ruit." And they walked about the island for forty days and could
not find the end. And there was no night there, and the climate was
neither hot nor cold.

"Be ye joyful now," said a voice, "for this is the land ye have sought,
and our Lord wills that you laden your ship with the fruit of this
land and hie you hence, for ye may no longer abide here, but thou shalt
sail again into thine own country."

[Illustration: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLE OF ST. BRANDON IN MARTIN BEHAIM'S
MAP, 1492. As geographical knowledge increased, map-makers were
compelled to put Brandon's Isle farther and farther away from Ireland,
until here we find it off the coast of Africa and near the Equator.]

So the monks took all the fruit they could carry, and, weeping that
they might stay no longer in this happy land, they sailed back to
Ireland. Hazy, indeed, was the geography of the Atlantic in the sixth
century. Nor can we leave St. Brandon's story without quoting a modern
poet, who believed that the voyage was to the Arctic regions and not
in the Atlantic.

"Saint Brandon sails the Northern Main,
The brotherhood of saints are glad.
He greets them once, he sails again:
So late! Such storms! The saint is mad.
He heard across the howling seas
Chime convent bells on wintry nights;
He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,
Twinkle the monastery lights:
But north, still north, Saint Brandon steered,
And now no bells, no convents more,
The hurtling Polar lights are reached,
The sea without a human shore."

Some three hundred years were to pass away before further discoveries
in these quarters revealed new lands, three hundred years before the
great energy of the Vikings brought to light Iceland, Greenland, and
even the coast of America.

CHAPTER XIII

AFTER MOHAMMED

So once more we turn back to the East. Jerusalem is still the centre
of the earth. But a change has passed over the world, which influenced
not a little the progress of geography. Mohammed in the seventh century
lived and died in Arabia. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His
prophet," proclaimed his followers, the Arabs or Saracens as they were
called. And just as men had travelled abroad to preach Christianity
to those who knew it not, so now the Mohammedans set forth to teach
the faith of their Lord and Master. But whereas Christianity was taught
by peaceful means, Mohammedanism was carried by the sword. The Roman
provinces of Syr