nnel till he
struck the coast of Kent. Britain, he announced, was several days'
journey from Ushant, and about one hundred and seventy miles to the
north. He sailed round part of the coast, making notes of distances,
but these are curiously exaggerated. This was not unnatural, for the
only method of determining distance was roughly based on the number
of miles that a ship could go in an hour along the shore. Measuring
in this primitive fashion, Pytheas assures us that Britain is a
continent of enormous size, and that he has discovered a "new world."
It is, he says, three cornered in shape, something like the head of
a battleaxe. The south side, lying opposite the coast of France, is
eight hundred and thirty-five miles in length, the eastern coast is
sixteen hundred and sixty-five miles, the western two thousand two
hundred and twenty-two--indeed, the whole country was thought to be
over four thousand miles in circumference. These calculations must
have been very upsetting to the old geographers of that age, because
up to this time they had decided that the whole world was only three
thousand four hundred miles long and six thousand eight hundred broad.

He tells us that he made journeys into the interior of Britain, that
the inhabitants drink mead, and that there is an abundance of wheat
in the fields.

"The natives," he says, "collect the sheaves in great barns and thrash
out the corn there, because they have so little sunshine that an open
thrashing-place would be of little use in that land of clouds and rain."
He seems to have voyaged north as far as the Shetland Islands, but
he never saw Ireland.

Having returned from the north of the Thames, Pytheas crossed the North
Sea to the mouth of the Rhine, a passage which took about two and a
half days. He gives a pitiable account of the people living on the
Dutch coast and their perpetual struggle with the sea. The natives
had not learnt the art of making dykes and embankments. A high tide
with a wind setting toward the shore would sweep over the low-lying
country and swamp their homes. A mounted horseman could barely gallop
from the rush and force of these strong North Sea tides.

But the Greek geographers would not believe this; they only knew the
tideless Mediterranean, and they thought Pytheas was lying when he
told of the fierce northern sea. Pytheas sailed past the mouth of the
Elbe, noting the amber cast upon the shore by the high spring tides.
But all these in