The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ultima Thule; vol. 1/2, by Richard R. Burton This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Ultima Thule; vol. 1/2 or A Summer in Iceland Author: Richard R. Burton Release Date: May 23, 2019 [EBook #59584] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULTIMA THULE; VOL. 1/2 *** Produced by Chuck Greif, JC Byers, David Garcia, Stacy Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Contents. Index to Vol. I. List of Illustrations (In certain versions of this etext [in certain browsers] clicking on the image will bring up a larger version.) (etext transcriber's note) ULTIMA THULE; OR, A SUMMER IN ICELAND. From a Photo Frontispiece, Vol. I. M‘Farlane & Erskine, Lithrs. Edinr. REYKJAVIK, THE CAPITAL OF ICELAND. ULTIMA THULE; OR, A SUMMER IN ICELAND. BY RICHARD F. BURTON. With Historical Introduction, Maps, and Illustrations. {i} {ii} {iii} VOL. I WILLIAM P. NIMMO. LONDON: 14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND; AND EDINBURGH. 1875. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY M‘FARLANE AND ERSKINE, ST JAMES SQUARE. DEDICATION. Trieste, March 1875. My Dear Sir, Be pleased to accept this very inadequate return for the varied information with which you have favoured me, and for all your hospitality and kindness to me at Edinburgh and elsewhere. You are so well known as a traveller in Iceland, and as a warm and generous friend to the Icelander, that you will not be held responsible for my over freedom of speech, nor for any unpopular opinions expressed in the pages honoured by bearing your name. Pray believe me, Yours very sincerely, RICHARD F. BURTON. Robert Mackay Smith, Esq., etc., etc., etc., Edinburgh. “Signor, non sotto l’ombra in piaggia molle Tra fonti e fior, tra Ninfe e tra Sirene; Ma in cima al l’erto e faticoso colle, Della virtù riposto è il nostro bene: Chi non gela, e non suda, e non s’estolle Dalle vie del piacer, là non perviene.” —Tasso, xvii. 61. “Not among nymphs and sirens, founts and flowers, Not in voluptuous herbage in the shade; But on the toilsome steep where valour towers Alone, O Prince, our supreme good is laid; Who from the paths of pleasure will not raise His thoughts; nor freeze nor sweat, arrives not there.” —James. “In somma, ho avuto sempre mai d’avanti agli occhi quelle sante leggi della Storia, di non osar dire il falso, né temer di dire il vero; e mi lusingo di non avervi contravenuto.” —Abbate Clavigero. PREFACE. According to the fashion of the day, this volume should have been published two years ago, shortly after my return from Iceland. The truth is that before the second third had been written, I found a large fallow of pre-historic study, the Castellieri of Istria, and I could not help putting hand to the work at “Iceland’s” expense. But this much of delay is, methinks, a disadvantage rather in popular prejudice than in point of fact. The loss of freshness brings with it not a little gain. Whilst all the scenes and events of a journey, during and immediately after its progress, appear like an unartistic sketch, confused and without comparative distance; time gives perspective, and relation of details, and distinction of light and shade. Moreover, in treating of Iceland there is present danger of misleading the reader, unless due reflection correct hasty work. The subject is, to some extent, like Greece and Palestine, of the sensational type: we have all read in childhood, about those “Wonders of the World,” Hekla and the Geysir, and, as must happen under the circumstances, we have all drawn for ourselves our own Iceland—a distorted and exaggerated mental picture of what has not met, and will not meet, the eye of sense. Moreover, the travellers of the early century saw scenes of thrilling horror, of majestic grandeur, and of heavenly {iv} {v} {vi} {vii} {ix} {viii} {x} beauty, where our more critical, perhaps more cultivated, taste finds very humble features. They had “Iceland on the brain,” and they were wise in their generation: honours and popularity await the man who ever praises, the thorough partisan who never blames. But not the less our revulsion of feeling requires careful coercion: it always risks under-rating what we have found so much over-valued, of tinging neutral-hued sobriety with an angry flush of disappointment. I went to Iceland feeling by instinct that many travellers had prodigiously exaggerated their descriptions, possibly because they had seldom left home. “The most difficult and expensive country in the world” would certainly prove cheap and easy after the Andes and the Haurán. What could be made of “giddy rapid rivers” at most three feet deep, and if deeper provided with ferries? Yet the “scare” had succeeded in making a deep impression: one tourist came to Iceland prepared to cross the streams “in buff,” and firmly determined on no account to climb a scaur. “The ruts are only one danger of Icelandic travelling, the danger is crossing the streams,” says a modern author—how his descriptions were derided by a couple of English officers who had ridden about the Himalayas! What could I think of the “stupendous precipice of Almannagjá,” of the “frightful chasm,” of the “dreadful abyss, causing the most disagreeable emotions,” when also told that men ride up and down the side? Yet another says, “rush for your life” from the unfortunate Strokkr; whilst we are actually threatened with perils of polar bears—half-starved wretches floated ashore upon ice-floes to be slaughtered by the peasants with toy scythes before they can stretch their cramped and numbed limbs. The “horrific deep chasms” of the Reykjavik-Hafnafjörð road, and the popular sketches, affected me with extreme incredulity. A friend described to me life in Iceland as living in a corner, the very incarnation of the passive mood; and travelling there as full of stolid, stupid risks, that invite you to come and to repent coming, not like the swiftly pursuing or treacherously lurking perils of tropical climes, but invested with a horror of their own—such was not my experience. Shortly after returning to England, I published, in the columns of the Morning Standard (October to November 1872), two letters for the benefit of intending tourists and explorers. Written in the most sober and realistic style, and translated into many of the languages of Europe, they gained for me scant credit at home. “Old Identity” again kicked against the goad of “New Iniquity,” and what could I expect? Mackenzie and Henderson, who would “feast wondering eyes” upon everything and everybody, had set the example of treating Iceland as an exceptional theme. They found followers: even the hard-headed Scot gallops between Reykjavik and Thingvellir along the edge of a “dreadful precipice,” where I saw only the humblest ravine; and travellers to the age-weary, worn-out Geysir rise at midnight in their excitement to sing those “grand old psalm-tunes, such as York and the Old Hundredth.” Need it be said that Mr Cook’s pilgrim-tourists have done exactly the same thing in the Holy Land? My matter-of-fact notions were set down as the effects of “Peter Porcupine,” over-“combativeness,” and the undue “spirit of opposition” that characterises an Objector-General, with the “morbid object of gaining popularity by stating something new”—a hasty judgment, which justifies me in writing these volumes, and in supporting my previously expressed views. I can appeal for confirmation to the dozen intelligent English tourists who were in Iceland at the same time as myself: all united with me in deriding their previous conceptions, and in forming the estimate here offered to the public. My plan throughout this volume has been as follows: The reader, not the critic, is assumed to know as little about the island as its author did before visiting it; and the first impressions are carefully recorded, not only as a mise en scène, but for conciseness’ sake, so that only differences, not resemblances, may require subsequent notice. Thus the capital and its environs are painted at some length, whilst most authors simply land at the little port, and set out at once for the interior. The cruise to the north coast, and the “Cockney trip” to Hekla and the Geysir are related with less circumstance, but I have added itineraries, as such details have not yet appeared in English. The journey through the eastern country claims considerable space. Critics tell us that African travellers have so much trouble to reach the Unexplored Regions, that they are apt to report all they see at wearying length, and to empty the contents of their journals upon the public. But every mile of new, or even comparatively new, ground deserves careful topographical notices: let the general reader “skip” such photos if he likes, but let them be written at least for the purpose of future comparison. Again, the Icelanders may complain, like the Swiss, that, whilst their country has become a touring-field to Europe, scant attention is paid to themselves. I have endeavoured to remedy this grievance by ethnological descriptions; and though it has been my desire to speak of things, and states of things, not of persons, it has been impossible at times to avoid personalities. And, whilst a wanderer knowing only enough of the language to express his humble wants, whose travels have been limited to a single fine season, has little right ex cathedrâ, to pronounce, even in this scanty community, upon religion and politics, upon commerce and civilisation; he is fully justified in quoting as his own the judgments formed by consulting experts and authorities, upon whom his experience, and that “sixth sense” developed by the life-long habit of observation, have taught him to rely. There is still much to be done in Iceland, and I flatter myself that the fifteenth chapter, which shows my only attempt at actual exploration, will supply adventurous men with useful hints. The geography, especially of that huge white blot, the south-eastern part, is unknown; and a tyro can be usefully employed there in collecting specimens of botany. The meteorology, again, is highly interesting— does the cold in the “Insula quæ glacialis dicitur” increase, as some have supposed, the effect of the “precession of the equinoxes, the revolution of the apsides, variations in the excentricity of the earth’s orbit,” etc.? Or has it increased at all since Saga times? Evidently it would be most interesting to compare the Icelandic glacier-formations with those of Switzerland; and to determine if the rules laid down by the “De Saussure of Great Britain,” the late Professor David Forbes, by Professor Tyndall, and by Mr Whymper, the conqueror of the mighty Matterhorn, are here applicable. As anthropologists, we ask why a people once so famed for arms, if not for arts, has almost disappeared from the world’s history—is the change caused by politics or religion; is it the logical sequence of monarchy or “media,” of icy winters, of earthquakes and volcanoes, of pestilence and famine? We are curious to learn why a noble poetry should have ceased to sing. And as we have dwelt upon the past, so we would speculate upon the future of the Scandinavian race, which is supposed to be tending to reunion in its old homes, and which, as it enlarges its education, will, like the Slav, take high rank in the European family. The main object of the book, however, has been to advocate the development of the island. Sensible Icelanders freely confess that the life-struggle at home is hard, very hard, and that the “Alma Mater” is a “Dura Mater,” but they have not suggested any remedy for the evil. I hold three measures to be absolutely necessary; the first is the working of the sulphur deposits—not to mention the silica —now in English hands; the second, a systematic reform of the primitive means and appliances with which the islanders labour in their {x} {xi} {xii} {xiii} {xiv} gold mines, the fisheries; and, thirdly, the extension of the emigrating movement, now become a prime need when the population is denser than at any period of its thousand-year history. Concerning that “make-shift,” the pony traffic, and the ill-judged export of sheep and black cattle, ample details will also be found. No care has been omitted in securing for these pages as much correctness as the reader can expect. Mr Robert Mackay Smith, of Edinburgh, whose name I have placed, with permission, at the beginning of this volume, obliged me with the details of his own travels. Dr Richard S. Charnock, whose extensive reading and access to libraries fit him well for the task, assisted me in the Introductory Section, which treats of Thule. Mr Gwyn Jeffreys kindly examined my little collection of shells; Mr Alfred Newton was good enough to suggest hints concerning a possible “last of the Gare-fowl;” and Mr Watts, of Vatna-, or rather Klofa-, Jökull fame, gave me a list of his stages. My fellow-traveller, Mr Alfred G. Lock of Roselands, kept me thoroughly well posted, at great trouble to himself, in ephemeral literature concerning Iceland. When preparing my manuscript for the press, I found that the notes showed various lacunæ and want of details resulting from lack of time: Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín of the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, whose name is sufficient recommendation, consented to become my collaborateur in working up the Introduction; and Mr A. H. Gunlögsen has revised the sheets in my absence from home. Of the late Dr Cowie I shall speak in another place. Mr Vincent courteously placed his paper on “Sulphur in Iceland,” at my disposal; and Mr P. le Neve Foster, Secretary of the Society of Arts, allowed me to borrow from it or to reprint it. Mr William P. Nimmo has brought out the book in the most handsome and liberal form. I thank these gentlemen from my heart, and, at the same time, I warn my readers that all sins of commission and omission occurring in these pages, must be charged upon the author, and the author alone. Allow me to conclude this necessary preliminary ramble with the lines of good “old Dan Geffry:” “For every word men may not chide or pleine, For in this world certain ne wight there is That he ne doth or sayth sometime amis.” CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. SECTION I. Of Thule page Thule, Poetical and Rhetorical, 2 Strabo, Mela, Pliny, Ptolemy, 3 Thule, part of Great Britain, 11 Thule = Scandia, 23 Thule = Iceland, 25 Thule (Etymology of), 32 SECTION II. Physical Geography of Iceland. Genesis and Geology, 35 Hydrography, 53 Climate, 55 Chronometry, 70 Summary, 75 SECTION III. Historical Notes, 78 SECTION IV. Political Geography of Iceland. General Considerations, 113 Divisions, 116 Judicial Procedure, 120 SECTION V. Anthropology. Statistics, 122 General Considerations, 130 Personal Appearance, 131 Character, 137 Society, 141 The Family, 148 {xv} {xvi} {xvii} {xviii} Diseases, 151 SECTION VI. Education and Professions. Education, 155 Professions, 162 SECTION VII. Zoological Notes, etc. Animals Wild and Tame, 169 Notes on the Flora, 175 Agriculture and Cattle-Breeding, 179 Fisheries and Fishing, 189 Industry, 198 Emigration, 208 SECTION VIII. Taxation, etc. Taxation, 209 Coins, 215 Weights and Measures, 218 Communication and Commerce, 219 Visit to the Store, 225 Prices and Imports, 230 SECTION IX. Catalogue, etc. Catalogue-Raisonné of Modern Travels in Iceland, 235 Preparations for Travel, 260 CHAPTER I. The Steam-Ship “Queen”—The Orkneys and Maes Howe—The Shetlands and the Færoe Islands, 267-300 Note on Stone Implements, 300-306 CHAPTER II. The Landfall—Fishing Fleet—To Reykjavik, 307-329 CHAPTER III. Reykjavik—The Suburbs—The Lodging-House—The Club and the Way we spend the Day, 330-347 CHAPTER IV. Sunday at Reykjavik—Drinking in Iceland, 348-362 CHAPTER V. Visits—Convivialities—The Catholic View of the “Reformation”—Surtar-brand—The Home-Rule Party,363-380 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. I. Reykjavik, Capital of Iceland, Frontispiece. General Map of Iceland, Introduction, 1 The Dwarfie Stone, Hoy, Orkney, 266 St Magnus’ Cathedral and Earl’s Palace, Kirkwall, 283 Stone Implements found in Shetland, 303-306 Cottage in Reykjavik, 337 The Anglo-Icelandic Host, 345 The Lich-House, Cemetery, Reykjavik, 349 Iceland Woman—Sunday Wear, 354 Iceland Woman—Monday Wear, 355 The Head Constable, 358 {xix} {xx} [Image unavailable.] [Larger version 431KB] [Largest version 3.4MB] ULTIMA THULE; OR, A SUMMER IN ICELAND. INTRODUCTION. SECTION I. OF THULE. But is Iceland “Ultima Thule?” The author hopes to make it evident that “Thule” was used according to date in five several senses—a sufficient reason for the confusion which has so long invested the subject. It has been well remarked that no place is more often mentioned by the ancients than the “island hid from us by snow and winter;” and yet, that no position is more controverted.[1] There has been a “King of Thule,” and now there is a “Princess of Thule,”—but where and what is “Thule?” It will take some time to clear up the darkness which has been heaped by a host of writers upon “Thule,” and we will begin by distributing the debated word. Firstly, It was attributed poetically, rhetorically, and per synecdochen, to the northern “period of cosmographie,” and to its people, real or supposed. Secondly, It was applied to Iceland, and to Iceland only, from the earliest ages of its exploration. Thirdly, In the centuries when imperial Rome extended her sceptre to the north of “the Britains;” it was given to the outlying parts, Ireland, Scotland, the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and features known only to fabulous geography. Fourthly, The later Roman writers prolonged it to the “Scania Island,” modern Norway, Sweden, and Lapland. This Thule should be called “Procopiana.” Fifthly, Between the establishment of Christianity in England, and the official or modern rediscovery, the term Thule was once more, as of old, limited to Iceland. I. “THULE,” POETICAL AND RHETORICAL. The following are popular instances of Thule used in its first sense, the remotest part of the septentrional world, when it was a “fabulosa non minus quam famosa insula.” Virgil has only one allusion to it (Georg., i. 30, 31): {1} {2} “Tibi serviat ultima Thule, Teque sibi generum Tethys emat omnibus undis;” but his epithet has been consecrated by a bevy of succeeding poets. Servius, commenting upon Virgil, explains: “Thyle insula est oceani inter septentrionalem et occidentalem plagam, ultra Britanniam, Hiberniam, Orcadas;” which is vague enough. He is afterwards more precise: “At this island, when the sun is in Cancer, the days are said to be continuous without nights. Various marvels are related of it, both by Greek and later writers; by Ctesias and Diogenes among the former, and by Samnonicus among the latter.” The work of Ctesias here referred to is little known: Thule would hardly enter into Persica and Indica (B.C. 400). Of Diogenes presently. Samnonicus Sorenus was a writer put to death by command of Caracalla (Notes and Queries, t. ii., v. 119, p. 301). L. Annæus Seneca (ob. A.D. 65) first re-echoes Virgil in the celebrated “prophetic verses,” whose sense has been extended to the New World: “Venient annis secula seris, Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos detegat orbes, Nec sit terris ultima Thule.” —Medea, 375, et seq. Ammianus Marcellinus (ob. circ. A.D. 390) uses (History, lib. xviii., 6, 31) the adage, “Etiamsi apud Thulen moraretur Ursicinus.” Claudius Claudianus (flor. A.D. 395-408) sings: “Et nostro procul axe remotam Insolito belli tremeficit murmure Thulen!” —De Bell. Getic., 203, et seq. And— “Te vel Hyperboreo damnatam sidere Thulen, Te vel ad incensas Libyæ comitatur arenas.” —In Rufin., ii. 240. Finally, we find in Aurelius Prudentius (nat. A.D. 348): “Ultima littora Thules Transadigit.” II. STRABO, MELA, PLINY, PTOLEMY. Entering upon the second phase of the subject, it is advisable to consider what has been written concerning Thule, by the four patriarchs of classical geography. With Strabo Thule is Iceland; in Mela it is indefinite; and to Pliny and Ptolemy it is part of Britain, with an arrière pensée of Iceland: of Pytheas and Eratosthenes we must also say a few words. Strabo. Strabo (nat. B.C. 54; Introduction, vol. i., p. 99, Hamilton and Falconer’s translation, Bohn, 1854) tells us, § 2: “Thence (i.e., from the Dneiper) to the parallel of Thule, which Pytheas says is six days’ sail north from Britain and near the Frozen Sea, other 11,500 stadia” [a measure which we will assume with Leake to be 700 = 1°]. Again, § 3: “But that the Dneiper is under the same parallel as Thule, what man in his senses could ever agree to this? Pytheas, who has given us the history of Thule, is known to be a man upon whom no reliance can be placed; and other writers who have seen Britain and Ierne[2](Ireland?), although they tell us of many small islands round Britain, make no mention whatever of Thule.” In § 4: “Now from Marseille to the centre of Britain is not more than 5000 stadia; and if from the centre of Britain we advance north not more than 4000 stadia, we arrive at a temperature in which it is scarcely possible to exist. Such indeed is that of Ierne. Consequently the far region in which Eratosthenes places Thule must be totally uninhabitable. By what guess-work he arrived at the conclusion that between the latitude of {3} {4} Thule and the Dnieper there was a difference of 11,500 stadia, I am unable to divine.” In book ii., chap. 4, §§ 1, 2, he thus disposes of Pytheas (“by whom many have been deceived”): “It is this last writer who states that he travelled all over Britain on foot, and that the island is above 40,000 stadia in circumference.[3] It is likewise he who describes Thule and other neighbouring places, where, according to him, neither earth, water, nor air exist separately, but a sort of concretion of all these, resembling marine sponge, in which the earth, the sea, and all things were suspended, this forming, as it were, a link to unite the whole together. It can neither be travelled over nor sailed through. As for the substance, he affirms that he has beheld it with his own eyes; the rest he reports on the authority of others. So much for the statements of Pytheas, who tells us besides, that after he had returned thence, he traversed the whole coasts of Europe from Gades to the Don. Polybius asks, ‘How is it possible that a private individual, and one too in narrow circumstances, could ever have performed such vast expeditions by sea and land?[4] And how could Eratosthenes, who hesitates whether he may rely on his statements in general, place such entire confidence in what the writer relates concerning Britain, Gades, and Iberia?’ Says he, ‘It would have been better had Eratosthenes trusted to the Messenian (Euhemerus or Evemerus) rather than to this writer. The former merely pretends to have sailed into one [unknown] country, viz., Panchæa, but the latter that he has visited the whole of the north of Europe, as far as the ends of the earth; which statement, even had it been made by Mercury, we should not have believed. Nevertheless Eratosthenes, who terms Euhemerus a Bergæan, gives credit to Pytheas, although even Dicærchus would not believe him.’ ” In book ii., chap. 5, § 8, we have a further notice of Thule: “It is true that Pytheas Massiliensis affirms that the farthest country north of the British Islands is Thule; for which place, he says, the summer tropic and the Arctic circle is all one. But he records no other particulars concerning it; [he does not say] whether Thule is an island, or whether it continues habitable up to the point where the summer tropic becomes one with the Arctic circle. For myself, I fancy that the northern boundaries of the habitable earth are greatly south of this. Modern writers tell us of nothing beyond Ierne which lies just north of Britain, where the people live miserably and like savages, on account of the severity of the cold. It is here, in my opinion, the bounds of the habitable earth ought to be fixed.” Finally, in book iv., chap. 5, § 5, we have the most important notice of all: “The description of Thule is still more uncertain on account of its secluded situation; for they consider it the northernmost of all lands, of which the names are known. The falsity of what Pytheas has related concerning this and neighbouring places, is proved by what he has asserted of well-known countries. For if, as we have shown, his descriptions of these is in the main incorrect, what he says of far distant countries is still more likely to be false. Nevertheless, as far as astronomy and mathematics are concerned, [5] he appears to have reasoned correctly that people bordering on the frozen zone would be destitute of cultivated fruits and almost deprived of the domestic animals; that their food would consist of millet, herbs, fruits, and roots; and that where there was corn and honey they would make drink of these. That having no bright sun they would thresh their corn and store it in vast granaries, threshing-floors being useless on account of the rain and want of sun.” The whole question evidently hinges upon the credibility of Pytheas Massiliensis, who travelled about the time of Alexander the Great. It has been ably argued, pro and con, by a host of writers, and in our day by the late Sir G. C. Lewis (Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 467, et seq.), and by Sir John Lubbock (Prehistoric Times, p. 59). But the dispute has not been settled. I would remark that the old traveller’s account is consistent enough. He appears to place Thule under N. lat. 66° (assuming, as Strabo does, the tropic at 24°), a parallel which would pass through the north of Iceland. He is quite right about the absence of fruits. His spongy matter may have been ice-brash, Medusæ, the German meer-lungen, or even pumice-stone, which modern travellers have found floating in such quantities upon the sea, within reach of volcanoes, that their movements were arrested. We read that about a month before the eruption of A.D. 1783, a submarine vent burst forth at a distance of nearly seventy miles in a south-westerly direction off Cape Reykjanes, and ejected such immense quantities of pumice that the surface of the ocean was covered with it to the distance of 150 miles, and the spring ships were impeded in their course. Also when Herodotus, a Greek—whose world embraced the Eridanus or Amber River, the Tin Isles, the Arimaspians and the Hyperboreans—could confound snow with feathers, Pytheas, a Marseillais, might be allowed some latitude in describing glaciers. Poverty has not prevented the most audacious journeys; and discovery has been mainly the work of individuals. Geminus (Isagoge, etc., cap. 5) opines that Pytheas was taken to Iceland against his will. The barbarians showed him where the sun set on the shortest day, and rose again after a short interval. Then the sea began to thicken “pulmonis marini (πνεὑμονι θαλαττἱῳ) simile.” He afterwards heard that where the sun does not set, is the uttermost part of the world, and cannot be travelled over. Greek outrecuidance evidently hated to be taught by a kind of Gaul like Pytheas. Strabo, with his captious, bilious, and acrid criticism, is wrong, and Pytheas is right, in a highly important part of the question, the inhabitability of the island. In fact, sundry modern writers have declared that, as far as we have the means of judging, Strabo’s predecessors, Pytheas and Eratosthenes, were more correctly informed than he was concerning the geography of the western parts of Europe.[6] The learned Isaac Casaubon (Commentaries upon Strabo) thus decides the question clean against his author: “Thule—non esse aliam quæ Islandia hodie dicitur, facile doctis viris assentior.” He adds that Eratosthenes held Pytheas to be an oracle, but when Polybius and others found his geography loose in points familiar to the Greeks, they pronounced him a liar, and rejected all he wrote. I must therefore conclude that Pytheas, with all his fables, by Thule meant Iceland, and Iceland only; moreover, that he had acquired some knowledge of the island. Indeed Gosselin opined that both Pytheas and Eratosthenes had had access to the memoirs of some unknown ancient people to whom Europe and its seas were as well known as to ourselves. He argues that this people could not have been Babylonians, Phœnicians, Carthaginians, nor Egyptians. Bailly (Hist. de l’Astr. An., 1-3), entertaining a similar opinion, supposes them, after the fashion of the day, to be Antediluvians. Mela. Pomponius Mela (A.D. 41-54; De Situ Orbis, iii. 6) is our next authority. After mentioning Britannia and Iverna, the thirty islands of the Orcades, the seven Hæmodæ (Shetlands) fronting Germany,[7] and the Scandinavian Isle held by the Teutons,[8] he says: {5} {6} {7} {8} “Thule fronts the seaboard of the Belcæ (alii Belgæ and Bergæ),[9] an island celebrated in the Greek poetry and in our own. There, as the sun rises to set afar off, the nights are indeed short; but during winter, as in other places, obscure; in summer they are light, because throughout that season (the sun), already raising himself higher (above the horizon), despite not being seen, yet illuminates the nearest parts by his approaching splendour. At the solstices there is no darkness, because then (the sun), becoming more manifest, shows not only his rays, but the greater part” (of his disc). Pliny. The next authority is Pliny (nat. A.D. 23, ob. A.D. 79), who makes Thule the northernmost British island. Both he and Cæsar (Bell. Gall., v. 13), placing Mona about N. lat. 66°, declare that the sun does not set in summer, but perpetually disappears during the winter solstice. To the former phase Cæsar assigns thirty days, Pliny six months (senis mensibus). The great natural philosopher mentions the Massilian traveller without abusing him: “Pytheas informs us that this is the case (i.e., the day lasting six months, and the night being of equal length) in the island of Thule, which is six days’ sail from the north of Britain” (Nat. Hist., vol. i., book ii., chap. 77, Bostock and Riley, Bohn, 1835). In book iv., chap. 30, occurs: “The most remote of all that we find mentioned is Thule, in which, as we have previously stated, there is no night at the summer solstice, when the sun is passing through the sign of Cancer; while, on the other hand, at the winter solstice there is no day.” Again (loc. cit.): “There are writers also who make mention of some other islands, Scandia, namely, Damna, Bergos, and, greater than all, Nerigos (or Nerigo, Noreg, i.e., Norway), from which persons embark for Thule. At one day’s sail from Thule, is the Frozen Ocean, which by some is called the Cronian Sea.” Finally, in book vi., chap. 39, we find: “The last of all is the Scythian parallel,[10] which runs from the Riphæan range to Thule, in which, as we have already stated, the year is divided into days and nights alternately of six months’ duration.” With these passages before us, it is easy to understand why popular writers generally assume Pliny’s Thule to be the Shetland Isles. But he evidently confirms the account of Pytheas, and adds the significant detail about the Cronian or Frozen Sea. It is well established that the ocean south of Iceland is not icy, whilst the northern and western shores are often frost-bound. Ptolemy. Claudius Ptolemy, the Pelusian (flor. A.D. 159-161) notices θούλη in nine places. After correcting (book i., chap. 20, §§ 7, 8,[11] = p. 17[12]) the errors of Maximus of Tyre, he says (book i., chap. 24, § 4, = p. 19): “Consequently also the parallel passing through Thule shall be laid down as ν β’ (52) sections from η το ζ η, along the lines of latitude ξ, ο, π.” The same chapter (§ 6, = p. 20) tells us, “Also shall be comprehended the interval between ο and κ southwards, that is, between the parallels passing through Thule and through Rhodes κ ζ (27) sections.” Thirdly, the same chapter (§ 17, = p. 22) continues: “κ, through which shall be described the line (of latitude) defining the north, and falling on the island of Thule.” Fourthly, in the same (§ 20, = p. 22), we find: “And as τὸ μῆκος (the longitude) is commensurable with τὸ πλάτος (the latitude), since upon the sphere whose great circle is five, of these the parallel passing through Thule is about β and δ´” (2¼). Book ii., chap. 3, § 32, = p.28, establishes the position of Thule: “And above them (the Orkades) is the (island of) Thule, whose— Western parts are in E. long.(Ferro?)29° N lat.63° The Easternmost being in” ” 31° 40´” 63° ” Northernmost ” ” 30° 20´” 63° 15´ ” Southernmost ” ” 30° 20´” 62° 40´ And the Mid Isle in, ” ” 30° 20´” 63° “ The sixth book (chap. 16, § 1, = p. 113) tells us: “Serica is bounded west by Scythia beyond the Imaus mountain, according to the line laid down; on the north by an unknown land on the parallel passing through Thule; on the east by regions also unknown, along the meridional line whose limits are: “E. long.180´´N. lat.63° ” 18° ” 35°” Again we find (book vii., chap. 5, § 12, = p. 125): “But the northern part is bounded by the parallel which is north of the equinoctial line 63 parts (i.e., N. lat. 63°), and this is described through Thule, the Island. So that the breadth of the known world is 76° 25´, or in round numbers, 80 degrees.”[13] {9} {10} Lastly (book viii., chap, 3, § 3, = p. 131) we are told: “But the (Island) Thule has its greatest day of twenty equinoctial hours, and from Alexandria it is distant two equinoctial hours to the west.”[14] Thus Ptolemy’s Thule is a long narrow island, 160 by 35 miles, and his description, despite the times in which he wrote, is applicable rather to North Britain and even to Iceland, than to Scandinavia. He is consistent in his assertions: (1.) That Thule is an island; (2.) That its northernmost point extends to 3° 17´ south of the Polar circle (66° 32´); (3.) That it lies north of the Orcades.[15] Manifestly we cannot rely upon the longitudes, Ptolemy’s first meridian being still sub judice. The late Mr Hogg suggested[16] that the zero of longitude was not, as usually assumed, at Ferro in the Fortunate Islands (W. long. (G.) 24° 23´ 40´´ to 24° 34´), but at “S. Antonio, Cape Verd Islands” (read São Antão[17]) in W. long. (G.) 25° 2´ 40´´ to 25° 25´ 45´´—a change which would give in round numbers a difference of fifty miles.[18] Nothing more need be added upon this head. Pytheas and Eratosthenes evidently referred to Iceland; Mela did the same in making it front Bergen; Pliny heard of it when he relates that from Nerigos persons embark for Thule; and neglecting Ptolemy’s latitudes and longitudes, his description tallies best with Iceland. III. THULE, PART OF GREAT BRITAIN Of Thule applied to some part of Great Britain we have a multitude of instances, which are ably and lengthily brought together by Sir Robert Sibbald.[19] Our writer begins by establishing the fact that the ancients connected the idea of darkness with the north. “These places of Homer πρὸς ζόφον (ad caliginem), and οὐ γὰρ ἴδμεν ὅπου ζόφου (neque enim scimus ubi sit caligo), are by Strabo (ii. § 6) interpreted of the north, “Nescimus ubi sit Septentrio” (We know not where the north is). He quotes Tibullus (nat. circ. B.C. 54; iv. 1, 154): “Illic et densâ tellus absconditur umbrâ.” And Pub. Papinius Statius (nat. circ. A.D. 61; Sylv., iii., Ad Claudiam Uxorem, v. 20): “Vel super Hesperiæ vada caligantia Thiles.” Again (Sylv., iv. 4, 62): “——aut nigræ littora Thule.” And again (Sylv., v. 1, 90, 91): “——quantum ultimus orbis, Cesserit et refluo circumsona gurgite Thule.” Strabo (book ii., chap. 4, § 8) is quoted to show by Pytheas, that Thule is “one of those islands that are called British,” and we have seen Strabo’s own opinion that it lies farther south than where the Massilian placed it. He quotes Catullus (B.C. 87; Ad Furium Carm., xii.): “Sive trans altas gradietur Alpes, Cæsaris visens monumenta magni, Gallicum Rhenum, horribilesque ultimosque Britannos;” and Horace (i. 35, 30): “Serves iturum Cæsarem in ultimos Orbis Britannos;” to show that the Britons were the northernmost people then known. Due use is made of Silius Italicus (nat. circ. A.D. 25; Punic, lib. xvii., 417, 418): “Cœrulus hand alitur cum dimicat incola Thule, Agmina falcifero circumvenit arcta covino,” for it appears from Cæsar’s Commentaries, that the bluish colour and the fighting out of hooked chariots were in use among the inhabitants of Britain. Pliny also (N. H., iv. 30) treats of Thule in the same chapter where he treats of the British Isles, “ultima omnium quæ memoratum est Thule.” Tacitus says (Agric. Vita, cap. x.) when the Roman navy sailed about Britain, “dispecta est et Thule.”[20] ‘Ireland, properly so called, was the first of the British Isles which got the name Thule, being the first that the Carthaginians met with as they steered their course from Cadiz to the west; and hence it is that Statius (Ad Claud. Uxor., lib. iii., v. 20) calls Thule ‘Hesperia,’ and it seems to be the same that is said by (the pseudo) Aristotle (Liber de Mirab. Auscult) to have been discovered by the Carthaginians when he speaks thus (lxxxv.): “ ‘In the sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, they say, the Carthaginians found a fertile island uninhabited, abounding in wood and {11} {12} {13} navigable rivers, and stored with very great plenty of fruits (fructibus) of all sorts,[21] distant several days’ voyage from the continent.’ And Bochartus (Geog. Sac.) confirms this by what he observes, that an ancient author, Antonius Diogenes,[22] who wrote twenty-four books of the strange things (or Incredibilities) related of Thule,[23] not long after the time of Alexander the Great, had his history from the Ciparis Tables, dug at Tyre out of the tombs of Mantinea and Dercilis (Dercyllides), who had gone from Tyre to Thule, and had stayed some time there. But though this be the first Thule discovered by the Carthaginians, yet it is not that mentioned by the Roman writers, for they speak of the Thule which the Romans were in and made a conquest of, but it is certain they were never in Iceland properly so called. “That they were in Thule appears from Statius (Sylv., v. 2, 54): “ ‘——quantusque nigrantem Fluctibus occiduis fessoque Hyperione Thulen Intrârit mandata gerens.’ Now the father of Crispinus, to whom he writes, was Vectius Bolanus, governor of Britain, A.D. 69, under Vitellius (as Tacitus informs us), which is clearly proved by the same poet (Sylv., v. 2, 140-143): “ ‘Quod si te magno tellus frenata parenti Accipiat— Quanta Caledonios attollet gloria campos! Cum tibi longævus referet trucis incola terræ; Hic suetus dare jura parens.’ The words ‘Caledonios’ and’ trucis incola terræ’ clearly show that by Thule is meant the north part of Britain, which was then possessed by the Picts, designed by the name ‘Caledonios,’ and by the Scots, designed as ‘trucis incola terræ,’ the same epithet that Claudian (De Bell. Get., 416) gives to the Scots in these verses: “ ‘Venit et extremis legio prætenta Britannis, Quæ Scoto dat fræna truci, ferroque notatas Perlegit exsangues Picto moriente figuras.’ And of this north part of Britain that verse of Juvenal (Sat., xv. 112): “ ‘De conducendo loquitur jam rhetore Thule,’[24] is also to be understood. Of this the best exposition is taken from Tacitus (Agric., xxi.): “ ‘Jam verò principum filios, liberalibus artibus erudire, et ingenia Britannorum studiis Gallorum anteferre, ut qui modò linguam Romanum abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent.’ “Claudian (De III. Consul. Honor., 52-56) yet more particularly gives the name of Thule to the north part of Britain: “ ‘Facta tui numerabat avi, quem littus adustæ Horrescit Libyæ, ratibusque impervia Thule. Ille leves Mauros, nec falso nomine Pictos Edomuit, Scotumque vago mucrone secutus, Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas.’ And in these lines (De IV. Consul. Honor., 26-33): “ ‘Ille, Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis, Qui medios Libyæ sub casside pertulit æstus, Terribilis Mauro, debellatorque Britanni Littoris, ac pariter Boreæ vastator et Austri. Quid rigor æternus cœli, quid sidera prosunt? Ignotumque fretum? Maduerunt Saxoue fuso, Orcades: incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule: Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne,’ where, by placing the Moors and Britons as the remotest people then known, and mentioning the Scots and Picts as the inhabitants of Thule and Ierne, he demonstrates clearly that Thule is the north part of the isle of Britain, inhabited by the Scots and Picts. For this Ierne, or, as some read it, ‘Hyberne,’ can no way be understood of Ireland properly so called; first, because Ireland can never deserve the epithet ‘glacialis,’[25] since, by the testimony of the Irish writers, the snow and ice continue not any time there; secondly, the Romans were never in Ireland, whereas, according to the above-mentioned verses, Theodosius passed over the Friths of Forth and Clyde, called by him ‘Hyperboreæ undæ,’ and entered Strathearn, which to this day bears the name Ierne; in which Roman medals are found, and the Roman camps and military ways are to be seen—the undoubted testimonies of their being there; and therefore is so to be understood in the same poet’s lines upon Stilicho (see De Laud. Stilich., lib. ii., 250-254), who was employed in the British war: {14} {15} “ ‘Me quoque vicinis pereuntem gentibus, inquit, Me juvit Stilicho, totam cum Scotus Iernen Movit, et infesto spumavit remige Tethys. Illius effectum curis, ne tela timerem Scotica, ne Pictum tremerem.’ Now, Tethys in these verses, and the ‘undæ Hyperboreæ’ in the verses before mentioned, cannot be understood of the sea between Scotland and Ireland, for Ireland lies to the south of the Roman province, and the situation of the Scots’ and Picts’ country is to the north of it; for it was separated by the two Friths of Forth and Clyde from the Roman province, which clearly shows it was to be understood of them: the same thing that is also imported by the words ‘Hyperboreas undas’ and ‘remis;’ for these cannot be understood of the Irish Sea, which is to the south of the Roman province, and is very tempestuous, and cannot so well be passed by oars as the Friths of Forth and Clyde. And the same poet has put this beyond all doubt (in the verses before quoted, De Bell. Get., 416). “For were it to be understood of the Irish Sea, then the wall and the ‘prætenturæ’ (legio prætenta) should have been placed upon the Scottish shore that was over against that country, which is called Strathearn now, and is the true Ierne not only mentioned by Claudian, but also by Juvenal in these verses (I. Sat., ii. 160): “ ‘Arma quidem ultra Litora Juvenæ promovimus, et modò captas Oreadas, ac minimâ contentos nocte Britannos.’ “That this Thule was a part of Britain, the Roman writers seem to be very clear, especially Silius Italicus in the verses before quoted. “But to make it appear which part of Britain the Thule was which is mentioned by the Romans, it will be fit to see to which part of Britain the epithets attributed by writers to Thule do best agree. First, then, it was a remote part, ‘ultima Thule,’ as if this were the remotest part of Britain; so Tacitus (Agric., xxx.) brings in Galgacus expressing it, ‘We, the uttermost bounds of land and liberty,’ etc. Then Thule was towards the north, and so was this country with respect to the Roman province; and, thirdly, it might deserve the name Thule (darkness), because of its obscure and dark aspect, it being in those days all overgrown with woods. Fourthly, the length of the day annexed to Thule: and, upon this account, it must be the country to the north and to the east of Ierne, by the verses of Juvenal before mentioned (V. Sat., xv. 112). “Another property of Thule given by Tacitus (loc. cit.) is that about it is ‘mare pigram et grave remigantibus,’ which agrees indeed to the sea upon the north-east part of Scotland, but not for the reason that Tacitus gives, i.e., for want of winds, but because of the contrary tides which drive several ways, and stop not only boats with oars, but ships under sail. “But Thule is most expressly described to be this very same country that we treat of by Conradus Celtes: “ ‘Orcadibus quâ cincta suis Tyle et glacialis Insula.’ “This same epithet Claudian (see p. 15) gives to Ierne, when he calls it ‘Glacialis Ierne;’ and this Thule he makes to be encompassed ‘suis Orcadibus,’ which isles lie over-against it; and a little after he gives it the like epithet with ‘mare pigrum.’ “ ‘Et jam sub septem spectant vaga rostra Trionos Quà Tyle est rigidis insula cincta vadis.’ And afterwards he makes the Orcades to lie over-against this Thule, and seems to have in his eye the skerries and weels in Pictland (Pentland?) Frith in these lines: “ ‘Est locus Arctoo quà se Germania tractu cis Tyle ubi surgit aquis, Quam juxta infamos scopuli et petrosa vorago Asperat undisonis saxa pudenta vadis Orcadas has memorant dictas a nomine Græco.”[26] “But the clearest testimony of all we owe to Arngrimus Jonas (Specimen Islandicum, A.D. 1593),[27] when he brings in the verses of Fortunatus (lib. viii., cap. 1), who sings of St Hilarion (ob. A.D. 372): “ ‘Eloquii currente rotâ penetravit ad Indos, Ingeniumque potens ultima Thule colit.’ “And then reckoning up the several nations enlightened by him, he mentions Britain amongst the rest: “ ‘Thrax, Italus, Scytha, Persa, Indus, Geta, Daca, Britannus.’[28] “To which he adds, ‘From whence it may fairly enough be inferred that either Britain or (as Pliny will have it) some island of Britain was the ultima Thule.’ And afterwards, ‘To confirm the opinion of Pliny and his followers, who will have some of the British Isles, or particularly, that farthest in the Scottish dominions to be Thule, I must acknowledge that the history of the kings of Norway says the same thing, in the life of King Magnus, who, in an expedition to the Orcades and Hebrides and into Scotland and Britain, {16} {17} {18} touched also at the Island of Thule and subdued it.’ “By all this, I think, it appears sufficiently that the north-east part of Scotland, which Severus the emperor and Theodosius the Great infested with their armies, and in which, as Boethius[29] shows us, Roman medals were found, is undoubtedly the Thule mentioned by the Roman writers; and this also, if we believe the learned Arngrimus Jonas, was meant by Ptolemy, where he saith, that, to the twenty-first parallel drawn through Thule by Ptolemy, the latitude answers to 55° 36´, so that our country in those ancient times passed under the name of Thule and Hibernia, and the ‘Hiberni et Picti, incolæ Thules’ are the same people who were afterwards called Scots.[30] “I shall only add one remark more, and that is, that we need not have recourse for the rise of the name Scot, to the fabulous account of the monks who bring it from Scota, Pharaoh’s daughter, married to Gathelus; since without that strain, if it be granted that the country was once called Thule, which in the Phœnician language signifies ‘darkness,’ we have a very fair reason for the name Scotia, which signifies the same in the Greek tongue. And it is very well known that it was usual with the Greeks (who next to the Phœnicians were the best navigators) not only to retain the Phœnician name of the place, but likewise to give one in their own language of the same import; and since the learned Bochartus has very ingeniously deduced the Greek name of the whole island, Βρετανικὴ, from Bratanack and Barat anac,[31] in the Phœnician tongue signifying ‘a land of tin’ (which the Greeks not only reduced to their own termination, but likewise called the British isles[32] Κασσιτερίδες, that is, ‘lands of tin,’[33] which is the signification of the Phœnician and Greek names); we may take the same liberty to derive the Greek name Scotia from Phœnician Thule;[34] but this is so fully treated of in the ‘Scotia Antiqua,’ that I need say no more.” To these authorities may be added Silius Italicus (lib. iii., 597), who manifestly places “unknown Thule” about Scotland: “Hine pater ignotam donabit vincere Thulen Inque Caledonios primus trahit agmina lucos.” R. Festus Avienus (Descr. Orb. Ter.), metaphrasing Dionysius, treats of Thule when speaking of Britain, and yet gives “the unknown island” an Arctic day: “Longa dehinc celeri si quis rate marmora currat, Inveniet vasto surgentem gurgite Thulen; Hinc cùm plaustra poli tangit Phœbeïus ignis Nocte sub inlustri rota solis fomite flagrat Continuò clarumque diem nox œucula ducit.” We have also the testimony of Richard of Cirencester (Ricardus Coronensis, ob. circ. A.D. 1401), who tells us (De Situ Britanniæ) that in the time of the later emperors, “Thule” was applied to Valentia or Valentiana, the district between the wall of Severus and the rampart of Antoninus, including the south part of Scotland, Northumberland, and a portion of Cumberland. It might have been supposed that the distinct mention of the Orcades and Hebrides[35] by Pliny (N. H., lib. iv., cap. 30), and by Ptolemy (lib. ii., cap. 3, § 32, = p. 28), would have barred their claim to the classic title. This is far from being the case. John Brand (A Brief Description of Orkney, etc., Edin. 1701, Pinkerton, iii., p. 782), a...