cattered and drove
them into the open ocean or upon islands dangerous from precipitous
rocks or hidden sandbanks. Having got a little clear of these, but
with great difficulty, the tide turning and flowing in the same
direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride
at anchor or bale out the water that broke in upon them; horses, beasts
of burthen, baggage, even arms were thrown overboard to lighten the
holds of the ships, which took in water at their sides, and from the
waves, too, running over them. Around were either shores inhabited
by enemies, or a sea so vast and unfathomable as to be supposed the
limit of the world and unbounded by lands. Part of the fleet was
swallowed up; many were driven upon remote islands, where the men
perished through famine. The galley of Drusus or, as he was hereafter
called, Germanicus, alone reached the mouth of the Weser. Both day
and night, amid the rocks and prominences of the shore, he reproached
himself as the author of such overwhelming destruction, and was hardly
restrained by his friends from destroying himself in the same sea.
At last, with the returning tide and a favouring gale, the shattered
ships returned, almost all destitute or with garments spread for
sails."

[Illustration: HULL OF A ROMAN MERCHANT-SHIP. From a Roman model in
marble at Greenwich.]

The wreck of the Roman fleet in the North Sea made a deep impression
on the Roman capital, and many a garbled story of the "extreme parts
of the world" was circulated throughout the Empire.

Here was new land outside the boundaries of the Empire--country great
with possibilities. Pliny, writer of the _Natural History_, now arises
and endeavours to clear the minds of his countrymen by some account
of these northern regions. Strabo had been dead some fifty years, and
the Empire had grown since his days. But Pliny has news of land beyond
the Elbe. He can tell us of Scandinavia, "an island of unknown extent,"
of Norway, another island, "the inhabitants of which sailed as far
as Thule," of the Seamen or Swedes who lived in the "northern half
of the world."

"It is madness to harass the mind with attempts to measure the world,"
he asserts, but he proceeds to tell us the size of the world as accepted
by him. "Our part of the earth, floating as it were in the ocean, which
surrounds it, stretching out to the greatest extent from India to the
Pillars at Cadiz, is eight thousand five hundred and sixty-eight
mile