AROUND THE WORLD

Hokitika Guardian, 19 June 1931, Page 3

AROUND THE WORLD

GOSSIP OF THE PORTS. SEAMEN OF THE CLASSIC AGE. (By L.F.li. in the Auckland “Star.”) idle ousmess of sailing around the woi'id is a relatively simple' matter these days. Thousands ,ol people cirsumnavigate the globe every year. I know several men in Auckland who make a habit of it. They go Home by the Suez Canal, and come back via-Pan-ama or Canada, with mo more concern than the business man/ goes each day to his office in the city and 1 returns each evening to his suburban home. A hundred years ago the girdling of< the earth with tjte track of a ship was an enterprise fraught with as much difficulty and peril a sit had been three centuries previously. So, when one goes right back into the ages when our ancestors iare popularly supposed to have clad themselves in paint, to have worshipped the mistletoe, and to have gone fishing in coracles (vide my son’s history book)', and finds that the mariners of the Mediterranean made voyages of thousands of miles one won fliers what manner of men they were.

Tt so happens that I have just concluded a fierce argument with a man of much learning who persists in perpetuating the two-thousand-years-old libel that Pytheas of Marseilles was but' a pre-Christian Munchausen.. My opponent was well versed in classic histoy of the sea ; therefore the argument was a willing one. T showed where Pytheas accurately describedthe climate of tiie British Isles, and had declared thae the longest day in BolerioU (Land’s End) was sixteen hours. That everyone to-dfiy should doubt the, achievements of this pioneer navigator, despite tile fact that the notices preserved to us from hfs work are imagre and sometimes discordant is beyond my c'mpiehension The accurate account left by Pytheas of the lands he visited could only come from an actual visit, and not from his imagination.

TWO LONG VOYAGES. Our knowledge of this early master mariner, who was th eontemorary of Alexander the Great, is, unfortunately very limited. We know that he made two long voyages, one in which he visited Great Britain and “Thule”—“Ultimate Thule,’ as he called the Orkney Islands, and second in which he sailed from Cadiz and coasted along the whole of Europe to the “Tanais.” It was the latter trip probably which ho described in bis PVroplus, but of this i nly fragments have ' been handed down. The classical scholars (like my opponent in the argument) and the geographers are sun squabbling ovei..lie model'll equivalents ol Thule and . alia is and because they cannot all agree that the one is tne Orkneys and wie c#ner the,Hon, .douuf is, ~al.. ticaL-y oi me lOjugcs. me UiwiiD v\eie gimv sanois ana navigators, ana Iney iniierueu tne iiioeiucii/itii .sea tradition-, "men wan urong m cue city ol lUassipa. As .early ast he tlnrieeiitn century, B.G. ureeK vessels woie saniiig vui seas, “alid, as Green cunui e and civilisation spread, tneir ships were to i>© seen everywhere, from tne Persian GuL to tiie wild waters oi the Western ocean. These early Greek traders uni not sail in the “lbiigship,” with whose appearance we have been familiarised oy pictures based upon artistic relics of the time, but were tubuy old craft with, lofty bows and sterns, which could stand the heaviest of weather. There is no practical reason why Pyihens should not have made his voyages for the ships at his disposal were every whit as seaworthy as those which the Egyptian Kiiig Necho had sent around the African coast some three centuries previously, and probably were more fitted for the voyage than the little Elizabeth, Manygold, Swan, and Christopher, which sailed in company with Drake in the Golden Hind, o nhis first voyage around the world less than 400 years ago.

“SHIPS OF TARSH Sll.” “We have ploughed tlie ocean in a fragile bark/’ wrote Ovoid, a iter lie had been banished to iomi. Ovid; however, like Ruben Raimi in the olu sea ciianty, was “no sailor,” the finest ship of Ins day would probably nave lail ..n within this category, as far as ne was concerned. The ship < f Pytneas, was pfobdhiy, better chosen lor its u'd venture, althoug!) that is mer.ly a. matter of conjecture. In ai y c.ise lie visited Bolerion, or tlie extieme western peninsula of Cornwall, and this was the one part of the British islands which had been connected with the mainland of Europe by a regular trade route from time immemorial. The Phoenicians had, long before the days of Pythons, colonised Tarshish and founded tlie city of Gadeira (Cadiz) at the mouth of tlie Guadalquivir. The chief argument against the story of Pvtli n as is that there was no ships in his day suitable for making such a voyage as he made. To disprove that oredolent one has only to say that “The'ships of Tarshish” were the Iri'-g----e t merchant vessels known to the He brews, and were comparable in si'se to the East IndiAmen of the seventeenth century. We are informed that the derivation of the word “Tarshish” i« from the Sanskrit “tnrishna,” mean in" a sea or an ocean vessel, which, of course, is only another definition for n dr'en-sea ship. Tt is fairly obvious that, Pvthon® have made one of his chief objectives tlie exploration of the distant f '

lands whence came the wealth of the Phoenicians. The description of the Scillv Islands given us by Pytheas is c ne r„ and even a modern Scania., could not mistake his meaning. lie

notes the use by Britons of fermented liquors made from corn and In ne.v ; lie he i- correct in his word pit tn e nl Uxi> mm (Uslmnl); Ibe lingtli of the projection of Brittany into the Atlantic ; and, it was no mere guess on his part when he outlined the . etion ol the tides in the Atlantic Ocean which opens out from the English Channel.

OVERSEAS TRADE. The long sea route made by I\the..s through lue Straits of Gibrai.av was not hv any lin aas an easy one. a..il. his voyage along the Biscayan coast was uiidoubtojly i.m.ertaken ith the object of finding out the possibilities of establi.-'iing a port in Gaul \. hieu would enable the in. eaLtle, and o her exports firm Britain to be transported overland. This aim was subsequently achieved, though' it is impossible I’> determine 'whether i lie rep rt of Pytheas was the immediate cause. We 1 now for an absolute fact t 1 at the British ships which took over the Massilian trade aft- r the Phoenic ans gave it up were'modi ded on lines v. hich fitted them to make voyages to any

part of the world. When Ci osar invaded Gaul he commented nn tho splendid ships of the Celts, against which the Roman galleys, unfitted for service in the boisterous Western Ocean, were impotent. We know, that the overseas trade of Britain was very considerable at the time of Caesar’s invasion, and its development was possibly accelerated by the visit of Pytheas many years previously. They were wonderful fellows, thoso sea-dogs of long, long ago; and Pytheas must be given a place in the front rank. His voyagings were, m tjieir way; as important as tlrse of Columbus or our own James Cook. He \Vas the earliest pioneer navigator, and worthy of our highest regard.