rfect geography, as we hear of
Delphi being the centre of the Greek world, so we hear of Jerusalem
being considered the central point of the world.

"This is Jerusalem," says Ezekiel, "in the midst of the nations and
countries that are round about her." In the Mappa Mundi (thirteenth
century) in Hereford Cathedral, Jerusalem is still the centre of the
earth.

Following close on these ideas came another. It, too, came from Miletus,
now famous for its school of thought and its searchers after truth.

A _Tour of the World_ is the grand-sounding title of the work of
Hecataeus, who wrote it about 500 years B.C. It contains an account
of the coast and islands of the Mediterranean Sea and an outline of
all the lands the Greeks thought they knew. In the fragments that have
come down to us, the famous old geographer divides both his work and
the world into two parts. One part he calls Europe, the other Asia,
in which he includes Africa bounded by the river Nile. He held that
these two parts were equal. They were divided from one another by the
Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and the Caspian Sea, while round
the whole flat world still flowed the everlasting ocean stream.

CHAPTER IV

HERODOTUS--THE TRAVELLER

The greatest traveller of olden times now comes upon the
scene--Herodotus, the Greek, the "Father of History."

He is a traveller as well as a writer. He has journeyed as one eager
for knowledge, with a "hungry heart" and a keen, observant eye. He
tells us what he has seen with his eyes, what he has heard with his
ears. He insists that the world is flat, he acknowledges that it is
divided into two parts--Europe and Asia; but he can afford to laugh
at those who draw maps of the world "without any sense to guide them,"
in which they make the whole world round as if drawn with a pair of
compasses, with the ocean stream running round it, making Europe and
Asia of equal size.

His first journey is to Egypt.

"I speak at length about Egypt," he says, "because it contains more
marvellous things than any other country--things too strange for words.
Not only is the climate different from that of the rest of the world
and the rivers unlike any other rivers, but the people also, in most
of their manners and customs, reverse the common practice of mankind.
The women are employed in trade and business, while the men stay at
home to spin and weave. Other nations in weaving throw the woof up
the warp, but an Egyptian