The Bristol merchants, especially the Canynges and the Thornes, were specially inflamed with eagerness in the matter. Those of Bristol were continually, according to the Spanish ambassador to Henry VII., sending out ships to search for an unknown island of Brazil, somewhere in the far Atlantic. The report of that mysterious land had lured many fancies. The ancient Greeks believed that Ulysses,

unable to rest at home, had sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules for an unknown world. Dante had clenched the belief by a piteous interview with Ulysses in the Inferno, where his condemned spirit says:

'Five times above us had the orb of night

Lit o'er the sea its radiance, and in turn
Five times had paled its ineffectual light,
Extinguished at the coming of the morn.

While o'er the unfathom'd ways our bark was borne,
Land dawned at last upon our eyes that yearned,
A dim mount at the far horizon's bourne,

Loftiest of hills that ever eye discerned,

Joy smote upon our souls, joy soon to weeping turned;
For, as to th' unknown land we nearer drew,

A mighty blast swept from the mountain's brow
And whirl'd the waters on us as it blew.

Thence to the eddying gulf that raged below

In the wind's stress, dipped down and rose the prow,

Then for the last time did the helmsman see,

High on the stern the downward plunging prow,

And the unknown Power, that will'd such end should be,
Folded around us all the mighty shroud of sea.'

The Irish believed in isles of the blest beyond their western coast, the Norsemen had actually discovered and made a sort of settlement in what they called Vineland, somewhere in North America, the unfortunate runaway lovers, Robert Machem and his Anna had actually lived at Madeira, the brave Infante Enrique of Portugal had discovered the Canary Isles, and the great Genoese had put the crown on the work by his discovery of the lovely islets, which he and all the world took to be the further side of the Indies-the West Indies.

The men of Bristol traded with Don Enrique's settlement in the Canaries for soap and other articles of British produce, and much desired to go further. Among these Bristol merchants was one Giovanni Gabotto, a Venetian by birth, but always known as John Cabot, who in 1496 obtained from Henry VII, letters patent for himself and his three sons, Ludovico, Sebastiano, and Sanzio, authorising them to navigate the eastern, western, and northern seas, under the English flag, to discover the lands of the Gentiles, infidels, or other heathens, and set up King Henry's banner there, paying him a fifth part of any profits they might gain.

In May, 1497, Cabot sailed with his son Sebastian in two ships of their own, with three hundred sailors, accompanied by three lesser ships, and in June they reached land, which he took to be 'Cathay,

the country of the great Khan,' visited two hundred years before by his countryman Marco Polo. He landed, but saw no human being, though he found some snares for game, a needle for making nets, and trees evidently felled by man. On this he returned to his ships, and after sailing along the coast, expecting to find the north-west passage, returned to England. The place is supposed to have been what is now called Labrador, after many changes of name.

The king was proud of the discovery and promised Cabot ten ships. to sail with next year, to be manned by all the prisoners then in ward, except those for high treason.

Old Cabot walked about in silk attire, and was much admired; but he left his son Sebastian to sail with this delightful crew in 1498, several merchants sending slight and gross wares' to trade with the natives. They sailed at first towards Iceland and coasted along America as far as Chesapeake bay, but they did not dispose of their wares. The king grew tired of the unprofitable voyages, and though Sebastian sailed again in 1499, we know nothing of his voyage. There is reason to think that he resided for a time in his 'New-found-land,' and was visited by other adventurers, who brought home wild cats, hawks, and popinjays as presents to the king.

However he was in Spain, acting as map-maker and nautical adviser to old Fernando the Catholic till the cabals in the young court of Charles V. sent him back to England.

There he persuaded Henry VIII. to send him out to go in at the back side of the New-found-land until they came to the back side and south seas of the Indies Occidental, to return through the Straits of Maghelhaen.' They did actually make their way into Davis' and Hudson's Straits, and thus it is somewhat hard measure in their chronicler to ascribe their failure in their programme to the faint heart of Sir Thomas Sprott, who shared the command with Cabot.

Henry VIII. did not like these expeditions, and only one more took place in his time. John Thorne, a Bristol merchant of great wealth and reputation, and Dr. Lee, who had been Ambassador to Charles V. persuaded him to send Cabot again to find the north-west passage, using the quaint argument that there was perpetual daylight at the North Pole, a great commodity for the navigators.' In 1527 accordingly, Cabot with two ships left Plymouth, but they found none of the riches of Cathay, only ice-bound islands, and a country full of woods and mosses, and marked by 'footing of divers great beasts." They gave up their enterprise at what still bears their name of Newfoundland.

Henry VIII. allowed no more such enterprises, though he treated the Thornes with great favour, and Sebastian tried to get employment in Spain and Italy in vain, till he drifted back to England, and found more willing auditors in the council of Edward VI. A company was formed in London for discovery by sea, especially of the northern

route to India. It was called 'The Mystery Company and Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Unknown Lands,' and the king himself took much interest in the plans.

Sebastian Cabot himself was too old for the hardships of such a voyage, but a leader was found in Sir Hugh Willoughby, a Warwickshire knight of good family who had served in the Scottish wars, and whose total inexperience of the sea does not seem to have been thought any objection to the choice.

There were five ships: the Bona Esperanza, which carried Sir Hugh, and had William Jefferson for sailing master; the Edward Bonaventura, under Richard Chancellor; and the Bona Confidentia, under Cornelius Darfoorth. Each vessel was sheathed in lead, and had two boats, and instructions were carefully drawn up by Cabot, prohibiting all 'card-playing, drams, or devilish games,' and instructing the crew not to be afraid if they saw the natives in lions' or bears' skins, or with long bows and arrows, since such were often assumed only to feare strangers.' Less conscientiously Cabot advised that the natives might be made to drink, that the secrets of their hearts might ooze out. This voyage was to attempt, not the north-western, but the north-eastern, passage round the north of Norway and Russia; and young King Edward furnished them with letters in Latin, Greek, English, and other languages, to all kings beyond the empire of Cathay, i.e., China. No less than 6,000l. was spent on the outfit of the ships; and not only was Sir Hugh Willoughby a man of mark, but Chancellor was the husband of one of the daughters of Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, now in full power, and the whole court, as well as the nation, were interested.

The vessels set sail in the summer of 1553, from the Thames. At Ratcliff there were numerous relatives of the crew, bidding them a last farewell. At Greenwich there was an immense number of people crowding the houses and towers to see the mariners, who were all clothed in watchet, i.e., blue, and stood exchanging greetings cheerily. The Privy Council waved adieux from the palace windows, but the young king was too ill to show himself. At Gravesend old Cabot came on board with a large party of gentlemen and ladies, tasted their cheer, rewarded the sailors, and gave them his last advice; but they were so long getting out of the Thames that they were not fairly at sea till the 23rd of June.

It was the first time any Englishmen had passed the North Cape. There the ships soon lost sight of one another. Chancellor reached Wardhuys, in Norway, and waited in vain for the rest, then sailed on, and entered what he considered to be the land of perpetual sunshine; nor was he there long enough to see night begin again, for he found his way into the White Sea, and landed at the mouth of the Dwina, where he found a Russian governor, to whom he gave King Edward's letters, and these were forwarded to Moscow. The Czar

was Ivan the Terrible, then in the brightness of a promising youth, too soon overclouded by that frightful insanity which is so often the effect and the scourge of despotism. He was delighted with Edward's letter, and begged that the English captain would visit him. Chancellor was conducted 1,500 miles to Moscow, and was delighted with his reception, having feasted in the Kremlin with the young Czar out of plates and goblets of pure gold; and he brought home a most courteous reply and offer of alliance with the English, reaching home in the spring of 1554.

Meanwhile nothing had been heard of Willoughby, nor does more seem to have been known till, in 1555, Chancellor was sent back to Russia to arrange a treaty of alliance with Ivan. It then appeared that in the last summer some Russian fishermen had seen some large vessels near the black, craggy islet of Nokojuff, near Nova Zembla. Examining them, they found the bodies of seventy men, the captain himself sitting stiff and frozen at his cabin table, on which lay his diary, open. Happily the fishermen respected them, and information was sent to the Czar, who had everything sealed up, and made all over to the English. It appeared by Sir Hugh's diary that he had sailed on to the north-east till he was caught in a whirlpool off Cape Natai Noss, and this decided him not to go on. If he had he would have reached the White Sea and the great monastery of Ssolovetz; but unhappily he put into the bay of Nokojuff, and there, under black cliffs rising 400 feet above the sea, he was caught by the cold and the darkness. He had neither provisions nor fuel, and his journal is a frightful record of bravely borne suffering. At the time of his last entry, late in the January of 1554, he had seen sixty-five of his seventy comrades die, and he himself seems to have perished alone, leaving this sad tale not to daunt, but to win, followers in his track.

Chancellor had another feast with the Czar, who drank Queen Mary's health as his dearest sister. Chancellor so arranged with him that a body of merchants formed the Russia company still existing, and built a factory at the mouth of the Dwina, which became the foundation of the city of Archangel, and where cloth, knives and sugar were exchanged for furs and skins. Chancellor brought home with him an ambassador laden with sables and ermines for the Queen, from the Czar, and in return Mary sent a lion and lioness from the Tower.

This was the beginning of a long course of daring adventures by sea and by land. One Anthony Jefferson explored Tartary and visited the Caspian Sea; but he did not see much promise of traffic at Astrakhan except in children, of whom he said he could buy a thousand for a loaf of bread!

THE DAWN OF HISTORY.

PAPERS ON PRE-HISTORIC TIMES.

CHAPTER X.

ARYAN MYTHOLOGY.

WHEN speaking of the earliest records of the Semitic and Aryan races, we took occasion to say that it may very well have been to their admixture of Semitic blood that the Egyptians stood indebted for the mystic and allegorical part of their religious system; for among all the Semitic people, whether in ancient or modern times, we may observe a tendency-if no more-towards religious thought, and towards thoughts of that mystic character which characterised the Egyptian mythology. But the Aryans grew up and formed themselves into nations, and developed the germs of their religion apart from external influence, and in a land which from the earliest times had belonged to them alone. Their character, their religion, their national life were their own; and though in after times these went through distinctive modifications when the stems of nations we know, Greeks, Latins, Germans, and the rest grew out of the Aryan stock, they yet bore amid these changes the memory of a common ancestry.

The land in which the Aryan fathers dwelt was favourable to the growth of the imaginative faculties, and to that lightness and brightness of nature which afterwards so distinguished the many-minded Greeks, rather than to the slow, brooding character of the Eastern mind. There, down a hundred hill-sides, and along a hundred valleys, trickled the rivulets whose waters were going to swell the streams of Oxus and Jaxartes. And each hill and valley had its separate community, joined indeed by language and custom to the common stock, but yet living a separate simple life in its own home, which had, one might almost say, its individual sun and sky as well as hill and river. No doubt in such a land innumerable local legends and beliefs sprang up, and these, though lost to us now, had their effects upon the changes which among its various branches the mythologies of the Aryans underwent. For these mythologies are before all remarkable for the infinite variations to which the stories of their gods are subject, and the difficulty which these variations throw in the way of a connected view of their religious system.

But, despite these divergencies, the Aryans had a common chief deity, the sky. This, the most abstracted and intangible of natural appearances, at the same time the most exalted and unchanging, seemed to them to speak most plainly of an all-embracing deity. And though their minds were open to all the thousand voices of nature, and their imaginations equal to the task of giving a