登陆注册
22910400000070

第70章 41(1)

BUT NOW THAT PEOPLE HAD BROKEN

THROUGH THE BONDS OF THEIR NARROW

MEDIAEVAL LIMITATIONS, THEY HAD TO

HAVE MORE ROOM FOR THEIR WANDERINGS.

THE EUROPEAN WORLD HAD

GROWN TOO SMALL FOR THEIR AMBITIONS.

IT WAS THE TIME OF THE GREAT

VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY

THE Crusades had been a lesson in the liberal art of travelling.

But very few people had ever ventured beyond the well- known beaten track which led from Venice to Jaffe. In the thirteenth century the Polo brothers, merchants of Venice, had wandered across the great Mongolian desert and after climbing mountains as high as the moon, they had found their way to the court of the great Khan of Cathay, the mighty emperor of China. The son of one of the Polos, by the name of Marco, had written a book about their adventures, which covered a period of more than twenty years. The astonished world had gaped at his descriptions of the golden towers of the strange island of Zipangu, which was his Italian way of spelling Japan. Many people had wanted to go east, that they might find this gold-land and grow rich. But the trip was too far and too dangerous and so they stayed at home.

Of course, there was always the possibility of ****** the voyage by sea. But the sea was very unpopular in the Middle Ages and for many very good reasons. In the first place, ships were very small. The vessels on which Magellan made his famous trip around the world, which lasted many years, were not as large as a modern ferryboat. They carried from twenty to fifty men, who lived in dingy quarters (too low to allow any of them to stand up straight) and the sailors were obliged to eat poorly cooked food as the kitchen arrangements were very bad and no fire could be made whenever the weather was the least bit rough. The mediaeval world knew how to pickle herring and how to dry fish. But there were no canned goods and fresh vegetables were never seen on the bill of fare as soon as the coast had been left behind. Water was carried in small barrels. It soon became stale and then tasted of rotten wood and iron rust and was full of slimy growing things. As the people of the Middle Ages knew nothing about microbes (Roger Bacon, the learned monk of the thirteenth century seems to have suspected their existence, but he wisely kept his discovery to himself) they often drank unclean water and sometimes the whole crew died of typhoid fever. Indeed the mortality on board the ships of the earliest navigators was terrible. Of the two hundred sailors who in the year 1519 left Seville to accompany Magellan on his famous voyage around the world, only eighteen returned. As late as the seventeenth century when there was a brisk trade between western Europe and the Indies, a mortality of 40 percent was nothing unusual for a trip from Amsterdam to Batavia and back. The greater part of these victims died of scurvy, a disease which is caused by lack of fresh vegetables and which affects the gums and poisons the blood until the patient dies of sheer exhaustion.

Under those circumstances you will understand that the sea did not attract the best elements of the population. Famous discoverers like Magellan and Columbus and Vasco da Gama travelled at the head of crews that were almost entirely composed of ex-jailbirds, future murderers and pickpockets out of a Job.

These navigators certainly deserve our admiration for the courage and the pluck with which they accomplished their hopeless tasks in the face of difficulties of which the people of our own comfortable world can have no conception. Their ships were leaky. The rigging was clumsy. Since the middle of the thirteenth century they had possessed some sort of a compass (which had come to Europe from China by way of Arabia and the Crusades) but they had very bad and incorrect maps. They set their course by God and by guess. If luck was with them they returned after one or two or three years.

In the other case, their bleeched bones remained behind on some lonely beach. But they were true pioneers. They gambled with luck. Life to them was a glorious adventure. And all the suffering, the thirst and the hunger and the pain were forgotten when their eyes beheld the dim outlines of a new coast or the placid waters of an ocean that had lain forgotten since the beginning of time.

Again I wish that I could make this book a thousand pages long. The subject of the early discoveries is so fascinating.

But history, to give you a true idea of past times, should be like those etchings which Rembrandt used to make. It should cast a vivid light on certain important causes, on those which are best and greatest. All the rest should be left in the shadow or should be indicated by a few lines. And in this chapter I can only give you a short list of the most important discoveries.

Keep in mind that all during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the navigators were trying to accomplish just ONE THING--they wanted to find a comfortable and safe road to the empire of Cathay (China), to the island of Zipangu (Japan) and to those mysterious islands, where grew the spices which the mediaeval world had come to like since the days of the Crusades, and which people needed in those days before the introduction of cold storage, when meat and fish spoiled very quickly and could only be eaten after a liberal sprinkling of pepper or nutmeg.

The Venetians and the Genoese had been the great navigators of the Mediterranean, but the honour for exploring the coast of the Atlantic goes to the Portuguese. Spain and Portugal were full of that patriotic energy which their age-old struggle against the Moorish invaders had developed. Such energy, once it exists, can easily be forced into new channels.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 女王贝贝的梦境

    女王贝贝的梦境

    贝贝明天晚上都会做梦,和一般人不一样的是,她的梦境很连贯,就像是一个真实世界,在梦里她是一个女王,直到有一天。。。
  • 深山里江上的秘密

    深山里江上的秘密

    冷玉从X建筑大学无机非金属专业毕业,机缘巧合下,一纸简历投到当下最热门的云都水电集团,却轻而易举通过面试,直接上岗,深入大山深处,来到雅中水电站,成为了一名建设者。在最艰苦的条件下做着最艰苦的工作,几欲放弃,想辞职走人,都因各种原因牵绊,在工地老周莫名失踪后,试验中心冷玉最亲近的人娄喻桑也突然不见,这让冷玉悲痛之余不得不冒着生命危险追查真相,辗转中,冷玉无意中被掠入一个神秘世界,成为了神秘部落的奴隶。冷玉被赐名为:赤黑俄外(奴隶菜花);娄喻桑被赐名为:赤黑帕所(奴隶口袋)。这是一个被遗忘在角落里的秘境,但看冷玉和娄喻桑如何从最低等的奴隶提升为贵族,又是如何从秘境逃脱,最终决定在这个深山里的水电站奋斗十年,完成建设任务。
  • 快穿之天命计划书

    快穿之天命计划书

    当发现自己是一个实验品的时候,林寄是惊愕的,可是她被告知可以了解到自己的过往时,她义无反顾地答应了本就应该是她的使命。穿越每朝每代传奇女子的身上,她的路还很长。
  • 战机纵横

    战机纵横

    各种隐藏在星空下的阴谋和欺诈像吹气的气球一样不断的迸发出来,在令人眼花缭乱的各种纷争中,星际大航海后期的人内疆域不可避免的形成对立的阵营。猪脚作为一个21世纪重生的家伙,卡梅拉星一处荒凉的骑士领,领主的小儿子,很悲催的被一系列事情牵扯,被迫游走在几个相互纠结不清的泛星际势力中。后世的历史学家认为,直到这位伟大的见习骑士,初次登上战场,时间的年轮才真正揭开这次星际大变革时代中,最辉煌的一页。
  • Old Fritz and the New Era

    Old Fritz and the New Era

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 万千宠爱只撩你

    万千宠爱只撩你

    套路女遇上腹黑男,最后鹿死谁手?王若若:“协议时间到期了,我可以走了吧?”凌宗杨:“什么协议?我从来不记得有这事。”王若若从包里摸出一叠纸:“别想再套路我,我可一直留着。”凌宗杨:“你看仔细一点。”王若若认真地翻来翻去,发现协议本来的“最终解释权归凌宗杨所有”的一行字竟然是“最终到期王若若归凌宗杨终身所有。”又输了!摔!
  • 每天都在被许总投喂

    每天都在被许总投喂

    又名《听闻我开始直播后隔壁总裁连夜搬着火车回来做了我的榜一》和《我进了娱乐圈之后明明可以靠实力隔壁大佬却非要我走后门》温竹直播的第一天,就有一位名为‘许总’的不明人士砸了火箭,给她崎岖不平的事业道路开了一个大坑。眼见温竹事业蒸蒸日上,沉迷工作毫无思春之色,许总耐不住了,“温竹小…姐姐?您谈恋爱了吗?”温竹:“我跟钱谈恋爱不好吗?”许笑尘:“……”榜一已退出直播间。后来,温竹进了娱乐圈,成为了一个小明星。许笑尘:这不是我的专业吗?我终于不是个默默扔火箭的背后无名人士了吗?那是一个晴空,温竹心血来潮,要给粉丝发礼物回馈:榜一:我总不能说我就住在隔壁吧……爱作的流量小明星+我的钱只为扔火箭的霸总=温竹是顶流
  • 祉随笔

    祉随笔

    只是自己随笔,自己写的看看,和日记差不多。
  • 毁灭之后是创造

    毁灭之后是创造

    一个在整个位面最高层的世界,却因为一个平凡的少年而毁灭,这是没有一个人想到的。从先天灵力决醒为零的少年,一步步走向世界的颠峰毁灭宇宙。他到底是怎样一步一步走向颠峰的呢??
  • 三千惊鸿宴

    三千惊鸿宴

    初遇你时,惊鸿一眼便是万年。再见你时,你是傲慢的世家千金。身在尔虞我诈的世界为找寻失踪多年的爷爷,你孤身一人寻墓探穴,盗红颜翻山海,掀起了一次又一次的腥风血雨。秘密一步一步浮出水面……大闹一场吧,与我共赴这三千惊鸿宴。记住!这个时代叫做白沐森!