866, Austria placed the question of the duchies at the disposal of the Diet — an act which was con- sidered as an insult by Prussia ; war was soon after declared against Austria. Then followed the Prussian invasion of Austria through Bohemia, and the de- cisive battle of Koniggratz or Sadowa, which allowed the victorious Prussians to advance towards Vienna. The South German states — Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden — had sided with Austria in the contest, but their armies w^ere likewise isolated and defeated. The Italians had attacked Austria by land and sea, in Venetia and the Adriatic, but without great success. By the Treaty of Prague^^Yvvoh concluded the contest, Austria was excluded from all further share in the organisation of the Germanic states, and formally agreed to the incorporation of Schleswig-Holstein with Prussia and the surrender of Venetia to Italy. Most of the smaller states north of the river Main which had taken up arms against Prussia were in- corporated, and the others were united with Prussia 158 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY to form the North German Confederation, from which Bavaria, Baden, and Wiirtemberg, or the South Gerrnan states, were excluded. 17. In these events, and in the subsequent re- organisation of the country with the prospect of a united Germany, its great statesman Bismarck had been the leading spirit. The opportunity for the accomplishment of this unification of Germany came in 1 87 1. France had declared war with Germany in July of the former year, and South and North Germany united to stem a threatened French inva- sion. In place of a march to Berlin, the campaign was carried on entirely on French soil, the Germans being victorious throughout from the opening battle of Saarbruck to the capitulations of Sedan, MetZy and Paris. At Versailles, in January 187 1, the King of Prussia was crowned Emperor of Germany, the empire being formed by the close union of every German state with the exception of Austria ; the treaty of peace signed at Frankfort-on-the-Main in May of the same year added Alsace and Lorraine to that empire. Germany then became ambitious of founding a colonial empire, and several territories and islands in Africa and the Pacific were taken possession of in the course of 1 884-1 890. 18. Early in the century, at the instigation of Napoleon, Persia had taken up arms again in a vain contest with Russia, terminating (18 13), after two years of contest, by the cession to the northern power of all the Persian provinces to the north of Armenia, and conceding the right to the navigation of the Caspian. FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 159 19. The events of 1814 had equally altered the con- dition of Russia, giving that country great weight in European politics, while internal reforms had acted very favourably on the industry and well-being of the empire. This course of progress was, however, checked on the accession of Nicholas I. (1825), who reverted to the ancient despotic policy of the Tsars, and soon involved the country in fresh wars with Persia and Turkey. That with Persia was begun in 1826, and cost that power the remainder of its territory in Armenia, with Erivan, and a large sum for the expenses of the war. The year (1828) that peace was concluded with Persia, an invasion of Turkey was begun ; Walachia, Moldavia, Bulgaria, and Roumelia were overrun ; but at the Peace of Adrianople (1829) these territories were left in possession of the Porte, in consideration of the cession to Russia of the whole north-east coast of the Black Sea, from the mouth of the river Kuban to the port of Nikolaya (42° N.), with the territories of the Caucasus, besides the right of free navigation of the Danube and the free passage for Russian ships through the Dar- danelles from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. 20. A national rising of the Poles next occupied attention. This was suppressed only after a very sanguinary contest of nearly a year's duration, and punished by the conversion of Poland into a mere Russian province. Viewing with alarm the exten- sion of British power in Asia, Nicholas despatched an expedition for the conquest of Khiva, in Central Asia, in 1839; ^^^ ^^ failed, as the previous one of i6o SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Peter had done, the greater part of the Russian army perishing in the desert. 21. In 1853 the hereditary scheme for the absorp- tion of Turkey was again entertained, when the un- expected opposition of Britain, France, and Sardinia brought on the Crimean War, during which, if the allies did not gain any signal successes, the defeat on the Danube at Silistria and on the Ahna, and the capture of Sebastopol, drained Russia of men and money, lost her much military prestige, and closed to her the navigation of the Danube and the unre- stricted passage of the Dardanelles. With the capture of the prophet chief Shamyl, the most active of Russia's foes in the Caucasus, in 1859, the conquest of that mountain region may be said to have been completed. 22. The next important addition to Russian terri- tory was that of the maritime region of eastern Siberia north of Manchuria. By the treaty with China of 1 86 1, all the territory north of the Amur river and east of its tributary the Usuri, including the Asiatic shores of the Sea of Japan as far south as the fine harbour of Peter the Great, or Vladivostok Bayy was ceded to Russia, giving the Siberian provinces a good outlet to the Pacific. A new insurrection in Poland in 1 863-1 864 was put down with extreme severity. 23. Central Asia next claims attention. For many years a series of wars had been waging between the Khanates of Turkestan, in which direction the line of Russian outposts east of the Caspian had been steadily if gradually pushed forward. Bokhara, I UNIVERSITY J ^=^^=^^^^^=^=^^f^M 1800 TO 1908 A.D. i6i Khokan, and Khiva had been mutually at war, the first generally prevailing. Taking advantage of these disputes, the Russians, siding with Khiva, invaded Khokan in 1864, and taking the city of Tashkend, became virtually masters of this Khanate, forming it in 1867 into the nucleus of the general govern- ment of Russian Turkestan. The city of Samarkand^ in Bokhara, once the capital of Tamerlane's great empire, fell before the Russian advance in 1868, and this, with the surrounding country, was incorporated with Russian Turkestan in 1870 as the province of Zerafshan, from the river which flows through it. In 1 87 1 Zungaria, with its capital Kulja on the Hi River, was temporarily occupied by Russia, and later re- stored to China. A third campaign against Khiva in 1873 terminated successfully, the capital town being occupied, and the whole of the former Khivan terri- tory along the right bank of the Amu Daria (Oxus) being ceded to the conquerors. During the next year a new Trans-Caspian province was formed, extending from the government of the Ural along the eastern side of the Caspian Sea as far as the Atrek, the frontier river of Persia. In 1875 the re- mainder of the Khanate of Khokan was finally incor- porated, the Russian frontier in Central Asia being thus extended- to the summit of the range of the western Thian Shan Mountains, thence to the Oxus and the Sea of Aral and the limits of Persia on the eastern side of the Caspian. Merv, and wuth it the whole of the country of the Turkomans, was united with the Russian Empire in 1884. Thus since 1864 L i62 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Russia has added nearly a million and a half square miles of territory and over seven millions of inhabit- ants to its empire in Central Asia alone. 24. In April 1877, on the pretext of enforcing reforms in the government of Turkey, the Russian Emperor, who during the previous year had been collecting troops in Bessarabia, declared war, his army beginning simultaneously to cross the river Pruth into European Turkey, and from Alexandropol against Kars in Asia Minor. Romania, though nomin- ally a dependency of Turkey, was friendly to Russia, and no obstacle stood in the way of the advance to the Danube. This river was crossed in the end of June. The heroic defence of Plevna by Osman Pasha and his army delayed the Russian advance in Europe till the beginning of December, Kars having been captured in the previous month. After the fall of Plevna, a general advance of the Russian armies took place across the Balkan mountains, almost un- checked, to the neighbourhood of Constantinople. All the north-eastern region of European Turkey was thus again in the hands of Russia. A Congress of representatives of the great European Powers sub- sequently met at Berlin to determine the future limits of Russia and Turkey. By the treaty which w^as signed in July 1878, the Russian frontier was extended over western Bessarabia to the Danube (thus to Russia the territory which had been taken from her after the Crimean War was restored), and in Asia the territory from the port of Batum on the Black Sea, and round Kars in the interior, was added to FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 163 the Russian territory of the Caucasus. The inde- pendence of Romania, Servia, and Montenegro was recognised. Bulgaria and Eastern RoumeHa were separated from the direct rule of the Sultan ; Bul- garia being erected into a tributary Principality, and Eastern Roumelia into an autonomous province under a Christian governor. Servia and Montenegro were enlarged, and Bosnia and Herzegovina placed under Austrian military occupation. 25. Perhaps the most important series of events in the history of China during this century have been those w^hich have opened its vast territory to greater freedom of foreign intercourse. It does not appear that when the coasts of the China Sea were first made known to Europeans, in the fourteenth century, there existed any feeling of opposition to the admission of strangers, but the conduct of the Portuguese and Spaniards, who were the first to come in contact with the Chinese, seems to have excited their hostility. For nearly two hundred years (previous to 1834) the East India Company had held a monopoly of trade with China at the port of Canton^ and though differences had arisen out of the opium traffic, a British embassy had been well received in Pekin in 1792. Dissen- sions, however, rose again in 1839, when open acts of hostility were begun, troops being sent into Canton, and all the opium belonging to the English merchants seized and destroyed. War was thereupon declared ; in 1 841 the Chinese fleet was scattered. Canton was taken, with Antoy, Ning-pOj Wu-Sung, and Shang-haiy and by the middle of 1842 China was sufficiently i64 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY humbled to agree to the Peace of Nanking^ by which the ports of Amoy, Fuchow, Ning-po, and Shang-hai were, with that of Canton, thrown open to foreign trade, the island of Hong-Kong being ceded in perpetuity to Britain. Soon the British trade with China assumed gigantic proportions. A second war broke out, after the seizure of a vessel from Hong- Kong by the Chinese. In 1857 Canton was stormed by the French and English, the forts at the mouth of the Peiho river on the north were taken, and at Tientsin a new treaty was concluded, which added that port to the five already opened, besides those of Kiung-chow (in Hainan island), SwatoWy Teng-chow (in Shan-tung), New-chwang (in Manchuria), and the river ports of Chiti Kiang, Kin Kiang, and Hankowy on the Yangtse, the great central waterway of China. The treaty also stipulated that British diplomatic agents should have residence in Pekin ; that the Christian religion should be protected ; and that British subjects should have the right to travel in all parts of the interior of China, — conditions which were ratified at Pekin itself, which was temporarily occupied by the British and French troops in i860. 26. Among the events in the internal history of China during this time, the most remarkable was the rise and progress and final suppression of the rebellion of the followers of the self-styled '^ Tai-ping- wang," or " Heavenly King," a religio-political fanatic, who believed that he had a mission to uproot the Tatar dynasty and re-establish native rule. His in- surrection broke out in the mountains of the southern FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 165 province of Kwang-tung in 1849, ^^^ followers at once making themselves distinct by allowing their hair to grow naturally long, and not confined in the native queue. Quickly gathering strength, the Taipings overran all southern China, and passing down the Yangtse, they captured and established themselves at the southern capital of Nanking ; afterwards march- ing northward, their army reached to within 80 miles of Tientsin, where they encountered the Imperial forces in a long contest, and after many defeats, were obliged to fight their way south again. Till i860, however, the provinces in the lower basin of the Yangtse remained in their hands, when the Imperial forces, with the aid of a British leader ('^Chinese Gordon "), began a final campaign which lost them every important position. It was not till 1866 that the last embers of this great insurrection were trodden out in Kwang-si, the original nest of its origin. 27. The Mohammedan Tatars of the western pro- vinces of China also kept the interior country in ferment for a long period, and established them- selves as an independent power in the south-western province of Yun-nan. Their rebellion spread far inland to Kansu and north-western Mongolia, from which regions they drove the Chinese garrisons, closing for several years all the direct routes of communication between China and Turkestan. In Yun-nan the Mohammedans were in power from 1854 till 1872, when the chief stronghold, the city of Tali-fuy again fell to the Chinese troops : the province of Kansu was not again mastered till 1876, i66 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY and it was only during 1877 that the Chinese again gradually recovered the territories west of Mongolia. 28. In connection with these movements in the far interior of China and with the Russian advances in Western Turkestan, there remains to be noticed the rise and fall of a very remarkable state in the high central plateau of the continent. Until 1864, Eastern Turkestan had formed part of the Chinese Empire, the Manchu kings having conquered it, as we have seen, from the descendants of Genghiz Khan. In that year the Mohammedan rebels of Kansu made a successful incursion in this region, and were assisted in expelling the Chinese troops by Usbeg soldiery who had been driven out of Western Turkestan by the advancing Russians. The leader of these Usbegs was a man of remarkable powers, named Yakub Beg, who, after the expulsion of the Chinese, on being joined by thousands of his countrymen from the west, instantly seized the chief power in the newly conquered country, and, organising a strong soldiery, in turn drove out the Tunganis, or Kansu Mohammedans. So able was his administration that in a few years Eastern Turkestan, or '' Jetyshahr," as it was named from its seven cities, became to all appearance such a well-consolidated state as to merit the recogni- tion of Britain. A treaty of commerce with India was concluded in 1874, and by firman of the Sultan of Turkey its ruler took the title of Amir Yakub Khan. The Chinese, however, had meanwhile been very gradually recovering their lost provinces in FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 167 Central Asia ; their troops appeared on the border of Eastern Turkestan, and again attacked the usurpers. During the Hfetime of Yakub Khan the state con- tinued to resist the returning tide of Chinese power ; but his death in June 1877 ^^^ ^ ^^^^^ event for Jetyshahr, which had been only held together by his iron will. Dissensions about the succession arose, and gave the Chinese opportunity to advance from Manas and Urumchi almost without resistance, so that before the end of 1877 the capital city of Kashgar had fallen into their hands, and Eastern Turkestan was again incorporated with the Chinese Empire. 29. The islands of Japan, soon after their discovery by Europeans in the fourteenth century, had been freely opened to the foreigner ; Portuguese and later Dutch traders had established very extensive com- mercial relations there, and the Jesuit missionaries had extended Christianity very widely. An edict for their complete exclusion had, however, been put in force in 1638, and from that time onward till the middle of the iiineteenth century, Japan maintained a most rigid isolation, no Japanese being permitted to leave his own shores, and no foreigner allowed to land on them. This state of matters continued till 1853, when the United States Government suc- ceeded in obtaining a permission to trade at two ports, under restrictions. The isolation thus broken, a more satisfactory treaty was concluded in 1858, by which foreigners were allowed to trade at the five ports of Hakodate, Kanagawa (the port of Yedo, i68 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY or Tokio), Nagasaki, Niigata, and Hiogo (the port of Osaka). Reopened to foreign influence, changes of almost startHng rapidity have been adopted in the country : the whole poHtical constitution of the empire has been re-modelled ; religious reforms have been adopted ; everything is being rapidly Europeanised ; railways, telegraphs, colleges, have been set up, and the successful Chino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars of 1894-95 and 1904-05 have enabled Japan to take rank with the Great Powers of the world. 30. We have already noticed how toward the end of the eighteenth century the French secured an interest in the kingdom of Annam or Cochin China. Their first interference, owing to com- plications at home, had not been rewarded by an accession of territory, but the desire for such a convenient resting-place in the East Indian seas had remained, and a claim to it was set up again in i860. Landing a force at the delta of the Mekong River in that year, the French captured the city of Saigon, and forced a treaty by which three pro- vinces were ceded to them in 1867; the remainder of Lower Cochin China voluntarily submitted to them. Since that time the French have made great efforts to extend and consolidate their Asiatic possessions. Cambodia has been placed under French protection, whilst Annam, after the occupa- tion of Hue, in 1883, acknowledged the suzerainty of France, and surrendered Tongking, the conquest of which province involved France in a war with China. FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 169 31. The very interesting countries of Siam and Cambodia have played no important part in the world beyond their limits, and we may pass over them to Burma. This empire, which began to rise to power in the eighteenth century, attained its greatest expansion about the year 1822, when it extended from Bengal on the north-west to Cam- bodia in the south-east, including all the territory between Assam and the island of Junk Seylon or Salanga, off the coast of the central Malay peninsula. The East India Company had obtained a settle- ment, and some other advantages, in Burma in 1737 ; but at the period of greatest power, aggres- sions on the part of the Burmese, and insolence to the British ambassador at the Court of Ava, gave cause for a first war, which terminated in the cession to Britain of the maritime provinces of Tenasserim and Arakan. A second war in 1852 deprived the empire of its remaining seaboard, the provinces of Pegu and Martaban being retained at its conclusion ; these, with the two previously ceded areas, were formed into the territory of British Burma. At the close of the first Burmese War, the northern pro- vince of Assam, in the basin of the Brahmaputra River, was also ceded to the British, and was for a time transferred by them to a native Raja whom the Burmese had formerly expelled ; but its mis- government led to its being brought finally under British administration in 1838. Thus we again approach India. 32. In touching upon the events, of conquest or 170 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY of annexation, by which the Indian peninsula has been brought directly or indirectly under the British Crown, it is impossible, within our limits, to do more than recall a few of their many prominent points. We left India in the last chapter, when Marquis Wellesley had brought Mysore under British influence. His great victory over the Mahrattas under Scindia at Assaye, in 1803, gave the British arms still higher fame in Central India. The same year saw the con- quest of Delhi, the capital of the Mogul Emperors of North India, by General Lake, and a very consider- able extension of the dominions of the Company in that direction. Sir Charles Napier's conquest of Sind against fearful odds, in 1843, is one of the most brilliant military feats in the history of India ; im- mediately after followed the Sikh Wars, 1845-46 and 1848-49, which gave Britain the government of the Pan jab. In 1856 the Company was obliged, in the interests of its misgoverned inhabitants, to annex the province of Oude. In 1857 discontent in the native army, fostered by a Mohammedan conspiracy, broke forth in the Sepoy rebellion ; the march of the mutineers to Delhi, the massacre of Cawnpore, and the siege and then the relief of Lucknow by the heroic Havelock followed. In 1858 no position of importance had been left to the mutineers, but such a calamity showed the necessity for concentrat- ing the supreme power in the hands of the Imperial government ; and, in spite of strenuous resistance, the East India Company was obliged to cede its powers to the Crown in August 1858. The system FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 171 of government of the country was in some degree altered ; natives of the higher classes were admitted to a share in the councils, and the proportion of native to European troops was much lessened. The Governor-General; formerly the servant of the East India Company, became ^'Viceroy and Governor- General." In 1876 the Queen of England assumed the title of '^ Empress of India." 33. The Portuguese settlers of the sixteenth century in the great island of Ceylon were driven from that island, as we have before noticed, after a contest of twenty years, by the Dutch in the middle of the seven- teenth century. Before the beginning of the nine- teenth, the Hollanders in turn gave place to the British. During the great European war w^hich succeeded the French Revolution, immediately after the Batavian Republic had been set up under the protection of France, a British expedition under Colonel James Stuart landed at Trincamali and captured Colombo, when all the Dutch settlements on the island were ceded, though it was not till the Peace of Amiens in 1802 that Ceylon was formally annexed to the British Empire. A war with the Kandyan king in 181 5 gave the British direct rule over the central territories of the island, since which time its material prosperity has made rapid strides. A very important station, that of the island of Singapore, on the highway of commerce, in the straits which lead from the China Sea to the Indian Ocean, was acquired by purchase from the Malay sultan in 181 9. 172 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 34. During the brief existence of the Batavian RepubUc, and Napoleon's subsequent incorporation of the Netherlands with France, all the Dutch East Indian possessions, besides Ceylon, fell into the hands of the British — Malacca, Sumatra, the Moluccas or Spice Islands, in 1795-96; Java in 1810. All were, however, restored to the Dutch after the Congress of Vienna, except Malacca, Labuan, important from its coal-beds, was ceded to Britain by the Sultan of Brunei in 1846. Brunei itself accepted the British protectorate in 1888, and in 1906 the Sultan became a British pensioner ; since 1 841 the Sarawak district had been administered by Sir James (^^ Raja ") Brooke, and the protectorate was extended in 1888 to the territory of the British North Borneo Company (chartered in 1882). 35. Afghanistan first appears as an independent state after the death of Nadir Shah (p. 134). While the soldiers of the East India Company were extending their conquests in northern India in the early part of the last century, the ruler of Afghanistan, Dost Mohammed, was at war with the Persians on his western border, and with the ruler of the Panjab on the east. The Panjab was at this time in friendly relations with the British in the North-West Provinces ; and when hostilities broke out in 1838 between the British and Afghanistan (the object of the former being to place a more friendly ruler on the Afghan throne), the Panjab joined, though not heartily, in the enterprise. A British expedition entering Afghanistan by the Bolan Pass captured Kandahar and the fortress FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 173 of Gliazniy and by occupying Kabul seemed to have completed the conquest of the country. But when the winter of 1841-42 came on, and assistance from India was impossible, the Afghans again rose to arms. A humiliating capitulation was necessitated, and a winter retreat to India began. Once within the gorge of the Khurd Kabul Pass, the British were attacked on all sides, and slaughtered by the fanatical tribes ; only one man out of the 15,000 who formed the ex- pedition reached India alive to tell the tale. A British army of retribution marched into Afghanistan in the same year (1842), destroyed the great bazaar of Kabul, and then retired to India. When the second Sikh War began in 1848, the Afghans joined the enemy, but forsook them after the decisive battle of Gujerat in 1849. Dost Mohammed fled over the Indus, and was pursued by the British to the mouth of the Khyber (or Khaibar) Pass, which thus became the north-west frontier of British India. ■ The later history of Afghanistan was one of almost continual disorders while the country was gradually being consolidated round the stronger central power of Kabul, which has occasionally been aided by sub- sidy. To Kabul, Dost Mohammed Khan being still ruler, the northern province of Balkh was added by conquest in 1850, and Kandahar in the south in 1854. The province of Herat, to the west, the scene of frequent contests with Persia, was finally incor- porated with Afghanistan in 1863; Shere AH, Dost Mohammed's son and successor, in consequence of his Russian sympathies, became involved in 1878 in 174 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY a war with England, which cost him his throne. His successor, Abd ur Rahman, was installed by a British army in 1880, and he was succeeded in 1901 by the reigning Amir, Habib Ullah Khan. 36. In 1 87 1, in consequence of the annexation by Persia of portions of Baluchistan and south-west Afghanistan, the question of the boundary between Persia and Afghanistan was referred to the arbitration of a British commission, which in 1871 defined the boundary nearly as it now stands. 37. About this time the continued advance of the Russians each year in Turkestan made it important that the belt of neutral territory between British dominion and that under Russian influence should be clearly defined. It was accordingly decided in 1872 that the northern frontier of Afghanistan should be the line of the Oxus continued by an arbitrarily drawn line from a point on that river at Khoja Sale through the Turkoman desert to the Persian frontier. 38. Baluchistan to the south of Afghanistan occu- pies a very similar political position to that of its northern neighbour, its ruling chief, the Khan of Khelat, being maintained in power under English direction and influence. It was in accordance with this policy that in 1877 the important station of Quetia, at the head of the Bolan Pass in Khelat, was occu- pied by the British to safeguard the most important line of communication between South Afghanistan and India. Quetta is now connected with the Indian railway system. 39. The chief alteration in the territorial limits of FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 175 Persia has already (p. 158) been noticed in touching upon the extension of Russian dominion to the south- ward. After the repeated wars of the beginning of the century, and the consequent losses of territory south and west of the Caspian, to which we have referred, the Persian Court became the scene of the rival influences of Russia and Britain, the former power gaining more and more influence, and securing for itself the monopoly of building ships of war at the Persian ports of Resht and Astrabad in the Caspian. By the taking of Herat in 1856 Persia drew down upon itself an invasion by British troops under Have- lock, and the restoration of Herat to Afghanistan was the result. 40. Coming now to the Ottoman Empire, we may recall the aggressions made on the Turkish territory in Europe and Asia, which we have already out- lined in referring to the expansion of the northern power. We have also noticed that, with the aid of Britain, Turkey recovered her possession of Egypt, snatched from her by Napoleon. 41. Greece had remained subject to the Moham- medan dominion since the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 ; its inhabitants groaned under the tyrannous and brutal yoke, till in 1820 they were provoked to rebel against the Turkish rule, and, with the coun- tenance and aid of the Christian powers of Britain, France, and Russia in the struggle, gained the estab- lishment of Greece as an independent kingdom in 1829, a son of the king of Bavaria being ultimately chosen king of the new state. 176 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 42. About this time two large regions of the north- ern side of European Turkey, though not actually separated from the empire, became to some extent distinct from it in their government. These were the principalities of Moldavia and Walachia, in which a number of the nobles were of Greek descent, and w^ho, simultaneously with the Greeks, made an effort to free themselves altogether from Turkish rule. In this they w^ere not successful, but the influence of Russia gained them certain privileges, and in 1 86 1 they were formed into the tributary state of Romania, which afterwards (1866) obtained a repre- sentative government. The complete independence of Romania was recognised, as we have seen, by the Treaty of BerHn in 1878. 43. Servia, the country lying on the southern side of the Danube to the west of Romania, was uniformly the scene of the fierce wars between the Turks and Hungarians, and passed once or twice alternately into the hands of Austria and the Porte, finally falling to the latter. After sixty years of the most oppressive government the Servians revolted in 1801, and by the aid of Russians gained their independence for a time. Napoleon's invasion of Russia, however, withdrew that support, and till 1815 the country again fell under Turkey's tyrannous rule. In that year a war for independence recommenced, and in 1829 ^^^ Turks were compelled to grant a virtual independence to Servia. Russia has also aided the mountaineers of Montenegro in maintaining their independence of the Turks. The independence and accessions of territory FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 177 obtained by these two little states through the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 have been already referred to. 44. As if in compensation for the losses of territory sustained in Europe during the last century, and on its northern border in Asia, the limits of the Ottoman Empire in south-western Asia and in Africa have spread out enormously. We have already noticed that the Turks, aided by the British, quickly regained their hold of Egypt. One of the Turkish officers who was sent to Egypt to co-operate with the British against the French invaders was Mehemet Ali, whose military qualities then displayed themselves to such advantage that he was raised first to the command of the Turkish troops in Egypt, and then to the position of viceroy of the country. Mehemet was soon in- volved in a struggle with the Mamelukes, who had by this time gained such power in Egypt that the Viceroy of the Sultan was merely their nominal ruler. In the end many of them were cruelly massacred at Cairo, and the rest, fleeing up the Nile to Nubia, were pursued thither by Mehemet and utterly exterminated. His son Ibrahim Pasha was engaged during this time in an expedition against the new Mohammedan sect of the Wahabis, who had spread out from the Nejd in Central Arabia, and had closed the pilgrim caravan route through Hejaz to Mecca, to the Turks and Persians. This successful undertaking extended the authority of the Porte through Egypt over a large part of Arabia. Along the Nile valley Mehemet Ali next added Kordo- fan (1821) by conquest to his dominion, and opened up a great traffic in slaves from the Sudan to Egypt. M 178 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Thus his position became one of great power and wealth, and his ambition rose in proportion. During the War of Greek Independence his fleet was destroyed off Navarino by the combined British, French, and Russian navy, and this checked his progress for a few years. The government of the island of Candia was given to him by the Porte in 1830, but, not satisfied with this, he sent Ibrahim Pasha on an expedition for the conquest of Syria in 1830, the success of which brought the Turkish home government to the brink of ruin. The European powers interfering, Syria was restored to the Porte, but the Pashalic of Egypt was made hereditary in the family of Mehemet Ali. 45. During the occupation of Egypt by Napoleon's troops, attention had been drawn to the possibility of re-opening the ancient canal which united the Nile delta with the Red Sea in the time of the Ptolemies, and a careful survey of the isthmus of Suez was then made. From that time onwards plans were con- tinually agitated by French engineers for the con- struction of a ship canal, which should open a short water-route to the Indies, and in 1856 the concession for such a work was granted to M. de Lesseps. The result was the completion (in 1869) of the greatest engineering enterprise of modern times — the ship canal which unites Port Said on the Mediterranean with Suez at the head of the Red Sea, 100 miles in length. Such an increase of prestige had been gained by Egypt through this and other important works of FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 179 advancement, that in 1866, by imperial firman, the title of Khedive, or " King " of Egypt, was granted to the late ruler (the fifth of the line of Mehemet Ali), with powers which made him practically an inde- pendent prince, yielding homage only to the Porte. The ambition of Ismail Pasha enormously increased the extension of the Egyptian territory. Darfur, to the west of the Nile, was incorporated ; Sir Samuel Baker, and later General Gordon, conquered the whole Nile basin up to near the margin of the great lakes ; and Harar, with Berbera, and other places, were acquired on the Gulf of Aden. 46. These conquests, no less than a wasteful ex- penditure in other directions, brought Egypt to the brink of national bankruptcy. The Christian powers persuaded the Sultan to depose Ismail Pasha, and to appoint his son Khedive in his stead. This was in 1879, ^^^ already in 1881 the tribes in the Sudan, headed by a Mahdi or prophet, rose upon their Egypto- Turkish governors, whilst in Egypt itself Arabi headed a revolution, with the object of placing the government of the country into the hands of natives of Egypt. It was then that England interfered. Alexandria was bombarded on July 12, 1882, and Arabi's forces crushed in the battle of Tel el Kebir on September 13. Egypt was advised to abandon the Sudan, but only consented to this sacrifice after the Mahdi had annihilated Hicks Pasha's army, at Kash- gil, on November 3, 1883. Soon afterwards General Gordon, failing to stem the revolt, died at his post (1885). The Mahdi was succeeded in 1885 by the t8o sketch of historical GEOGRAPHY Khalifa Abdallah, who was overthrown at the battle of Omdurman in 1898, when the Sudan was restored to Egypt and constituted the present Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. 47. Beyond Egypt on the Mediterranean coast-land, Tripoli, with the territories of Barka and Fezzan, remains a province of the Ottoman Empire; but Tunis, still farther west, has virtually become a de- pendency of France. 48. For many years previous to the opening of the Suez Canal, the Turkish power in Arabia had been allowed to fall into abeyance, the struggle of the Egyptians with the strong nation of the Wahabis having been abandoned about 1849. After the open- ing of the great highway, however, it became im- portant that these regions should be under settled government, and accordingly, through the influence of France and Britain, active means were taken by the Turkish Government for their recovery in 1871. Between that year and 1873, the whole of the coast- land of the Red Sea was recovered and formed into the two governments of Hejaz and Yemen. The Turks have also wrested the coast-land of the Per- sian Gulf from the Wahabis, extending their rule from the Euphrates delta to the island of Bahrein^ and forming this seaboard into the government of ^'El Hasa." Thus, the Wahabi kingdom of the Nejd has been again restricted to the central region of the Arabian peninsula, and the Turkish borders have been extended to meet those of the independent state of Oman, or Muscat, in the south-eastern corner of Arabia. FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. i8i 49. Muscat, as we have noticed in a former chapter (p. 83), was one of the earliest conquests of the Portuguese, under Albuquerque, after their advance round the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Seas. It remained in their hands for nearly a century and a half, till it was recovered by the Arabs. When the Portuguese were finally expelled (about 1735) from the northern parts of the East African coast, the Imam of Muscat also took possession of their former settlements about Zanzibar. The greatest extension of native power in this state was obtained during the reign of Said Seid, who reigned in Muscat from 1803 till 1856, extending the Sultanate of Oman not only over the south-eastern portions of Arabia, and on the Zanzibar coast of Africa, but to the opposite shores of the Gulf, to Bunder Abbas and Linga on the Persian coast, and the island of Ormuz between. On the death of this ruler his dominion was divided between his sons, the one becoming Sultan of Zanzibar, the other retaining the sovereignty of the Asiatic provinces, which have dwindled in extent. The possessions on the Persian coast w^ere restored to Persia in 1867, while the incursions of the Bedouins from the desert, and of the Wahabis from the Nejd, have again reduced the Sultanate of Muscat to the immediate vicinity of its capital. 50. Before passing across to Africa, we must notice the British station of Aden, on the south- west Arabian coast, on the route to India. Though exceedingly important from its position at the i82 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY entrance to the Red Sea, and having on this ac- count been an ancient mart of Asiatic commerce, to which even the Chinese were wont to come, this "Eye of Yemen" is a hot barren volcanic crater that would never have attracted attention or invited residence but for its geographical position. Its situation, however, made it a very desirable vantage point. Not long after it began to be thus coveted, in 1838, a British vessel was shipwrecked off its coasts, and the crew being ill-treated and plundered, restitution was forced from the native Arabian sultan, and terms of cession of his territory to Britain were agreed upon. Repenting of his trans- action, the chief would have withdrawn his consent, but was held to the bargain by force of arms ; since 1839 Aden has become a strong British fortress, and has gathered a population from all quarters of the earth. 51. On the other side of the Red Sea, in Africa, rises the wedge-like plateau of Abyssinia, the top of which, somewhat more extensive in area than the United Kingdom, is occupied by the mixed peoples — primitive Ethiopians, Arabs, Jews, Gallas, and true Negroes — whose name, Abyssinians, from the Arabic habesh — " confusion," refers to this variety of origin. The name is not less applicable to the political condition of the country, for it has been the scene of continual struggles for mastery, warfare within and without. Christianity appears to have gained ground here as early as the fourth century, and two centuries later the Abyssinians FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 183 were powerful enough to invade Arabia and conquer Yemen. The Mohammedan tide of conquest took the coast-land of the Red Sea from Abyssinia. The Portuguese, arriving in the fifteenth century, for a time raised the kingdom to importance, but its later history is of continual changes ; one or other of the chieftains of its clans gaining, it may be, the sovereignty over the whole plateau, only to lose it again by fresh revolutions. This condition of affairs was well illustrated in the events which made the British Abyssinian expedition of 1868 a necessity. The chief Theodore having raised him- self by conquest from the condition of the leader of a band of robbers to be for a brief period ^' King of kings of Ethiopia," and failing to be immediately recognised as a rightful sovereign by European powers, imprisoned and held captive the few British subjects and foreign missionaries who happened to be in the country. All peaceable efforts for their release having failed, a British force landed at Annesley Bay, near Massowa, on the Red Sea, and passed in an arduous march along the high eastern edge of the table-land towards the fortress of Magdala, whither Theodore had retreated. He now surrendered his prisoners ; but his personal surrender was required. Magdala was stormed, and Theodore fell by his own hand (1868). 52. Since then A-byssinia has again been the scene of contests between rivals for supreme power ; but in the end King John, of Tigre, was acknow- ledged king of kings. After his death (1889) Menelik, i84 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY King of Shoa; acquired the overlordship, and re- moved the imperial capital to Addis Abeba in the extreme south. He has extended his sway over Gallaland and a great part of Somaliland, and maintained his independence against the claims to a protectorate made by the Italians, who were de- feated with great slaughter at the battle of Adowa in 1896. They have, however, retained their colony of Eritrea^ with its capital Massowa, and a large section of Somaliland. The rest of Somaliland has been occupied by the English along the north coast (Zeila, Bulbar, Berbera), and by the French in the north-west (Obok, Tajura Bay, Jibutil). 53. The Suaheli, or Zanzibar coast, farther south, is, as we have already seen, in the hands of Arabs from Oman, though the power of the Sultan is now virtually confined to the two islands of Zan- zibar and Pemba, his territory on the mainland having passed into the hands of the English and Germans. The Sultan, however, is still the tutelar sovereign of the British East Africa Protectorate up to ten miles inland. But since 1890, when he accepted the British protectorate, he has become little more than a British pensioner with a privy purse limited to about ^25,000. Facing Zanzibar lies German East Africa, which was occupied in 1884, and now extends inland to Lakes Nyasa, Tanganyika, and Victoria, with area 384,000 square miles, coast-line 620 miles, and population (1906) 6,700,000. Southwards follows Portuguese East Africay between Cape Delgado and Delagoa Bay, with three FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 185 districts (Mozambique, Zambesia, and Lourenzo Mar- quez), with area 294,000 square miles, and popula- tion (1906) 3,120,000. 54. Still farther on we come upon the regions of South Africa which have passed under British rule — the Cape Colony, Natal, and dependencies. The British gained final possession of the Cape Colony in 1806, after the fleet had been sent out to aid the Prince of Orange in recovering the pos- session for the Dutch from the settlers, who, in- fluenced by the revolutionary ideas then spreading in Europe, had rebelled against the mother country, and after the Batavian Republic had come under Napoleon's power. At this time the territory did not exceed a third of its present area ; for the colonists had not spread beyond the Hottentot country, nor as far as the Fish River in the east, nor beyond the Great Karroo, the central mountain range. The Treaty of Paris in 1815 gave Britain formal possession. Before this the ^^ Boers," or peasant farmers of the colony, extending eastward, had come in contact with the warlike Kafir tribes beyond the Fish River, and had fought the great Kafir War of 181 1. The Kafirs invaded the terri- tory west of the Fish River in 1818; but they were unable to stand against the guns with which the colonists were armed ; this second war terminated in the annexation of a large slice of their territory. A third Kafir invasion, in 1830, had the same result, the invaders being driven back, and more of their territory — this time as far as the Kei River — being i86 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY added to the colony. The emancipation of slaves throughout all the British dominions in 1833 had the effect, in the Cape Colony, of increasing the already existing dissatisfaction of the Dutch Boers with British rule, to such an extent that many thou- sands of them left the Cape Colony, marching with all their belongings northward across the Orange River and the Drakenberg Mountains ; one section of them founding what is now the colony of Natal, another the Orange State, and a third settling in the Transvaal ; while a body of the Griquas or ** Bastards," a race sprung from the intercourse of the Boers with their Hottentot slaves, settled them- selves in the neighbourhood of the confluence of the Orange and Vaal rivers. A fourth great Kafir War, in 1846, terminated as before in the further extension of the colonial limits, which were now declared to be the Orange River on the north, and ^' British Kaffraria," the space between the Kei and Keiskama River on the east, occupied at first by the Kafir tribes who had been dispossessed of their lands to the westward by the colonists. Still a fifth Kafir War broke out in 1857, and a sixth in 1863, after which British Kaffraria was finally incorpo- rated with the colony. In 1868 the Basutos, or mountain Bechuanas, who occupy the hill country at the head of the Orange River, were proclaimed British subjects. A great discovery of the presence of diamonds was made in the country near the junction of the Vaal and Orange rivers in 1867, the country to which the Griquas had emigrated FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 187 in 1833, and thither rushed thousands from all parts of the world. In 1871 this diamondiferous district was annexed to Cape Colony as Griqualand West. Since then South Bechuanaland has been incorpo- rated with Cape Colony, and a protectorate pro- claimed over North Bechuanaland up to the Zambesi. At the same time the vast region between the Lim- popo and Lake Tanganyika has been organised partly under the Chartered Company (South, North-west, and North-east Rhodesia), partly as a protectorate (Barotseland), and partly as a separate colony (British East Central Africa, i.e. the British Nyasa- land Protectorate, as renamed in 1907). 55. Since 1870 the limits of the Cape Colony have been expanded eastwards by the peaceful submission of a number of the chiefs and tribes of formerly in- dependent Kaffraria to British rule. What may be called a seventh Kafir War, in 1877, resulted in the incorporation of further territories with the colony, and since then the rest of the coast as far as Natal has been proclaimed British territory. 56. Natal was first brought under European in- fluence by the migrating Boers from the Cape Colony in 1838 ; but they had scarcely entered it when their main body was set upon and massacred by the Zulu Kafirs at a place which bears the significant name of Weenen (^^ weeping") to this day. A war of retalia- tion began, and led to the interference of the British governor of Cape Colony ; after a brave struggle the Boers were overcome, the country being proclaimed British in 1843, and in 1856 erected into a special colony. i88 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 57. The Orange State, in the interior, immediately north of the Orange River, was also settled by the Boers from the Cape, and fell to the British at the same time as Natal, when it became known as the Orange River Sovereignty. But in 1854 it recovered its independence, and continued to enjoy full auto- nomy as the Orange Free State till 1900, when it was re-occupied by the English as the Orange River Colony, in consequence of its participation in the Boer invasion of British territory in 1899. In 1907 representative government was restored under the British Crown. 58. The new republic founded in the Transvaal by the Boer trekkers about 1836 continued to prosper till about 1876, when conflicts took place with the Zulu Kafirs on its eastern limits, especially in the district of Lydenburg, where rich goldfields had been dis- covered ; the Boers were defeated by the now well-armed Kafirs, and disorders in the financial government of the State brought it into a condition of hopeless anarchy and to the verge of ruin. At this crisis, and to avert the impending invasion of the State by the powerful Kafir chiefs on its eastern borders, the British intervened ; and in 1877 the Transvaal was annexed. But the Boers again rose, and in 1881 the '^ South African Republic" was acknowledged, with reservations. Then the Jameson Raid, the discovery of gold, and the harsh treatment of the British " outlanders " led to the South African war of 1899-1902, resulting in the annexation of the two Boer States. Both, however, were granted repre- sentative government in 1906-07. FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 189 59. On the Atlantic seaboard we next come to the unproductive districts of Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, inhabited the former by Nama Hotten- tots, the latter by Ova-Herero Bantus. These districts were provisionally annexed to Cape Colony in 1878, but afterwards abandoned, all but Walfish Bay. In 1884 the whole region was occupied by Germany, and now forms the colony of German South- West Africa. From the Cunene, separating them from German territory, the Portuguese West African possessions extend for over 1000 miles along the coast to and beyond the Lower Congo, and are now conterminous in the north with French Congo and the Congo Free State, and in the interior with the Free State and with British South Africa. They comprise the six adminis- trative districts of Congo, Loanda (Angola), Benguella, Mossamedes, Huitla, and Lunda. Angola^ as Portu- guese West Africa is officially called, has a collective area of 485,000 square miles and a population of over 4,000,000. There is a railway running from Loanda, the capital on the coast, for 278 miles to and beyond Ambaca in the interior. 60. The Congo International Association, founded in 1882 by Leopold, King of the Belgians, was recog- nised by the Berlin Congress of 1885 as the Congo Free State, and placed under King Leopold, who in 1889 bequeathed all his rights to Belgium. He is represented by a governor-general, who administers the territory in accordance with his orders. The State comprises most of the Congo basin, with an area of 900,000 square miles and an estimated popu- 190 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY lation of 30,000,000, mainly exploited in the interests of the king and of trading companies responsible to him. There are fourteen administrative districts, 300 miles of railway, numerous steamers on the navigable waters, and a large army, mostly cannibals, chiefly employed in the forced collection of ivory, rubber, and other local produce. French Congo occupies nearly all the seaboard between the Free State and the German Kameruns, and stretches inland to the Ubanghi and thence north to Lake Chad, with area 680,000 square miles and population (1907) 10,000,000. The German colony, founded in 1884 and lying between French Congo and British Nigeria, extends from the Kameruns through Adamawa to Lake Chad, with area 191,000 square miles and population (1905) 3,500,000. 61. Of the high volcanic islands in the Gulf of Guinea, two. Princes Island and St. Thomas, have belonged to Portugal since their discovery ; the other two, Annobom and Fernando Po, the largest, have been given over to Spain. 62. Lagos, formerly the chief centre of the slave traffic, was captured by the English in 1851, and per- manently occupied in 1861. Since then the Yoruba hinterland has been added, together with most of Central Sudan between the Lower Niger and Lake Chad, bordering north on French Sudan and south on the German Kameruns. The whole region, pre- viously administered by the Royal Niger Company, came under direct Imperial control in 1900, and is now consolidated as Northern and Southern Nigeria, FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 191 with total area 310,000 square miles and population estimated in 1906 at 25,000,000. Sokoto, capital of the late Mohammedan Fulah Empire, was captured in 1902, and in 1906 the old colony of Lagos was included in Southern Nigeria, as the ancient kingdom of Bornu was in Northern Nigeria. 63. After the discovery of the Gold Coast the Por- tuguese founded (1481) the fort of El Mina, ^^the mine," which with their other settlements fell to the Dutch in 1641. The British first formed trading stations here in 1667, and were followed by the Danes and Brandenburgers. At the back of these colonies the native kingdom of Ashanti rose to power in the eighteenth century. In the course of their conquest of the Fantee tribes near the coast, the Ashantis first came in contact with the British in 1807, becoming involved in a war which lasted till 1826, when they were driven inland. The Danish settlements were acquired by purchase in 1850, and those of the Dutch in 1872, when the entire coast remained in British hands. In two subsequent wars the Ashantis were completely reduced, and their capital, Kumasi, per- manently occupied in 1901. The neighbouring king- dom of Dahomey had been conquered by the French in 1893, and in 1884 the Germans occupied the little district of Togoland (33,000 square miles), between Dahomey and the British Crown Colony of the Gold Coast. 64. In 1883 the French occupied the Ivory Coast between the Gold Coast and Cape Palmas, beyond which follows the negro republic of Liberia, When 192 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY the presence of freed slaves in America had begun to be found an incubus, a committee of philanthropists was formed in America in 1816, with the object of founding a colony for freed negroes, and giving them an opportunity of self-improvement. In 1822 a com- pact was made with some of the native chiefs of the Pepper or Grain Coast of Upper Guinea for the acquirement of a tract of land ; thither the emanci- pated negroes were sent, and were expected to till the soil, and collect the palm oil with which the coun- try abounds. A settlement was first formed at Cape Mesurado and named Monrovia, and the new colony was styled Liberia, the land of the freed. New settlements were founded, other tracts of land pur- chased, and in 1847 the colony proclaimed itself an independent republic, adopting a constitution in imitation of that of the United States. Some years later an adjoining colony at Cape Palmas, named Maryland, was incorporated. The state, how- ever, has not realised the ardent expectations formed of it ; the American ^^ civilised " negroes, few in num- ber comparatively, seem for the most part to have relapsed into indolence — the stamp of the republic being generally that of a caricature of its model ; though it has established a very considerable trade with Europe and America. Area, 45,000 square miles; population (1907), 2,000,000. 65. On the north-western border of Liberia lies the British settlement of the peninsula of Sierra Leone, or the '^Lion Hill," the origin of which in 1787 we have already referred to. In 1808 it was made into FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 193 a colony, and used as a refuge at which the slaves captured by the British cruisers along the coast were debarked. In 1875 Gambia; founded in 1806, was attached to Sierra Leone, but in 1888 again erected into a separate colony. Passing over a few isolated French and Portuguese settlements which lie between these two detached British possessions, we come to the old West African settlement of the French, between the Gambia and the Senegal rivers. 66. The French arrived on this coast about 1650; their ^'Senegal Company" dates from 1685, and since about 1880 French West Africa, as the colony is officially called, has acquired an enormous develop- ment. It now comprises the whole region between the Atlantic and the Upper Niger, with most of the great bend, Timbuktu (occupied 1894), the Ivory Coast, Dahomey, and the tracts lying between the Niger and Lake Chad north of British Nigeria, besides the Western Sahara. There are five great administrative divisions, with total area 2,830,000 square miles and population (1905) 15,273,000. 67. Off the coast lie the Cape de Verd Islands and the Canary group. The former, after their discovery in 1460 by the Venetian Ca da Mosto, were taken possession of by the Portuguese, but remained a private property till 1692, when they passed to the Portuguese Crown, and with the settlements on the opposite continental coast form the '^ Province of Cape Verd." The Canaries have been Spanish since the end of the fifteenth century, but Madeira has re- mained from that time in the hands of the Portuguese, N 194 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY except during its occupation by the British from 1807 till 1 814. Madeira, which with the neighbouring islets of Porto Santo and the rocky Desertas, has an area of 370 square miles and a population (1900) of 150,000, lies 560 miles from Lisbon and 430 from Cape Cantin, the nearest point on the Morocco coast. Before the discovery it had never been occupied by man, so that most of its inhabitants are the descend- ants of the early Portuguese settlers. The surface is mountainous, being traversed in its entire length by an elevated range at a mean height of 4000 feet, and culminating in the Pico Ruivo (6100). Its mild and salubrious climate, combined with its picturesque scenery, makes Madeira a favourite health resort, especially for invalids from Great Britain. Funchal, the capital on the south coast, has a mean annual temperature of 65° F., ranging from 60° in winter to about 72° in summer, is pleasantly situated at the foot of these hills, and has steamer communication with Lisbon and Liverpool. 68. Owing to chronic internal disorders and pres- sure from without, Morocco has almost ceased to be an independent state, and seems kept together mainly by the jealousy of rival European powers. An international congress held at Algeciras in 1906 entrusted the maintenance of order on the seaboard to France and Spain. But since then the massacre of Europeans in the capital and on the coast has called for the active intervention of these two powers, and the occupation of Ujdah by the French. The situation is aggravated by the revolt of Raisuli and FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 195 other powerful chiefs, and by the appearance (1907) of a rival to the throne of the reigning Sultan. 69. In completing the circuit of the continent we come to Algeria, which we left in the last chapter in the hands of the ^' nation of corsairs," who by their piracies had so often drawn upon themselves the vengeance of the maritime powers of Europe. While Napoleonic wars were in progress the presence of strong fleets in the Mediterranean kept them in har- bour, but at the close of the wars their raids began as vigorously as ever. The Americans this time took the lead, and after defeating the Algerian fleet off Carta- gena (181 5), compelled the Dey to respect the Ameri- can flag ; then the British and Dutch fleets furiously bombarded Algiers, and rescued the Christians who had been detained there, but still next year (181 7) the corsairs were as busy as ever, and now ventured to extend their piracies even to the North Sea. Be- tween this time and 1823 French ships suffered severely, and in consequence of one of the disputes that arose the Dey wrote an angry letter to the King of France : to this no reply was sent, and the Dey, summoning the French consul, asked why his master remained silent. To this the consul is reported to have replied that a King of France could not con- descend to correspond with a Dey of Algiers, on which the Dey struck the consul and roundly abused the king. This insult brought a French squadron to Algiers in 1827, and for three years a blockade of the coast was maintained. In 1830, 40,000 men effected a landing, Algiers was again bombarded, and capitu- 196 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY lated on the 6th of July. From this time forward till 1857 ^he arduous task of the conquest of Algeria was in progress. Seven years of fighting were required to master the coast-land, and the towns which lie along it. The Tell country, or fertile slope of the moun- tains facing the Mediterranean, was not brought under French rule till 1845; ^^om that time till 1847 the battle was waged along the Moroccan frontier, and then eastward towards Tunis. Between 1857 ^"^ 1859 ^h^ contest was carried inland over the high plateaus and down into the Algerian Sahara beyond. Until 1864 sanguinary conflicts were constantly occur- ring with the Kabyles or Berbers of the mountains, descendants of the fiery Numidians. The great enemy of the French in this conflict was Abd-el-Kader, the brave leader of the Arab tribes of Oran, who had seized the opportunity of the downfall of the Turkish Dey at Algiers to make themselves independent, and who in their later struggles against the French were aided by the Sultan of Morocco. The capture of Abd- el-Kader in 1847, ^fter he had troubled the French for fifteen years, was one of the most important points of the conquest. The arduous character of the struggle for this possession may be estimated when it is known that the French troops had at times to be raised to a strength of 100,000 men, and that a sum of 120 millions of pounds sterling was spent in military operations. Till 1871 the country remained under strict military rule, and it was not till that time that a civil administration in the pro- vinces of Oran, Algiers, and Constantine could be FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 197 safely organised. The acquisition of Tunis, in 1881, has already been noticed. 70. Having thus completed a rapid survey of the possessions which lie round the margins of Africa, we may now glance at one or two of the more prominent of the discoveries which have been made within the vast continent by the host of European explorers who have besieged its hidden regions from all sides during the nineteenth century. Among the earliest travellers of this period were the Englishmen Clapperton, Oudney, and Denham, who started from Tripoli, and after crossing the Great Desert, first reached the state of Bornu, in the Sudan, and saw the great shallow Lake Chad. In 1826, Major Laing first reached the famed city of TiinbuktUy which had been known by report to Europeans since the fourteenth century, paying for his hardly won knowledge by his life. Then the French- man Caillie brought back an account of this great centre of commerce ; and the German, Heinrich Barth, returned from his six years of travel to and fro in the Sudan (1849-55). It was not till after these arduous journeys that any distinct conception could be formed of the political condition of the great fertile belt of Central Africa which lies south of the barrier of the vast Sahara. Then came to light the great series of Mohammedan states which lie between Darfur on the east and Senegambia on the west — Wadai, Bornu, and the Fellatah states of Central Sudan. 71. The powerful state of Bornu, in which the descendants of Arabs are the ruling race over the 198 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY far more numerous negro inhabitants, had its first Moslem ruler as early as 1086, and seems to have reached the zenith of its power in the twelfth century, when its limits extended over Fezzan on the north. 72. The states lying westward — Sokoto, Gando, Masena — with many minor ones, owe their founda- tion to the Fulahs or Fellatahs, who appear to have been converted to Mohammedanism as lately as the middle of the eighteenth century, and who have been extending their religious wars of conquest eastward over the Niger basin since 1802, and long con- tinued to spread their influence farther into the pagan domain of Central Negroland. 73. Among the many notable points in the pro- gress of South African discovery, it may suffice to recall here the first crossing of the continent by Livingstone, and his exploration of the course of the great river Zambesi in 1854-55 ; the discovery of the snowy mountains of the eastern equatorial zone by the missionaries Rebmann and Krapf in 1849, and the news they gathered on their travels of the vast lakes in the interior ; Captain Burton's discovery of the Tanganyika Lake, and Speke's first view of the Ukerewe, or Victoria Nyanza, in 1858; Speke and Grant's subsequent exploration of the Victoria Lake, an expanse of water nearly as large as Scotland, and their discovery that the Nile flowed from its northern shores ; Livingstone's arrival at the Nyasa in 1859; Sir Samuel Baker's discovery of the Albert Lake in 1864; the exploration of the lake chain of the Lualaba by Livingstone in 1866-70; Commander FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 199 Cameron's journey across the equatorial region from Indian Ocean to Atlantic in 1874-75 ; and Stanley's brave voyage down the Congo in 1876-77. 74. The geographical conquest of the continent has been all but completed by the later explora- tions of Junker about the Nile-Congo divide ; of Bottego, Donaldson Smith, Butter, Maud, Harri- son, and others in Somaliland and amongst the romantic lakes between Abyssinia and Lake Rudolf ; of Wellby, Crosby, Austin, and Macmillan between Rudolf and the White Nile ; of Dybowski, Maistre, Lenfant, and Chevalier about the Congo-Chad water- parting ; and by Foureau, Gautier, Laperrine, Thieve- nant, and Hans Vischer in the Sahara, all during the decade ending in 1906. The political conquest has proceeded with equal rapidity, and by 1908 the whole of Africa, except Abyssinia, Liberia, and Morocco, had been distributed amongst eight Euro- pean powers — Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Por- tugal, Italy, Belgium, and Turkey. 75. The physiography of the land is now thoroughly understood. The great divides between the northern and the southern sections have been crossed and re-crossed, and the hydrographic systems of the four main arteries — Nile, Congo, Niger, and Zambesi — clearly defined. Even the Sahara has been crossed in various directions, and Bilma, one of the chief strategical points, permanently occupied by the French. But the great desert has not yet been traversed in its entire length either from west to east or from east to west. 200 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 76. Coming now to America, we may rapidly sm'vey the political changes that have taken place in that region since the beginning of the last century. At that time England was at war with Spain, the ally of France, and, owing to the open disaffection of the colonists of La Plata, had some hopes of acquiring that region, which had already become the most considerable mart of Spanish America, and whither the steady tide of immigration from all parts of Europe was setting. In the year 1806, ac- cordingly, a British squadron of five vessels entered the La Plata, took Maldonado, on the north coast of the inlet, and advanced upon the city of Buenos Ayresy which capitulated at once. The triumph, however, was of brief duration, for the people soon rallied and compelled the British to retreat to Maldonado again. Next year Monte Video was carried by assault, but a second attempt to gain Buenos Ayres was a com- plete failure ; and a convention was entered into by which the British abandoned La Plata. The Spanish-American colonists thus gained a knowledge of their strength in repelling a force stronger than that of their rulers ; for a time they had remained faithful to Spain, but disaffection showed itself unmistakably when the French under Napoleon had occupied Spain, and when the Bourbons were de- throned by him in 1808. An agent of Napoleon was then sent out to induce the colonists to swear fealty to Joseph Bonaparte, but was put under arrest for his pains. A claim made by the Prince Regent of Por- tugal was likewise rejected for several years. Under FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 201 a provisional government, the people of the La Plata were divided in opinion, some desiring a monarchy, others a new organisation and independence. 77. Paraguay was the first to assert her right to self- government, having become not only free from the authority of Spain, but independent also of the other states of La Plata, as early as 181 1. On the other extreme limit of Spanish America, in Mexico, the dis- content which had been gaining ground against the viceregal government during Napoleon's wars in the Peninsula broke out in open rebellion ; Chile in the south now also began the war for independence. The patriots of the Captain-Generalship of Caracas or Venezuela, under the leadership of the famous Simon Bolivar, claimed independence in 1810, but the country was restored for two years more to its allegiance. In 1 81 3, however, Bolivar entered Caracas as con- queror, and was hailed as liberator of Venezuela. In 1 81 6, an assembly of representatives from all the provinces of the La Plata met at Tucuinan, where a declaration of independence was drawn up. Four governments were formed from the former vice- royalties of Buenos Ayres, Paraguay, Alto Peru or Bolivia, the Banda Oriental (eastern side of the Uru- guay river) or Uruguay, and the united provinces of La Plata. The victories of Tuya and Boyaca released New Granada and Ecuador, and in 181 9 the Republic of Colombia was declared. The battle of Maypii achieved the independence of Chile in 181 8; that of Ayacucho, the freedom of Upper Peru, now called Bolivia in honour of the liberator. The Republic 202 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY of Colombia also became independent of the mother country in 1819, ^^^^ ^^e three states composing it remained in union till 1830. Mexico finally established its freedom in 1 824. Peru, the first formed viceroyalty in South America, was the last to set up the standard of independence ; it remained completely in the hands of Spain till 1820, but then, aided by patriots from Chile and by English volunteers, it quickly gained its independence. Before 1823, the Central American States had also thrown off the rule of Spain and formed themselves into a federal republic, composed of the states of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Salvador, and Costa Rica — a confederation which held together till 1839. Thus before 1825 all the vast continental posses- sions of Spanish America were separated from the mother country and divided into a number of sepa- rate republics, in too many of which a continual round of revolutions forms the sum of their subse- quent history. 78. We have already remarked, in noticing events in Portugal, that under the threat of Napoleon's in- vasion the royal family transferred itself thence to Brazil in 1807 ; the seat of government of Portugal was for the time transferred to Rio de Janeiro. After the combined efforts of the British and Portuguese had freed Portugal from the French, on the death of Queen Maria in 18 10, the Regent succeeded to the joint crowns of Portugal and Brazil. The continued residence of the new king at Rio de Janeiro, however, gave rise to discontent at home, and ultimately to the FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 203 revolution of 1820 at Lisbon, and to the proclamation of a constitutional form of government there. Brazil, on shaking off the imperial yoke like its neighbours, found a merely nominal revolution sufficient, and accepted a hereditary monarchy instead of a restless republican system, its independence being ratified by King Joao, and its government placed in the hands of Dom Pedro his son — an arrangement which lasted till 1889, when Brazil became a republic. 79. Of all the vast extent of Spanish America there remain now under the government of the mother country only the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico in the West Indies. The misgovernment of the former, and the exclusion of the native-born Creole element from all offices and emoluments, drove that island into rebellion, resulting in the conquest of both islands by the United States in the Spanish- American War of 1898. 80. The island of Hayti or Hispaniola, lying between Cuba and Puerto Rico, and nearly as large as Scot- land, has had a remarkably disturbed history. On its shores the first settlement of Spanish America was placed by Columbus, and after the aboriginal Indians had been swept away it became one of the earliest fields of negro slavery. During the seven- teenth century the buccaneers and filibusters of the Caribbean Sea made its western harbours their great haunt, and, as they were chiefly French, this part of the island was ceded to France by the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. For nearly a century the buc- caneers imported great numbers of Africans ; an 204 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY intermediate race of mulattoes sprang up, and soon the mutual antipathies of these three colours gave rise to the terrible internecine struggle of 1791, which ended in the extermination of the once domi- nant Europeans. In 1 80 1 a fruitless effort was made by France to recover this dependency. For a time a negro named Dessalines was ^^ Emperor of Hayti/' after which revolution on revolution changed the poli- tical condition to and fro from republic to monarchy or despotism. In 1843 the inhabitants of the eastern or Spanish portion of Hayti formed themselves into the Dominican Republic, which during 1861-65 placed itself under the authority of Spain, but in the latter year again proclaimed the republic and expelled the Spanish troops. 8i. Returning to the mainland of North America, some important points must be noted in the history of Mexico after its rise to independence. After Louisiana had been purchased from the French by the United States in 1803, the territory of Texas, lying between that and Mexico, became a debat- able land, claimed alike by Spain and by the United States ; till 1837 Texas was the scene of continual disturbances brought about by the attempts of the Americans to wrest the country from the Mexicans, the warlike native Apache and Comanche Indians keeping up the unsettled condition of the land. In 1837, however, after an unsuccessful Mexican invasion, Texas became for a few years an independent republic, which in 1845 was annexed to the United States. As FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 205 Mexico had never recognised the independence of Texas, this annexation gave rise to a war with the United States ; hostilities were carried on for three years, and the city of Mexico was stormed and taken. During a series of revolutions between 1850 and i860, such wanton aggressions were committed against foreign residents in Mexico as to provoke the inter- ference of European powers, and in April 1862 the French Emperor declared war against the republic. In June of the following year the French troops entered the capital, a provisional monarchy was set up, and the crown was accepted by the ill- fated Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria. The repugnance of the United States to the estab- lishment of an empire on its borders led to the removal of the French troops, when the repub- licans immediately rose to arms, defeated the Impe- rialists, and Maximilian, betrayed into their hands, was executed in 1867. After this the republican constitution of 1857 again came into operation. 82. The marvellous changes which have been brought about in the North American continent by the expansion of the Republic of the United States now claim attention, as they have no parallel in the history of the globe. At the beginning of the last century four States had been added to the original thirteen which lay along the Atlantic slope of the Alleghany mountains ; now the territory of the United States reaches across from Atlantic to Pacific. In 1800 the States already had a popula- tion of 6 millions, which in 1908 had increased to 2o6 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY nearly 87 millions. The continent was crossed for the first time by Alexander Mackenzie in 1793, and again by Lewis and Clarke in 1804; yet a railway had already been opened from ocean to ocean in 1869. The interior was still roamed by the natives at the beginning of the last century ; now but few survive, interesting because disappearing or becoming incorporated with the stronger race. A few leading points in the history of the develop- ment of the United States may be recalled. 83. On the death of the first president, the seat of government of the Republic was removed in 1800 to the city on the Potomac which he had planned for the capital, and which bears his name of Washington. Three years after this the area of the territory of the United States was more than doubled by the acquisition of Louisiana. During Napoleon's wars the debated right of search of American vessels for British-born subjects to be impressed into the naval service, gave rise to disputes and then to a war, in which Canada was invaded from the United States, and Washington city was taken (1814) by the British fleet. Peace once more restored, the rapid tide of European immigration required the formation of seven new States within the first twenty years of the century.^ The peninsula of Florida also was ceded by Spain in 18 12. Before this time slavery had been gradually abolished in the northern and middle States, but was retained in the purely agricultural 1 Ohio 1802, Louisiana 1812, Indiana 1816, Mississippi 1817, Illinois 1818, Alabama 1819, Maine 1820. FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 207 States of the south. Two sections were thus formed in the RepubHc. 84. The war with Mexico for the possession of Texas has been previously referred to. Just before the treaty which concluded it, after the occupation of the capital city of Mexico by the American troops, the discovery of gold was made in Upper California, an event which was to work the most marvellously rapid change in the condition of all western America. The Mexican treaty, concluded immediately after, added New Mexico and Upper California to the United States ; men rushed thither from all parts of the world, San Francisco rose as if by magic to become the great mart of the Pacific coast, and only three years after the discovery of the precious metal gold was exported thence to the value of nine millions sterling. California having been raised to the con- dition of a State, the country inland, between it and the States already formed east of the Mississippi, was rapidly explored and incorporated. 85. In 1854 the attempt to introduce slavery into the central territory of Kansas led to the first active outbreak of the storm which had been brewing be- tween the slave-party and the friends of free labour in the United States, and after a violent contest the latter prevailed. At the presidential election of i860 the northern or abolition party and the southern slaveholders were formally arrayed in opposition in Congress, and the Southern States being outvoted at once began to withdraw from the Union. The legislature of South 2o8 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Carolina was the first to dissolve its union. Missis- sippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed at once, and a year later North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined them ; Kentucky and Missouri were divided between the Northern and Southern inclinations. For the capital of the Southern or rebel government Richmond in Virginia was chosen, and the contest between the Northerns or Federals and the Southerns or Con- federates began with the battle of Bull Run^ near the Potomac River, in July 1861. In the four years' war which ensued, the decisive victory of the Federals at Chattanooga in Tennessee, and the capture of Vicks- burg on the Mississippi, nearly at the same time in 1863, may be said to have been the great turning points of the war, as they re-opened the highway of the great river from its mouth upward, and divided the Confederate States into two portions. The great battle of Petersburg in April 1865, ^Y which the evacuation of Richmond was necessitated, brought the great rebellion to a close. In 1866 all the seceded States were restored to the Union, and slavery ceased to exist in the United States. 86. The remote north-western provinces of America, discovered by Bering on his voyage from Siberia, remained in the hands of the Imperial Russian Fur Trading Company, as a vast hunting ground, from 1799 till 1867. In that year the territory was pur- chased from Russia by the United States, and has since taken the title of the Alaska Territory. At the present time the Union consists of 43 States FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 209 and 4 Territories, each of which is represented accord- ing to its population in the Congress of the Union, but is independent in the management of its internal and local affairs. 87. We now come to British North America. By the Treaty of Utrecht in 171 3, which ended the ten years' conflict of the Wars of the Spanish Succes- sion, the French possessions on the eastern coasts of North America known as Acadia (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland) passed into the hands of Britain. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were not formally settled as colonies by the British till the middle of the eighteenth century, when the French, who with the native Indians had kept up hostilities against the new-comers, were finally ex- pelled or reduced to submission. Newfoundland, on the coasts of which the French still hold the privileges of the cod-fishery, obtained a government of its own in 1728, and Labrador has been included in its administration since 1809. Prince Edward Island, adjoining New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, though settled in 1745, was not finally annexed to Britain till 1763. It takes its name from Edward, Duke of Kent, commander of the British forces in America at the end of the eighteenth century. 88. The conquest of Canada in 1759-60 has already been noted. After the territory had been restricted to its present limits north of the great lakes and the 49th parallel of latitude by the cession of the six sovereign States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, O 210 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to the United States, it was divided in 1791 for a time into two separate provinces ; the eastern one, or Lower Canada, with a larger proportion of French inhabitants, retained its national institutions, and the western province, or Upper Canada, became the English section of the land. Dissensions between these differently consti- tuted provinces increased in malignity, till in 1837 armed insurrections broke out, which were only suppressed after martial law had been proclaimed ; the result of the movement being the union of the provinces under one government in 1841. 89. The whole unoccupied territory west of the Rocky Mountains called Oregon (as far as the 55th degree of N. latitude) was claimed equally by Britain and by the United States, and by a treaty made in 1 818, and renewed in 1827, ^^ ^'^^ agreed that this region should be considered joint property. Its in- creasing importance, however, made it necessary to have some definite line of division, and in 1846 a compromise was made by which Britain held all the land north of the 49th parallel, the United States all south of that line. 90. Vancouver Island, which the Hudson Bay Company had been accustomed to visit regularly for the furs provided by its native Indians, was brought prominently into notice by this boundary question, and was granted in 1849 ^^ the Company^ under the express condition of colonising it. At this time the territory of the Pacific side of the continent north of the 49th parallel was still a part of the hunting FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 211 grounds of the Hudson Bay Company. The dis- covery of gold here in 1857, as in California farther south, drew crowds of adventurers to its shores, and when the monopoly of the Company ceased in 1858, the territory was named British Columbia, and was raised to the rank of a colony. 91. The question of the union of the various British American provinces now began to be discussed, and found favour from the obvious advantages that the plan would confer. It was not till 1867, however, that an Act of the Imperial Parliament was passed uniting federally the separate provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, into one Dominion under the name of Canada, with a constitution modelled on that of the United Kingdom. Subse- quently the Dominion has been extended over the North-West Territory (the Hudson Bay Company's territory and Rupert's Land), which was acquired by purchase in 1869. From this territory the small province of Manitoba, embracing the basin of the Red River next the United States boundary, was formed in 1870. In 1871 British Columbia and Vancouver Island also joined the Dominion ; Prince Edward Island was added in 1873; so that at present Newfoundland alone holds out independently from the rest of the group now included in the Dominion of Canada. 92. Scarcely less wonderful than the rapid develop- ment of the Republic of the United States of America has been that of the Australian colonies of Great Britain. Though Cook had sailed along the greater 212 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY part of the eastern shores of New Holland, and a British colony had been established at Botany Bay in 1788, so little was known even of the coast-line of the new continent that it was not until within two years of the close of the eighteenth century that Dr. Bass, in H.M.S. Reliance^ established the fact that Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) was really separated from the mainland by a strait 150 miles in width. During the year 1803 a vessel carrying a party of convicts and a small armed guard was sent out from England to form another station, like that of Botany Bay, on the shores of Bass's Strait. This party landed at Port Philip (the site of the present city of Melbourne), but considering the country too sterile left the place and crossed the strait to Van Diemen's Land, and formed a camp at Sullivan'' s Cove, where the little settlement struggled through its first years in resisting the attacks of the aborigines. In 1825 another convict station was placed at Moreton Bay, on the north of the New South Wales coast, and West Australia was first occupied in 1826, the Swan River being chosen as the point of settlement. Port Philip, after the first cursory visit to it, does not appear to have attracted attention again till 1835, when a stockowner bartered a quantity of cloth with the natives there for a large tract of land ; his schooner arriving in the mouth of the Yarra Yarra (a stream flowing into Port Philip) was moored to the trees on its banks where the wharves of Melbourne now stand. 93. In 1825, when the settlers in Van Diemen's Land numbered about 3000, Tasmania was raised to FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 213 be a separate colony, and ten years later was under the governorship of Sir John Franklin, of Arctic fame, under whom it made great progress. South Australia was unoccupied till 1836, when a party of 200 colonists landed and began a settlement at the site of the present city of Adelaide. The Swan River Settlement on the west coast had not prospered greatly before 1850, at which date, by petition of the colonists, it received the convicts who were now refused by New South Wales, and between that time and 1868, when the transportation ceased, about 10,000 prisoners were added to its little population. 94. A great event in the history of Australia was the discovery of gold in the Port Philip district of New South Wales in 1850, causing the whole settle- ment to become ^' drunk with gold"; drawing men of all avocations — merchants, sailors, tradesmen — from all parts of the world to the diggings. Up to this time the Port Philip district had been but an appanage of New South Wales ; now it was created into the inde- pendent colony of Victoria, which developed its roads, railways, and manufactures with astonishing rapidity. From New South Wales, on the northern side, the Moreton Bay district was separated in 1859, to form the colony of Queensland, 95. As yet the interior of the continent was all but unknown, though explorers were every year lifting the borders of the veil which covered it. Most prominent of all in the long list of Australian pioneers stands M'Douall Stuart, who after many attempts succeeded in crossing -ihe continent from South Australia to its 214 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY northern shores in 1862. In consequence of the favourable report given by Stuart, the South Austrahan Government determined to attempt the colonisation of the northern territory, which was then added to its existing limits. The experiment was not successful, but within ten years of Stuart's exploring march a line of electric telegraph had been set up all along the route that he followed from sea to sea, uniting South Australia with the Asiatic and European system of communication. From a few hundreds dotted about at various convict stations along the coasts, the population of the five divisions of Australia rose in 1906 to upwards of four millions ; explorers have investigated the interior in all directions ; the large cities of Sydney^ Melbourne^ and Adelaide have arisen, and settlements extend far inland on all sides except- ing the northern seaboard. In 1901 the several states became federated as The Comynonwealth of Australia. 96. No European is known to have resided in New Zealand before 1814, and no attempt at colonisation was made until 1839, when a patch of land at Port Nicholson, in Cook Strait, was bought from the natives for the first party of settlers, by a number of gentle- men who had clubbed together to form a New Zealand Company. Wellington, the present capital, and Auck- land, the former seat of government in the North Island, were first founded in 1840; New Plymouth and Nelson in 1841 ; Dunedin in Otago, by a Scotch company under the auspices of the Free Church, in 1848 ; and Canterbury in 1850, in connection with the Church of England. The first British governor took FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 215 office in 1840, and the history of the colony thence onward until 1865, especially in the North Island, is one of almost constant warfare with the brave and skilful Maori natives. This fine aboriginal race, found by the discoverer Cook living in a state of consider- able civilisation, was in 1906 reduced by incessant„ wars from 200,000 to 48,000, all of whom now live peaceably on the North Island. In 1875 the colony was brought under one administration, and in 190 1 assumed the title of the Dominion of New Zealand, 97. North-east of New Ze3l3.nd the archipelago of the Fill or Fiji Islands forms one of the latest acquisi- tions of the British Crown. As early as 1804 a number of escaped convicts from New South Wales reached their shores, and, remaining there, acquired considerable influence in the tribal wars which were constantly being waged. About 1820 the Wesleyan missionaries began their work here, and so far paved the way for the arrival of white settlers that the num- ber of these had increased in 1905 to over 2500. In 1875 the islands were formed into a British colony. The final partition of New Guinea took place in 1885- 1887, when the N.E. section fell to Germany (^Kaiser Wilhelnt's Landy 70,000 sq. miles) and the S.E. to Britain {British New Guinea^ 90,000 sq. miles), Holland retaining the W. section (152,000 sq. miles). Ger- many also acquired the neighbouring Admiralty, New Britain and New Ireland Islands, now re-named the Bismarck Archipelago (1885), besides the northern sec- tion of the Solomons (1886), and in 1899 all the Mari- anne, Pelew (except Guam), and Caroline groups by 2i6 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY purchase from Spain, and part of Samoa by agreement with England and United States. The rest of Samoa went to the United States, which also wrested from Spain the Philippines and Guam. England took over the Tonga and South Solomon groups, and a sort of Anglo-French Condominium was permanently estab- lished in the New Hebrides by the Convention of 1907. Such are now the political relations in the Pacific Ocean. 98. About 1800 the age of great maritime discovery was closed, Cook and others having shown that no large tracts of habitable land lay about either Pole. Since then extensive ice-bound regions have no doubt been discovered or sighted, especially in the south. But there has been no revelation of lands which can ever be of value for the habitation of men, and, in later years especially, exploration has taken a new direction, aiming rather at the scientific conquest of the globe. In the Antarctic region the South Shetland Isles ^ south-east of Cape Hoorn, were reached by Captain Smith in 1816; the Russian voyager Bellinghausen found the most southerly land then known, Peter Island^ in 182 1 ; Captain Biscoe discovered the coast he named Enderby Land in 1831 ; Balleny the islands named after him in 1839 ; the French commander Dumont D'Urville, Addie Land, in 1840; and Sir James Ross reached the highest south point yet attained in 1841, discovering Victoria Land, with its volcanoes of Erebus and Terror. Then, after a lull, operations were resumed about FROM 1800 TO 1908 A.D. 217 1900, in which the EngUsh, Germans, French, Scan- dinavians, and Belgians took part. Most successful was Captain Scott of the Discovery^ who beat all pre- vious records by reaching the high latitudes of 82° 17' and 83° S. in Victoria Land, which was coasted a long way south and explored on sledges for over 900 miles inland, while east of Cape Adare a new region with snow-clad heights was discovered and named King Edward VI I. Land (1902-3). The German Captain Drygalski of the Gauss failed to sight the supposed Termination Land, and was arrested by a new land at 66° S. In the Arctic seas. Parry, following the inlet of Lancaster Sound, in 1819 reached Melville Island and other barren Arctic islands to which his name has been given ; Scoresby and Graah made known the fiord and glacier coast of East Greenland m. 1822-23 \ the many expeditions in quest of the lost Sir John Franklin and his ships, which had gone on the last search for the North-West Passage, added many hun- dreds of miles of coast-line to the Arctic American shores ; M'Clure discovered and made the North- West Passage in 1850, although his vessel, the Investi- gatory had to be abandoned; Dr. Kane extended know- ledge in Smith Sound in 1853 ; an Austrian expedition in 1872-74 discovered the archipelago north-east of Novaya Zemlya which was named Franz Josef Land ; Captain Markham, of a British expedition under Captain Nares, reached lat. 83° 20' N. ; Nordenskjold effected the North-East Passage, and was the first to circumnavigate Asia ; and Lieutenant Lockwood, of the 2i8 SKETCH OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY American Greely expedition, advanced along the N.W. coast of Greenland to lat. 83° 24'. Then followed Nansen's memorable voyage in the Fram (1895-96). But all previous records were again beaten by the American Captain Peary, who in 1906 reached 87° 6', about 200 miles from the Pole. About the same time other less successful expeditions were made by Captain R. Amundsen of the Gjoa, Lieutenant Hansen, A. H. Harrison, and M. Erichsen ; in 1908 E. Mikkelsen found deep water free of land stretching a long way toward the Pole. 99. The scientific conquest of the globe has begun. Europe is being surveyed with the minutest accuracy of detail, and in every other region the closer weav- ing of a network of routes of exploration is ever in progress. The systematic sounding of the oceans has begun, so that their true depth in every part may be known. As the first representatives of this explora- tion of the deep seas, may be taken the circum- navigation voyages of the British ship Challenger (1872-76); the United States expeditions to the Pacific in the Tuscarora (1874-76) and the Nero (1900) ; the German Gazelle voyage in the same years, and others in 1904-5, when 675 soundings were taken in the Pacific ; that of the Norwegian ship Voringen between Norway and Iceland in 1875-76; and the latest German, French, British, and other oceanic surveys. INDEX Abbas the Great, 105 Abbasides, dynasty of, 31, 33,76 Abbeville, iii Abdallah, Khalifa, 180 Abd-el-Kader, 196 Abd-ur-Rahman, 174 Aboukir Bay, 149 Abraham, Heights of, 138 Abu Bekr, wars of, 27 Abyssinia, 27, 66, 145, 182, 198, 199 Acadia, 209 Acapulco, 138 Achin, loi Acre, 49 Actium, battle of, 18 Adamawa, 190 Adare, Cape, 217 Addis Abeba, 184 Adelaide, 213, 214 Ad61ie Land, 216 Aden, 179, 181-2 Adige River, 149 Admiralty Islands, 215 Adowa, 184 Adrianople, Peace of, 159 Adriatic provinces, Aus- trian, 150 Adriatic Sea, 14, 15, 47, 49 ^gean Sea, 3, 32, 42, 49, 106 .^qui, 7 Afghanistan (Afghans), 10, 134, 135. 172, 173, 174. Africa, s, 9, 17, i8, 19, 123, 145, 182-199 Africa, South, 123, 185- 188 Africa, West, 145, 189 Agincourt, battle of, 62 Agricola, 18 Ahmedabad, 119 Ahmednuggur, 105 Aix (Bouches du Rhone), 17 Aix, Peace of, 131 Alabama, 206, 208 Alani, 22 Alaric, sack of Rome by, 22 Alaska, 137, 208 Ala Tau Mountains, 107, 127 Albania, 149 Albert Nyanza, 198 Albion, 17 Albuquerque, his voyages, 83. 85, 181 Alemanni, 30 Alemtejo, 43 Aleppo, 59 Alexander, Pope, 86 Alexander the Great, 9, 10, II, 13 Alexandria, 9, 16, 26, 133, 179 Alexandropol, 162 Alfionn (Albion), 4 Alfonso I. of Portugal, 43 Alfred the Great, 37 Algeciras, 29, 194 Algeria, 17, 42, 81, 114, 133. 155. 19s. 196 Algiers, 34, 80, 159 Algoa Bay, 65 Al-jezireh (Algiers), 34 Alleghany Mountains, 142, 205 Alma, battle of the, 160 Almagro, 95, 96 Almohades, 43 Aloung-Pra, 125 Alpes Maritimes, 155 Alps, IS, 29, 148 Alsace, iii, 156, 158 Amazon, 69 Amazonas Plain, 94 Ambaca, 189 219 America, early notices of, 39, 40, 69, 71, 84 America, North, 89, 97, 99, 209 America, South (Portu- guese), 145 America, South (Spanish), 84, 144, 145 American Colonies, Brit- ish, 131-2, 141-143 Amiens, Peace of, 149, 171 Amoy, 163, 164 Amru, Mohammedan general, 28 Amsterdam, 80 Amu Daria River, 58, i6i Amundsen, Captain, 218 Amur River, 107, 160 Ancona, 48 Andalucia or Andalusia, 6, 21 Andes, 93 Angles, 30 Anglo-Egyptian Condo- minium, 180 Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, 31.37 Angola, 102, i8g Angora, 59 Annam, 125, i68 Annesley Bay, 183 Annobom Island, 190 Anson, Lord George, 138 Antarctic explorations, 140-1, 216-7 Antigua, 121 Antilles, 90 Anticch, 48 Apache Indians, 204 Apulia, 47 Aquae-Sextiae, 17 Arabi Pasha, 178 Arabia, 26, 27, 42, 76, 128, 1 80-1, 182-3 220 INDEX Arabian Empire, 31, 32, 36, 39. S3 Arabian Sea, 5 Arabo- Berbers, 28 Arachosia, lo Aragon, 43, 63 Arakan, 169 Aral, Sea of, 51, 161 Arawaks, 90 Arbela, battle of, 10 Archangel, 125 Arcot, 13s Arctic explorations, 85, 100, 103, 122, 127, 217-8 Argos, 21 Arkansas, 208 Armada, the Spanish, 80, 99 Armenia, 18, 24, 26, 28, 42, 76, 134, 159 Arta, Gulf of, 18 Artaxerxes, 8 Ascension, 82 Ashanti, 191 Asia, Roman province of, 17 Asia Minor, 5, 9, 13, 18, 21, 25, 28, 42, 48, 59 Aspern, battle of, 152 Assam, 56, 169 Assaye, battle of, 170 Assyria, 5 Astrabad, 175 Astrakhan, 61, 77 Asturias, 29, 34 Atacama, desert of, 94 Atahualpa, 94, 95 Athens, 21 Athos, Mount, 6 Atlantic Ocean, 4, 40 Atlas region, 43 Atrek River, 161 Attalus, 17 Attila, king of the Huns, 23 Attock, 10 Auckland, 214 Augustus, Emperor, i8 Aurungzeb, 105 Austerlitz, battle of, 150 Austin, African explorer, 199 Austral Company, 118 Australia, 119, 121, 140, 146, 211-214 Austria, 62, 105, no, 126, 130, 132, 134, 148, 149, 150, 152, 155-6. 176 Ava. 169 Avari, 30 Awatska Island, 137 Ayacucho, 201 Aymara nation, 93 Azerbijan, 72 Azores, 57, 67 Azov, 126 Azov, Sea of, 51 Aztecs, 91, 92 Baalbek, 59 Baber, founder of the Mon- gol Empire, 75 Babylon, 5, 10 Babylonia, 27 Bactriana, 10 Baden, 157, 158 Baetica, 6 Baffin, 117, 119 Baffin Bay, 120 Bagdad, 31, 33. 42, 53 Bahamas, 68 Bahrein Island, 180 Baikal, Lake, 107 Baker, Sir Samuel, 179, 198, 199 Balbao, Vasco Nuiiez, 84, 92 Baldwin, Count of Flan- ders, 49 Balearic Isles, 4, 63 Balkan Mountains. 162 Balkan Peninsula, 60 Balkh. 10, 42, 59, 75, 173 Balleny Islands, 216 Baltic, II, 38, 61, 108, 109, 126-7, 149 Baluchistan, 10. 135, 174 Banda Oriental, 201 Bannockburn, battle of, 46 Bantam, 119 Bantus, 189 Barbados, loi, 116, 120 Barbarossa, the pirate. 79. 81 Barcelona. 15 Barentz, William, 100 Barka, 28. 180 Barotseland, 187 Barth, Heinrich, 197 Basques. 34 Bass's Strait, 212 Bastille, taking of the, 132 Basutos, 186 Batavian Republic, 132, 150, 171, 172, 185 Battle, 45 Batum, 162 Bavaria, 150. 157, 158 Bayaz^t, Sultan, 59 Bayonne. 152 Bear Island, 100 Bear Lake, 144 Bechuanaland, 186, 187 Bedouins, 181 Bedr, 27 Beejapur, 105 " Beggars of the Sea," 100 Behar. 135 Belgium, 148, 149, 154 Belgrad. 76 Belisarius, 25 Bellinghausen , explorer, 216 Belt. the. 108 Bengal, 56, 135 Benguella. 189 Berbera, 179, 184 Berbers, 196 Berbice, 121 Bering, Vitus, 127, 137. 138, 208 Bering Island, 137 Bering Strait, 127, 141, 146 Berlin, 151 Berlin, Congress and Treaty of, 162, 177. i8g Bermudas. 85, 116 Bermudez, explorer, 85 Bessarabia, 162 Bessus, 10 Bielaya River, 59 Bilma, 199 Biscay, Bay of, 4 Biscoe, Captain, 216 Bismarck Archipelago, 215 Bismarck, Prince, 158 Bithynia, 52 Bjarne, 39 Black Prince, 62 Black Sea, 5, 6, 21, 60, 77, 127, 134, 159, i62 Blanco, Cape, 64 Blenheim, battle of, 130 Boers. 185, 186, 187 Bogota, 144 Bohemia, 157 Bojador, Cape, 64 Bokhara, 10, 42, 51, 55, 75. 125. 135. 160 INDEX 221 Bolan Pass, 172, 174 Boleslas I. , 37 Bolivar, General, 201 Bolivia, 144, 201 Bologna, 48 Bonaparte, Jerome, 151 Bonaparte, Joseph, 152 Bonaparte, Napoleon {see Napoleon) Borneo, 122 Bornu, 73, 191, 197 Borodino, battle of, 153 Bosnia, 163 Bosporus, 6 Botany Bay, 140, 146, 147, 212 Bottego, African explorer, 199 Bougainville, circumnavi- gator, 139 Boulogne, Napoleon's army at, 149 Bourbon or Reunion, 96 Boyaca, 201 Boyne, battle of the, 113 Brahmaputra, 169 Brandenburg, Electorate of, 109 Braunsberg, 108 Brazil, 70, 84, 87, 144, 151, 202, 203 Brill, 100 Britain, 4, it, 18, 23, 30 Britannia, 18 British Columbia, 211 British East Africa Pro- tectorate, 184 British East Central Africa, 187 British Empire {see Aus- tralia, Canada, India, &c.) British Kaffraria, 186 British New Guinea, 215 British North America, 209 British North Borneo Company, 172 British Nyasaland Pro- tectorate, 187 Brooke, " Raja," 172 Brower, Hendrik, 122 Browne, the traveller, 145 Bruce, James, 145 Bruce, Robert, 45, 53 Brunei, 172 Buda, 76 Buenos Ayres, 144, 200, 201 Bukovina, 129 Bulgaria, 22, 36, 159, 163 Bulbar, 184 Bull Run, 208 Bunder Abbas, 181 Bunker's Hill, 142 Burgundy, 43, 80 Burma, 124, 169 Burroughes, explorer, 97 Burton, Captain, 198 Butler, African explorer, 199 Bylot, Captain, 119 Byron, Captain, 139 Byzantine Empire, 24, 25, 28, 36, 47, 52. 61 Byzantium, 6, 19 Cabot, Giovanni, 70, 89 Cabot, Sebastian, 85, 89 Cabral, 83 Cabral, Pedro, 70 Ca da Mosto, 65, 193 Cadiz, 4, II, 112 Caesar, Julius, 17, 18 Cailli^, the traveller, 197 Cairo, 34, 76, 177 Cajamarca, 95 Calais, 62 Calcutta, 135 Calderoon, 75 Calicut, 70 Califates, 27, 28, 33, 34, 39. 42, 53 California, 92, 143, 207, 211 Calmar, 63 Cam, Diego, 65 Cambay, Gulf of, 119 Cambaya, 119 Cambodia, 168, 169 Cameron, Commander, 198 Campo Formio, Treaty of, 149 Canada, 90, 131, 138, 142, 143, 206, 209, 211 Canary Islands, 4, 57, 67, 193 Candia, io6, 178 Cannae, 15 Canterbury, 214 Cantin, Cape, 194 Cantcn, 163 Canute, King, 44, 46 Cape Colony, 145, 185, 186-7, 189 Cape cf Good Hope, 66, 69. 70, 99. 123 Cape Verd Islands {see Verd) Capet, Hugh, 44 Caracas, 201 Caribee Islands, 68 Caribs, 90 Carlovingian dynasty, 30 Carlowitz, Peace of, 106 Carolinas (Caroline Is- lands), 96, 215 Carpathian Mountains, 35 Carpini's travels, 55 Caribbean Sea, 84, 203 Cartagena, 15, 195 Carteret, Captain, 139 Carthage, 3, 6, 11, 16, 23, 28 Carthaginians, 3, 6, 11, 14 Cartier, Jacques, 90, 116 Caspian Sea, 5, 35, 52,55, 77, 126, 127, 135, 158, 160, 161, 175 Cassander, 13 Castile, 34, 43, 63 Castillia del Oro, 84 Cataracts of the Nile, 5 Cathay {see China) Catherine II., 126 Catholic League, 108 Catholicism and Protes- tantism, 79, 102, 108, 109, m Caucasus, 51, 159, 160, 163 Cavendish, Thomas, 102 C awn pore, 170 Cayenne, 121 Celebes, 122 Celts, II, 31 Ceuta, 29, 54, 64 Ceylon, 20, 83, 102, 171, 172 Chad, Lake, 73, 190, 197 Chalcedon, 26 Challen^'er expedition, 218 Chaions-sur-Marne, 23 Champlain, explorer, 116 Charlemagne, 30, 31, 34 Charles I. of England, 112 Charles I. of Spain, 78, 80, 81, 90, 93 Charles II. of England, 222 INDEX Charles II. of Spain, 114, 130 Charles V. , Emperor, 76, 78 Charles VI. of Austria, 131 Charles X. of Sweden, 108, 109 Charles XI. of Sweden, 108 Charles XII. of Sweden, 108 Chartered Company, 187 Chattanooga, 208 Chevalier, African ex- plorer, 199 Chile, 94, 95, 98, 102, 201 Chin Kiang, 164 China, 19, 20, 50, 51, 56, 58, 59, 71, 83, 96, 102, 104, 107, 124, 160-1, 163- 166 Chino -Japanese War (1894-1895), 168 Chow dynasty, 19 Christianity, 18, 27, 41, 46, 49, 61, 64, 71, 104, 109, 167, 182 Cilician mountains, 9 Cimbri and Teutones, 17 Circassians, 53 Circumnavigaticns of the globe, 89, 99, 102, 117 Ciudad Rodrigo, 152 Clapperton's travels, 197 Clavijo, 71 Cleopatra, Queen, 18 Clermont, Council of, 48 Clive, Lord, 131, 135 Clovis, King, 24 Clyde, Firth of, 18 Cochin China, 71, 125, 168 Colla nation, 93 Colombia, Republic of, 201 Colombo, 171 Columbus, Christopher, 67, 68, 82 Comanche Indians, 204 Cond^, French general, no Confederation of the Can- tons, 62 Confederation of the Rhine, 153, 158 Confucius, 19 Congo, French, 190 Congo Free State, 189 Congo River, 65, 189, 199 Conrad of Germany, 35 Constantine, 196 Constantine the Great, 18, 21 Constantinople, 6, 19, 26, 28, 47, 48, 49, 60, 162, Conti, Nicolo, 71 Cook, Captain, his voy- ages, 138-141, 211, 215, 216 Cook Strait, 214 Copenhagen, 108, 151 Copenhagen, battle of, 149 Coppermine River, 144 Cordova, 31, 54 Corinth, 21 Cornwall, 4, 24 Corsica, 23 Cortereal, navigator, 71 Cortes, Hernan, 90, 91, 92 Corvinus, King of Hun- gary, 60 Cossacks, 105, 122, 127 Costa Rica, 202 Courland, 46, 61 Cracow, 37, 152 Crecy, battle of, 62 Creoles, 203 Crete, 36 Crimea, 6, 106, 127 Crimean War, 160 Croatia, 48 Cromwell, Oliver, 112 Crosby, African explorer, 199 Crusades, the, 41, 48, 49 Cuba, 68, 84, 90, 91, 203 Cunaxa, battle of, 8 Cunene River, 189 Cuzco, 94, 95, 96 Cyprus, 3, 6 Cyrenaica, 6 Cyrene, 6, 23 Cyrus, 5, 8 Dacia, 18, 21 Da Gama, Vasco, 69 Dahomey, 191, 193 Dalmatia, 48, 60, 106 Damaraland, 189 Damascus, 9, 28, 59 Danes: conquered by Otho, 35 ; England invaded by, 37. 44 Danish Asiatic Company, 128 Danish settlements in Africa, 191 Danube, 18, 35, 36, 159, 160, 162 Dardanelles, 9, 159, i6o Darfur, 145, 179 Darien, Gulf of, 84 Darius III., 9 Das Voltas, 65 Davis, Captain John, 97 Davis Strait, 116, 119, 141 De Almagro, Diego, 93 De Cartagenas, Juan, 87 De Cintra, Pedro, 65 De Covilham, Pedro, 66 Dekkan, 71, 105, 136 Delagoa Bay, 184 Delaware River, 120 Del Cano, Sebastian, 89 De Fuca, Juan, loi Delgado, Cape, 184 Delhi, 59, 75, 135, 170 Demerara, 150 DeMontecorvino, Juan, 71 Denham, traveller, 197 Denmark, 35, 37, 53, 63, 77, 78, 107, 108, 128, 149, 151, 154. 155 De Nova, Juan, 82 Derbend, 59, De Ruyter, 112 De Santarem, Joao, 65 D" Escobar, Pedro, 65 Desertas, 194 Deshenev, his voyage, 122, 127 De Solis, Juan Diaz, 84 Dessalines, 204 De Torres, Luis Vaez, 116 Diarbekr, 76, 105 Diaz, Bartholomew, 65, 69 Dnieper River, 36 Dniester River, 127 Don River, 36, 61, 77 Dominican Republic, 204 Doria, Tedisio, 57 Dost Mohammed, 172, 173 Drake, Francis, 98, 102 Drakenberg Mountains, 186 Drangiana, 10 Drygalski, Captain, 217 Dunedin, 214 INDEX 223 D'Urville, Dumont, 216 Dutch East India Com- pany, 115, ii6, 117, 118, 123, 172 Dutch East Indies, 122, 144 Dutch and Portuguese, 115, 122, 123, 144, 167, 171, 191 Dybowski, explorer, 199 East India Company (British), 102, 119, 135, 163, 169, 170, 172 East Indies, loi, 102, 115, 118 Eboracum, 18 Ebro, IS. 30, 34. 43 Ecbatana, 5 Ecuador, 201 Edel's Land, 121 Edgehill, battle of, 112 Edrington, 37 Edrisi, the geographer, 54 Edward the Confessor, 44 Edward I. of England, 49, 53 Edward III. of England, 62 Egbert, first king of Eng- , land, 37 Eged6, Hans, 136 Egypt, 3, 9. 13, 25, 28, 33, 34. 42. S3, 76, 133. 148, 149, 175, 177, 178, 179 Elba, 149, 154 Elbe, 29, 35 Elbing, 108 El Dorado, 80 El Hasa, 180 Elizabeth, Queen, 80, 97, 98, 99, lOI El Mina, 191 Enderby Land, 216 England, Kingdom of, 37, 40, 45. 79 Epirus, 14 Eratosthenes, astronomer, 16 Erebus, 216 Erichsen, M., 218 Erik the Red, 38 Eritrea, 184 Erivan, 159 Eskimo, 63 Essequibo, 150 Essex, 24 Essling, battle of, 152 Esthonia, 38 Estland, 38 Ethelred the Unready, 44 Etruria, 11 Etruscans, 7 Euclid, 16 Euphrates, s. 9. 17. S^. 180 Euxine, SS " Eye of Yemen," 182 Faleiro, Ruy, 86 Falkland Islands, 139 Fantees, 191 Faroe Islands, 38 Fatimide dynasty, 34, 42 Fellatah or Fulbe, 197 Ferdinand of Aragon, 64 Ferdinand of Spain, 78, 80 Fernandez, Juan, loi Fernando Po, 65, 190 Fez, 33, 114 Fezzan, 180, 198 Fiji, or Viti, Islands, 215 Finland, 126 Finland, Gulf of, 106, 107 Finns, 36, 46 Fish River, i8s Flanders, 78, no Florida, 84, 89, 120, 206, 208 Flushing, 100 Forteviot, 45 Forth, Firth of, i8, 31 Foureau, African explorer, 199 France, 62, 72, 78, 132, 148-1S6 Franche Comt^, in Francis I. of France, 79, 89 Franco-German War, iss Franconia, 3s, 46 Frankfort, Treaty of, is8 Franklin, Sir John, 213, 217 Franks, empire of the, 21, 24. 30. 31. 34. 37. 39. 44. 49 Franz Josef Land, 217 Frederick 11. of Germany, 49 Frederick the Great, 128, 129 Frederick William, Elec- tor, 109, no Frederick III. of Prussia, no Frederick V. of Denmark, 128 Frederick VII. of Den- mark, is6 Frederick William I., 128 Fr^jus, Napoleon at, iS4 French Revolution, 132 French West Africa, 193 Friedland, battle of, 151 Frobisher, Martin, 97, 99 Frondeurs, no Fuchow, 164 Fulah empire, 191, 198 Funchal, 194 GADEIRA, II Gades, 4 Gaetano, 141 Galicia (Spain), 34 ; (Aus- tria), 129, isi, IS2 Gallaland, 184 Gallipoli, 59 Gambia, 65, 193 Gando, 198 Ganges, 13, 20, 33, S9 Garcia, Martin, 85 Gastein, Treaty of, 156 Gaul, 4, II, 15, 17, 21, 23, 24 Gautier, explorer, 199 Gedrosia, 10 Genghiz Khan, so, S2, 58, 166 Genoa, 57, 155 Genoese Republic, is© George III., 139 Georgia, S9. 75- ^34. 13S. 208 German East Africa, 184 German South-West Africa, 189 German tribes, 17 Germany, 35, 36, 37, 39, 46, 61, 78, 108, is8 Ghazni, 33, 173 Ghibbelines, 46 Ghiznevide dynasty, 33, 42 Gibraltar, 130 Gibraltar, Strait of, 22, 57 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 99 Goa, 66, 83 Godfrey of Bouillon, 48 Gogha, 119 224 INDEX Golconda, 105 Gold Coast, 123, 191 Goodwin of Kent, Earl, ^45 Gordon, General, 165, 179 Gothland, 46 Goths, 21, 22 Graah, explorer, 217 Grain Coast, 192 Granada, 43, 53, 63, 64 Grand Canal of China, 52 Granicus River, 9 Grant, Captain, 198 " Great Elector," the, no Great Karroo, 185 Great Mogul, 105, 119, 135 Great Namaqualand, 189 Great St. Bernard Pass, 148 Great Slave Lake, 144 Great Wall of China, 19, 51 Greece, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 60, 175, 178 Greek Empire, 24, 36, 39, 47, 59. 72 Greely, his expedition, 218 Greenland, 38, 63, 97, 98, 136, 154. 218 Greenland Company, 128 Gregory, Pope, 48 Griquas, 186 Guadeloupe, 121 Guam, 89, 215, 216 Guatemala, 202 Guayana, loo, loi, 121 Guelphs, 46 Guiana, 100 Guinea, 64, 102, 115, 192 Guinea, Gulf of, 190 Gujerat, battle of, 173 Gunbiorn, 38 Gustavus Adolphus, 107, 108, no Gustavus Vasa (Ericson), 77, 107 Gutierrez, Pero, 68 Habib Ullah Khan, 174 Hainan Island, 164 Haj Mohammed A'Skia, 73 Hakodate, 167 Hamadan, 134 Hamilcar, 6, 15 Hang-chau, 52 Hango, 126 Hankow, 164 Hannibal, 15, 16 Hanno, 4 Hanover, 149, 155 Hansen, Lieutenant, 218 Hapsburg, House of, 61, 131 Harar, 179 Harold, death of, 45 Harrison, African ex- plorer, 199 Harrison, A. H., 218 Hartog, Dirk, 119, 121 Harun-al-Rashid, 31, 33 Hasdrubal, 14 Hastings, battle of, 45 Hastings, Warren, 136 Havana, 91 Havelock, General, 170, Hawaiian (Sandwich) Is- lands, 141 Hawkins, Sir John, 98, 99 Hayti Island, 68, 203, 204 Hearne, 144 Hegira, the, 27 Hejaz, 177, 180 Hellespont, 9 Helluland, 39, 71 Henry V., 62 Henry VII,, 70 Henry VI 1 1,, 8s Henry of Burgundy, 43 Henry of Castile, 71 Henry the Navigator, 64, 65.74 Heptarchy, Anglo-Saxon, 31. 37 Heraclius, 26, 27 Herat, 58,134. i73. ^75 Herodotus, 5, 6, 7, n Herzegovina, 163 Hicks Pasha, 179 Himalaya range, 124 Himilco, 4 Himyarides of Yemen, 26 Hindustan, 75 Hiogo, 168 Hira, Mount, 27 Hispania, 15 Hispaniola, 68, 203 Holland, 100, 114, 115, 121,132, 154 (j^g Nether- lands) Holstein, 78, 108, 156, 157 Honduras, 202 Hong-Kong, 164 Horn (or Hoorn), Cape, 118, 138 Hottentots, 185, 189 Houtman, loi, 121 Huascar, 94 Hudson, Henry, 116, 119 Hudson Bay, 85, 97, 123, 130, 137, 146 Hudson Bay Company, 123, 143, 210, 211 Hudson River, 120 Hudson Strait, 117 Huguenots, 79, no Huiila, 189 Hungary, 35, 51, 54, 60, 76, 105, 106, 176 Huns, 22 Huss, John, 62 Hussars, Hungarian, 60, 72 Hussite Wars, 62 " Hvidsaerk," 38 Hyder Ali, 136 Hyperboreans, 7 Hyphasis, 10 Iberia, n, 15 Iberus, 15 Ibrahim Pasha, 177, 178 Iceland, 11, 38, 63, 154 Icy Cape, 141 Idsted, battle of, 156 lerne (Ireland), 4 lie Bourbon, 121 II ha Formosa, 65 Hi River, 161 Illinois, 143, 206, 210 Incas, 94, 95 India, 5, 10, 11, 42, 51, 70, 71, 83, los, 131, 135. 170 Indian Ocean, 33, 56, 66, 70, 99, 102, 103, 121 Indiana, 143, 206, 210 Indus River, 10, 13, 75 Ingolstadt, battle of, 108 Ionian Islands, 149 Ipsus, battle of, 13 Iran (see Persia) Irawadi, 125 Ireland, 4, 53 Irene, mother of Con- stantine VI., 31-2 Irtish River, 77 Isabella of Castile, 64 Iskenderun, Gulf of, 9 INDEX 225 Islamism, spread of, 33 Ismail dynasty, 74, 75 Ismail Pasha, 179 Ispahan, 26 Issus, 9, 26 Istria, 48 Italy, 11,23,29,48, 63, 79, 132, 148 Ivan III. (the Great), 61, 27 Ivan the Terrible, tj Ivory Coast, 191, 193 JACKMAN, explorer, 97 Jagatai, 58, 72 Jagellon dynasty, 61 Jamaica, 68 James I. of England, 112, 120 James ^i of England, 112 James iKwn, 116 Jameson Raid, 188 Jan Mayen Island, 117 Japan, 96, 103, 146, 160, 167 Jassy, Treaty of, 127 Java, 99, 140, 172 Jaxartes, 10, 33 Jehan, Shah, 105 Jerusalem, 17, 25, 28, 41, 48,49 Jesuit missionaries, 104, 143, 144, 167 "Jetyshahr," 166, 167 Jews, 17 Jibutil, 184 Jihftn River, 51, 59 Joan of Arc, 62 Joao, Dom, 151 John, King, of Abyssinia, 183 John, King, of France, 62 John of Portugal, 66, 67, 69 Jones, Paul, 142 Joseph, King, of Naples, 150, 152 Juan Fernandez Island, 118, 138 Juba, King, 17 Judaea, 13 Jugurtha, King, 17 Junk Seylon Island, 169 Junker, explorer, 199 Jupiter Ammon, cracle of, , 9 Justinian, Emperor, 25 Jutes, invited to Britain, 24.30 Jutland, II Kabul, 75, 173 Kabyles, 196 Kaep van Hoorn, 118 Kaffa, 6 Kaffraria, British, 187 Kafirs, 185, 186, 188 Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, 215 Kama River, 59 Kameruns, 190 Kamtchatka, 127, 137, 146 Kanagawa, 167 Kandahar, 75, 105, 172, 173 Kane, Dr., 217 Kansas, 207 Kansu, 165, 166 Karakorum, 50 Karman, 42 Kars, 162 Kashgar, 75, 167 Kashgil, 179 Kazan, 61, 77 Kei River, 185, i86 Keiskama River, 186 Kemenfu, 55 Kenneth, King, 45 Kent, 24 Kentucky, 143, 208 Keraeit, 50 Khaibar Pass (see Khyber) Kharesm, 42, 51, 135 Khatai, 51 Khedive of Egypt, 179 Khelat, 174 Khiva, 28, 42, 51, 72, 75, 135, 159. 161 Khoja Sale, 174 Khokan, 161 Khorassan, 33, 42. 75- ^34 Khosru, 25 Khurd Kabul Pass, 173 Khyber Pass, 59, 173 Kief, 36 Kien-Lung, Chinese Em- peror, 124, 125 King Edward VII. Land, 217 Kiptchak, empire of, 42, 59, 61, 72 Kiu Kiang, 164 Kiung-chow, 164 Kiyef {see Kief) Knut [see Canute) Koja Chai River, 9 Kokan, 75 Koniggratz, battle of, 157 Konigsberg, 109, no Kordofan, 177 Korea, 58 Kosciusco, 129 Koscvopolye, 60 Krak, Prince, 37 Krapf, missionary, 198 Krim Tartary, 61 Kuban, 127, 159 Kublai Khan, 51, 56, 58 Kulja, 161 Kumasi, 191 Kunduz, 75 Kurdistan, 76, 105 Kwang-si, 165 Kwang-tung, 165 Labrador, 39, 85, 139, 209 Labuan Island, 172 Lacerda, Dr., 145 Ladrones, 89 Lagos, 190, 191 Laing, Major, 197 Lake, General, 170 Lama, Grand, 125 Lancaster Sound, 217 Languedcc, 29 Laperrine, African ex- plorer, 199 La P^rouse, 146 La Plata, 84, 200, 201 La Rochelle, siege of, no, 112 La Salle, 123 Las Casas, Bishop, 90 Latium, 7 Lauenburg, 156 Lebanon, Mount, 3 Leif, expedition to Green- land, 39 Leipzig, battle of, 153 Lemaire's expedition, 117, 118, 122 Lena River, 107, 122 Lenfant, African explorer, 199 Leopold, King of the Bel- gians, 189 Lesbos, Isle of, 32 Lesseps, de, 178 Levant, 76 P 226 INDEX Lewis and Clarke's ex- pedition, 206 Leyden, 100 Lhassa, 125 Liakhov Islands, 127 Liberia, 191, 192, 199 Libya, 11. 13 Libyan Desert, 9 Ligurian Republic, 150 Lima, 95 Limpopo River, 187 Linga, 181 Lisbon, 66, 130. 203 Lithuania, 61, 77 Little Russia, 106 Little St. Bernard Pass, 15 Livingstone, Dr., 198 Livonia, 46, 61 Loanda, 189 Lob, Lake, 51 Lockwood, Lieutenant, 218 Lombards, 29, 30 Lombardy, 35, 132, 148, 155 Lorraine, iii, 156, 158 Louis VI., 44 Louis IX., 49 Louis XIV., no, 114 Louis, King of Holland, 150 Louisiana, 123, 143, 204, 206, 208 Lourenzo Marquez, 185 Louviers, in Lualaba River, 198 Lucayos Islands, 68 Lucknow, 170 Lunda, 189 Lun^ville, Peace of, 149 Luque, Hernando, 93 Lusitania, 43 Luther, Martin, 78 Liitzen, battle of, 108 Lydenburg, 188 Lyon, III Lysimachus, 13 Macao, 96 Macbeth, of Scotland, 45 M'Clure, Arctic explorer, 217 Macedonia, 6, 8, lo-ii, 13, i6, 60 Mackenzie, traveller, 144, 206 Macmillan, explorer, 199 Madagascar, 121 Madeira, 57, 193-194 Magalhaens, Fernao de (see Magellan) Magdala, 183 Magellan, 85, 87, 88, 96, 102 Magellan, Strait of, 117, 118 Magyars, 35 Mahdi, the, 179 Mahrattas, 170 Main River, 157 Maine, 206 Maistre, explorer, 199 Malabar, 66, 83, 102 Malacca, 83, 85, 96, 102, 172 Malacca, Strait of, 51, 56 Malay Peninsula, 169 Malcolm Canmore, 45 Maldcnado, 200 Mameluke dynasty, 53, 76, 177 Manas, 167 Manchuria, 58, 160, 164 Manchus, 51, 104, 107 Manco Capac, 94 Mandeville, Sir John, 71 Manhattan Island, 120 Manica, 83 Manitoba, 211 Maoris, 215 Maracaybo, Lake of, 69 Marathon, 6 Marco Polo, 51 Marcus Antonius, 18 Marengo, battle of, 146 Margaret of Denmark, 63 Maria of Portugal, Queen, 202 Maria Island, 122 Maria Louisa, Arch- duchess, 153 Marianas, 89 Marianne Islands, 215 Marignola, 71 Markham, Captain, 217 Markland, 39 Marlborough, Duke of, 130 Marquesas (de Mendoza) Islands, loi Marseilles, 6, 11 Marston Moor, battle of, 112 Martaban, 169 Martel, Charles, 30 Martinique, 121 Mary of England, 79 Maryland (Africa), 192 Mascarenhas Islands, 96, 103, 121 Mashhad, 134 Massaua or Massowa, 183, 184 Massilia, 6, 11 Maud, African explorer, 199 Maule River, 94 Mauritania, 17, 28 Mauritius, 96, 103 Maximilian of Austria, 205 " Mayflower," 120 Maypu, 201 Mazanderan, 58 Mecca, 27, 76, 177 Media, 26 Medina, 27, 28, 76 Mediterranean Sea, 3, 6, 76, 77 Mehemet Ali, 177, 178 Mekong River, 168 Melbourne, 214 Meleguetta pepper, 65 Melek Shah, 42 Melind6, 69 Melville Island, 217 Memel, 108, 153 Mendana, Alvaro, 100, loi Menelik, King, of Abys- sinia, 184 Merovingian dynasty, 29 Merv, 59, 161 Merwig, 29 Mesopotamia, 5, 9, 25, 48, Mesurado, Cape, 192 " Meta Incognita," 97 Metz, 158 Mexico, 91, 92, 102, 143, 201, 202, 204, 205, 207 Michael, Tsar, 106 Michigan, 143, 209 Middle Ages, 41 Middlesex, 24 Mikkelsen, E., 218 Milan, 81, 150 Mincius, 19 Ming dynasty, 58, 71, 74, 104 Minho, 43 Minnesota, 143, 209 Minorca, 130 INDEX 227 Mississippi, 123, 143, 206, 208 Missouri, 208 Mithridates, 17 Moesia, 22, 36 Mohacs, battle of, 106 Mohammed, 27 Mohammedan Empire, 29 , 41,74, 105 Moldavia, 21, 159, 176 Moluccas, 85, 89, 99, 172 Mongol dynasty, 51, 52, 60, 71, 75, 102, 170 Mongolia, 50, 58, 71, 165 Monomotapa, 66 Monrovia, 192 Monte Video, 87, 200 Montenegro, 163, 176 Montezuma, gi Montreal, 90 Montserrat, 121 Moors, 28, 30, 34, 35, 40, 43. 63. 64, 72, 80 Morat, 62 Morea, 134 Moreton Bay, 212, 213 Morgarten, 62 Moriscoes, 113 {see also Moors) Morocco, 17, 28, 43, 72, 82, 114, IIS, 133. 194. 196, 199 Moscow, 51, 59, 60, 106, 153 Moslems, 29, 42 Mossamedes, 189 Mosul, 10, 105 Mozambique, 69, 70, 83, 102, 145, 185 Miinster , treaty of , 109, 113 Murat, 152 Murviedro, 15 Muscat, 83, 180-1 Mysore, 170 Naddodr, his voyage to Iceland, 38 Nadir Shah, 134, 136, 172 Nagasaki, 168 Nanking, 19, 164, 165 Nansen, his voyage, 218 Nantes, Edict of, 79 ; re- vocation cf, TII Napier, Sir Charles, 170 Naples, 63, T14, 149 Napoleon, 132-3, 148-154, 158, 195, 281, 202, 206 N arses, 25 Narva, battle of, 108, 126 Naseby, battle of, 112 Natal, 69, 185, 186, 187 Navarino, 178 Navarre, 34.43-53. 64 Negroland, 198 Nejd, 177, 180 Nelson, 214 Nelson, Lord, 133, 149 Nepal, 124 Netherlands, 80, 81, 82, 99, 109, 111-113, 154 (see also Holland) Nevis Island, 121 New Amsterdam, 120 New Britain, 139, 215 New Brunswick, 209, 211 New Canhage, 15, 28 New-chwang, 164 Newfoundland, 39, 71, 89, 99, 130, 139, 209, 211 New Granada, 144, 201 New Guinea, 83, 119, 215 New Hebrides, 147, 216 New Holland, 120, 122, 140, 212 New Ireland, 139, 215 New Mexico, 207 New Plymouth, 120, 214 New Siberian Islands, 127 New South Wales, 140, 213. 215 New Spain, 143 " New World," 69 New Zealand, 122, 140, 141, 214-5 Nicaragua, 202 Nice, 155 Nicholas I. of Russia, 159 Nicopoli, 60 Niebuhr, explorer, 128 Niger Company, Royal, 190 Niger River, 20, 73, 82, 145, 190, 198, 199 Nigeria, 190 Niigata, 168 Nikolaya, 159 Nile, battle of, 133 Nile Delta, 9 Nile River, 18, 145, 199 Nile, sources of, 145 Ning-po, 163, 164, 199 Nizam, the, 136 Nombre de Dios, 98 Nordenskjold, explorer, 217 Norfolk, 30 Norfolk Island, 146 Noricum, 17 Normandy, 35, 53 Normans, 35, 45, 47 Norse colonies, 53 North Cape, 38, 97 North Carolina, 208 North-East Passage, 97, 100, 137, 217 North German Confedera- tion, 158 Northmen, 35, 36, 38, 39, 44 Northumbrians, 44 North- West Company cf Montreal, 44 North- West Passage, 97, n6, 119, 137, 141, 146, 217 North- West Territory, 211 Norway, 11, 38, 46, 53, 63. 78, 97. 128, 154 Nova Scotia, 130, 142, 209, 2TI Novaya Zemlya, 97, 100, 116, 137 Novgorod, 36 Nubia, 18, 177 Numidia, 17, 196 Nuyts' Archipelago, 121 Nyasa, Lake, 184, 198 Nyasaland, 187 Obi, river, 107 Obok, 184 Oceania, 89 Octavianus, 18 Oder River, 36 Odoacer, 23 Odorico of Pordenone, 71 Oguzian Turks, 52 Ohio, 143, 206, 210 Ojeda, Admiral, 69 Okhotsk, 122, 137 Okhotsk, Sea of, 127 Oman, 180, 181, 184 Omar, the Calif, 28 Omdurman, 180 Omniades, dynasty of the, 31. 53 Ontario, Lake, 116 Ophir, 66 Oran, 81, 196 228 INDEX Orange Free State, i86, 1 88 Orange River, 65, 186, 188 Orange River Colony, 188 Orcades, 11 Oregon, 210 Orinoco, 68 Orissa, 135 Orkney Islands, n Orleans, 44, 62 Orleans Island, 138 Ormuz, 66, 83, i8i Osaka, 168 Osman Pasha, 162 Osmanli Turks, 52 Ostre Bygd, 38 Ostrogoths, 22-25 Othere's and Wolfstan's voyages, 38 Othman, 28, 52 Otho, King of Germany, 35 Otranto, 47, 60 Ottoman Empire, 52, 59, 72, 75, 102, 105, 134, Oude, 170 Oudney, traveller, 197 Ourique, 43 Oxus, or Amu Daria, 10, 42, i6i, 174 Pacific Ocean, 89, 96, 98, 100, 102, 122, 218 Padang, 122 Palestine, 17, 25, 42, 48, 49 Palmas, Caf)e, 191, 192 Palos, 67 Panama, Gulf of, 93 Panama, Isthmus of, 84, 93. 98 Panama, Province, 144 Pan! put, 75 Panjab, 10, 170, 172 Pannonia, 29, 30, 35 Papacy, 41 Papal States, 114 Paraguay Republic, 144, 201 Paraguay River, 94 Paria, Gulf of, 68 Paris, 35, 44, 79, 153, 158 Paris, Treaty of, 131, 138, 185 Park, Mungo, 145 Parry, explorer, 217 Parthia, 18, 19 Patagones, 88 Patagonia, 88, 118, 141 Pavia, battle of, 79 Peary, Captain, 218 Pegoletti, traveller, 71 Pegu, 56, 125, 169 Peiho River, 164 Pekin, 51, 52, 104, 163, 164 Pelew Islands, 215 Pemba, 184 Peninsular War, 152 Pepin le Bref, 30 Pepper Coast, 192 Pera, 76 Perganms, 17 Perim Island, 146 Persepolis, lo Persia, 27, 28, 42, 51, 58, 72, 75, 76, I02, 105, 106, 126, 134, 158, 159, 161, 172, 173, 174, 175 Persian Empire, 5, 6, 8, 10, 19, 24, 25 Persian Gulf, lo, 180 Peru, 93, 94, 95, 98, 102, 144, 201, 202 Pest, 76 Pet, explorer, 97 Peter Island, 216 Peter the Great, io6, 125, 126 Peter the Hermit, 48 Petersburg, battle of, 208 Petropavlovsk, 136 Peutingerian table, 19 Pevensey, 45 Philip of Spain, 80, 99 Philip II. of Macedonia, 8, 81 Philip III. of Spain, 113 Philippine Islands, 89, 216 Phoenicia, 4, 9, 17 Phoenicians, 3 Phrygia, 13 Pico Ruivo, 194 Picts and Scots, 24, 45 Piedmont, 148, 155 " Pilgrim Fathers," 120 Pillars of Hercules, 5 Pillau, 108 Pinzon, Yanez, 69, 84 Pitcairn Island, 139 Pizarro, Francisco, 93, 94, 95 Plataea, battle of, 6 Plevna, 162 Poitiers, 30, 62 Poitou, 53 Poland, 37, 39,46, 51,54. 61, 78, 106-109, 128, 151. 155. 159.160; par- titions of, 129 Polani, tribes of, 36 Polo, Marco, 56, 71 Polo, Matteo, 55 Polo, Nicol6, 55 Poltava, battle of, 126 Pomerania, Treaty of, 109 Pondich^ry, 123 Pontus, 26 Port Jackson, 146 Port Nicholson, 214 Port Philip, 212, 213 Port Said, 178 Porto Santo, 194 Porto Seguro, 70 Portugal, 43, 64, 69-70, 72, 85, 86, 96, 113, 131, 151, 152, 163, 202 Portuguese African Pos- sessions, 83, 184, 189, 190, 191 " Portuguese Route," 87 Posen, 129, 155 Potomac, 206, 208 Poverty Bay, 140 Prague, Treaty of, 157 Pressburg, Treaty of, 150 " Prester John," 66, 69 Prince Edward Island, 209, 211 Prince's Island, 190 Prishtina, 60 Protestantism, 79, 102, 108, 109, III Provence, 17 Prussia, 46, 61, 108, 109, no, 128, 149, 151, 155, 156 Pruth River, 162 Ptolemies, the, i6 Ptolemy, Claudius, the geographer, 13, 14, 20, 37 Ptolemy Euergetes, 16 Puerto Rico, 203 Punic Wars, 14, 15 Punta Quemada, 93 Puritanism in England, 120 Pyramids, battle of the, 133 INDEX 229 Pyrenees, 21, 30, 34 Pyrrhus, 14 Pytheas' voyages, 11 Quebec, 116, 138 Queen Charlotte Islands, 139 Queensland, 213 Quetta, 174 Quichuas, 94 Quiros, 116 Quito, 95, 144 Radack Islands, 96 Raisuli, revolt of, 194 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 99, 116 Ralik Islands, 96 Ramillies, battle of, 130 Ravenna, 25, 29, 48 Rebmann, missionary, 198 Red River, 211 Red Sea, 4, 26, 146, 180 Reformation, the, 78, 102 Resht, 175 Reunion or Bourbon, 96 Reykjavik, 38 Rhine, 17, i8, 149 Rhodesia, 187 Riazan, 51 Richard II., 62 Richelieu, Cardinal, no Richmond, 208 Riff Corsairs, 81 Rio de Janeiro, 151, 202 Rio de la Plata, 85 Rio de Solis, 85, 87 Rio do Padrao, 65 Rio Tinto, 67 Robin Hood, 45 " Robinson Crusoe," loi Rocky Mountains, 144, 210 Roderick, King of the Visigoths, 29 Roger de Hauteville, 47 Roger II., 47, 54 Rolf of Normandy, 44 Roman Empire, 18, 19, 24, 60 Romania, 162, 163, 176 Romanof, House of, 106 Romans, 3, ii, 13, 15 Rome, 5, 6, 149 Roses, Wars of the, 63 Roskilde, Peace of, 108 Ross, Sir James, 216 Roumelia, 159 Roumelia, Eastern, 163 Royal Society, 139 Rubruquis, William de, 55 Rudolf, Lake, 199 Rupert's Land, 211 Rurik, the Viking, 36 Russia, 36, 37, 39, 47, 51, S3, 60, 61, 72, ^^, 78, 102, 104, 106-108, 125, 127, 134, 148, 151, 153, 155, 158, 162, 166, 174-5 Russo-Japanese War, 168 Ryswick, Treaty of, in, 203 SaarbrCck, battle of, 158 Sadowa, battle of, 157 Saghalien Island, 146 Sagittaria (Tahiti), 116 Sagres, 64 Saguntum, 15 Sahara, 199 Said Seid, 181 Saigon, 168 St. Augustine, 84 St. Bartholomew's Day, 79 St. Christopher, 120 St. Croix, 66 St. Elias, Mount, 137 St. Eustatius, Island of, IIS St. George's Channel, 139 St. Helena Island, 82 St. Kitts, 120, 130 St. Lawrence, 71, 90, 116, 120, 139 St, Petersburg, 126 St. Thomas Island, 190 St. Vincent, battle of, 169 St. Vincent, Cape, 64, 149 Saladin, 42, 49 Salamanca, battle of, 152 Salamis, 6 Salanga Island, 169 Sallee rovers, 81 Salomon Islands, 100 Saltes, 67 Salvador, 202 Samana Cay, 68 Samarkand, 51, 59, 71, 161 Samnite highlanders, 11, Samoa, 216 Sanchez, Pedro, 88 San Domingo, 68 Sandwich Islands, 138, 141 San Francisco, 207 San Julian, 88 San Lucar, 87 San Roque, Cape, 69 San Salvador, 68 Santa, 93 Santa Cruz Islands, 100 Santa Y€ de Bogota, 144 Saracens, the, 28, 30, 39, 48, 50 Sarawak, 172 Sardinia, 3, 4, 14, 23, 63, 155. 160 Saris, Captain, 119 Sarmatians, 36 Sassanian dynasty, 24, 25, 26 Satlej River, 10, 51 Savoy, 155 Saxons, 24, 30, 45 Saxony, 46, 155 Scandinavia, 35, 37, 39 Schleswig, 78, 156, 157 Schouten, 118, 122 Scilly Isles, 4 Scoresby, explorer, 217 Scotland, 30, 45, 46, 53, 80 Scots and Picts, 24, 45 Scott, Captain, 217 Scythians, 10, 11, 22 Sebastopol, capture of, 160 Sedan, in, 158 Seistan, 58 Seleucus, 13 Selim, Sultan, 75, 76, 'J^ Seljuk Turks, 41, 42, 47, 49. 51 Selkirk, Alexander, loi Senegal, 57, 65, 82, 123, 193 Senegambia, 102, 197 Septimania, 29 Seringapatam, 136 Serrao (Serrano), Fran- cisco, 85 Servia, 35, 60, 163, 176 Seven Years' War, 128, 131 Shamyl, Caucasian chief, 160 Shang-hai, 163, 164 Shang-tung, 164 Shark Bay, 119 Shere Ali, 173 Shetland Islands, 11 Shigatse, 124 Shiraz, 58 Shoa, 184 Shumla, 127 230 INDEX Siam, 169 Siberia, jj, 97, 104, 122, 137, 160, 208 Sibir, Tj Sicilies, the Two, 47, 81 Sicily, 3, 6, 11, 14, 23, 36, 47, 63, 114 Sidon, or Saida, 3 Sierra Leone, 4, 65, 146, 192, 193 Sigismond of Poland, 106 Sikh Wars, 172-3 Silesia, 128 Silistria, 160 Sind, conquest of, 170 Singapore Island, 171 Siwah, 9 Sixtus, Pope, 80 Skrellings, 63 Slave trade, American, 90 Slavonians, 35, 36, 39 Smith, Captain, 216 Smith, Donaldson, African explorer, 199 Smith Sound, 217 Smithfield martyrdoms, 79 Smolensk, 106, 153 Sofala, 66, 83, 102 Sogdiana, 10 Sokoto, 191, 198 Solis, Juan Diaz de, 84 Solomon, Temple of, 28 Solomon Islands, 215, 216 Solyman " The Magnifi- cent," 76 Scmaliland, 184, 199 Songhay, 73, 82 South African Republic, 188 South Carolina, 208 " South Sea," the, 84, 87, 88, 89, 117, 118, 138 South Shetland Isles, 216 Spain, II, 21, 24, 28-30, 34. 39. 43. 63-4. 72, 79- 83, 86, 90, 96, 102, 113, 152, 163 Spanish - American War, 203 Spanish Main, 98, 99 " Spanish March," 34, 35 "Spanish route," 87 Spanish Succession, War of the, 129, 209 Spartans, 8 Speke, Captain, 198 Spice Islands, 85, 116, 172 Spitzbergen, 100 Staaten Land, 118, 122 Stanley, H. M., 199 Strabo, 20 Strassburg, in Strathearn, 45 Stuart, M'Douall, 213, 214 Styrian Alps, 36 Suaheli, 184 Sudan, 114, 177, 180, 190, 197 Suez Canal, 178 Suffolk, 30 Sullivan's Cove, 212 Sumatra, loi, 122, 172 Sunda Islands, 83 Sung dynasty, 51 Surat, 119, 123 Surinam, 121, 150 Surrey, 24 Susa, 10 Sussex, 24 Sutlej {see Satlej) Swan River, 212, 213 Swatow, 164 Sweden, 46, 53, 63, 77, 78, 102, 106-8, 120, 127, 149, 150, 154 Sweyn, King, 44 Swiss mountaineers, 62 Switzerland, 109, 155 Sydney, 146, 214 Syracuse, 6, 12 Syria, 5, 9, 13, 17, 18, 25, 27, 34, 42, 48, 49. 59. 76, 178 Syrtes, 28 Table Bay, 69 Tafilet, Sherifs of, 115, 133 Tagus, 43 Tahiti Islands, 116, 139 ' ' Tai-ping-wang ' ' rebel- lion, 164, 165 Tajura Bay, 184 Ta la vera, battle of, 152 Tali-fu, 165 I Tamerlane, 58 j Tancred de Hauteville, 47 Tanganyika, Lake, 184, 187, 198 Tangier, 81 Taprobane, 20 Taranto, 14 Tarentines, 14 Tarentum, 14 Tarik, Gothic king, 29 Tartary, 42, 146 Tartessus, 6 Tashkend, 161 i Tasman, Abel Jansen, [ 121, 122, 140 Tasmania, 212 Tatars, 19, 51, 55, 72. 77, I02, 104, 107, 164, 165 Tauric Chersonese, 6 Taurus, 26 Teheran, 56 Tekrit, 42 Tel el Kebir, 179 Templars, Knighis, 49 Tenmjin, 50 Tenasserim, 169 Teng-chow, 164 Tennessee, 143, 208 Tenochtitlan, 91 Termination Land, 217 Ternale, 99 "Terra Australis Incog- nita," 140 "Terra da Santa Cruz," 70, 87 " Terra Laborador," 71 Terror, volcano, 216 Teutones, 17 Teutones and Cimbri, 17 Teutonic Knights, 46, 61, 109 Texas, 204, 208 Theodore of Abyssinia, 183 Theodoric, King, 23, 24 Theodosia, 6 Thermopylae, 6 Thessaly, 8 Thian Shan Mountains, 161 Thi^venant, African ex- plorer, 199 I Thieves' Islands, 89 Thirty Years' War, 109 I Thrace, 6, 13 ' Thule discovered, 11, 20 I Tibet, 56, 58, 124-5 i Tientsin, 52, 164, 165 Tierra del Fuego, 88, 118, I 122 ! Tiflis, 58 Tigranes, 17 Tigre, 183 Tigris, 5, 31, 33 Tilsit, Peace of, 151 I Timbuktu, 82, 193, 197 INDEX 231 Timur-leng, 58, 71, 72 Tippoo, 136 Titicaca, Lake, 94 Tobolsk, 'JT^ 107 Togoland, 191 Tokio, 168 Tolosa, battle of, 43 Toltecs, 91 Tonga Islands, 216 Tongking, 125, 168 Tonquin [see Tongking) Torbay, William of Orange lands at, 113 Torres Strait, 140 Torres Vedras, battle of, 152 Toscanelli, 66 Toulouse, 152 Tours, 30, III Trafalgar, battle of, 150 Trajan, 18 Transvaal, the, 186, 188 Transylvania, 21, 36 Trasimene, Lake, 15 Tra van core, 136 Trincamali, 171 Trinidad, 68 Triple Alliance, iii Tripoli, 28, 180, 197 Tristan da Cunha, 82 Tristao, Nuno, 65 Tsin dynasty, 19, 104 Tucuman, 201 Tumbez, 95 Tunganis, 166 Tunguses, 122 Tunis, 33, 34, 43, 79, 133, 180, 197 Turenne, Marshal, no Turin, battle of, 130 Turkestan, 28, 51, 58, 71, 72, 105, 160, i6i, 165, 166, 167 Turkey (Turks), 10, 33, 39. 48, 49. 52-54. 60, 76, jT, 106, 129, 134, 149, 159, 160, 162, 176 Turkomans, 161, 174 Tuya, 201 Tver, 60 Tweed River, 31 Tyre, 3, 9 Tyrol, 17 Ubanghi, 190 Ujdah, 194 Ukerewe, 198 Unitarians, 43 United States, 131-132, 14 I- 143, 205-206, 207, 210, 211 Ural government, i6i Urban, Pope, 48 Uruguay, 201 Urumchi, 167 Usbegs, 72, 75, 135, 166 Usuri River, i6o Utrecht, Peace of, 130, 132, 209 Vaal River, 186 Valladolid, 83 Vancouver, Captain, 138, 210, 211 Vandalici Montes, 21 Vandalitia, 21 Vandals, the, 21, 22, 23, 24 Van Diemen's Land, 122, 212 Van Noort, 102 Van Riebeek, Jan An- thony, 123 Varangians, 36 Vascones, 34 Velasquez, Diego, 90 Venetia, 114, 149, 150, 157 Venezia, settlement of, 23, 47 Venezuela, 69, 201 Venice, 47, 48, 49, 57, 106, 152 Vera Cruz, 92 Verazzano, traveller, 89 Verd, Cape, 65 Verd, Cape, Islands, 65, 193 Vermont, 143 Versailles, German em- peror crowned at, 158 Vespucci, Amerigo, 68 Vicksburg, 208 Victoria, 213 Victoria, Lake, 184, 198 Victoria Land, 216, 217 Victoria Nyanza, 198 Victoria, voyage of, 89 Vienna, 76, 106, 157 Vienna, Congress of, 154, 156, 172 Vienna, Peace of, 152 Vimiera, battle of, 152 Vinland, 39 Virgin Islands, 123, 128 Virginia, 99, loi, 116, 120', 208 Vischer, Hans, explorer, 199 Visigoths, 22, 23, 24 Vistula River, 36, 153 Vitoria, battle of, 152 Vivaldi, 57 Vladivostok, i6o Volga, 55, 59, ^^ Volscians, 7 Wadai, 197 Wagram, battle of, 152 Wahabi, 177, 180, i8i Walachia, 21, 159, 176 Wales, 53 Walfish Bay, 189 Wallace, William, 45, 53 Wallis, explorer, 139 Warsaw, 109, 129 Warsaw, Duchy of, 151, 152. 155 Washington City, 206 Washington, George, 143 Waterloo, battle of, 154 Watling. 68 Weenen, 187 Wellby, explorer, 199 Wellesley, Sir Arthur [see Wellington) Wellesley, Marquis, 136, 170 Wellington, 214 Wellington, Duke of, 152, 153. 154 Welsh mountaineers, 44 Wessex, 24, 37 West Indies, 68, 90, loi, 120 Westminster Abbey, 45 Westphalia, kingdom of, 151. 153. 155 Westphalia, Treaty of, 109, 112 Westre Bygd, 38 White Sea, 38, 97, 125 William the Conqueror, 45 William of Orange, 100 William, Prince of Orange (William III.). 113 William and Mary of Eng- land, 113 William V. of Holland, 132 Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 97 Wisconsin, 143, 209 232 Witland, 38 Wolfe, General, 131, 138 Wolfstan and Othere's voyages, 38 Worcester, battle of, 112 Worms, Diet of, 78 Wiirtemberg, 150, 157, 158 Wu-Sung, 163 Xavier, Francis, 96 Xenophon, 8 Xerez de la Frontera, battle of, 29 Xerxes, 6 INDEX Yakub Beg (Khan), 166, 167 Yakuts, 122 Yakutsk, 107 Yangtze, 52, 164, 165 Yarra Yarra, 212 Yedo, 167 Yemen, 26, 180 Yenisei River, 107 Yermak, Vassili, 77 Yesukai BahS,dur, 50 Yezo, 146 York, 18 Yoruba, 190 Yun-nan, 165 Zama, battle of, 15 Zambesi River, 66, 145, 187, 198, 199 Zambesia, 185 Zanzibar, 70, 181, 184 Zarafshan, province, 161 Zarafshan River, 161 Zebu, 89 Zeila, 184 Zerafshan (see Zarafshan) Zipangu (Japan), 56 Zoe, Empress, 61 Zulu Kafirs, 188 Zungaria, 161 ^ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE END Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &* Co. Edinburgh &" London 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. ^22fr ^^^^n:^ ow m^ ^Wav,'63LE FEC'D l-U HiKin^^, ^ 7t385 MARSS13G3 3^ WAR 2 5 1555:^ PEBil\9Q8 M Rtctiveo AN 28 '69 -9 PM UOAM DEET« L a S8?li 1 ^ Scl T c\? ^ / BECCIR. f£B 8*64 LD 21 A-50m-3,'62 (07097810U76B General Library University of California Berkeley