this class. Even the reputed wanderings of Ulysses, and the mystic occupations of Eneas and Palinurus, point the same moral; while the more definite and matterof-fact writings of Herodotus, of Diodorus the Sicilian, and of Strabo, display cogitations and beliefs which those authors could not have discussed without some wider knowledge of the world than their own travels could give them, and which must therefore be ascribed to reports brought by other adventurers before their era.

In later times the narratives of mediæval seafarers supplied our forefathers with a fund of information which not only advanced the science and art of navigation and promoted oversea commerce, but also helped to spread abroad the reputation of the explorers' respective nations, and to sow the seeds of progress among primitive and far-off peoples who lacked. resources of their own for coming into touch with Western civilisation. Moreover, many early travellers have left written records, either in a fragmentary or a complete form, containing descriptive accounts of their journeys, of the routes they followed, the new products, foreign peoples, and strange customs they met with; thus imparting to the European world a knowledge of the Far East, or the Farthest West, which the inhabitants of those realms had never published beyond their own borders.

It was well affirmed by Peter Heylyn that a knowledge of History and Geography is necessary 'as well for the understanding the affairs of ages past, as for commerce and correspondency with Nations present.' And proceeding in his quaint and discursive way to emphasise the close relationship and interdependence of these two studies, each complementary and, as it were, ancillary to the other, he observes:

"Tis true that Geography without' History hath life and motion, but very unstable and at random; yet History without Geography, like a dead Carkass, hath neither life nor motion at all, or moves at best but slowly on the understanding.... History therefore, and Geography, if joined together crown our reading with delight and profit,' while the study of History 'without some knowledge of Geography is neither so pleasant nor so profitable as a judicious reader would desire to have it.'

It is just this blending of geography with history that imparts the charm to so many of the narratives penned by travellers and seamen; and a most praiseworthy labour did Richard Hakluyt, Preacher (as he usually styled himself), perform when, with incomparable industry and 'after much trauaile and cost' he compiled his great work on 'The Principall Nauigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoueries of the English nation. first printed in a single thinnish volume in 1589, but republished with additions in a much expanded form, filling three volumes, in 1598-1600.

Hakluyt lived, as he expressed it, in 'an Age wherein God hath raised so general a desire in the Youth of this realm to discover all parts of the Earth.' Though circumstances did not enable him to share in the active pursuit of this quest, his mind was deeply imbued with the sentiment for roving and research; for we find that, after the close of his terms as a Queen's scholar at Westminster, Hakluyt 'had waded on,' as he tells us, 'still farther and farther in the sweete studie of Cosmographie.' He was, moreover, even at that early period of his life, inspired by a great and broad-minded patriotism; and when, following his cousin Richard's footsteps, he 'grew familiarly acquainted with the chiefest Captains at sea, the greatest Merchants and the best Mariners of our nation,' the happy idea occurred to him that not to preserve the records written down by such pioneers, or stored in the minds of those still living who had done no writing, would be to squander an opportunity, nay, to evade a duty. And he deemed that the interests of his country and its future generations of statesmen, merchants, navigators, historians, and geographers called upon him, Richard Hakluyt, to perform that task, to collect such records and print them, and thus to

'file upon the Registers of perpetual Fame the Gallantrie and brave Atchievements of the People of England.'

In the words once spoken by the late Sir Clements Markham, the evil which Hakluyt set himself to alleviate was the absence of records of voyages and travels.' It is true that his predecessor, Richard Eden, had published some translations from the Decades'

of Peter Martyr, a second edition of which, augmented and revised by Richard Willes, appeared in 1577, the year when Hakluyt proceeded to the degree of M.A. at Oxford. But, of all the English voyages that had been undertaken for a century before, most had by that time been utterly forgotten; and even of the memorable achievement of John Cabot there was neither a map nor a scrap of writing, so that the precise situation of his landfall is still a much argued question to-day.

Hakluyt looked upon such a void as a great national calamity; and he devoted many of the best years of his life to remedying it. He felt that the preservation and publication of such records would not only serve (as Sir C. Markham also said) 'for keeping in remembrance brave and noble deeds for emulation by posterity,though this in itself was a good and sufficient reason for his labours-he saw also the vast importance of the information as preserved, to the seaman, the merchant, and the colonist.'

How many persons, forsooth, of the tens of thousands who annually visit the Abbey of Westminster know that beneath its hallowed stones lie the mortal remains of Richard Hakluyt? And of those who have this knowledge, how many are aware of the reasons that establish his fame, or are familiar with the efforts of later generations of men of letters whom Hakluyt's example has stimulated to apply their experience and their labour to continuing the work he so worthily began? Yet it was not his secular but his clerical attainments that brought Hakluyt the honour of interment within the walls of that noble structure, in which as a Westminster scholar he had been accustomed to worship in his boyhood, and wherein, half a century later, he ministered as a Prebendary and Archdeacon. But though, for a span, the image of the cosmographer lay shrouded in the garb of the cleric, his renown as a preserver of records has long outlived any repute he may have acquired as a dignitary of the Church. No volumes of sermons issued from Hakluyt's pen. He was, indeed, only in a limited sense an author, for he produced no more than one book entirely of his own writing; and even that remained in manuscript for nearly three hundred years. Hakluyt

preferred to gather about him the logs and journals written by the men who saw and did the things they related in them, records penned on the spot and at the moment, when events made their strongest and truest impression on the minds of the writers. In this he followed the time-honoured practice of the early historians extolled by good old Isidore of Seville, Apud veteres enim nemo scribebat Historiam, nisi is qui interfuisset et ea quæ scribenda essent vidisset.' And this is the principle obeyed by the Council of the Hakluyt Society to-day.

Founded in 1846 by a coterie of literary, scientific, and antiquarian scholars, the Society has for its object the printing and circulation of unpublished or out-of-print and rare original accounts of voyages, travels, naval expeditions, and other geographical explorations not readily accessible to readers. Documents of this class are of special interest and utility to students of history, geography, navigation, and ethnology. Many of them, particularly the original narratives and translations by writers of the Elizabethan and Stewart periods, afford admirable examples of English prose at the stage of its most robust development. Of such a character are the Journal of John Jourdain' and the 'Travels of Peter Mundy.' A few years later Thomas Bowrey's graphic and neatly illustrated account of the Countries round the Bay of Bengal' takes up the running and is closely followed by Fryer's New Account of East India and Persia,' the author's travels extending over nine years, from 1672 to 1681.

John Fryer was a very observant person and had received a good education, having graduated as a bachelor of medicine in 1671, per literas regias, at Cambridge. Being presently 'enterteyned as Chirurgeon for Bombay, to doe in that profession as they shall find him deserving' in the employ of the East India Company, he set out at the close of the same year to enter upon his professional career in the Orient, where he was to receive a stipend of '50s. per mensem, to commence at his arriveall—a saving clause which proved the means of deferring

Published by the Society in 1905 and later years.

Fryer's enjoyment of this munificent reward for exactly one year. Six months of this period were occupied in the voyage from the Downs to Masulipatam; the second half-year elapsed, owing to various detentions, before he found his way thence to Bombay, which had then just become a British possession, acquired from the Crown of Portugal.

After describing the common incidents of life at sea in those days, a call at Porto Praya,* and a highly interesting visit to Johanna, in which island, he tells us, ‘all things strive to gratify the Life of Man,' Fryer goes on to relate his adventures, observations, and reflexions, in the form of eight long Letters. They are addressed to some person of quality whose name is not revealed, but who had done Fryer the honour to see him off on the day he embarked 'at Graves' End,' and had then exacted from him a promise, says the author, whereby you obliged me to give you an account not only of my Being, but of what Occurrences were worth my Animadversion.' This undertaking Fryer faithfully fulfilled, his letters extending, when printed, to three goodly octavo volumes as issued by the Hakluyt Society.

Mr Crooke, having also prepared the new edition of 'Hobson-Jobson' for press, found the editing of Fryer's letters a congenial task, many of the AngloIndian terms explained in that medley being quoted by its original compilers from the 1698 edition of Fryer. In fact, Sir Henry Yule himself, alluding to HobsonJobson,' wrote that no work has been more serviceable in the compilation of the glossary'; and one has only to glance through its pages to see that Fryer's narrative, and the constant'animadversion' with which he enriched his statements, render the book a veritable treasurehouse of Indian and Persian social history, and a prolific source of references or quotations for the student of Eastern topics.

From Bombay Fryer was transferred (September 1674) to Surat, where he remained six months. Returning to Bombay, he next visited the Junnar Fort, and

* The present writer, visiting Porto Praya two hundred years later, met with exactly the same incidents and experiences as Fryer relates, even to the price demanded (an old coat) for a monkey.