supposed to be the village of Wissant, near Cape Grisnez, then called the Itian Promontory. The island, which was a peninsula at low water, where the stores of tin were collected, may easily have been the Isle of Thanet, which has only been joined to the mainland in modern times. Bede tells us, that in the 7th century there was a ferry over the estuary between Thanet and Kent, which was nearly half a mile across at high tide, and the broad stream with ferry boats and people fording the passage at low water is depicted on certain ancient maps which belonged to Saint Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury. The estuary, now represented by the slender stream of the Wantsume River, was not completely silted up at any point until the reign of Henry VIII., when a chronicler cited the testimony of eight men then living, who had seen barges and merchant vessels sail at high tide along the whole channel from Richborough to Reculver.' There would probably have been no doubt about the identity of the "Mictis" of Pytheas, and the "Ictis" of Posidonius and Diodorus, with the island lying so nearly opposite to the "Itian Port," if it were not for the silting up of the channels: these in ancient times had made the Kentish islands along the southern bank of the estuary of the Thames to seem like peninsulas at the ebb, while they were true islands at the flood. But as the peculiar circumstances of the case became forgotten, it became usual to look for "Ictis" in another direction; and it is now generally supposed to be identical with St. Michael's Mount in Mount's Bay, the only place on the southern coast which, in the present day, corresponds to the details

1 Twine, "De Reb. Albion." i. 25. The old map of Thanet in this chapter was first published by Dugdale in the "Monasticon."

of the ancient description.

But it should be remembered, that from the existence of the submarine forest in Mount's Bay, and the Cornish tradition that in ancient times the neck between the mount and the mainland was never reached by the tide, it is more than probable that in the age of Pytheas the present island or peninsula would not have corresponded in any way with the description of the island of Ictis. And this theory is borne out by the old Cornish name for the mount, which Leland and Carew have preserved, the place being called "Cara Cowze in Clowze," or the Hoar Rock in the Wood.1

1 Carew, Survey of Cornwall, 154. Leland, in his Itinerary, describes the rock as "Carreg lug en Kug, or Le Hore rok in the Wodd," according to his antique manner of spelling. It is fair to say that writers of authority prefer to accept the common theory which identifies Ictis with St. Michael's Mount, though Ptolemy's identification of the place with the Isle of Wight is of course rejected by every one. Mr. Kenrick says of the passage in Diod. Sic. v. 22. (Phœn. 220): "In this passage the true site of the tin-mines is described: they are found chiefly in the south-western corner of Cornwall, in Gwennap, Polgooth, and Redruth; and the island. which at low water is joined to the mainland can be no other than St. Michael's Mount, which was excellently adapted from this circumstance to be the place of trade between foreign dealers and the inhabitants of the continent. Some of the principal tin-mines are in the immediate neighbourhood of Mount's Bay. As the Phoenicians made no settlements in Britain, and merely anchored their vessels first at the Scilly Islands, and afterwards at Mount's Bay, returning at the close of summer to the south of Spain, it is not wonderful that no inscriptions or monuments of any kind attest their presence or their influence in our island. It is, however, by no means improbable that the tin which came originally from Cornwall may have returned thither from Gaul or Spain, in the form of those instruments of bronze which are some of the earliest of our British antiquities

He adds: "From a similarity of sound Vectis (the Isle of Wight) has been supposed to be the Ictis of Diodorus; but it can never have been joined at low water to Hampshire in the Roman times; nor would it be at all a convenient market for the tin of Cornwall." Pliny (iv. 16) places Vectis between England and Ireland; and Timæus, pro

Here we may leave the subject of the visit of Pytheas to South Britain, and will pass in the next chapter to what is known of his travels in Germany and the Baltic, and of his celebrated journey to the Arctic regions.

bably misunderstanding Pytheas, has transferred Ictis to the site of Thule. "Six days' sail" is the distance from Britain at which Pytheas placed Thule (Plin. ii. 75), and the introrsus of Pliny (iv. 16) means, on the eastern side of Britain, as Pytheas certainly navigated the German Ocean. See also Barham, Tract on the subject of Ictis, Geol. Soc. Corn. iii. 88, and De la Beche's Geol. Report, p. 524.

CHAPTER II.

Visit of Pytheas to Germany and the Baltic.-Criticism by Strabo.-Summary of route. -Pliny's northern geography.--Description of Germany by Tacitus.-The Gothones and Suiones.-The Northern Ocean.-The Amber Coast.-The Sitones.-Obligations of Tacitus to Greek writers.—Route of Pytheas.—Passage to Celtica.—The Ostians or Ostiones-Their mode of living.-The Cimbri.-The Chauci.-North Germany.—The Hercynian Forest—Its Fauna in the time of Pytheas.—The reindeer. -The elk.-The urus.-The aurochs.-The country of the Cimbri.-The Guttones. -The Amber Islands.-Extent of commerce in amber-Voyage to Thule.-Discoveries in the Arctic Circle.-Return to Britain.-Return to Marseilles-Character of Pytheas.

THE

HE visit of Pytheas to Germany must always be interesting to those who regard the North Sea coasts as the true fatherland of the English people. It is besides of great historical importance, as being the source of all Greek knowledge of the countries beyond the Rhine, with the single exception of the travels of Posidonius, of which some fragments relating to Germany are extant. Even late in the first century after Christ the Romans were forced to rely mainly on the old geographers for information about the regions east of the Elbe, or, in other words, upon the works of Pytheas and his commentators.

Strabo indeed denied boldly that any Greek had penetrated east of the Elbe, and gave the reason for his belief. If they had sailed there, he said, the ships must have come out near the mouth of the "Caspian Sea," which certainly had never happened. He concluded, therefore, that nothing was actually known of those parts of the world, and professed a complete ignorance of the nations who inhabited those northern lands, if, indeed, any people could inhabit a region of such terrible cold.

The general notions of Pytheas about the countries beyond the Rhine may be briefly summarized as follows, the details of his diary being reserved for closer examination after a notice of certain general statements in the works of Pliny and Tacitus.

A Celtic country, called “Germara," or by some such name, stretched east from the Rhine to Scythia, and northwards from the "Orcynian forest" to the sea. The coast as far as the Elbe was occupied by the "Ostions," or "Ostiæi”: next to them the Cimbri filled their famous Chersonesus : south and east of them dwelt their allies the Teutones. The Cimbric peninsula ran up to the mouth of an immense estuary or gulf, called " Mentonomon," of which the southern shores were occupied by Scythian tribes called Guttones," as far as the great river the Vistula, which seemed to be the same as the Tanais (which falls into the Sea of Azof): another great river was not unlike the Borysthenes. There were several islands near the Scythian shore and further out in the gulf, and also beyond its mouth an immense archipelago stretched from "Scania" to Cape Rubeas, the northern point of the world. By passing northwards from island to island a traveller would come to Thule, which might itself be an island, or might be part of the unknown Scythian continent. In the neighbourhood of Thule was the Dead or Sluggish Sea, and further to the north a frozen or encrusted ocean,1

1 The word "Germara" was applied to "a Celtic nation" very soon after the return of Pytheas. See the false Aristotle's "Wonderful Stories," De Mir. Ausc. 5, and Stephan. Byzant. sub voce "Germara." Pytheas made the Don or Tanais the limit of his northern discoveries, but he seems to have doubted the identity of the Vistula and the Don. His follower, Timæus, distinctly said that the northern Tanais was unconnected with the Don (Diod. Sic. iv. 58). The summary given above is believed to