D.) of the monsoon in the Indian Ocean; but, on land,
Moslem travellers and writers--generally following in the wake of their
armies, but sometimes pressing on ahead of them--did not a little to
enlarge the horizon of the Mohammedan world, though it was not till
Marco Polo and the Franciscan missionaries of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, that Christian Europe shared in this gain.
As the early Caliphs conquered, they made surveys of their new
dominions. Thus after Tarik and Mousa had overrun Spain, Walid at
Damascus required from them an account of the land and its resources.
The universal obligation of the Mecca pilgrimage compelled every Moslem
to travel once in his life; and many an Arab, after the Caliphate was
settled in power from the Oxus to the Pyrenees, journeyed to and fro
with the joy of a master going over vast estates, shewing his dreaded
turban to subjects of every nation.
This, however, was not geographical science, or even pseudo-science.
Before Mohammed the Arabs had possessed some knowledge of the stars and
used it for astrology; but it was at the Court of Almamoun (813-833)
that their inquiring spirits first set themselves to answer the great
question of geography--Where? Through the ninth and tenth centuries
there arose a succession of travellers and thinkers who, with all their
wild dreamings, preserved the best results of Greek maps and would have
made much greater advances but for their helplessness in original work.
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