The Project Gutenberg eBook, Historical Lectures and Essays, by Charles
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Title: Historical Lectures and Essays

Author: Charles Kingsley

Release Date: May 12, 2005 [eBook #1360]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS***

Transcribed from the 1902 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

HISTORICAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS
by Charles Kingsley

Contents:

The First Discovery of America
Cyrus, Servant of the Lord
Ancient Civilisation
Rondelet
Vesalius
Paracelsus
Buchanan

THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF AMERICA

Let me begin this lecture {1} with a scene in the North Atlantic 863
years since.

"Bjarne Grimolfson was blown with his ship into the Irish Ocean; and
there came worms and the ship began to sink under them. They had a boat
which they had payed with seals' blubber, for that the sea-worms will not
hurt. But when they got into the boat they saw that it would not hold
them all. Then said Bjarne, 'As the boat will only hold the half of us,
my advice is that we should draw lots who shall go in her; for that will
not be unworthy of our manhood.' This advice seemed so good that none
gainsaid it; and they drew lots. And the lot fell to Bjarne that he
should go in the boat with half his crew. But as he got into the boat,
there spake an Icelander who was in the ship and had followed Bjarne from
Iceland, 'Art thou going to leave me here, Bjarne?' Quoth Bjarne, 'So it
must be.' Then said the man, 'Another thing didst thou promise my
father, when I sailed with thee from Iceland, than to desert me thus. For
thou saidst that we both should share the same lot.' Bjarne said, 'And
that we will not do. Get thou down into the boat, and I will get up into
the ship, now I see that thou art so greedy after life.' So Bjarne went
up into the ship, and the man went down into the boat; and the boat went
on its voyage till they came to Dublin in Ireland. Most men say that
Bjarne and his comrades perished among the worms; for they were never
heard of after."

This story may serve as a text for my