hen Aristotle and Plato, Virgil and
Horace and Pliny, all the goodly company of the ancient authors and
philosophers and scientists, offered to become man's faithful friend in
exchange for a few paltry pennies. Humanism had made all men free and
equal before the printed word.

THE GREAT DISCOVERIES

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 making 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