Teutones.”  The inhabitants on the coast of the Baltic, near the Frish or Curish Sea (which is probably the bay Pytheas describes) are called in the Lithuanian language, Guddai:  and so late as the period of the Crusades, the spot where amber is found was called Wittland, or Whiteland; in Lithuanian, Baltika.  From these circumstances, as well as from the name Baltea given by Timaeus to the island mentioned by Pytheas, as the place where amber is cast up by the waves, there appears no doubt that Pytheas was in the Baltic Sea, though his island of Thule might not be there.  As amber was in great repute, even so early as the time of Homer, who describes it as being used to adorn the golden collars, it is highly probable that Pytheas was induced to enter the Baltic for the purpose of obtaining it:  in what manner, or through whose means, the Greeks obtained it in Homer’s time, is not known.

After all, the question is involved in very great obscurity; and the circumstance not the most probable, or reconcileable with a country even not further north than Jutland is, that, in the age of Pytheas, the inhabitants should have been so far advanced in knowledge and civilization, as to have cultivated any species of grain.

Till the age of Herodotus the light of history is comparatively feeble and broken; and where it does shine with more steadiness and brilliancy, its rays are directed almost exclusively on the warlike operations of mankind.  Occasionally, indeed, we incidentally learn some new particulars respecting the knowledge of the ancients in geography:  but these particulars, as must be obvious from the preceding part of this volume, are ascertained only after considerable difficulty; and when ascertained, are for the most part meagre, if not obscure.  In the history of Herodotus, we, for the first time, are able to trace the exact state and progress of geographical knowledge; and from his time, our means of tracing it become more accessible, as well as productive of more satisfactory results.  Within one hundred years after this historian flourished, geography derived great advantages and improvement from a circumstance which, at first view, would have been deemed adverse to the extension of any branch of science:  we allude to the conquests of Alexander the Great.  This monarch seems to have been actuated by a desire to be honoured as the patron of science, nearly as strong as the desire to be known to posterity as the conquerer of the world:  the facilities he afforded to Aristotle in drawing up his natural history, by sending him all the uncommon animals with which his travels and his conquests supplied him, is a striking proof of this.  With respect to his endeavours to extend geographical knowledge,—­this was so intimately connected with his plans of conquest, that it may appear to be ascribing to him a more honourable motive than influenced him, if we consider the improvement that geography received through his means as wholly