was late
on the Sabbath when we came to the mountain, and, arriving at a certain
monastery, the kindly monks who lived there entertained us, showing
us all kindliness." Sylvia had to ascend the mountain on foot "because
the ascent could not be made in a chair," but the view over "Egypt
and Palestine and the Red Sea and the Mediterranean which leads to
Alexandria, also the boundless territory of the Saracens, we saw below
us, hard though it is to believe, all of which things these holy men
pointed out to us."

But we must not follow her to Jerusalem, or to Mesopotamia, where she
saw "the great river Euphrates, rushing down in a torrent like the
Rhine, but greater." She reached Constantinople by the guide-book
route, having spent four years in travel, and walked two thousand miles
to the very "limit of the Roman Empire." Her boundless energy is not
exhausted yet. "Ladies, my beloved ones," she writes, "whilst I
prepare this account for your pious zeal, it is already my purpose
to go to Asia."

But we must turn away for a moment from the stream of pilgrim travellers
wending their weary way from Britain, France, Spain, and the east to
Jerusalem, to follow the travels of St. Patrick through the wilds of
Ireland.

CHAPTER XII

IRISH EXPLORERS

Patrick had been a pilgrim to Rome from the banks of the Clyde, where
he lived, and, having seen the Pope, he had returned to Ireland by
sea, landing on the Wicklow coast in the year 432. Hungry and tired
after the long voyage, he tried to get some fish from the fishermen,
but they replied by throwing stones at him, and he put out to sea again
and headed north. Past Bray Head, past the Bay of Malahide he sailed,
but he could get neither fish nor food till he reached a spot between
the Liffey and the Boyne, where he built his first Christian church.

Now in the fifth century, when light first breaks over Ireland, it
breaks over a land torn by perpetual tribal strife, a land in the chaos
of wild heathendom. It was reserved for St. Patrick to save her from
increasing gloom.

Patrick and his companions now sailed on past Louth, by the low-lying
shore with long stretches of sandy flats, on under the shadow of great
peaks frowning over the sea. He landed near Downpatrick, founded
another church, and spent the winter in these parts, for the autumn
was far advanced. Spring found him sailing back to the Boyne and
attacking the fierce heathen king at Tara, the capital of Irelan